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Ep. 17 Bloody Walls And Empty Halls
163 Plays4 years ago
The Swords arrive at the Fortress of Delmar's last known location. Things appear quite grim as the scene unfolds before them. Is he still alive? Can he still be alive? We must find answers.
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Transcript
Arrival at Stone Mountain
00:00:13
Speaker
previously on the hired swords. While narrowly avoiding the many threats of Stone Mountain, the hired swords placed their faith in Krigs and his years in the armies of Helm to guide them to the doors of Delmar's last known location. Their faith was rewarded
00:00:34
Speaker
But any joy found from finally reaching their destination was quickly stifled by the remnants of blood and gore from whatever events took place here. Is Delmar alive? If so, where could he have gone?
Entering the Gatehouse
00:01:18
Speaker
You're listening to the hired words. Wait, swords? Oh god, that's embarrassing.
00:01:39
Speaker
So when we left off, you guys had approached this gatehouse, this big giant 25 feet tall walls, even taller towers on either side, almost built into the side of the mountain walls. And you had approached the doorway.
00:01:55
Speaker
which is hanging open giant doors hanging open with blood in the entryway there through the door that you can see as you approach. What would you guys like to do? Welcome to this mountain fort. This looks scary. Let's turn around.
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want to go in. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll see you... That was a good podcast. That was a good podcast, everybody. Good episode. You ready for our next show? The Fired Swords. Don't think you're getting away that easy. Oh my gosh. How fresh is this blood? Can I tell? Make a investigation check. Sure.
00:02:41
Speaker
Oh, I'm not going to be able to do it. You rolled a two with zero investigation. Can I can I assist him to give him advantage, you know, since we're all looking at the blood together so you can roll. Yes. That's an eight.
00:03:01
Speaker
Anyone else want to help it's dried you can tell it's dried blood Okay, that's all I mean. It's not like it's a three the blood is dried guys. I think oh gosh Okay, you said the walls around here 25 feet ish in the big yeah the the walls of the walls by
Fortress Defense Strategy
00:03:21
Speaker
the gate here. Yes, I
00:03:22
Speaker
how big uh so if i look at the door like does it look like the lock well i i assume the locking mechanism on the other side how big are the doors they're about 10 feet tall in the middle okay the doors are closed well they're open they're hanging open yeah krigs it uh looks like someone beat us i suppose we either leave or continue forward but maybe stealthily uh go for it
00:03:50
Speaker
So does so I think Gwendolyn will probably be a little bit in shock She'd probably been down because the you said the blood is dried Yes, would she know how long? Make an investigation check or a medicine check whichever you would like and then I also want to Check to see if there's any wildlife
00:04:16
Speaker
So for medicine, you said 12 plus 4, 16?
00:04:22
Speaker
Okay, you, this blood has almost become one with the stone here. It was spilled long, a long time ago. It's very faded and dried. You can't, like, you kind of put your finger down in there and there's, it doesn't rub off on your finger or anything. It's been there a long time. Did you want to roll a nature check to see if you found any? Yes. Since any animals are hidden?
00:04:48
Speaker
Rhettrow. Uh, 4 plus 5? 9? Okay, you don't see or hear anything nearby. No. Well, they, um, I remember it was Francine told us that her father had missing like somewhere around 10 years ago. So I imagine whatever happened and why they stopped hearing from them here, something must have attacked them. So I imagine that blood is from from very long ago.
00:05:13
Speaker
As soon as she hears that, Gwyndolin looks straight into Daven's eyes and says, I think it might be the creature. That's something I didn't think about. What's beyond? Because you said the gates are open, right? And there's like a guard tower on either side, and the guard tower has the blood on it, correct?
00:05:37
Speaker
Yes, the stone floor of this guard tower has blood all over it as you look beyond the As you look beyond the gate you see another two big doors on the other side of this this kind of entryway through the gate house It's it's only about 15 feet from from the the front gate to the back gate of this house here or this entryway and that gate is also the doors are in busted inward not busted they're open inward and
00:06:07
Speaker
You can see beyond there, sunlight shining on a more stone floor that spreads out in front of that, or it spreads out beyond that doorway. So you're looking almost through this tunnel of a room that is this gatehouse.
00:06:26
Speaker
And there's nothing that's beyond it. There is just more stone floor. And just looking through the door, you can see beyond it another gatehouse looking area beyond it on the backside of the stone floor.
00:06:41
Speaker
But the sun is shining on this stone floor beyond this doorway. Krigs, I will say, you know of this type of building, this type of gatehouse. It's called a bottleneck. And it's a common method in dwarf military, like fort building, where they would build basically two gatehouses with a stone floor open area in the middle.
00:07:09
Speaker
where they could basically bottleneck any attacking enemies into and then fire arrows from the second gatehouse to them if they made it through the first. So this is one of those bottleneck type of strategic placements into the, and it's a double gatehouse almost, into the fort proper that will be beyond that second gatehouse.
Exploration and Discovery
00:07:30
Speaker
Krigs, you're very familiar with this style of entryway.
00:07:35
Speaker
So at this point, Joxer is going to just like start checking the inside of the door for any traps and then probably try to stealth in as everybody's. Okay. Why don't you make an investigation check checking for traps?
00:07:49
Speaker
That is a 19 plus something. That's what I like to see. That's going to be followed by one. I'm sure. Uh, 18. So it's a negative. It's 19 minus one. Well, you, you don't find anything trap light. There's nothing trap like there at all. Devin would like to go to one of the guard towers and go inside and investigate.
00:08:12
Speaker
Okay, so you go in this first guard tower and there are there are stairway on either side that as you walk in and you look over you can kind of look up towards and you can see it steps up to a wooden hatch in the ceiling that
00:08:32
Speaker
is quite a ways up and you just kind of from the what you've seen from the outside and not being inside you would imagine this opens to get up onto the walls themselves above this guard tower to get into the top of the guard tower or not the guard tower the gate house as well as the walls of this front gate.
00:08:53
Speaker
and there's two of those sets of stairs, one on either side of the room. I'll go ahead and head up one and set the stairs to the second level, or yeah, I'd assume it's the second level, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You go up to the second level and you can push up the door.
00:09:10
Speaker
There it's pretty easy to push up and as you push that up you can see another stairway heading up another probably eight or nine feet to another door that is open it's actually.
00:09:28
Speaker
It's actually not there. It's open air there, but it looks like there should have been a door there, but it's not. You can see the little bit of the sunlight that's left shining in that space up there, that hole. This level I'm on doesn't have anything in it. No, it's literally just like a landing to go up the stairs to the top of the gatehouse where the stuff would be. I'll continue going up then.
00:09:55
Speaker
Okay, you continue walking up and as you walk up, you come up through that kind of port hole in the top of the floor there. You step up onto the wall where the wall continues from the guard tower all the way at the far west of this wall and it's almost a continuous wall
00:10:18
Speaker
or pathway straight across from one cliff side all the way to the other where those two towers are. It goes right across the top of this roof, right under the roof, but right across the front of this gatehouse building where the roof comes up over you, even though there's this opening to looking over the mountain pass where you approached. Behind you as you come up is
00:10:48
Speaker
the stone wall of this gate house, and you're standing on a balcony deck kind of thing where you can come out and you would imagine the guards and archers, that sort of thing would have been up there in any kind of attack. That's what that space is for. Okay, but there's nothing up here otherwise?
00:11:06
Speaker
No, it's empty. There's bloodstains and stuff up here, but nothing – and they look just like the bloodstains down at the bottom. There's no people or anything around up here. Can I see – I'm assuming I can look out. Can I see anything else beyond a better view of the area from up here?
00:11:23
Speaker
From looking out towards the path. No, it's just that mountain pass and you can see the a good view actually of the Large mountain pass that you left in order to approach the tower It's it's a very nice view of that to give you a good, you know Basically, you could see if someone was coming a good 20 minutes before they get there
00:11:44
Speaker
Okay, I'll head back down. Okay. Are you going to go out to the wall and try to look into the fort direction? Oh yeah, that's kind of what I intended. Yeah, so you go around the wall, because behind you was the wall where you couldn't see much. So you can come out around the wall, you look beyond there, and you can see that the
00:12:03
Speaker
that open space there where you saw the stone floor with a little bit of sunshine left shining on it. There are there's blood stains all over and there are two dead bodies laying out there in that stone area. It's hard to tell much about them from this distance. And then there are
00:12:22
Speaker
there are walls surrounding this there's stone walls about eight feet high surrounding this whole that whole like courtyard almost area that leads to that other final gatehouse in the back of that section. So okay, now I'll head back down to the rest of the group. I'll say, well, there's the up there. But out in this area, going forward, there's it looks like a couple of bodies. Some people had passed away. I can't tell
00:12:48
Speaker
how long ago, if they're skeletons or if they're human. Um, but we should probably be cautious. Did, did, did Gwendolyn is scared. Did you happen to see any marks kind of like claws, claw marks paw prints. I saw plenty of blood everywhere, but I didn't see much else.
00:13:14
Speaker
I think Gwendolyn is going to try to rack her brain through all the books she's read and through all the myths she's heard. Obviously, we've done this check before, but she is just racking her brain because she is very on edge. Okay. Make a history check.
00:13:39
Speaker
Oh, man. Tonight is not my night. Five plus two, seven. Okay. Right now, it's really hard to tell much of anything based on what you've seen. You haven't seen enough really to put a finger on what has happened, but you do have that uneasy feeling. You're on edge. I don't know. We came here for a reason. I say we move forward and see if we can find anything else.
Into the Fort
00:14:10
Speaker
I agree. We should probably definitely be cautious and try to be as sneaky as possible. But we have one path unless we want to try to jump or scale down a wall that you've already seen. Would that make any more sense? I suppose one of us could go up there and just keep an eye out in case something tries to sneak up on the rest of us. But other than that, I think it's just like you said, be quiet because careful.
00:14:34
Speaker
Craig's hasn't spoken hasn't really done a whole lot except doing his own investigations in this area not seemingly not paying attention to the conversation now between
00:14:48
Speaker
Devin and Joxer, he's just going to push forward. His demeanor is definitely changed coming in here. Okay. You push forward into that courtyard area? Is that where you're headed? As I see that, I'll just do a quick
00:15:08
Speaker
Devin, you would be the best to be up top if there's enough room to see, but otherwise, we should probably stick together. What that is about is the distance from where I was standing on that wall to the far end of the other gate. What's the distance from where you were standing? Sorry, I'm trying to- To the other gate, to the gate we haven't reached yet.
00:15:31
Speaker
Uh, oh, that is, that's a good 50 foot, uh, 50 foot span between the front gate house and the second gate house. Okay. I'll go back up there and I'll kind of keep a watch from up there as the rest going. Okay. Um, I'll follow, uh, I'll follow Krigs. I push forward. Um, I'd like to do a stealth check though, but behind him. Okay.
00:15:58
Speaker
Uh, yeah, if you'd like to do that, do whoever was wanting to do stealth, go ahead. If you're wanting to be a sneaky Gus, a fantastic 10, I think Gwen Lynn looks around and she knows that they push forward. So then she's, she stumbles and then she starts to follow and she rolls a seven plus two nine. My God.
00:16:25
Speaker
Well done, everyone. Well done. Well, as you go ahead, Kriegs isn't overly trying to be stealthy. He's very comfortable in these buildings. Yeah. OK. Well, as you as you walk out in that courtyard, you you are seeing two there are two bodies laying there. They are just from the look of them already. You can see that like they've been
00:16:52
Speaker
Most of the flesh has been picked off their bones. There's they're they've been there. The sun scorched very, very old. They've been there a very long time. And you see arrows sticking out of their backs, both of them. OK, I am going to go up to them basically without hesitation and look for any kind of identification. Sure. They're most of like any armor and that sort of thing is so dilapidated and worn that it's hard to tell.
00:17:22
Speaker
But you can see one of them has a breastplate that is metal, and the symbol of helm is etched into his breastplate. It is a hand with an eye in its palm, and it is etched into his breastplate there.
00:17:43
Speaker
And this space you're in also has that same symbol on the floor. The stones in the center of the floor, they're ornamental and they lay in the shape of the gauntlet, the hand with an eye in the center. And this entryway starts to narrow as it stretches to the second set of gates on the end of this building. And the gates have walls on either side, just like the front. But there are arrow slits in these walls extending across the length of them.
00:18:10
Speaker
as well as you can see oil braziers lining the walkway on top of the walls, extending from posts sticking out of the walls above the gatehouse itself. And this was an obvious bottleneck, like a defensive area here. But these two men seem to have been shot in their back as they were headed out of this space.
00:18:35
Speaker
Um, quick point of interest. They had Helm armor, and this is obviously one of the fortresses of the armies of Helm. Correct. Um, Oh, which way were the back leading? So that was, it looked like they were exiting, right? Yes. It looked like they were headed out. They were trying to leave because they were trying to leave for it. Oh, you see anything, Craig?
00:19:00
Speaker
I can only assume these men were stationed here, but there's no telling how long ago that was. The war's been over for a very long time. Well, long enough, I'd assume that they probably likely weren't stationed here any longer. When were you last here? I've never been to this fort specifically. I'm very curious as to why
00:19:27
Speaker
They were shot in the back from within the fortress. I'm going to look up at, uh, Devin and just kind of try to motion him down at this point. Cause there's no, okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to roll and see if Devin figures out what the heck he's trying to say for nope. He has no idea what's going on. What's going on? What are you waving? Okay. He'll eventually get it and come down.
00:19:52
Speaker
All right. Are the bodies human or are they dwarf? Did you say? It's hard to tell. They're both human size, not dwarf size, but it's hard to tell if they were elf or human or which of those, but definitely five and a half to six foot tall, each one of them. I don't really like being here in the middle of all this. I think we should at least move forward, get out of this bottleneck area.
00:20:22
Speaker
I agree. I'm going to look around really quick just to notice if anything else is off in the courtyard. Based on the map you've presented us, it does look relatively empty, but is there anything else amiss from what I would expect to see in a fortress of Helm or in these Dwarven Fortresses?
00:20:43
Speaker
In this just in this main courtyard like bottleneck areas what I can what I can see within the bottleneck And it's all bloody and whatnot, but is there? anything overly amiss
00:20:55
Speaker
The only thing is you were right to feel weird about these men being shot by arrows in the back in this way. It's strange. But no, beyond that, there's nothing super strange about this. The design of it the way it is is very normal, but the bodies, that's just weird. This is where these men were supposed to be. If they had been shot defending it, you felt like it would have looked differently than this.
00:21:24
Speaker
Right, and the dilapidation and sun and everything, they've been here probably like months, I'm assuming, at least. Make a medicine check. Oh, that's gonna be real good. As predicted, that is a seven.
00:21:46
Speaker
You lean down to kind of inspect and your hand goes like through the back, the rib cage through the back of one of these and you, oh, well, uh, as you were trying to inspect it and it's, uh, you don't really, you can't really tell much other than these things have been here a very long time.
00:22:05
Speaker
Gwyndolin cringes when he does land. She's like, oh. When Joxer sees that, he's like, well, let's check out this door and then going to look at the door. Is the next door open? Yeah, it's standing open, too. And then we can see through it. As he's headed that direction. Yeah, go on. And we can see through it. You can continue.
00:22:29
Speaker
No, it's not it's not standing wide open. It's just kind of cracked open and you can see that the the one of the hinges is kind of buckled down where it'll it'll swing open a little more. It'll swing open a little easier. But yeah, it's for its size, it looks like but it's just kind of hanging there. Not not fully open where you can just like see through and see everything beyond it. Craig, what were you gonna say? As jocks just kind of approaching the head of the direction towards that door, I'm simply just gonna say that
00:23:00
Speaker
If anyone is going to take point in these fortresses, it is going to be me. I ask one thing, keep an eye out. These bodies have been here for some time. The manner in which they were killed, shot from the back on the way out, it doesn't take a tactical genius to understand that they were
00:23:21
Speaker
ambushed in some manner. I don't see any signs of life. It's been too long, I assume, for anything to still remain, but still remain vigilant in listening and seeing if you can either identify anything out of the ordinary, but I think we should proceed. Me being the most familiar, I will run point if that is acceptable. No argument for me, and Davenall casts mage armor on himself.
00:23:50
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Joxeter just looked back and by all means, I just wanted to make sure there was nothing or I just wanted to look at the door and make sure there wasn't anything visible. Gwendolyn shakes her head. Yes. Uh, I'm going to withdraw my shield from my back and just hold it kind of out in preparation just for whatever awaits us shield first. Okay. And I approached the door going forward.
00:24:16
Speaker
All right, so as you approach the door, the door is standing where it could easily be opened. It's just hanging off the hinge and just kind of dangling there, but whether it's the wind or whatever, it's just kind of mostly closed at this point.
00:24:38
Speaker
So as you grab and you start to pull, you see this second gatehouse. These doors are a little smaller and the entryway is built to only allow three or so people in at a time. The doorway opens beyond there. There's a doorway beyond that. There's not more gates or doors. And you see a valley floor and you can see the tops of the stone mountains on every side as this is just kind of like this valley set into this upper section of mountains.
00:25:07
Speaker
And you do see six buildings and two defensive towers just kind of pocking this stone landscape ahead of you through this doorway. They all look intact, but they look very windblown and unkempt, but they're not too worse for wear. The buildings, all these buildings have red roofs and they're a bright contrast to the mostly gray surroundings of these stone mountains.
00:25:29
Speaker
the walls the stone buildings in the cloud sky cloudy sky there's a bit of dirt path that marks most of the travel pathways from building to building and the ways the little ways beyond you can see what looks like a fenced in little training yard with a dirt floor
00:25:46
Speaker
There's a few training dummies, a couple archery targets with bales of hay piled behind them scattered throughout the ford or piles of stone with pickaxes, carts nearby, and there seems to have been a quarry or mine set up somewhere near this area, but you don't see any entrance to anything like that here. So you're now looking into the fort proper itself. I suppose we're just going to take some time and look through these buildings to see what we find, right? That would be ideal.
00:26:14
Speaker
So you see those six buildings and a couple more watch towers and piles of stone here and there. From just exiting into the fortress proper area here, any signs of life anywhere? Lit torches, anything on walls, any smoke from any of these stacks or chimneys? I mean, there's multiple buildings. Can we notice any signs of life in here?
00:26:40
Speaker
you can look around and see that it doesn't look like there have been signs of life out here in quite a while. Like I mentioned, the buildings all look very unkempt. Nothing's falling apart. I mean, this is dwarven construction. Everything's going to last a long time, but it's... Yeah, it is. Yeah, but you see doors left open, you see windows
00:27:05
Speaker
full open. You do see the carts and pickaxes just here and there strewn about. You can see splatters of blood on some of the walls here and there. It's very obvious that whatever happened here happened long ago and there's nobody out here that has been at least going from building to building outside here. It doesn't seem. Nothing seems to be kept up.
00:27:37
Speaker
Well, Krigs, if you're taking point, lead us. All right. I'm going to look around in the courtyard. I am familiar with these buildings. I would like to probably see if... Yeah, looking for either the main barracks or any kind of administration which would have... Like a concierge desk or... Yeah, you know.
00:28:04
Speaker
Well, you can very easily tell from your understanding of how these things are typically laid out and what the buildings usually look like. You can see the building to your far left, just in front of...
00:28:21
Speaker
nestled up to this mountainside right in front of this watchtower. That looks like what you would expect to be the officers' quarters. The building directly in front of you that's closest to where you are now is the captain's quarters, so like the head main captain's quarters.
00:28:40
Speaker
The officers' quarters would be noncommissioned officers, people that serve under the captain. They all stay there, but the captain, he stays in his own separate quarters with offices and things like that. Then you can tell which one's the armory, which two buildings. You see two buildings that you think are barracks based on their size and shape.
00:29:06
Speaker
The you know the the back building that's nestled up against the you know The that's kind of the you see this building in the back that is kind of the largest of all of them And it it's it looks like the keep the Alamo kind of place And then so yeah, you can tell what's what so which one are you interested in checking out first?
00:29:25
Speaker
I'm going to approach the captain's quarters first off. Cool. You go into the captain's quarters and as you approach it, the front door is there. It's a stone door with iron hinges that is standing partially open. It opens inward and it's standing partially open. Do you just want to walk in or?
00:29:52
Speaker
open the door cautiously, but I'm going to sweep as I kind of breach the room. Okay. You start to slowly open that door and it opens into a hallway, and this hallway is about 10 feet long.
00:30:10
Speaker
stone walls, stone floor, the same stone is outside, very gray and dull looking. You smell this like musty smell, like old, old tobacco, dirt, mud almost, it's just old, musty smell. Nothing's happened in here for a while. This hallway, as you walk just for 10 feet or so, you look and it opens to the right hand side where there's a large room
00:30:34
Speaker
with a round table and stools sitting around the table. And you can see maps and charts kind of stretched out across the table here, you know, just kind of scattered about. Not in a messy way. It looks like they're laid out intentionally. They're just not, you know, they were in use the last time they were there, being looked at and used. The walls in this room are decorated with ornate armor and weapons. There's mining equipment decorating the walls. And then there's a door at the end of the hall
00:31:03
Speaker
that is directly ahead of you. You've got an opening to your right, and then you've got a door directly ahead of you, and that's it in this space. I've entered into the hallway and cleared more or less the fact that it's at least safe up to this point. Yes, yeah. I'm going to call in the rest of the party into the room just to get him out of the courtyard. Okay.
00:31:27
Speaker
All right, so you guys can all kind of gather up inside this this room. It's only it's only about about 20 feet in like a square 20 foot square off of this space here, but just enough room for those that table and those those chairs around it with the maps and stuff on the table. Oh, yeah. Jocks are really eager to jump in there. OK, I'm just going to tell them that
00:31:56
Speaker
These are the captain's quarters. This is where the leader of these barracks typically, this fortress typically resides. This is where the planning and everything would happen. Let's try to look around, see if we can identify anything amiss. Be wary. Again, something definitely doesn't feel right or doesn't smell great about this situation, but let's see. This would be probably the best place to identify any kind of
00:32:26
Speaker
occurrences that may have happened just prior to this fall of the fortress.
00:32:34
Speaker
Sounds good. So do you want us to split up? You take the front door and I'll take the right or together? I will take the closed door if you can. I would prefer probably splitting up at this point. I imagine from this position, the building is not overly large. We should be within earshot. Just mind yourself, understand it's old, dilapidated, but dwarven built. I'm sure you'll be fine as long as no one has said anything to snare us.
00:33:05
Speaker
I'll go with you, Krigs. And Gwen, why don't you go
Revelations from the Past
00:33:08
Speaker
at Joxer's? We'll split up a little bit and see if we can cover more ground. Gwen shakes her head, yes. Joxer, I saw you eyeing that table. Why don't you go take a look and see if there's anything important on it. Krigs, why don't we go check out that back door and see where it leads? I'm going to approach that back door. Okay. Joxer, you can make an investigation check if you're looking at that table. Gwen, are you looking? I'll be near him, but I'm going to look around.
00:33:34
Speaker
Okay. What do we make investigation checks? Krigs and Daven, as you approach that door, how do you approach? I'm still going to be obviously in point, but
00:33:49
Speaker
being wary of the whole situation, I would like to kind of, before just cracking the door, do some kind of investigation on it, make sure everything is still sound. Okay, make an investigation check at the door. While he does that, jocks are in. What did you roll? I got a 16 minus one, so 15. Okay, go in.
00:34:10
Speaker
I got a seven. Okay, Gwendolyn, the armor and stuff is pretty neat. It's got all they all have symbols of helm. They seem mundane, normal, but that's it's just pretty interesting. It's pretty cool. And jocks are the maps and things that you're looking at. Most of what you're looking at are charts of
00:34:30
Speaker
It's like mining operation documentation, and there's been mining near here, but it's just documentation of what came in, what's been shipped out, but it's all very old. It's dated 10 years ago and some of it older.
00:34:51
Speaker
maps that you were looking at are just maps of this general area. You can see the fort that you're at marked on the map, and you can see definitely the big mountain pass. Just like Craig said, it comes from the wild. It passes along the south of the mountains, along the side, and then it goes across in a few areas. It separates up to go across further south, and then more in the central part of the mountains, and then this is the northern pass.
00:35:17
Speaker
to go across the mountains as well. And it's just the general area. There's nothing super interesting except a couple of red X's and a couple spots in the mountains near the, near the, where you see the fort marked there. Okay. I'll kind of keep that mind might be worth bringing that map with us. Okay, sure. When we leave. Otherwise, I'll probably head towards the other door whenever. Okay.
00:35:46
Speaker
All right. 17. Yeah. This door is closed. It's latched, closed, not locked, but you are able to, it doesn't seem trapped or anything if you want to just open it.
00:35:59
Speaker
I open it. Okay. When you open this door, you see a medium sized room. It's a little smaller than that other opening, not much smaller, but it's this medium sized room with there's a queen sized about bed with a little nightstand and a chest of drawers. And there's a dress uniform hanging on one of the walls on a hook.
00:36:24
Speaker
hanging from one of the cracks in the stone in the top. There's this hook on a chain and this nice suit is hanging there, but it's been there a long time. Its moths have gotten to it and stuff, and it looks like it was once a very lovely dress uniform, but it's pretty dilapidated at this point. Like I said, you see these drawers on this chest next to the bed and in a separate nightstand.
00:36:55
Speaker
It's very unusual for an officer to leave in what looks to be such a hurry. It's also strange that it was barred from the other side, right? It seems like they're locking something in here. Is there another way out of the building from in here or any other doors? No, there's just the one door in.
00:37:13
Speaker
There's a small window in the back of this room that you could come and go from through if you wanted to. There's nothing in it, no bars or anything, but it's just a window that views the training area in the back. I'm going to go up to the chest. Is it open or closed? It is closed. Is it locked? Can I check?
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah. I'll make an investigate. Well, it is definitely locked. You can tell that without any kind of check. Yeah. This isn't really my specialty. Do you know if anybody can open up locks? Hey, Jock, sir. How are you with locks? Craig just looks at his hammer. About as good as Craig's. It's either my fist or his hammer. Well, the fist sounds painful. Well, I guess we start with the hammer. All right. You're going to try to bust open the lock.
00:38:04
Speaker
is the lock swingable? Like, can I actually hit it? It's hanging from the front of this box, and it's like a little padlock kind of thing, so you could like, not this box, but this chest. It's like a large box. It's about the size of
00:38:23
Speaker
Oh, golly. What would it be about the size of? I don't know. It's a lock. Yeah. The lock you can smack with the hammer pretty easy would be just like kind of swinging carefully to not hit the box itself, but to smack the lock off the front of the front of the box, you can make an attack roll to do so. Actually, in proficient thieves tools, I just don't have any. Oh, nice. Track some of those down.
00:38:46
Speaker
I had to double check to see if I didn't, because I figured I might. I do have my Smith's tools with me, and in those Smith's tools are obviously like tongs and other different things, large, long metal pieces of whatnot. I'm going to take one, not pry the lock, but stick it in such a way that I can give myself a little bit of leeway and strike the smithing tool and pry the lock with it.
00:39:16
Speaker
Okay, I'll let you roll with advantage with that technique. Just an attack roll. Yeah. 19. Yeah, you hammer that and it just busts the link that was locking the box, just kind of flies off and jangles on the ground and the box is now unlocked. Congratulations. After you, lad.
00:39:42
Speaker
Okay, I'll use Mage Hand to lift up the door and stay back about five or six feet. Okay, so you open up the box and inside you see a small notebook, just a book inside there.
00:39:58
Speaker
That's it. Just a book. All right. I'm going to go over and pick up the book. Okay. The book inside the first page, it says captain's log in it. Star gets fast-forward. Yeah. And you see entry after entry.
00:40:14
Speaker
all through this. Some of these entries are 60 years old and you see every now and then the name changes of the captain. You see Captain Brevard, you see Captain this and that, just different names of captains that have filled this thing out and then a new captain takes over.
00:40:38
Speaker
and make an investigation check as you look through this to see if you find anything of use. What's your background?
00:40:46
Speaker
Um, like the actual background I chose for my character, um, uh, criminal spy. Okay. Then just go ahead and make a regular role for investigation, right? So 10 total, not much. Okay. You, the only thing that catches your interest is in the year 1474.
00:41:08
Speaker
You see Reinforced Captain Trakaas. Trakaas, T-R-A-K-A-S. Reinforced Captain Trakaas at Stone Mountain Fort. 20 workmen, 12 enlisted, six officers, three scouts, two commissioned. And that's the entry there. And you know, the only reason that kind of catches your attention is because it is the last time you read of someone replacing a captain. This captain never puts his name in,
00:41:36
Speaker
he it just kind of the the entries end in 1480 so this whoever this was was here for six years and the current year by the way is 1491 so and this entries end in 1480 11 years ago
00:41:58
Speaker
I say, well, it's a captain's log. It's got a lot of information in there that doesn't really mean anything to me. It looks like it hasn't had a changeover in 11 years now. I don't know if that means anything to you. You can take a look at it. Maybe with your military background, you can get a little bit more from it, but I hand it over to Kriegs. Okay. I'm going to shuffle through. Okay. You're going to make an investigation check with Advantage.
00:42:23
Speaker
I'm going to look through the rest of the dressers and stuff while he's just doing that. Okay. You used to write captain's logs, so you know the routine here. Uh, Dirty 20. Okay. Gwendolyn, go ahead. Gwendolyn's going to peek around the corner after she's just been admiring this armor and be like, what did you find?
00:42:44
Speaker
Alright, so here's what he found as you're reading several entries. These are basically you see a lot of entries in this, but the ones that are of entrance interest to you are this captain who reinforced Captain Truccas, which is T R A K A S. He was he's the one who left and a new guy came. And this new guy has made these entrance entries and
00:43:07
Speaker
On 29-1475, and you don't have to write this stuff down, I have it, so if you want to have this detail stuff, I can put it in your notes on the OneNote thing, but on 29-1475, it says, mining operations reestablished. Roster, 20 workmen, 17 enlisted, six officers, three scouts, and two commissioned.
00:43:30
Speaker
A later date, 3-2-1478, first casual TD today. A scouting party brought back one of the enlisted men severely wounded. He died of his wounds. Non-military local tribes seem to be the cause of the attack. We'll send a scout in strength to investigate. Or we'll send a scouting party in strength to investigate. Roster, 20 workmen, 16 enlisted, six officers, three scouts, two commissioned, casualties, one killed.
00:43:57
Speaker
Three, 10, 14, 78. Scouts have returned. Located and destroyed small hill giant hideout. Three giants killed. Roster, 20 workmen, 16 enlisted. The same as the last one, only one has been killed. Combat report requested is the final entry on that date.
00:44:13
Speaker
The next date is 5 to 1478. This is accident report. Cave-in at the tunnel, lost six workmen and one enlisted man, cause of cave-in unknown, will abandon tunnel and work mountainsides. And then it's eight casualties. There have been eight killed. And he lists all the numbers again.
00:44:31
Speaker
8 32 14 80 so we are now six years later from the first entry something has been and there have been other entries in between this he made entries every day i'm just reading you entries of interest right something's been coming from the mountains and taking workmen at night i have sent two scouts and a few enlisted men to investigate
00:44:52
Speaker
12 had been killed at this point, so they've lost four more since two years ago. Now, only several days later in also 1480, the investigation party has not returned, and we have lost even more workmen and enlisted men to the creature.
00:45:09
Speaker
I say creature because I now have collected several reports from survivors of this being's attack. The last survivor spoke of a giant whose body had been mangled and dilapidated somehow. Apparently this creature is flesh eating since a few bodies that were left have been gnawed and partially eaten. Two deserters have been shot. And then 9-21-14-80 is the last entry.
00:45:32
Speaker
And it says the creature has finally been cornered. We were able to lure it into the keep and trap it inside. I'm going in with a group of my best soldiers to try and kill this monster. I have left Lieutenant Theldren in charge. I'm grateful for the sacrifice of our final and best scout. He lured the beast into the keep. I can only assume to his own demise. I recommend Delmore Einhorn for a Medal of Sacrifice service to the armies of Lavrath and the efforts of the armies of Helm.
00:45:57
Speaker
roster three workmen, eight enlisted, one officer, zero scouts, one commissioned, casualties 21 killed, nine missing. And that's the last entry. I learned chills. That was really good. Delmar, that's the guy we're looking for. So he was at least here. We know that much.
00:46:18
Speaker
Do you think he was in the keep? Is this the creature? Gwendolyn is getting very overwhelmed. Okay. Calm down, Gwen. Calm down. We don't know anything really. It's possible it's still in there. It could be dead. They could have killed it, but judging by the rest of the area and the fact that this whole place has been deserted, I imagine it escaped and it killed them. I just, I have a bad feeling.
00:46:49
Speaker
Do any of the names mean anything to me? Besides Dalmar? Make a history check.
00:47:01
Speaker
17. You definitely knew Captain Trakas. You knew him, I mean, not long ago. It hasn't been nine years. And you know he was here. He got out of here before. You didn't know where he was in the mountains, but you knew he was in a fort in the mountains. But he got out of here before all this. This is the guy who replaced him. But you definitely knew Trakas back in your military days.
00:47:28
Speaker
But yeah, nobody else. And you know, Lavrith, that's the main city that is west of Wild Hill. Well, I think we should go to the keep. If we're going to find any information, it's going to be there. Yeah. And Jackson wouldn't have heard any of this. He would have been just trying to go for that other door. Okay. Okay. I'm inclined to agree, Devin. I believe we have our answers as to what happened here, but they're still unresolved. I need to know.
00:47:56
Speaker
for the sake of those here and for the sake of Francine, I need to know what happened to Delmar. I agree with you. Yes. Dr. He's like just opening the other door. What? What? Are you with us, lad? I'm investigating the rest of the... This is what we were talking about. What happened?
00:48:21
Speaker
I fill them in. Okay. Cool. The whole thing. Okay. So you said Delmar Delmar was here and potentially lost his life to the creature. Tried to lure him into this keep. Yes. Where's the keep? We're in the captain's quarters, right?
00:48:39
Speaker
We are in the captain's quarters here. Adjacent was the officer's quarters, but the keep should reside further back within the fortress proper itself. Well, let's head that way and see what happens. Are there any belongings in this area that we might have interest in, weapons, armor, anything of use? I tried to get through the rest of the closets. I rolled a natural one.
00:49:07
Speaker
Okay, anybody else gonna do any looking around? I was gonna go to that other room. That was the whole point. So I don't know what's behind that other door. Yeah, you can open the door if you want. I'm gonna go look at this armor and see if my sweet 19 roll can get in a good dwarven sized gear.
00:49:26
Speaker
Uh, Gwendolyn's going to step outside. She is feeling a bit overwhelmed. She's like, as she goes outside, she just starts to think to herself that this is just, it feels pure evil. She doesn't, she cannot figure out what this is. Part of her is curious of what it could be. Cause she likes finding new things and doing new things. And she's overwhelmed and doesn't know how to feel. So she's just going to go take a breath and chill with Dale and look around.
00:49:58
Speaker
All right. So he's, she's going to do that. Um, who's going to that other door? Uh, Jackson. So Jackson is going to go to that other door and just open it at this point. He doesn't feel like there's any reason to check in here. It is, it is unlocked. You're able to open it very without a problem. And inside you see a another sleeping quarters.
00:50:20
Speaker
This one has also a nightstand with a couple drawers in it and a small chest at the foot of a bed. It's a smaller bed like a twin size bed, I guess. And there is a body laying on this bed and he
00:50:40
Speaker
The corpse is heavily decayed, but you can see blood stains in the bed that he's laying in. There's a large dagger protruding from the front of his neck, and you can see a letter folded sitting on the nightstand next to him, just a small piece of paper folded like a letter.
00:50:57
Speaker
Um, so I'm going to go up to the litter, the, the letter and start opening it. And then also say, uh, Craig's you might go ahead. I'm sorry. This is a small dwarven person, uh, just for reference. Gotcha. The letter is written in dwarven. Um, can I read dwarven? Give me a second. I sure can.
00:51:21
Speaker
You can, okay. You called Krigs in. Are you gonna just read it, or are you waiting for people to get there to read it? So I'm gonna read it, but I don't wanna touch anything other than this. I wanna know what happened, but I don't wanna, like, desecrate anything that might be happening other than...
00:51:38
Speaker
So you grab the letter and you're just looking at it and that's it. Yeah. You're reading it and saying, okay, I'm going to read it to you. This is what you read. It says, Doris, you will never see this as to come here would be the death of whoever dares attempt. I write this solely to appease my one need to explain to someone what I have done.
00:51:55
Speaker
I have to tell you that, were it not for the monstrosity that has befallen us and the demise of our beloved Commander, our mission would have been an exemptional success. I felt that I had done my duty and produced a crop of recruits that could fight off any attack should the abysmal warriors return. I regret that I will never see you again, and even more so that my life has been taken by mine own hand.
00:52:16
Speaker
I pray to Helm that you will forgive me and feel that if you had seen the horrors of this place, you would give me your blessing to dispatch myself in this way. My heart is yours, Theldrin." You said Theldrin? Yes, Theldrin. And Doris, okay. And Theldrin is a name that was in that log, that captain's log. Was it the last captain?
00:52:44
Speaker
No, Theldrin was the name that he said, um, I have left Lieutenant Theldrin in charge when he went to go fight. So the captain before him, the actual captain was unnamed. The captain before him. Yeah. The captain that was, yeah, correct. There's no, there's no name for that captain. So that, uh, uh, if, if Craig or if, and when Craig's walks in, does the name Theldrin mean anything to you? History check.
00:53:12
Speaker
one it at least just read it in the the log yeah you you at least saw that and you remember that he was the lieutenant in placed in charge when the captain went to try to fight this monster um so on the logs lad i don't know this man um well he uh he he took his life and it seems this place has uh as you mentioned has befall in a
00:53:39
Speaker
a dark time because of the creature. We might take this letter and see if we can return it to assuming his wife or at least someone he cared for named Doris. I'd like to inspect that body and that dagger. Okay. Make a investigation check or medicine check or whichever you're trying to figure out. Daven noticing that Gwen has walked out. He's going to go follow her.
00:54:09
Speaker
The investigation is 17. Okay. It's very obvious that he placed his dagger on his neck and fell on it himself as you gathered from the letter, but also now that you're really looking. The dagger is pretty ornate. It's got the military symbols of the city of Lavrath as well as Helm. It seems to be some sort of award or
00:54:38
Speaker
some kind of honor this dagger does. And are you looking anywhere else or just on him or? Um, so for first him, and then I'd, I'd kind of reply to, um, Craig's and this, this dagger, should we, we, uh, bring this to Doris if she still would, would that be something along with, I dunno, some form of respect? Well, I think that would be appropriate.
00:55:08
Speaker
Clean it, obviously. Out of respect, I'm going to ask Jogza for the dagger.
00:55:16
Speaker
and just hold on to it myself, mostly because one, he's a dwarf, so there's kinship, and two, my record and everything with the armies and stuff, I would do it just out of honor. Yeah, I would have just, I didn't even grab the dagger from, I just was insulting it, so. So I'm the monster that pulled it out.
00:55:41
Speaker
When you pull the dagger from his neck, it's very easy to do. It's very, you know, it's so decayed and stuff that his body just kind of, you know, portions of his neck bones and things just kind of fall to dust as you
00:55:59
Speaker
pull it out. It's actually hard to do it in a way that doesn't seem disrespectful as you're trying not to destroy what his remains are left there, but you are able to grab the dagger and pull it free from his neck. At that point, I'll hand the letter and the dagger to Krigs and then inspect that chest, see if I can
00:56:26
Speaker
pull off or if it's locked we're okay it is not doing that I'm just saying a silent prayer okay not so much to helm but just offering it up there for the spirit or whatever is left of this man hoping that it has some peace
00:56:45
Speaker
Great. Okay. And Joxer, you can just open this chest. There's no lock or anything on it. It's just a personal items chest. But inside you see a hairpin. It's like a family heirloom hairpin with some gemstones in it. And there's a pair of heavy fur boots in there as well. Boots with the fur. Okay. Well,
00:57:14
Speaker
I'll for sure take the hairpin because I feel like that might go with the Doris more likely. I guess the fur boots, they just look like fur boots, nothing special about them. Make an investigation check on them. They're the ones that you wear with Apple bottom jeans.
00:57:39
Speaker
That's my favorite. That is an 11. Okay. You don't know for sure. They aren't on him. They've been placed in here away from, you know, kind of in a box for safekeeping. So you sense there might be something about them, but you can't tell if there's anything in particular.
00:58:01
Speaker
As far as you know, he gets cold tootsies. I'll just I'll just take him for now. That's a no use here. I'm just I'm taking everything, apparently, you know, next daggers and hairpins. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm done in here. Well, this is all going on. Daven goes outside and he goes and he stands right next to to Gwen. He doesn't really look at her. He just kind of wipes his nose and he says,
00:58:31
Speaker
When I was a kid, my family had a dog. Betsy, she was beautiful. One day I remember back, she was attacked by wolves and died. I remember after I was a kid, I was super upset about this. I was angry, you know, sad. And my father told me, he's like, it's a sad day. It's true. But think about it with those wolves. This was a meal for them. I might've kept their family alive. So even in sadness and in anger, you have to think the things that you don't know about. Sometimes that there's some light on that side as well.
00:59:01
Speaker
What happened here? I don't know. It's sad. Whatever that creature was, I don't know. But it's possible that something good came from this tomb. Don't let it get you too upset until we know all the answers. I... I... I appreciate it. I just... I don't see a light. I don't... Something feels off. Something feels evil. I just... I feel uncomfortable.
00:59:32
Speaker
Well, maybe our intuition is better than my memories. But I will stay positive though. She's like holding her hands. She's like fidgety because there's no sound. There's no birds from my recollection. Correct.
00:59:53
Speaker
and she can't I feel and you can correct me if if this is wrong she doesn't feel the nature she doesn't feel the home that she felt that night of all the giddiness of the animals and she doesn't coming to the fort and seeing the blood she just
01:00:11
Speaker
It reminds her of death and death is fine. It's a cycle of life like it happens. But this death doesn't feel honorable, justified. It feels unnatural to her.
01:00:28
Speaker
Yeah. Not only do you not hear those things, but you feel like you're in a vacuum. Yes. Where those things just have been removed from existence. And it's a strange feeling for sure. Having finished his prayer, Krigs is going to reach the outside door out there with now Devon and Gwendolyn waiting for Joxer.
A Moment of Reflection
01:00:56
Speaker
I'm going to give Davin inspiration, the first inspiration of Hand It Out. What? Oh my gosh. I don't know what that means. What a win. For that little encounter there, bringing that.
01:01:12
Speaker
pep talk and speech. That means that at any point you have one chance to re-roll any die roll or make me re-roll any die roll. I'm going to use it right now to slap Joxer in the face. You can. I just have to go grab the map and leave the building before you do it.
01:01:40
Speaker
There you go. Well, the moment's over. Forget it. I'll just save it for something else. Can I hold Joxer down for advantage? So I get advantage and a real roll. I'm not using the shot. That's a strength check. You got to grapple me. You're going to go against me with strength. Well, here's the downside. My unarmed attack is one plus my strength modifier, so it literally would not even do a point of damage to you. I'm negative one, so it's fine.
01:02:08
Speaker
I was just gonna say I was just gonna say I've struggled to give out inspiration because everyone is so good at the role-playing side of things which is what I usually give it for that I've been waiting for an extraordinary moment of roleplay and I felt like that was one so applause applause I'm golf clapping just can't see golf clap
01:02:39
Speaker
Why does Daven get all the nice things? Thank you for listening to this episodic installment of The Hired Swords. If you liked our show, tell a friend about us. And if you really liked our show, tell the world. Leave us a review. If you want to keep up with us and get all the behind the scenes goofs and gaffs, you can find us on Twitter and Facebook at The Hired Swords. Again, thank you for listening.