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Ep. 69 Beyond The Horizon
199 Plays2 years ago
After a night of challenges and mystery, the Swords continue on their journey.. Unfortunate for them, they're walking directly into the rising darkness.
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Transcript
Confusing Dreams and Reality
00:00:08
Speaker
What have I gotten myself into? This was not what I expected. This was not what I was told. All this trouble very little. Hmm. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. They don't know. I don't. He knows. He knows, but I don't dare ask him. No, no. No, you know what? It was just a dream. Everything is fine. I've got this under control. Everything is fine. Everything is fine.
Introduction by Dungeon Master
00:01:04
Speaker
You're listening to the Hired Swords, now with 32% more roleplay.
00:01:24
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of The Hired Swords. I am your Dungeon Master Michael and we are going to have another episode. I'm joined by Derek playing Devin. Hi, I'm Derek and I don't like tuna sandwiches.
00:01:40
Speaker
I'm also joined by Blaze. He is Krigs Golder. I sure hope you enjoy the sound of my dulcetly, sick voice. Oh, we all love it. That's weird, Ash. You're looking up. It looked like you were looking at Blaze while he was talking because he's above you on my screen. Ash is Gwitalyn. I don't like tuna sandwiches, but I like tuna sushi. Oh. Yeah. Interesting. Mikey's here. He's Joxer.
Unique Night Experiences
00:02:26
Speaker
started to do whatever it was they wanted to do to rest for the evening whether it be sleep or meditate or sit around staring off in the distance and they it turned out that they each had a their own kind of individual experience through the night we had jocks are chasing his.
00:02:36
Speaker
I don't really have much to say, but that's who I play.
00:02:43
Speaker
the mysterious woman into another room and having an experience with her that led him to be dancing alone on top of a table. That's my normal weekend, right? That's right. Sounds like a typical Saturday night for jockser. Then we had Krig's Galdor, Safran and Baroque, whichever you prefer. He had found his way into another room, the room where you guys had entered originally, this round room.
00:03:12
Speaker
And he had gotten a imbued with some extra might and power from, it seemed to be the plant life in this room, a gift for the mushroom daddy, perhaps. If I need any more power. That's right. He sounds powerful. And then also Daven had a encounter with a strange being in his nightmares and dreams and
00:03:38
Speaker
was victorious over that being, trying his hardest to put this thing in its place, tell it to stop fighting. Turtles always lose the race. That's right. They do. That's the rule. That's how the story goes, I think, if I remember correctly. And Gwendolyn.
00:03:54
Speaker
something about turtles and races gwendolyn was she was having memories flashbacks it seem like that they were confusing and not how she remembered found herself finally in a white stone room alone being spoken to by dale about her memories and about the lies she had been told and we kinda end in that space where.
00:04:18
Speaker
All four of these individuals have each kind of come out of the stupor of this encounter now powerful, more powerful than before mechanically at level 12. And, uh, they are just trying to come to terms with whatever just happened.
Morning Reflections in the Cave
00:04:36
Speaker
What are you guys doing at this moment? Uh, has, has nighttime like officially passed?
00:04:43
Speaker
It's hard to tell inside here. You don't really know for sure if it is night or in a cave. You're in a cave in the bottom of a cave. You do not feel like you need sleep at this point. You are invigorated no matter what time of day it is. Okay.
00:04:57
Speaker
I see myself probably headed back into like, I was left swinging away at the end of the last episode, just kind of practicing with my new, can't touch this power. I'd probably head back into the area where the rest were sleeping. There was kind of a couple of beds and I would just see kind of what was going on.
00:05:22
Speaker
Gwendolyn's sitting straight up in bed when Krigs walks in. Just panting. Just... Devin's uh... Devin's sitting up too and he's, he's tucking his necklaces back into his shirt and he's looking around at you guys. What's wrong? Uh, you two don't look like you had a very... repressful night. Everything okay in here? S-S-S-Dale... Th-There was room and Dale and I...
00:05:52
Speaker
I remembered stuff, but it wasn't, and she just garnered her little chaotic state of just rambling.
00:06:05
Speaker
I mean, I guess. Well, she's really struggling to like get out the words and whatnot. I'm going to go sit. If she's sitting on the bed, I'm going to sit on the edge of it and just kind of like, you know, if she wants to talk, I'm going to listen kind of thing and hopefully be comforting in that that sort. Gwendolyn probably takes a deep breath and
00:06:31
Speaker
I had memories. It doesn't make sense. I remember playing in the woods with Dale when he wasn't like this and she pulls out Dale and looks at him and he just stares back at her with his vacant eyes. He used to be alive. A man did not deliver this creature to me in a box.
00:06:59
Speaker
But I'm starting to remember it. Maybe it was a dream. Could I be suffering memory loss? Could someone have replaced my thoughts? Did I do that? And she kind of just grabs Craig's and kind of goes hysterical because she's just panicking.
00:07:22
Speaker
Uh, Kriegs is going to kind of like, if you're grabbing him in the shoulders, he's going to kind of like grab back in that position. Like it's, it's okay. Memories and dreams are very weird things. I, I have my share of both unique. Take a big, take a deep breath. How do you know what's real? And she looks over to Daven.
00:07:46
Speaker
I don't really know how to answer that. I used to just think it was,
Gwendolyn's Memory Confusion
00:07:51
Speaker
my old rule was always two senses. If you can experience it with two senses, it's got to be real. But we've had a lot of strange things happen, especially since we've been in this cave. And think about it. We've had been able to hear each other's thoughts and hear these mushrooms speak in our minds. So there's been a lot of things affecting our minds since we've been in here. It's not really strange to think about the fact that maybe it's affecting our dreams as well. Gwendolyn shakes her head.
00:08:15
Speaker
I had a bad dream too, but I think it was just a dream. Was Dale in it? No, not in this day. It was some sort of a weird bluish colored creature who attacked me. He could have been kidding. I'm kidding. Of course. No, no, no, this was not dead. Did he go by Walter? I knew a big fish named Walter and he was pretty blue. Walter? No, it was not Walter. Oh,
00:08:42
Speaker
I met this man one time. I know who he was. But it's just a dream. Doesn't matter. You, Devin, you are one to have strange dreams fairly often, aren't you? Well, my mother always told me those with the biggest imaginations had the weirdest dreams. And I use my imagination all the time. That's how I create my magic.
00:09:06
Speaker
See, Gwen, if... if... well, if Daven's mother said that, it would make sense that you're having unique dreams now. You... you are one with... a very vibrant imagination. And... I don't think there's anything to be afraid of in your dreams. You're fine now. You have Dale. You have us. You're... you're still here. Y-y-y-y-you're right. Maybe... D-Dale knows. And she picks up Dale. Did... did you come in a box? Does Dale respond?
00:09:35
Speaker
Uh, make a, make a wisdom check, insight check, just straight insight check. All right. Yeah. Oh my God. Where it lies. 11 plus insight five 16. Your inset is five day. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:02
Speaker
As you look at Dale after asking this, you are, you are just longing for some sort of response, some sort of answer. You've talked to Dale for so long, so much, and you just want, you want him to respond and you don't feel the beans a day. You don't see any movement. You don't hear any voices. You, but you feel like his expression, his expression is almost
00:10:31
Speaker
shocked, surprised. And you read that as he is a little surprised and hurt that you don't remember for sure. I'm sorry. I just, something isn't making sense. She gives, and I give Dale a hug. You feel warm. It's nice.
00:10:54
Speaker
It's nice. I'm sorry, friend, and she pats his little back. I also want to remind the audience, this is a taxidermy chipmunk. Yeah, right. Just for everyone out there. It's been a while since we've reminded everyone. It's not crawling around right now. It's definitely not hugging back. Meanwhile, Krigs and Davin are just like, okay. I would like to know, because I'm thinking about it now, do I know anything about any sort of magic that can affect dreams?
00:11:23
Speaker
I don't know. Do you? Yeah, make an arcana check. Got him. I can do that because I am actually terrible at this until I roll terrible. It's a 10 total. Yeah. Uh, you assume that that's possible. You know, it's not like you've trained in it or experienced it or done it before, but you definitely assume that, man, you can mess with thoughts and memories. Surely you can mess with dreams too.
Droxer's Whereabouts and Revelations
00:11:45
Speaker
It makes sense to you, but it's not, there's no definitive answer in your mind about it. All right.
00:11:51
Speaker
Uh, where's Droxer, by the way? Has anybody seen him? I haven't seen him yet. I know he was in here previously, but I left somewhere in the middle of the night. I'm pretty sure he has wandered off as he's one to do. Oh, I thought he came to bed as well. Let's go look for him. Let's go. I'm just going to... That's what I felled on. I mean... Yes, I am. We all go skipping off.
00:12:21
Speaker
We're off to find the jockser. Sorry, I don't want to copyright issues. I'm going to be like, well, Gwen, Gwen, I mean, these caves aren't that big and well, I've got my big dwarven, boisterous voice. Jockser. I call out.
00:12:42
Speaker
I don't think actually you know what I imagine is you you end up hearing from from that like room across it wouldn't take that much to see me cuz I'm I'm I'm just across the hall. Yeah.
00:12:57
Speaker
you probably hear something fall on the floor. And and if you end up looking in that direction, you just see you see me holding holding that book. And Spell Sloss is kind of like on the top of it, flipping pages for me. And I am I look I look like I've been drinking endlessly and reading this book. Like I look a little crazed from across the room.
00:13:27
Speaker
but I don't think I would have responded. Um, I'm going to walk out and see him say, Oh, doctor, you, uh, did you not sleep at all? You don't look like you got a wink of sleep. Uh, uh, uh, uh, Devin Devin. Um, and then I'll walk over there and like touch you. Um, okay. We're, we're, we're here. We're, we're, we're here. We've been here for a while. Yes.
00:13:56
Speaker
Um, something. I just, it just, something's changed. Something's different. I, I, I saw her again. The one we talked about before. Yes. Yes. Yes. The woman, but she revealed more to me. I, I don't, I need, I need to understand more. I can't help you. I don't understand at all.
00:14:26
Speaker
Is everybody okay? I'm sorry. I've lost focus. Is everybody here? Unfortunately, no, not everyone's okay. The plant woman, we killed her. She's dead. Oh my God.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yes. You remember that one of these, right? The diction of the vines. The mother. She's dead. You're right. I don't know if she counts though. You probably weren't talking about her. Yeah. Absolutely. Everybody. I want everybody that exists to be all right. I'm so sorry that we lost her yesterday.
00:15:10
Speaker
Well, everybody that exists, I think is all right. Well, Dale is confusing. I'm not really sure where that one fails. That's a good point. I need everybody over there. Gwendolyn comes walking around with her bag. Oh, he found him. I did run very far, very far away. It's always very difficult to find someone across the room.
00:15:35
Speaker
I was going to say it's only like 30 feet from where we are sleeping. I'm sorry. I woke up last night and I guess I just had to... You know what? It was Krigs, his bag started smelling and I had to go. I couldn't sleep. I don't smell anything. What's in your bag?
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, well, what's in there? I open it up. Oh, I mean, look for yourself. Not anything unusual. I'm going to look through his bag. Rude. Make an investigation check. That does that. It's a ten again. Yeah, as as he does that, I'm going to I'm going to like Cass Prestigitation to to put like an old like meat smell. OK. Do I can I see if I can see jocks or do this?
00:16:34
Speaker
I mean, I, oh, yeah, make a, make a perception check. Oh, that's a 20. Yeah. Definitely. I was looking in the bag though. What are you doing with your hands? Just, just, just watch. Just watch Devin real quick. Oh God. Yeah. There's, you got some rotten meat in there or something. That's not boring still, right? We didn't put boring there.
Magical Fountain Speculations
00:17:04
Speaker
No, that I don't see it. I see what's happening here. I get it. You guys are the worst. You guys start to meet in his bag in the middle of the night. Tricky, tricky. And the sack that one, that old gag. Oh, God.
00:17:29
Speaker
Do you want a pig in the pouch? Yep. Too many years since I've had that one pulled on me. Shocks, that reminds me. Have you ever played this game before? I'm going to pull out a deck of cards. It's called 52 pick up. Have you ever played this game? I believe we already established that this is a game that we've played, but I bet Gwen hasn't played.
00:17:58
Speaker
I don't want to play with Gwen. No offense, Gwen. It's for... Why not? I like games. It's a mean game. You're not a mean person. Why did you ask him to play if it was mean? Good point. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to everybody. Let's get out of this cave. Let's get Moggy in here.
00:18:19
Speaker
then we'll play later. I'll teach you a new lesson. Yeah, sure. I believe she shakes her head. I believe that Craig's is is an expert at this game as an old. It isn't an old dwarven game that we played many times. It's true. We actually you have a deck and I have a deck. We could play 104 card pickup. We could. That sounds fun. Oh, it's not even play. Sure. You may have to.
00:18:48
Speaker
Let me just grab my stuff. Honestly, I just couldn't sleep last night. I don't feel tired, but I definitely... Last night was weird. Last night was weird. I've been thinking as well, and I am ready to leave this place, but I had some time to think last night, while everyone was sleeping or trying to sleep or not sleeping at all, as it seems.
00:19:15
Speaker
The Chief wasn't dumb. He was misguided and a fool, but he wasn't dumb. There had to be reasons why so many were sent here and so many losses and casualties were sent to Lonely Hill. And from what we know from the Chief's modus operandi, he had goals. There were tactics employed in his thoughts and his actions. The only thing here that I can find
00:19:42
Speaker
would be worth sending so many and to lose so many assets would be, well, the fountain. What about the fountain? Well, we've established that the fountain has some magical properties. I've drinking from the fountain and it replenished some of my vigor from the fight. However,
00:20:06
Speaker
I don't think that the Chief would send so many to just replace a little bit of—have a healing potential. I'm curious if there's more to this fountain than meets the eye. If you don't mind, I might.
00:20:21
Speaker
have to borrow a cask, or at least share a cask with one of you. I don't want to leave this behind, and I'm gonna take out my water jug, like my flask that comes in my bag, and sniff it. Ah, meat. And then I'm gonna...
00:20:38
Speaker
pour out the water that's in it. And I'm going to walk over to the room that the, the, um, the fountain is in, and I'm going to repeat, read, read again, what was on it. Uh, you know, live, laugh, love, actually, what was it again? The real thing. I forgot actually says he says really hard to come up with this clue for you. If you are not alive, live. If you already living, live longer.
00:21:04
Speaker
I started thinking about this fountain and I started thinking about the way the water trickled and the way that the mushrooms grew on this fountain. And I have to imagine if it wasn't the shadows that we've seen in the wild, if they're not responsible for she, the mother of
00:21:22
Speaker
the creatures in this place, if it's not responsible for that, maybe this fountain or the substances within it or the magics housed within either the liquid, I truly don't know, but I want to take some of it with us. And I'm going to dip my flask, my drinking aperitai into it.
Testing the Fountain's Powers
00:21:44
Speaker
And collect collect a full skin of it and put it away. So i would have followed and did you say that this is this is healing fountain essentially is that so you're saying. We can test this if you'd like. Yeah let me have you let me see your hand.
00:22:08
Speaker
Yeah. By all means. Uh, forgive me for this later. I'm going to take a dagger and just shrink and slice them across this hand. Ooh. Roll a D four. Damage. What's the strength? Are you putting your strength in it? No, I'm just going surface level. I just want to, I just want to draw blood. Great. So just the D four. Yeah. Let's just go all in. Blood brothers. We need to make sure. Daven leans over to Gwenza. Why do they always cut it on the hand? That's where all the tendons are. Just with like the forearm or something.
00:22:35
Speaker
I got a three, and I just did it on his palm. So it's three hit points of damage on his palm. Maybe they're making up pact. Oh, yes. I wouldn't say to dip your hand in it necessarily, but well, you're one to like to drink things. Maybe have a sip. I'm probably a little woozy, but I'll grab the empty blast because I've been probably drinking way too much.
00:23:00
Speaker
Sure, sure. And take a pretty big drink. That's not water that I recognize. Not great. You're not wrong. It's not great. It's very bitter, very earthy. It's almost like a mouthful of sourdirt.
00:23:18
Speaker
But this, this wasn't really I, I, I, whenever I left earlier, it wasn't flowing like this and it doesn't look like it's overflowing. I don't, I don't understand this mechanism. Your hand is no longer wounded either. Do, do you not understand what this would have meant to the chief, Krigs? I mean, I was just saying that if you were listening.
00:23:40
Speaker
Well, no, no, no, I don't. It doesn't need something special. This is an endless supply of healing potions. Potentially. I'm afraid maybe more than that, because I've never seen a healing potion that was able to give something life. Well.
00:23:55
Speaker
at minimum healing potions if it is something that- We saw the creatures they made and I'm afraid that this could be well worth. Gwen's the last time that Dale's ever taken a bath. He doesn't need to take a bath. He's clean all the time. I'm just staring at her. She's staring back.
00:24:23
Speaker
Oh, for goodness sakes, he wants to dip dead in the water, see if he comes back to life. Oh. She just kind of just looks back at forth at both of them. But that that wouldn't mean. Dale, do you want to do this as she pulls out, Dale? It doesn't matter. What is Dale telling me? Make an insight check. No, you make an insight check. OK.
00:24:59
Speaker
total yeah you don't get a read at all it's just a it's a stuffed chipmunk at this point that's it do we know if you have to consume it or like what if you just dip a cot into the water is that gonna heal it because I don't think that actually drinks
00:25:12
Speaker
Well, here cut me again. I cut him again and I'll stick my hand in the water. It's a weird bra. I don't know if I want to drink that now. There is no healing from just putting your hand in it. Just the water, a bit of the your blood is pooling off of it and kind of diminishing in the water, turning this kind of a red. I look over at David and I'm like,
00:25:37
Speaker
I'm glad I got my water skin filled first. It's it's feeling off of the top just fine. It's not filtering the whatever. You're just turning it red. I don't know about this. Well, if you're going to fill up another canteen, do it from the top so we don't have to worry about maybe some sort of contamination, no offense structure. And then obviously it's not going to work on Dell unless Dell can drink some water. I don't think he does.
00:26:06
Speaker
I, he just doesn't drink. Usually he kind of, I don't know. I can try and good. I'll probably pick up a little leaf and take some water from the top rung of the fountain. And at least where there's a couple drops and pour some mouth. Okay. Uh, as you pour it kind of into his mouth, it pulls up like
00:26:35
Speaker
halfway in and just spills out the sides of his mouth as the way the method used to stuff him. He has no like esophagus, no system to like pour liquid into his internal organs, almost as if he may not even have any internal organs anymore.
00:26:52
Speaker
His tubes are tied. That's one way to look at it. I'm sorry. That was stupid. That was stupid for me. See, you're just not thirsty today. That's all. Don't worry, Joxer. It's fine. It's worth a try. And she kind of just pats up his mouth and dries it and doesn't really want to talk about it anymore because she thinks of the dreams again. If you would, Joxer, have another simp. I'd hate to be the reason you have such a
00:27:23
Speaker
gash on your hand there. Um, but that's also take one of my small casks. This might be interesting for a brew as well. Hmm. I think I have no reason left to be here. I have, well, some of this and hopefully that solves the mystery as to why so many were lost here. I can't think of another reason. I mean, we've been to this cave and I didn't see anything else.
00:27:49
Speaker
I mean, you have to think, he wasn't dumb enough to send Soraya and team there, but he definitely sent what I'm assuming he believed were plenty of expendable resources.
00:28:01
Speaker
Well, he did try and sense a riot right toward the end, but after that, he was also relatively desperate at that time. I can just try tracing back the experiences we had with him and trying to piece together the way that he thought. I feel he was much more desperate at that time than he was earlier in the times that we had met him. And, and well, his resources were probably doing a little thin.
00:28:25
Speaker
Well, it could also be that he knew what was here and he might have used this as a way of getting rid of trouble, uh, swords, you know, send them on this mission and those, they're not going to come back. That's what I was thinking because healing potions are pretty simple to make, but I. Unless this is something more than that. I don't want to have to find out, but I'm going to keep some around for now.
00:28:49
Speaker
It definitely seems that healing potion or not, those are, although easy to make, they're very profitable. If this is an unlimited fountain for that, it's a loss. But I do have to lean towards Craig's here that although maybe there are reasons to throw some soldiers away in that respect, it would be
00:29:14
Speaker
Well, I mean, after what we found, I mean, what little we found from the chief whenever he lost or we put him out of his power, I guess, I don't think he had much left. I think you guys are missing a very important part of this whole concept though. Troxar, you said yourself that the water wasn't running, right? When you came in.
00:29:36
Speaker
Yeah, I had to cut off the top here and burn off some of the foliage. It had grown, and then I saw that it was pooling a little bit more, but I didn't realize that it started going to this full extent. Well, if nobody else has come back from this place, and if that water was not flowing, there's a very good chance that they knew nothing of this.
00:30:00
Speaker
No, that's possible. Either way, I've never seen a healing potion be able to bring life out of anything that, you know, wasn't already living. And this phrase, this elven phrase that you've said, live, laugh, love, it uh...
00:30:16
Speaker
Sorry, I can't help it. Bastard. It gives me all the more reason to believe that there is something more to this. And well, we'll keep some on hand. And if everyone else is ready, I'm I'm well prepared to get out of this cave. I have no idea if it's night, day, dark, raining. I this I'm a dwarf and this is a little bit much for me.
Emerging from the Cave
00:30:43
Speaker
I agree. Let's get out of here. I don't want to have these dreams again. I'm ready to go. I've been ready to go. Let's head out.
00:30:55
Speaker
And we head out. All right. Nope. You guys are going to hit. Yeah, that was it. That's the limit. You guys are going to head towards back out towards the circular room where you guys came in. You didn't really find any other place that it makes sense to exit from. I mean, you, you know, you made it other than maybe trying to ride out that river to see where it went, but you did kind of.
00:31:18
Speaker
correctly assume that it possibly just pours out into the lake below the underground lake. Who knows? That could take you somewhere if you were to travel in it a while, but the best way out seems to just be the way you came in. So you turn back around and head out that way. As you go through the circular room that you started in, the one where Joxer let Krigs just kind of fall down. He, uh, that room is now it's interesting because there are, there's like,
00:31:48
Speaker
foil foliage and grass here and there kind of strewn about the room growing on the walls and especially the floor especially right in the center and the glow of all of the mushrooms in there is a white color instead of the blueish green that it was when you got here but you probably noticed that as you walk through but that's that's about it nothing too extreme and then from there as you
00:32:12
Speaker
You can get back in that wall. That hole is about 10 feet up that you can, you have to climb up into and crawl, start crawling out. Wasn't there a ladder? Oh, there was a ladder. You're right. There was a ladder there. Uh, so yeah, you're able to, to climb up and what order are you guys going in to go out through this muddy, slippery, smelly tunnel? I'd probably reckon I'm going to go last.
00:32:35
Speaker
I'd probably go second. I'll go first. Okay. Whatever, whatever's left at that point. Yeah, Devin's fine. Who's going first? I will go first. Okay. So Devin, you crawl up the ladder followed by your friends and you start to crawl through and it is a mucky and muddy and dirty. And as you kind of elbow through it slowly opens up to be a little bit easier to kind of finally go up on your hands and knees and not have to scoot on your belly.
00:33:02
Speaker
And until you're able to kind of crouch through and kind of squeeze out of the hole that you came into, into now this cave with a large opening that you can see out of looking forward into the woods. You can now see as you stand out here surrounded by a few of these bodies that were, that are still there from before. You can now see that it is either twilight or dawn.
00:33:28
Speaker
You're not sure which, and you actually make it a survival check as you look outside. Okay, I can do that. All of you can, as you kind of one by one file out of this tunnel. Is Twilight breaking dawn outside? Oh, yeah, it is. We lined up alphabetical order, by the way. I thought that was kind of funny. Oh, that is fine. I didn't notice that.
Engagement and Social Media
00:33:56
Speaker
Hello, friends. Man, I'm so thankful you guys listen to our podcast. It's so cool to see that you guys are enjoying what we do here because we sure do have a good time. But if you have not decided yet or haven't found us on Twitter or Facebook, I just want to invite you to do that at the Hired Swords. We do things like giveaways, stuff like that. You could ask Oliver the Kid on Twitter. He won our most recent giveaway. He won some super cool dice and a dice vault and some stuff like that.
00:34:25
Speaker
So we do stuff like that on there plus just chat have fun and and you can talk to the people who Like our show and like other kinds of Dungeons and Dragons and TTRPG Things you also if you want to talk with just those that enjoy our show especially you can follow the pinned tweet on Twitter and
00:34:43
Speaker
And that's going to lead you to our discord server where you can join us for all kinds of different conversations. We talk about tubes. We talk about pets. We talk about sports kind of. We talk about all kinds of role-playing game things. So yeah, I recommend you check that out as well. You'll love it. It's pretty interesting. Also, I just want to tell you briefly about the
00:35:05
Speaker
software we use to record our podcast is called Zencaster. And Zencaster is really awesome. It's been really useful for us and really helpful. What it does is it records professional quality audio and video right into your browser and allows the host to download those files once you finish recording them so that they can edit them together. It records it all in one place.
00:35:27
Speaker
and doesn't require recording over the internet therefore taking away any kind of noticeable lag or latency and stuff like that it works really well for us we've used it for a while you can just sign up at zen.ai slash the hired swords that's zen zen.ai slash the hired swords you get a 14 day free trial of a pro account then if you decide to sign up after that you
00:35:53
Speaker
We'll help our podcast out a little bit and get 30% off. So thank you so much for listening. Again, go check out that Zencaster link. That's zen.ai slash the hired swords and follow us on all of the places. Enjoy the rest of the show. Bye.
Podcast Recommendation: Planet Arcana
00:36:12
Speaker
4,000 years after a calamity known as the Big Oops. Planet Arcana's story unfolds. A world of humans and androids. Neon metropolises sunken cities. Phenomenal parties. Paranormal oddities in the pantheon of Major Arcana.
00:36:29
Speaker
Featuring revolutionary science, spectacular magic, catastrophic world events, intimate personal affairs, madness, hedonism, corruption, identity, mystery, history, reunion, rejuvenation, rebirth, a world of intrigue.
00:36:44
Speaker
and crime. A world where no answer is ever straightforward. What really happened at Risco Tech Casino? Who's been stealing Android organs and why? When will my past catch up with me? Planet Arcana. An audio fiction built through a D&D 5e framework. Homeward by 2DMs and overflowing with original music, retro-futuristic vibes, and three fools on a simple quest to find a key and open a box.
00:37:13
Speaker
I got a nineteen. Not good. Five plus something. No survival. I'm I'm not rolling because I'm focused on making sure that nothing is following. It's out of here. I have nineteen plus nine. Holy crap. OK, you win.
00:37:30
Speaker
I would. 28. So yeah, that's real good. So Quinn, as soon as you look out, you get up, crawl out and you look up, you say, you realize the sun is just now starting to come up. In fact, you know what time it is. It is early morning. It is about an hour till you would normally wake up. Guys, it's 5.41 a.m. outside. That's right. That's right. Sun is overcast. It's going to be an easy commute on the way. There's a small accident on 6th.
00:37:59
Speaker
of snooze for nine more minutes. If my eyes aren't deceiving me, I think it's morning time. All right, so we've got the day ahead of us. Luckily, that means we slept all night or didn't, I guess, but similarly. We all had our own versions of sleep, I suppose.
00:38:19
Speaker
Yeah. Which way would be north? Does someone have a map? I think it's that way because the sun was setting over here before. So yeah, it would be this way in Devon Point South. I may know it's morning, but I have no idea what side the sun comes up in this world. I did find that map below. Let me lay it out and see if that helps us, I guess.
00:38:45
Speaker
What do you have, a map? Where did that come from?
Map Discussion and Direction Planning
00:38:48
Speaker
From that route? Oh, didn't you hear me think the conversation with Krigs? There was a lot of words going on in a lot of people's heads at that time. That's fair. I get it. Yeah, there were two maps that I found. One just great at Glentery as a whole, and then one that actually involved Lonely Hills and basically where we understood where we were at, at least I think
00:39:27
Speaker
He still drunk from his rave last night. So he lays out this map and you see your, where you are at is nearly the, the most Northern part of this map. And above that is just open space for a little ways. And then a river, a large river, uh, it looks like in comparison to where, to what is marked as lonely Hill. You can see wild Hill in the farther South. So you kind of know, have you been heading North?
00:39:41
Speaker
I like the fact that you're describing it instead of just showing it to us.
00:39:55
Speaker
Down here to the north or to the southwest is Wild Hill. And you're at Lonely Hill, which is northeast of there. So if your goal is to head north, then you can see kind of from where you are, we need to go this way from here pretty easily with the help of that map. Was it the direction Daven pointed or was he completely wrong?
00:40:28
Speaker
I mean, I'm really... This is Lonely Hill right here, right? And I don't think so. Are you good at maps? Is that a thing that you have? I have lots of skills, all right? I don't need maps. I'm just asking, are you good at maps? No. Would you mind? Let me take a look at that.
00:40:35
Speaker
a survival check.
00:40:57
Speaker
It's right here. So I mean, I flip it up, check it, flip it over. It might be upside down. I don't know. No, I look at the map and just decide that, yeah, this is correct. We need to be headed north again. Yep. So yeah, you need to go straight out the cave and turn left to head or to turn right to head north as the entrance is on the western side of this cave.
00:41:27
Speaker
You know, it was confusing me because if you turn them upside down, then the words are upside down. I was, I was confused. I thought it was written in some language. You didn't understand that. I understand. Yes. Or does it have words on it? Uh, yeah. I mean, it's, it's written in Elvish.
00:41:45
Speaker
So where, where, where it says wild Hill and lonely Hill and, and all that it's, and it does say black river on the river. That's about the, oh, I'm sorry. Do you not read, um, I, it's just, I couldn't tell which way it went. That's that I'm, I'm sorry that I forgot that. Yes. Um, during, we, we sold, we sold a lot of wine to various groups and I had to lose them at least in the bare minimum of, uh, uh, some languages. So yes, this is.
00:42:14
Speaker
So you know Elvish, whatever the religious do you know? Oh, a little too many. So I definitely understand Dwarvish. Elvish, I dabbled in- I can speak gob Latin. No mission halfling, and it's really weird symbols for Draconic, but there's something in there that I can at least get the basics. N.K.U.Y.E. X.P.A.B.G.A. Adnal?
00:42:43
Speaker
Maybe you can help me with something. And Daven's going to start speaking a language and it's very beautiful, very well spoken. And he's just going to say a couple of sentences and he says, do I have any idea what I just said? Do I? Do I? What languages do you speak? So it's Draconic, Dwarvish, Eldish, No Mission, Halfling. Nope.
00:43:07
Speaker
Sylvan, Celestial, and Elvish, and Halfling, and Durek. Yes, it was Celestial. What did he say? He just said, I'm talking in a different language. I don't know what I'm saying. Could you help me?
Daven's Celestial Discovery
00:43:21
Speaker
I speak back to him in the same language. Maybe. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'll first respond like, um, that's, uh, that's, that's, we've never so wine to any, I don't get, Oh God, Gwen, that's the same one. What is it? What are you speaking? Look at jokes, sir. Can you not understand what I'm saying? He's obviously speaking. And then I say celestial.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah. And I'll, uh, I'll look over and I clearly don't understand what you're saying. And celestial say to Gwen, well, I guess it's just you and me who, who speak this language. Oh, that's pretty neat. Did Adele, can you hear him too? She's still talking in celestial. What did you say it was? It's called celestial. Is that the language of other gods or something?
00:44:16
Speaker
Yeah, I'm surprised you never really learned it. Are they still talking in celestial? Yeah. I mean, I learned it from somewhere, but I don't know where. I'm just writing notes for like certain things that like, okay, well, maybe no, that doesn't... No, I can't quite make out anything.
00:44:35
Speaker
I'm just, I'm standing there filing away at this ring still trying to perfect like the sheen on it. Like I have, I have it pretty good, but I have nothing else to do because I can't understand a single thing they're saying. Nice. Gwyndolin keeps speaking to Daven. Gwyndolin's still talking to Daven and just goes, I learned it in Druid kindergarten, dude. I'm surprised you never... Interesting. We got to pick a language and this is one of the ones that I picked. I'm glad it became useful.
00:45:05
Speaker
Yeah, I wasn't expecting it at all. I'd never learned any languages except for Common, and now all of a sudden I can speak this and I don't. It just happened about a couple of months ago. Well, before I met you guys. Oh. Well, that's neat. Yeah. I wonder what other languages I'll pick up along the way.
00:45:21
Speaker
Still filing away. Well, no, no, no, that's fine. Do you know if whoever normally speaks the language that you're speaking enjoys brew? Have you ever met any? Is this other than each other? Is this a thing?
00:45:42
Speaker
I I only know it because I picked it in when I was going to did a drilled school and In kindergarten you got to pick it and then the next grade you got to learn it and I'll be honest I've never heard it before in my life. I've heard the name of it before celestial
00:45:59
Speaker
Well, celestial. Oh, wait, do I have any like any back backing of celestial with, you know, dealing with helm and the gods and different things like that? Do I have any idea? Make a magnitude of this religion check.
00:46:17
Speaker
What you think is a paladin would be pretty high, but it's actually not that great. Um, I know I rolled a five with a zero religion because I am super about, you know, we knew we already knew that. Um, yeah, you are unclear. You don't, you don't, the language sounds like stuff you've heard. Like maybe you've heard some songs sung in this language, that sort of thing, but you never paid attention. I do recognize some of what you said, but not,
00:46:46
Speaker
specific words, just the cadence and flow of the way that you were talking did seem similar to things I've heard from, well, Helm and those that, you know, would either worship or at least follow him as SLSU. Alright, that doesn't help me at all. I don't follow Helm. Nope. That's cool. Cool. You can talk that. That's interesting. When did you learn that? I didn't. I just know it for some reason. That makes no sense.
00:47:16
Speaker
I thought it was maybe something the same way like the magic. You know, sometimes I can just figure it out and just do it. I thought maybe the same thing with the language, but I never actually heard it speaking before spoken before. I don't know common either. So I'm really confused. That's why I was hoping maybe I could get some help from you guys.
00:47:34
Speaker
Well, I've heard it and I've known those that speak it. I never was too devout in my younger years, but my mother, she was fluent. She would speak with Helm pretty regularly, being one of the officers in his armies.
Celestial Brews and Humor
00:47:51
Speaker
I don't think we can ask her for help or guidance on that, but it's not too uncommon for speakers.
00:48:00
Speaker
in the lands to, to have it. So I, I guess it's not too bad to have. Well, I'm guessing they're not wine drinkers because Joxer doesn't know it. At least they've never come down and bought any, but there might be a market. Angelic brews. Oh, Angelic ales. Is that immortal ales? I like it. I had a new branding going on.
00:48:24
Speaker
I mean, that's all, that's all we're doing. This is just for branding. Oh my God. Okay. Well, we have North decided and have discovered that Davin can apparently pick up languages through osmosis. Um, shall we continue forward? Yes. Is that like the matrix? I don't. Matrix. Matrix? Are we making more drinks? The main drinks?
00:48:50
Speaker
Oh my God. We're going in circles here. Let's go north. We're walking north. I just assume we were walking while we were having a conversation. You begin walking northward and the sun is rising now full daytime.
Journey and Survival Skills
00:49:06
Speaker
You walk for a good probably hour, hour and a half and
00:49:13
Speaker
start to feel like you're kind of getting surrounded by the woods. There's no trail. There's no anything to kind of keep your level kind of where you are. So anybody who would like to make a survival check to see if you actually can continue heading north at all in this thick, thick forest north of Lonely Hill. What I'm gonna do is like that. I think I've proven that I can't figure out directions, not natural one.
00:49:42
Speaker
Mine's an 11 total. I got an 18 plus one, so 19. I imagine I've drank too much right now. It's not going to be a thing. Okay, so Blaze, you're not seeing any signs that the direction you're headed is for sure north.
00:50:05
Speaker
know where, where I'm going. But what's happening is you are pretty confident that you have not, in fact, you're a hundred percent confident. You have not deviated from the route you were taking and you, you feel like you're, you're heading in the right direction, even without any well clear signs. So
00:50:30
Speaker
Oh, this is definitely further than I've ever been. There's no path or trail here, but we're definitely going north. I presume we should continue. Let me put a couple of marks on these trees to make sure we don't turn backwards. So I'm going to like maybe tie some kind of fabric around a couple of trees just to kind of make sure that we don't just turn 180s.
00:50:56
Speaker
Splendid idea. Put the knot, if you would, on the left side of the tree to know that that's facing west. Oh, that's that's splendid. Let me let me let me do that. Why doesn't west that sway? You know, I'm going to stop happy. Make a make a check to see if you know left and right. No, I'm just kidding. I mean, if we know. So you begin, you continue walking and you you do tie off some some of these to make sure that you're kind of marking where you are.
00:51:26
Speaker
you don't get turned around you indeed continue heading north crisis experience in this and ability. To just stay the course and stay confident has gotten through a lot of trouble in the past and got him where i needed to go so many times you follow him confidently and you're fine you go through lunchtime and the time comes to kinda decide on how you're gonna handle that so what are you gonna do during that time you gonna stop are you gonna continue. Takers anyone will make that decision.
00:51:54
Speaker
I'm fine with just conjuring some food and eating on the walk. It tastes like booty anyway, so might as well. Yeah, that's fine. I'll do that. Let's just keep moving and use that wand. We'll just move. Sure. Give me just one minute then and I'll cast Conjure Food. Okay. What do you conjure?
00:52:16
Speaker
Fried chicken. It's easy to carry. Nice. And corn dogs. All drumsticks. Yeah, all drumsticks. That's exactly it. Oh, God, that sounds like... Oops, all drumsticks. Don't worry, Gwen. I was about to say that, man. You do it. Oops, all drumsticks. Don't worry, Gwen. It's not real chicken. It's not real meat. It's just fake. Trust me. It just looks like... I've had these corn dogs before. It's not real meat.
00:52:38
Speaker
Tofu. I can use Prestidigitation with you. Any flavors that you guys are wanting? Can you make this taste like a bark? I didn't try the bark, so I can't do a lot.
00:52:55
Speaker
or berries if you didn't try the bark. I do. I do know what berries taste like. You almost had me eat bark and that would have been interesting. Yes, berries. So I'll try it.
00:53:15
Speaker
That was berries. Maybe next time. While they're discussing how they're changing the flavors, I'm going over to that big cask of water that also gets spawned. It's an actual tar bucket thing that comes with it, doesn't it?
00:53:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a little basket, tar basket. Since they all have their water skins, and I'm assuming they have them in drinking form, I'm just going to straight up like pick it up and try my best to chug as much of it as I can since I don't have my cask. Got it. All right, so you guys are standing around, sitting around, just kind of chilling out. You're eating your berry flavored fried chicken and your
00:53:58
Speaker
You drink in your water straight from the tar basket. And as you do, you're just kind of chilling out. Like you're heading north. That's all you know is you're heading north. You're heading through a thick forest. And as you do, you do not see this, but in the distance, a mere hours walk away from you.
Approaching Dark Mist Danger
00:54:23
Speaker
That is where this creeping,
00:54:27
Speaker
dark mist begins. And so you sit eating, laughing, joking about not having tasted bark and, Oh, I've tasted berries laughing at Krigs as he gets as much water on his clothes as he does in his mouth. And just, just a short distance away, there is your destination. It seems this might be the last lighthearted break along the trail.
00:54:56
Speaker
that the hired swords would see for a while. You don't know that yet, but it's looming just a little ways walk away from you. And that's where we're gonna leave this episode.
00:55:06
Speaker
Well, now I don't want to play. OK, let's start over. Let's just unhappy. Yeah, no, that's that's a reset moment, right? We get to restart. Maybe we made a bad choice. Oh, we've made lots of bad choices. And take a do over. Can we go back to season one, episode 39, please? Thanks.
00:55:57
Speaker
The End
00:56:09
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episodic installment of The Hired Swords. If you liked our adventure, tell a friend about us, and if you really liked our adventure, do us a favor and tell the world. Leave a review. If you want to keep up with us on all the behind the scenes goofs and gaffs, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TheHiredSords. If you want to get in on the conversation, you can join our Discord, just look for our pinned tweet for an invite,
00:56:34
Speaker
and why don't you check out our merch store at the higher.store while you're at it. Again, thank you for listening.