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Ep. 61 Waffles And Ham
91 Plays2 years ago
The Swords finally made time to rest in this abandoned camp, trying to ignore the darkness just beyond the trees that always watches and waits for the right moment.. That moment could just be your very next..
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Transcript
Recap and Introduction
00:00:04
Speaker
previously on the Hired Swords.
00:00:27
Speaker
place isn't it like I I can't even get my thoughts out it's so many motions I just I've never it's like grasping it's thin air that's it's right there in front of you and I can't grab it
00:00:46
Speaker
but hopefully i get to go there again hopefully i get to know more about my my dad so now i must sleep i must go straight to bed i can't let weird creatures get in the way of my dreamland slumber i have to go back
00:01:29
Speaker
You are listening to the Hired Swords, a Dungeons & Dragons podcast about a group of sentient weapons navigating life through the 9-5 grind.
00:01:51
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Hired Swords. I am Michael, your dungeon master, and I have, waiting in the wings, sitting at the virtual table, longing to jump in and join us in this conversation that is Dungeons and Dragons. Who will be announced first? Who will it be? Ash, it's Gwendolyn. Howdy, I got to go first. This is a nice change.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, and then Derek is Devin. Hi, Derek. Hot sauce aficionado. Yeah, he really likes it. And Blaze is Krigs. Hi, my name is Blaze. I'll be playing Krigs Galdor today. That's the role of the dwarf paladin that really likes walks on the beach and hanging out by his home forge. How you doing? Thanks for that. That was really deep. Some backstory there, apparently. And Mikey is Joxer. Spoilers.
00:02:44
Speaker
We did see some spoilers. We did see some spoilers in our last episode. I hope enjoyed the last episode and all the episodes before that. But anyway, the last episode we had this coming back together. We had the group had come back together from kind of separating after some drama over these magical necklaces. They came back together with Gwendolyn saying, you have to follow me. There is a camp up ahead.
00:03:08
Speaker
They trudged through the forest, ran through the forest, eventually becoming, shapeshifting down into animals to get through faster, came out to this camp.
Discovery of Map and Orders
00:03:16
Speaker
We searched the camp, found some interesting things, including a map and an order from Wild Hill for hired swords to come and scout out this area and check the cave that was nearby.
00:03:33
Speaker
We when we last left right at the end of the last episode, the party had decided to rest in that camp before going on into this cavern to check it out.
Encounter with Phase Spiders
00:03:41
Speaker
And as they began to rest, Gwendolyn saw some interesting movements in the forest that that eventually were she realized were phase spiders phasing in and out of the ethereal plane and into the material plane attacking them. They were able to handle it pretty quickly. And then
00:04:02
Speaker
Craig's decided to play a little bit, goof off a little with the, uh, right after, and then Gwen decided she was going to go back to sleep as jockser thought, well, they're just kind of doing their thing. I'm going to go ahead and haul these bodies of these spiders out to the edge of the woods.
Mysterious Black Mist
00:04:16
Speaker
As he does so, he noticed the black mist was back and it was in the woods, but it reached and stretched towards the carcass of the spider as he left it behind.
00:04:27
Speaker
and absorbed it and pulled it in to itself. And that is where we left off the last episode. So, Jockster, anything you're going to do right after seeing that? I feel like this is the second episode, I'm going to say, Mouth of Gape. And as I see, you know, Krigs still kind of playing with the spider legs,
00:04:57
Speaker
I still have them, and is the shadow coming for them? No, the shadow fully retracted back into itself. It seemed to have only gone so far towards where Joxer had left that carcass.
00:05:10
Speaker
as I'm trying to decide in my head whether I'm backing up or calling Krigs, I immediately just scooch closer to Krigs backing up and getting closer and then try... So did you see that? Do you see the... What are you talking about?
00:05:33
Speaker
And you don't see that the dark mist. Well, I guess so. This this the spiders that I just check it out, I got four legs and I'm just like just walking really, really dumb with these spider legs.
00:05:49
Speaker
that you know that's that's great but focus but you use this for your bruise or anything I mean I'm sure they've got a guy or I already well the one that I took over there that is now gone I did I did grab something that I might try in in something but it's gone it's a fun do you want I mean I
00:06:13
Speaker
It's a good look, but I don't think it's for me. Krigs, it's gone. The spider was taken by darkness. What are you talking about? There. I'm kind of pointing. Make a perception check, both of you. Yeah, I get it. As you kind of look where he's pointing. 17, 16 plus 1. Ooh, that is going to be an 8 plus.
00:06:40
Speaker
You said it was nature or I'm sorry perception perception perception plus one. So nine. Not good. Yeah. Greg's, you don't see anything. You don't see any monsters or anything or like mist or anything like that anywhere up ahead. It just looks like the forest and it gets dark, you know, looking further into the depth of the forest, but it's just.
00:07:02
Speaker
normal darkness to you and jocks are your you're searching like with your eyes trying to find what you saw and you're you're struggling to see what you're trying to even point out to Craig's at this point where I so the spider that is currently not where I put it which is right over there is not there because it was taken by a dark mist I'm not sure if you lose
00:07:28
Speaker
Okay. And I just, I take one of the legs that I have and I just chuck it at that direction just to see like if he's crazy or whatever. I just throw it. Okay. You throw it as hard as you can and make a, make a strength check. See how well you throw it. You're probably only about 25, 30 feet from the edge of the forest. So, uh, 12 plus five 17.
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, you you hurl it
Experiment with Fire
00:07:56
Speaker
into the forest and it disappears into the darkness. You hear a thud. So you hear it hit the ground with a little with a with a thud and a little rustling of plant life that it lands on. But it's but you did hear it hit the ground. You don't you don't see anything else. It's it's not visible anymore. Well, do we have a campfire still? It's very low coals, but it's there.
00:08:20
Speaker
All right. Well, is there still like wood in the proximity there? Like in the campfire? Yeah, sure. I'm going to try to stoke it real quick with the leg, bringing the fire back up as well as catching the leg on fire if possible. And with it on fire, I'm going to chuck it into the darkness and see it, see what happens. See like if it's actually doing something weird or I'm just not seeing it land. So now I have something like glowing on this leg.
00:08:49
Speaker
Yeah, so it bursts into flames pretty quick as you light it and stick it in the fire. It doesn't burst into flames like violently, it just starts to catch fire. As you throw it, roll a D6 for me. Okay. Five.
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, it stays lit and as it flies through kind of end over end, you see it fly through and as it kind of hits the peak of the strength of your throw, the flame dims out to where you think it's going to go out for a second, but then as it kind of lofts the remainder of the throw and lands on the ground near the bottom of the trees, you see the light flickering as it finally just goes out from just kind of running out of fuel as that thing was pretty easily burnt up. Well, are you sure you're not just going mad?
00:09:36
Speaker
I won't I won't say that I couldn't but I had laid the body right here this spot right here and there is no spider do you see a spider kind of taking the ground right here right yes make an investigation check as you look at where he left the body sure that's in that one my guy Wow you only
00:10:01
Speaker
You only need it at 10, but it kind of stinks. Yeah, it's it's night and dark and you're a little confused. Do you jocks or why don't you make one, too, as you kind of look over it again, showing him? Yeah, if it's super dark, I'll I could definitely put up light. But I imagine it's in the moonlight and stuff you think you could. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:22
Speaker
That is 13. Yeah, you can see that the grass that's there is dead in that spot. And it's just in that spot. All around you is still green. And it is autumn, but it hasn't been deep into autumn, where everything's dead for winter yet. But that looks like full-on dead winter grass. And the little few bits of plant are also dead. And you kind of see it kind of make a line towards
00:10:51
Speaker
into the forest where you saw the the kind of wall of mist behind there and eventually kind of fade into just normal grass and everything but there where it all seemed to have made contact with that spider and carcass and drag it back it's kind of left behind this path of dead plant life.
00:11:10
Speaker
I will just kind of grab at, uh, Krig's, uh, like, shirt. See? Right here. Look. This is- this- this right here. You- I'm- this is where- Do you see this? Okay, I'm- I believe you. I'm not-
00:11:26
Speaker
You say it was darkness. What darkness? We've seen plenty of darkness on these travels so far. What are we talking here? What are we seeing? Could I throw it akin to maybe what we saw in the previous village or would I put it more similar to what I saw when Krigs went and disappeared? All of those things are the same to you. They look the same.
00:11:52
Speaker
Whenever you disappeared with that woman in the forest or whenever it just, it just went dark with the shadows around us. It just, it's everywhere, Krigs. We just need to be careful, is all. I don't know. I mean, I guess I don't know much about this type of spider, so maybe this is a thing, but it was weird.
00:12:20
Speaker
It's not uncommon, it seems like, for things to just be weird these days. Do you? The spiders, we made quick work of them. I'm not too afraid of them coming back if there are more out there, but if there is another abomination that is waiting in the chest of beyond the forest line for us, then that's a whole different story.
00:12:45
Speaker
For now, I know Gwen needs rest. I know we need just a moment to recoup after the travels. Do you want to stay watch or would you prefer for me to stay? I think I need maybe to close my eyes for a little bit if you don't mind. Absolutely. I can keep watch for now and I guess we can figure out what's going on with this cave and then hopefully
00:13:13
Speaker
make our way to Lonely Hill and see, well, whatever awaits us there. Hopefully we can make it a little less lonely. Get some rest. I'll keep watch. Okay, if you need anything. Pat him on the butt as he walks away. Pat, pat. Yeah, if you need anything, you know.
00:13:38
Speaker
With that, I think I'm just going to kind of post up by the fire and poke around with a random stick I found in the nearby. One thing I am going to do while everyone's kind of passed out and no one's really paying attention to what I'm doing, I'm actually going to take just a little piece of material.
Forging a Ring
00:14:01
Speaker
It's not necessarily
00:14:03
Speaker
just a little twig that I found, and I'm gonna be drawing a design in the sand compacted, take my war hammer and kind of compact the sand down, push it down, and then I'm gonna take that twig and draw like a little circle.
00:14:18
Speaker
very tiny and then a couple of cross points directly down making just some indentions and just designing what looks to be a horizontal shape like of a circle or ring basically. I'm going to take a gold piece or two and in my hand I'm going to cast heat metal and basically form
00:14:43
Speaker
the gold into liquid molten gold and pour it into this little hole that I've created with a twig from through my fingertips and then you'll just see the molten gold there as I'm waiting as it kind of starts to harden solidify in the cold night air in that little little spot. All right so your couple coins get red red hot and
00:15:10
Speaker
as you you can't hold them eventually they're so red hot and as you let them just continue you keep you know letting that happen you they they get pretty soft and moldable and you have to kind of like find a way to like form them down into your little mold and sure enough they kind of form a rough the rough image of what it is you were trying to kind of form in the sand there
00:15:40
Speaker
Okay, then once it's done, I'm gonna pull it out and it looks like a very crude forged ring, like an actual ring that would be worn, very crude design. And I'm gonna reach into my bag and pull out one of my small files, like metal file from Smithing and stuff like that. And for the rest of the evening, I'm going to be...
00:16:00
Speaker
refining this really crude ring into something a little bit more polished and I intend to stick the blue gem that I found in the previous tent basically set it to the top of this ring in the setting that was created with the four points from the twig and have it hold the gem there in place and create a little crude ring out of that gem. All right, cool. So you're sitting filing on that thing. Make a make a
00:16:30
Speaker
What would it be? What should I make this be? Let me look at something real quick. Sure. I think metalsmithing uses your DEX plus your proficiency if you're proficient in it. Yeah, that's right. So Krigs, you can make a dexterity check with advantage and you can add your... What's the word? Proficiency modifier to it. Good heavens. I kept wanting to say ability modifier, but that's not even a thing. Your proficiency modifier, that's what you want to add.
00:17:00
Speaker
All right. Well, that's a 20 and a four. Yeah. So the 20 is going to do it for you. What's your proficiency? Three. Four. Twenty four. So you're able to really shape this thing. Well, you find yourself doing more shaping with the file than you were able to do. There is way more shaping with the file necessary because that heat metal spell is like heats things very hot to burn you, but it's not quite molten like liquid. So so you're you know,
00:17:30
Speaker
rounding off the kind of edges to make it where if you wore it, it didn't, you know, cut into you. You're, you're kind of shaping the thing where you want the jewel to stick and it's going to take you the remainder of the night to do that. But you're working, you know, you're working solidly. It's definitely keeping you awake and alert and you kind of have a peaceful night the rest of the evening as you work on that. Gwendolyn, as you fall asleep,
00:17:55
Speaker
It seems like you shut your eyes and immediately after you shut your eyes, you're back in that city.
Gwendolyn's Mystical Dream
00:18:04
Speaker
And as you're in the city, you see Dale standing in front of you and he's standing on two legs like a person. You look down at your own hands and you are you.
00:18:16
Speaker
But Dale still is a chipmunk, but he's the size of a small man. And he beckons you to follow him deeper into this city. And he says, he says, come silly, you don't want to miss this. And he turns and runs off. And you begin to follow him, I assume? Yeah, immediately. No questions. Right, so he's running through the city. He's jetting in and out of main roads where you see elves
00:18:46
Speaker
all kinds of people just walking back and forth and going about their business seeming to ignore you, you go ahead and make a perception check as you're running through this road. Nine plus eight, 17. Okay, yeah, you notice that as you're running towards one guy and this guy begins to
00:19:15
Speaker
It's like you kind of went as you're about to bump up against him shoulder to shoulder and you go right through him. You do not hit him or he goes through you. You're not sure which, but you didn't bump into this person. So in this dream, you're there, but you're not, it feels like you're not there, but you're there. And so you follow Dale through the street and he turns into this courtyard. And in this courtyard is this,
00:19:43
Speaker
beautiful stonework circular courtyard with plants planted around the outside edges of this court. And there's a fountain in the middle. And in the fountain, there's flowing water from the top of the fountain. It's flowing beautiful crystal clear water. And you can smell the freshness of this water as you turn the corner and head to this courtyard. And on the top of this, you see standing there this statue of a giant elven person.
00:20:12
Speaker
with a sword on their back and he's reaching his hand up into the sky and he has some kind of orb in his hand. It's just a ball of some kind and he's just standing there and the water is flowing from under that orb down his hand, down his body and off of his feet and where he's standing down into the pool below and that is where the water in the fountain is coming from.
00:20:38
Speaker
Dale stops by the fountain and looks and says, no, quit gawking. You're going to miss it. Follow me, please. And he turns and runs like sprints as fast as he can go. He goes back down on all fours so he can run faster. And you're having to really hoof it to follow him. So you run as fast as you can. You go up these stairs that you can't see the top of these stairs and you begin climbing. And as you begin climbing, you finally come up to a
00:21:06
Speaker
level plateau of this top of the steps and you see a large building some sort of
00:21:14
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe like a temp. You don't know for sure. Like a temple. Maybe maybe it's a government building of some kind. It's very unclear. But when you step through, he goes through the front doors and he turns the these two big handles and he turned. He opens the doors. These big doors swing open and you walk in behind. He turns to you. You walk in behind him. And as you walk in, you see this chamber full of people sitting around a table.
00:21:44
Speaker
and one of them shouts to the rest of them, he says, we had a deal! And that's when you wake up. And you wake up with a start. That shout was so loud and booming that it wakes you up and you feel like you didn't sleep at all. You feel like you just lived that, you didn't sleep through it. You have enough rest, but you couldn't do this two nights in a row, probably.
00:22:13
Speaker
When that gasp happens, she's sitting straight up in her corner and just, what time of day is it? Is it literally morning? It is morning, yeah. It's brighter morning than you usually wake up, actually. You hear the scraping of a file on this metal, the other two seem to be asleep. I turn to the scratching noise.
00:22:42
Speaker
Do you know what the deal was? Thank you. Wait, good, good morning. And she just stares at him and it's kind of groggy and she, Oh, uh, what time is it? I mean, it's barely morning. The sun's just coming up over the, the ridge. I was just asleep for just a few minutes. You've been asleep for hours.
00:23:13
Speaker
Are you okay? Yes. I think Gwendolyn is going to keep these dreams to herself for a bit till she figures out what's happening. But she's going to try her hardest to conceal it. It's nothing. Dale said there was a deal and I thought you were Dale. Dale's deals. We all know how badly they can go.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, he's a bit of a bargain boy. He likes to haggle and he I guess I was just dreaming about him at one of those markets and just Hagging away some acorns just you know him and she pulls Dale out just looks at him and she's like not looking at him creeks probably can't see but she's looking at him with
00:24:08
Speaker
Deep concern. She's not happy to really look at him. Cribs. Cribs. Cribs. Cribs. MTV Cribs. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh my gosh. Watch people you know, right? Oh boy. Krigs. Do you feel like you want to know that you want, you're looking at her in a way that you would be trying to read if something's wrong or is Krigs, what's the deal with Krigs and his response kind of to this?
00:24:37
Speaker
He... he feels... I feel often that like Gwen has weird nights anyways.
00:24:45
Speaker
I don't think that he has a problem with the way, yeah, falling out of bed, just having general, general over imaginative evenings in the sleeping times. So I don't think it's anything too abnormal to him. And besides that he is really engrossed in like the filing that he's doing. Um, he just, he doesn't think anything's out of the ordinary at this point. So I don't think, I don't think that I'm really making it a big point to like,
00:25:14
Speaker
make sure she's okay. She's not indicated. Okay, that's cool. That's cool. And I just want to make a note here that there is definitely a lo fi hip hop song out there called imaginative evenings. So it has to exist. I don't know. I don't, I don't know that I've heard it. It's likely, but it's got to be out there somewhere. All right. So yeah. So if there's not, if one of you artists out there needs to make that song, imaginative evenings, we'll play it on the show. Uh,
00:25:40
Speaker
All right. So what, uh, it's morning. People starting to wake up. What else, what else you guys got going on this morning? Devin wakes up with a scream. Sorry. I had a bad dream today. I'll give you a deal. No, no, there was, there was a bunch of birds flying through the air dropping knives at me. I tried to run away by growing skip and I kept falling down. Sorry. Oh, what about them?
00:26:05
Speaker
nothing. And she kind of just gets up and I'm going to go find some food. She just gets up and she takes Dale with her and she goes at least far enough to where they can't hear her into the forest. She's going to look for berries, but that's not her main goal. She's still mad at me. Okay. You know, probably. Let's be honest. I'm just saying I've got a wand here that gives us all the food we need. Why does everyone keep looking for food?
00:26:35
Speaker
I don't know, I think she just had a rough night. She woke up this morning with some kind of talk of deals and dales and dales deals and haggling and who knows what. I... She'll be fine. Alright. Ugh, why is everybody talking? It could be more sleep time. Oh, why is there light? It happens every morning. Yeah, but normally I sleep a little better than that. Well, it seems like everyone had a bad sleep.
The Flavorless Feast
00:27:05
Speaker
Well, I know she's going to be looking for some kind of food this morning, but Daven, maybe, uh, we could get some breakfast going and get a, get a head out a little bit earlier than usual. There's no sense in keeping around here for too much longer. Sure. Let me see if I can control the stick a little bit waffles and ham and I'm going to cast food out of the wand. All right. Food comes out and, uh,
00:27:30
Speaker
You definitely see some waffle shaped foods as well as some large. Ham shaped waffles. Ham hawks. Like rumps of ham out there too. It's actual meats. You have some food there. They look like meats, I don't know. Heaven's very suspicious. He goes over and he picks up a big piece of the ham and he smells it.
00:27:50
Speaker
Is it still tasteless, or are you gonna have to press the digitize it? It tastes and smells like nothing. Oh yeah. I'll be groaning just because I'm more mad that you made meat and I want it, and I know it's not what I want. Press the digitization, I'm gonna make it taste like honeybait ham.
00:28:08
Speaker
Nice. It tastes like honey baked ham. What's the texture though? Does it taste like just jello at this point? I imagine it's all like soy. D1. Okay. So one, it's tofu. Two, I'm rolling a D4. A one, it's tofu. A two, it tastes like actual ham. Three, it tastes like actual ham. A four, it tastes like the best pork belly bacon you've ever had in your life.
00:28:31
Speaker
Of course it's a one. Full on tofu. No joke. I don't lie about D4 rolls. I wouldn't do such a thing. It's a one. I don't know if you can ever see that. Anyway, so, so yeah. Soy based tofu. It's impossible ham. It's like, it's not bad. It's just, man. It's texture. It's a little squishier than I would have hoped for. I mean, Davin's going to take it and he's going to wring it out and see if a bunch of water comes out of it like tofu.
00:29:00
Speaker
Uh, no, no water comes out of it, but there's this like kind of slime kind of stuff to it. It's like snot when you, when you do that, it doesn't, it just drips through your fingers and kind of starts to drip. And it's full, it fully, it fully never like drips off and falls. It just kind of, as you release, it kind of absorbs back up into the meats.
00:29:19
Speaker
Watching that, I'm going to just drop my, I'm going to be mouth agape and I'm going to turn to the forest. Gwen, how's the berries coming? And just like walk off into the woods. I ain't having that now. Under my fingernails, it's going to smell like fake honey bake hum all day. Oh, it's going to be gross. Yeah. And you're, uh, you're totally like no longer wondering why they keep going searching for food. I'm going to use, um, mold earth and I'm going to bury it.
00:29:47
Speaker
Oh, wait, wait, wait a second. And I grab like something that looks maybe like a bread or something that's not meat because I'm just not going to be that disappointed. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Waffle. And then I'll I'll grab that and then a beer. And I'm just pulling out brew now. And I'm just like trying to just force everything down.
00:30:10
Speaker
Okay, sounds good and you got this big pile of ham and waffles now because it makes Enough to feed like 80 people or something. So like you you got a lot of food there now I'm gonna start experimenting I'm gonna just don't get into the the big thing of water that it also creates just to see if it dissolves or if it's just Gets wet or if it just normal afterwards Devin's just making tests right because he doesn't really want to eat any of this Okay, Gwen will you make a survival check while you're looking for berries? Yes
00:30:38
Speaker
Was she even actually looking for berries? Because I think she is going out there. She said she wanted to, but that's not her main goal. Right. Yeah. Do you need to make it a disadvantage because it's not your main goal? There's 20. Is she distracted enough? She wants that 28. Oh, yeah. No, it's your call. I'm leaving it up to you. 17 plus 8.
00:30:59
Speaker
So 25. Okay, so either way, you're finding berries, you find actually a little cherry bush. And it's got these little orange cherries on it. They're big. And they smell really good. You like you can smell them as you that's actually how you find them is you you kind of walk into this area where they just smell delicious. And you approach that and you've seen these types of berries before you've eaten them before. And you've never seen them in the wild. People have planted them kind of
00:31:29
Speaker
And you guys, you planted them back home, uh, outside, outside town when, when you're, you're cottage you lived in and, uh, it actually, it's kind of nice and kind of brings you this kind of. A little happier feeling after having this weird feeling from that dream. I was going on and goes over to the Bush, trying to make sure that no one hears her. Oh, you remember sunberries. Let's go get some. And, uh, as soon as she gets over there, she sets Dale down furiously.
00:31:58
Speaker
In an elvish what the heck is going on I where are you taking me? And Dale just stares at you no movement I Saw you mister you were on your hind legs walking around a city Where were you taking me? Silence nothing
00:32:22
Speaker
The silent treatment great. I don't know why I just You make me so angry. You're taking me to this place and won't tell me where we're at You're not getting breakfast and she just starts to go and get these sunberries Okay, make an insight check. Okay 12 plus 4 16 You turn
00:32:52
Speaker
to go to the sunberries and as you turn away from Dale, the corner of your eye, it's like Dale sunk his shoulders and lowered his head like in sadness, disappointment. But when you look back, he looks like he always did. He doesn't look any different, like he didn't move at all.
00:33:20
Speaker
I have two A's. I want to react. This part can be edited. Oh, no, we're going live. She forced your hand with the curse word. Nobody forces these hands. These hot sauce pack names. Tallulah, baby. Tapatio. Picante.
00:33:46
Speaker
I either go the route of being scared because she's never seen movement before, or two, she goes with it. And I don't know which one to go with. That's why you roll dice. Yeah, sure. Make it 50-50, one or two, or three or four, or something like that. Odds scared. I'll do a D4. Odds I'm scared evens. I just go with the flow.
00:34:12
Speaker
It's odds. Gwendolyn's a little taken back by it. She knows Dale, and she knows all of his movements, which is non-existing. For her to catch that, she is a little scared, nervous.
00:34:34
Speaker
Dale, are you OK? I didn't mean to be rough. I just. It's just me. I just don't know where we're going. What's is it real? And she kind of turns away to go back to the sunberries and kind of looks out of the corner of her eye to see if he makes any more movement. Am I getting anywhere close at this point? Not quite yet. OK, I wouldn't I don't think I would approach.
00:35:02
Speaker
Well, and you guys are still in your hole tasting the ham stuff while this is going on, right? So I'm just now noticing the gooey ham. Okay. Well, you're probably just now starting to go back into the woods. He's actually moved on now. He's like using telekinesis to throw the ham in the air and then throwing fire bolts out. Oh, I missed again. I really need to work on my aim. Make a couple of attack rolls for me. All right. Uh, the first one is a 12 and a 23.
00:35:31
Speaker
I want to make, I want to make the first one. No crits. Nope. That's all I wanted to know. Okay. Go ahead, jockser. I was going to say, I'm going to make the, well, I guess in that scenario, the, the first one, the reason it was so low is because I saw you, you know, toss it up and then I used mage hand to like push it down too early. And you just hear me giggling. Your fireball just sails past it and dissipates in the air behind it.
00:35:57
Speaker
You really cheated to work on your, I saw that cheater. Your hand, you had to make it look undead, just like your other hand. That's I, you know, it happens. All right. And Craig's you're, you're walking into the forest and you come up on going picking, picking these sunberries.
00:36:18
Speaker
I don't know that I would approach like I'm still looking around and looking for food and whatnot, but, um, I don't think I would immediately just like approach her if she's, especially if she's like talking and stuff, I'm going to keep my distance and look for foods. I think you hear mumbling, but it's like under her breath, mumbling. What, what does he hear? Uh, go in. He probably heard the last statement I made as I turned back to picking berries, which was.
00:36:47
Speaker
Yep. Oh, you asked if Dale was okay. Oh, I asked. Yeah. Okay. I go fish brain. Yeah. Something like I didn't. Yeah. I didn't mean to upset you. Yeah. So pretty much par for the course. Craig's like, it just sounds like going talking to Dale. Okay. I'm going to keep looking for like stuff. I'm not going to really avoid getting close, but I'm not going to actively approach either. I'm just all right. Make a survival check. If you look around as daddy would.
00:37:15
Speaker
That's a two. It's not in season for the correct fungal spores to be creating anything out here. You're actually, yeah, you're not seeing any mushrooms or any, uh, you know, any roots that are edible or anything like that. Uh, you find a little bit of poison ivy looking stuff. You just barely managed to avoid it. But other than that, nothing of interest. It looks like Gwyn found the jackpot with a couple of these good sunberry bushes. I will continue, uh, just looking around.
00:37:43
Speaker
Okay, so we got two looking in the woods. We got two doing skeet shooting with ham and waffles around the camp. When this all kind of finishes up, you're going to get a whole bunch of berries, Gwen, or stock up with berries. Craig, you just kind of come up short. Davin and Joxer, when they make it back to camp, what are you guys doing? I think I would have started helping out instead of just teasing. So try this one, and I'll even levitate it up there.
00:38:12
Speaker
Derek, uh, make another couple of attack rolls for me. All right. I'm going to do one behind the back. So it's going to be a disadvantage. And it was a 11 for the disadvantage. And then the other shot was a 16, no natural, anything fun. Okay. No problem. No problemo. Um, so yeah, you kind of make that last one and you do hit it burst this, uh, tofu ham.
Return to Camp and Ham Goo
00:38:40
Speaker
into little bitty ham bits and out of the woods come walking. No, not the ham bits. Krigs and Gwendolyn, not necessarily together, but it just kind of staggered a similar time. I hope you found something better than this to eat because this is not working for me.
00:38:56
Speaker
Do I just see pieces of ham goo literally everywhere? Has it been blown apart by Daven for the last little bit? Yeah, there's actually a couple trees just on the edge of your camp that are like blasted with this slimy ham goo because they seem to have been just launching in the same direction over and over again. Well, I'm not too sure I have an appetite anymore. Good thing I didn't find anything.
00:39:21
Speaker
Did we just egg the trees? Just like... Ham and egg the trees? Yeah. Ham and egg. I found some berries. Let me go get my bag real quick so I can pull out some trail mix. And she goes over to her bag. Is this waffles in here? And she see bits of the ham and stuff on her bag. Oh, they look like waffles. Did you do this? I was trying to get us something to go to eat, but I forget that it doesn't matter what it looks like. It'll taste the same.
00:39:54
Speaker
Are you still mad at me? Did you put these in here? Because I broke your necklace. Alright, first of all, it wasn't my necklace. It's the group's necklace. Which, no, I'm not mad at you. It was the bad necklace and she immediately stuffs Dale into the bag full of bits of pieces and the berries. I just remember when you... And she just starts going off at him.
00:40:23
Speaker
Cause she remembered the fight that they had. Yeah. Okay. Oh yeah. We're mad. Oh man. Who knew waffles and ham was going to do it. Devin just leans over to the doctor. She's yelling episode name. Yes. She's still mad at me. Great. I'm sorry. I'll clean off your bag. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
00:40:46
Speaker
I didn't mean to break your necklace, but you have to understand that it might have been changing you. Even Craig said it was evil. I back away a little bit. Why are you bringing me into this?
00:41:04
Speaker
I understand you had good intentions, Irene, but the thing is, quite I'm going to be honest with you, sometimes you react a little too fast to things. We're a group, we got to make these plans together. You can't just go and do what you think is the right thing without first talking to us. No, no, I was saving you. That's what friends would do. I was saying, and she's pointing at herself, I was saving you.
00:41:32
Speaker
You might think that you were saving me, but you don't know for sure what exactly was happening. It wasn't on my neck. In fact, I had handed over to Krigs. It wasn't even on my person. Krigs! And she turns around to find him. Is he there?
00:41:46
Speaker
He's Homer Simpson. He's there, but he's back to filing that ring. Like what? Oh, conversations? You even said it was evil. Remember when you talked to me about how Daven was being a little weird? How was I being weird? What was I doing that was being weird?
00:42:11
Speaker
I... that... okay. Let's level set. He escaped to me and talked to me about it. You were changing and I know you saw something one night.
Necklace Discussion
00:42:23
Speaker
You see things all the time. You said a dragon was flying over our head the other day. It was true. Mine was true also. That doesn't make me wrong. Are you right?
00:42:34
Speaker
Alright, let's take a second here. I don't think Krigs is the part of here, but I'm curious if that could have sparked something. I agree with Daven here that we do need to talk things over. And I'm not going to argue that that necklace gave everybody a bit of a bad feeling.
00:43:00
Speaker
But we just need to talk things over and yelling about them and pointing fingers and judging each other isn't going to do it. I apologize, Gwen, that I helped with the goo and waffles on your bag that was unintentional and definitely had nothing to do with previous events. It had to do with how bad everything tasted.
00:43:30
Speaker
That was lovely. That was so lovely. It was a very good apology. Best apology of the campaign. I think so. I think she would just be, like, awestruck by the moment Joxer speaks. It doesn't just... Oh. Yeah, bruh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. Yeah, bruh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh.
00:44:00
Speaker
It's so bad. Hello, my sweet scrumptious, delectable, ooey gooey, candy filled, crunchy. I'm just describing the delicious chocolate that I received in a delightful box earlier. But also I'm describing you, dear sweet listener. Thank you so much for sending in these reviews that I personally love, even though they're not about me. How do they make you feel?
00:44:27
Speaker
they're about me well i mean realistically it's about the entire cast i'm only like portion of that they're still by extension about you sure i i appreciate it it it the validation is it's it hits real good
00:44:44
Speaker
Yeah, as we discussed last week, podcasters almost exclusively run on validation. But I do think that if we're breaking that stuff like percentage-wise, like an overwhelming percentage of the like good jujus of these reviews is for Michael because it is his sandbox. It's his world, you know? It's true. It's his brain baby.
00:45:06
Speaker
It's his brain baby and we're just playing with it. I hate that. It's his brain baby. We're just burping it. I really, really hate that. So we're going to go ahead and read a review. I'm so sorry in advance because my cat is here. I never apologize for that cat. He's a beautiful baby.
00:45:29
Speaker
He has a beautiful baby, similar to Michael's beautiful brain baby. I'm so sorry, Michael. Anyway, so this week we have a review from TheRedMe, who I think is someone on Twitter who consistently tweets about the show. And thank you so much. I know that they love that so, so much. And I love that you left this review for me to read back to you. So TheRedMe says,
00:45:54
Speaker
If it's who I think it is, I'm really sorry to interrupt. I just have to say, if it's who I think it is, and I'm pretty sure it is, they're pretty consistently tweeting just about every episode and how they enjoy whatever happened in that episode. And the amount of awesome that that makes me feel, you have no idea.
00:46:09
Speaker
I specifically need to know where they stand vis-a-vis Gwen the Powerhouse. Anyway, let's continue. Five stars. Take it from this internet rando. This is a great group of players telling a great story. The combat and mechanics of the game are engaging and move quickly. The chemistry between DM and players enables an immersive story with just the right amounts of comedy and drama. If you miss playing with your own group, womp womp, and want to listen to a group of good friends playing a good game, then this is the podcast for you.
00:46:39
Speaker
I do think, you know what, I can agree with that. Even though I'm a part of the show, I do feel like we have an energy that is welcoming. It's not overproduced and it's not too much table talk, but you are welcomed into our little circle, I think. I feel. I want to project that onto the show.
00:46:58
Speaker
As someone who has attempted to record episodes with this group of players, I can confirm that their call time is around maybe like four hours and possibly like maybe two hours of that is actual gameplay. They are the worst.
00:47:15
Speaker
what it comes to. We spend too much time just talking. You just you just sit in a chat for like at least an hour before you even start um which is great but also like you guys live in a different time zone than me so. Yeah friends are gonna friend what are you gonna do about it? It's true it's probably one of the first things I loved about you guys other than you know just Gwen in general.
00:47:38
Speaker
Now's the time where I remind you, the lovely listener, the wonderful person who is sitting, standing, doing, not working, sleeping. If you're sleeping right now, this is your subliminal message to have sweet dreams. Can we affect their dreams? Dream? Dream wonderful dreams. Sweet sleeper. Dream wonderful dreams of candy canes and fairies and wonderful magical lands. Sweet, sweet sleeper.
00:48:05
Speaker
Did you ever start a sentence and you just keep talking and then you feel like it's going really good and you completely forgot words? You know, that's most of my life. That's every time I talk on the podcast. If you like the podcasts that people make and you want them to continue making those podcasts, you do have to tell other people that their podcasts are good and that they exist. And the best way to do that is by leaving your review. You can do that on iTunes or Podchaser.
00:48:35
Speaker
Or you can tweet at the show at the hired swords and I will come in like a sneaky detective and Call you out on on the show. I'll call you out at the red me. Thank you so much for being you I think that's it for this week. Okay. Bye
00:49:01
Speaker
So you both didn't do this on purpose. No Glenn, I'm not mad at you in any sort of way. I just think that you need to calm down and talk to us first before you make some of the decisions that you think are right. Because sometimes the world isn't so easy as just black and whites, evil and good. There's a gray area that lives in there too. No, either. And she can't even say the words.
00:49:29
Speaker
good or evil because she remembers her talk that she had with, um, Oh my gosh. Was it Hurley? Hurley. Um, I was about to say Tomba and I knew that wasn't right. That's wrong. Um, and she remembers talking about something similar with him and, uh, I'm so sorry. I thought we were going to lose you and I panic and I,
00:49:58
Speaker
I didn't want to lose you. And she kind of looks up at him with puppy dog eyes.
00:50:05
Speaker
All right. Well, I appreciate the sentiment. And in the future, if you think that there's something going on that you need to interject for, please do. I don't want anything to take over my mind or body. And if you guys can stop it, that's great. But let's talk about it first and make sure that it's something that's actually evil before we go and destroy things, because sometimes evil things can be kept at bay better than destroyed.
00:50:34
Speaker
And on that note, Krigs, what is this conversation that happened I don't remember anything about? I don't seem to remember it either, hmm.
00:50:50
Speaker
Okay, you remember when we were talking about the flowers? Yes, I remember. Covered for you. Okay. Is this when you named the flowers against their will? Yes. No, no. Okay. Did they give you permission to name them?
00:51:15
Speaker
There was consent. Let's level set. I did have a concern, Devin, that you may be having an issue with a thrall of a potential evil within a necklace that you may be me beholding. I did not want to alarm you and I wanted to be able to observe from a distance and I figured an extra set of eyes might help in the observation process and therefore I enlisted Gwen
00:51:43
Speaker
to help verify whether or not it was a problem that we were going to run into. I realize in retrospect, I should have come to you directly, but having no indication as to whether or not this necklace could be affecting your mind, I wasn't sure if that was the best path to take at the time. So yeah, we all make mistakes. Come on. It's a...
00:52:07
Speaker
Let's all be honest, watching that bolt of lightning and that jewel just fall into pieces. I mean, it was it was pretty cool to watch.
00:52:20
Speaker
it was pretty wicked she's trying the new the new lingo i believe the younger dwarves would call it radical radical it's uh totally sick mind you
00:52:38
Speaker
I've read on runes. That, that, that jewelry. Yeet. Legend of Yeet. Yes. I, I am. But wait, Daven, wait a minute. You said keeping the evil at bay. Are you saying the joy was evil?
00:52:58
Speaker
I don't know. I'm just saying that if there was something evil in there, that doesn't mean that the evil could escape. It could be trapped inside there. It could have been some sort of a prison for it, and we just let it out in the air. I could be wrong. I'm just making this up. What I'm saying is we need to be careful with these kind of things. We don't know for sure what it is or what it could do.
00:53:22
Speaker
Do I check whether or not he's being hesitant or if he's actually still talking about jewelry? You can make an inside check. Okay. Because I am genuinely curious. How's an 11?
00:53:40
Speaker
Kind of tough to read, but if it's a little tough to read, what is she feeling? What vibe is she getting off of you? I put on glasses. Can I read it better? What vibe is she getting off you, David? David is 100% talking about jewelry. OK. All right. I see.
00:53:59
Speaker
Gwen, just think about the things we've seen at this point. Some of the people that we saved were holding evil at bay. But not for long. The evil ended up coming to us.
00:54:21
Speaker
He still struggled whether we killed the other beast. He was still struggling with or without. It was still something in his head. Okay, I will refrain from being destructive and I will try to be better with talking to you guys.
00:54:50
Speaker
There will definitely come a time in our travels together where we're going to need to be destructive. But let's just make sure that we're all on the same page. All I'm asking is we don't destroy any more necklaces without first discussing it.
00:55:04
Speaker
Okay. And you see her go back to pulling some more waffle and meat bits out of her bag and she puts in the rest of the berries and she goes to pick up Dale and she doesn't handle Dale like she usually does where she carefully puts them in the bag. She kind of shoves them in the bag. Are we ready to go? And she pulls the flap over. I've been ready since I was disappointed with the waffles.
00:55:30
Speaker
Would I notice that? I don't know, probably. I don't think she was hiding it at all. Hmm. Probably not going to say anything. Uh, okay. Yeah. Uh, let's, let's pick up our things and go. Uh, are you ready, Krigs? Yup. We're just going into this cave. Is that we're going like 10 feet this way?
Entering the Mysterious Cave
00:55:54
Speaker
It's a little further than that. It's a few hundred feet, but yeah. Oh, I thought it was visible from the camps there. Not really. It's kind of over a hill a little bit in the back, over in the corner. It's this way. I can show you when kind of speedily goes off, just follow me, and she takes him to the cave.
00:56:16
Speaker
Greg's follows, uh, speaking under his breath. We can see if I keep secrets. Uh, Davin's going to kind of linger behind for a minute, just casually looking around and he's going to make sure he tucks his necklaces back into a shirt and he'll follow behind. Okay. So you guys, you guys all walk like, like I said, kind of up this little bit of a worn trail.
00:56:41
Speaker
to this obvious hill sitting by itself surrounded by trees. No trees on the top of it. It's almost like a giant dirt mound. And there is a stony cavern, this mouth of this stony cavern right in front of it. And it has got an opening of this cavern is only about four feet high, three feet wide.
00:57:10
Speaker
Those of you who are a little taller gonna would have to duck to go inside. Do you walk on inside? Probably feeling a little Indignant is that the word I think Craig's is just gonna walk inside like we're here. Let's go on in So we'll start to walk inside. Yeah, and Gwen's already been in a little ways, too So you guys make your way in you you kind of walk in and it's a dirt and
00:57:39
Speaker
a dirt floor and there are it's natural entrance to this cave the stones and stuff are just kind of naturally there but the further you get in it looks like there's this combination of natural and and kind of dug out in this cavern area like somebody has dug out a section of it you see
00:58:01
Speaker
just torn up, a couple torn up wooden stools kind of back. This is about a 75 foot diameter space inside this cave. The floor, like I said, is mostly dirt with some bits of kind of stone here and there. And the stone walls on the back of this
00:58:20
Speaker
of this cavern are covered with moss and spores and fungus. And there are a few patches of this fungus that are brightly colored. Some of them even, they glow just barely slightly with the luminescent light. Everyone make investigation check. Okay. That'd be 15 for me. 16. Fine for me. 23. Thanks!
00:58:49
Speaker
I win. You look about the room and just as your light, your eyes all adjust to the lighting from just the bit of the beam of sunlight shining in through the opening. You look on the floor and some of the little mounds that were there that looked like maybe dirt or piles of rock or something. They're actually bodies. You see five bodies on the ground and they have weapons, they have
00:59:19
Speaker
They're in their hands. They have armor. They are wearing their armor still. They have nothing on their belts, like nothing on their belts has been taken or messed with. And you even see a couple of them have
00:59:35
Speaker
like fallen, having stabbed each other at the same time and fallen down together and died. And it's pretty clear that this group fought amongst themselves and killed each other. And you see at the foot of one of these bodies, a little gold hired swords coin. And that's where we're gonna end this episode. Oh. Major. Did you say mage armor? Major. Nice. Immediately.
01:00:16
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the latest episode of our second season. We really appreciate you joining us for this adventure. If you enjoyed our show, tell a friend about us. And if you really enjoyed it, tell the world and leave a review.
01:00:30
Speaker
Be sure to check out our shop at thehired.store. And if you want to keep up with us and what we're up to, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at thehiredswords. And again, thank you for listening. Stay tuned for a word from our friends.
01:01:00
Speaker
Hello! My name is Spets, and I am part of the adventuring crew that others call the Severed Sons. Everyone in the dale has a tale to tell about distant sightings of the Bear Lady out in the tundra coming in to save the day. Well, to be honest, it seemed like I could help them just as much as they could help me, you know?
01:01:24
Speaker
Well all of the lads are very good at heart. It's an honour to fight alongside them and to be a son myself. Trax has a brilliant mind. The turtle is wise and Donar has a heart of gold. Kai is cunning and Fang is fiercely loyal. Although I don't think I'd much like being stranded on an iceberg with Kai. What's next for Spets?
01:01:51
Speaker
There's a long road ahead of us all, but I know that all of us are going to do everything in our power to defend the dale and end this everlasting rhyme.
01:02:08
Speaker
If you want to find out more about Spets, The Turtle, Fang, Donar, Trax, Kai, and more, listen to Severed Sons, a Frostmaiden actual play D&D podcast, on your favourite podcast app, and follow us on Twitter, at SeveredSunsD&D. Stay frosty!