[One Shot] Tomb of the Stairmaster - LIVE @ RTX 2022
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This is a Rooster Teeth production. Salutations, sea serpent! Slither on in to the stinky dragon, swallow our latest swell, scary tale ending. It's a mixture of spiced reef rum, amphibia fruit juice, injury gingery beer, topped with rime lime on the rim. One swig of this salivating refreshment will simply take your freezing breath away. So snatch a stein, settle your scales, because now it's time for a stinky tale.

Featuring our brave adventurers, the level 8 barbarian who wishes he was a wizard, Gum Gum. You almost failed your dexterity check walking out that curtain there. The level 8 fighter hailing from Everwinter, Kyborg Kydelius. Get on out here. I apologize. Kyborg the Mighty, as it says on your character sheet. Thank you. Level 8 Furbog Druid Mud Bramblebrack. Woo! Woo!

And while he may be last and the least in stature, he is not the least in courage. We have Bart. Level 8 Bard.

So comfortable. Just kick your feet up, Bart. Don't worry about this. Don't take it seriously. What did you say my last name was? Mud Bramblebrack. Bramblecrack. It's written there. Read it. Bramblecrack. There you go. Bramblebrack. Bramblebrack sounds better. You want to take your bow off? You're about to be strangled by it. But it's like my thing. It's the longbow triumph. I can't. Have it ready for striking, so take it off. Okay.

I actually have arrows. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not going to. I'll just be lobbing arrows into the crowd during the show. You get an arrow. You get an arrow. You get an arrow. So hopefully most of you are familiar with our D&D podcast, Tales from the Stinky Dragon. Hopefully you're in the right room. We've been running this campaign for a little over a year. Our merry crew here, our merry cast has reached level eight fairly recently. We have a one-shot adventure we want to run today.

Before we get started, I of course want to give a big shout out to our writer, composer, the DM behind the DM, Micah, you're out there somewhere, I don't know where you are. Where be the Micah? Oh, he's over there. He looks like he's got a restraining order.

I think he's restrained by that power outlet he's probably plugged into over there. I like that before this you're like, hey guys, we're going to be running a thing. Typically, we have an hour and a half to do this, but it times in at about three hours, so we'll just have to keep going.

keep things moving. And if we're known for one thing, it's moving fast. Oh, yeah, yeah. What, do you want me to not? Sorry, Micah. I took time to acknowledge you. Blaine didn't want me to. Blaine thought that we should just get straight to it. No, no, no. I'm saying acknowledge Micah. I'm just saying that the thing you're asking us to do, it's an impossible challenge. Roll a d20. Oh, okay. All right. Let me get D&D Beyond pulled up. And here we go. I'm going to roll first. And nat 20. Whoa. Are we all doing it?

That was for nothing, wasn't it? Seven. It was just for Kyborg. I rolled a seven. Okay, yeah, Kyborg's not feeling too great. It's another tranquil evening in the mountainous town of Boulderade. The four of you find yourselves in the Throne Gauntlet Tavern carousing and swapping stories with patrons regarding your recent escapades across the land of Faiza. What are some of the memorable moments that you find yourselves talking about with your fellow Boulderaians?

There was this one time I made an ice come out of my mouth and it made a bridge. Yeah, that happened. I regale my fellow adventurers with all of my sexual escapades. Thank you, thank you. They were their part. Yeah.

I once wrestled a Valrazian naked while falling out of a second floor of an inn, and then I ran into a bar and screamed at some people while naked. That wasn't even a sexual adventure. There was this one time that me and my friend Kaibor went to this pet store, and he was kind enough to loan me money to buy a badger. That's right. And I named him Gumbo. Where's Gumbo? I don't know. He's attending another panel. LAUGHTER

Well, you have the option. You could either have Gumbo with you, maybe having his own little drink in the Throne Gauntlet Tavern, or you could have left him at the stables. No, he's here. He's having a glass of milk. What's Gumbo's favorite adventure that he's been on? Gumbo's favorite adventure... I've mostly tried to keep Gumbo away from adventures because I'm worried that the deity of our world will kill him because he thinks it's funny to take my pets away. Um...

But it was pretty cool when I turned into a wolf one time and he was a badger and we fought another wolf together. It was pretty badass. That was good. Is he like riding you like you're his horse? Yeah, we do that sometimes. It's pretty fun. A red scaly face pops out from behind the bar as you all are chatting away. It's Duncan. The valsize pseudodragon leans in toward you all and curls his finger for you to come closer. He rolls his eyes and says, Come on, you can come closer than that. Down to my level, my friends. Alright.

I'm already down here. Bart's already there. I'm eye to eye with you, my friend. Ah, much better. Thank you, Bart. I just face plant into the ground. Anyway, I couldn't help but overhear some of these legendary tales of past adventures, truly inspiring stories. But have you ever heard the old infinite tale, Tomb of the Stairmaster? And we're going to have a little bit of audience participation here. Everybody.

Every time throughout this adventure today, anytime someone says the word Stairmaster, everyone, including the crowd, you all need to say, dun, dun, dun. Okay, all right. So I'm going to read that last line again. Have you ever heard the old infinite tale, Tomb of the Stairmaster? Dun, dun, dun. Ooh, well, in that case... We didn't answer. Oh.

Have you? Tomb of the Stairmaster? Dun, dun, dun. No, never heard of it. I've never been able to use a Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. Or a treadmill. Dun, dun, s***.

Language. Sorry, poop. Well, in that case, Duncan claps his clawed hands and the tavern's torches are doused, leaving the room in utter darkness and a hushed silence falls over the room. A tiny candle flickers to life beneath Duncan's scaly smirk, casting sharp shadows across his red reptilian face.

The tomb of the Stairmaster is one of the only failed missions of the original Infinites. Sleek, Spectral, Grizzly, and Aleve.

I'm pretty sure the last adventure of them was a pretty big failure, considering we're now the Infinites. Bunch of scrubs. Apparently, it was meant to be a routine mission of retrieving a relic that was stolen from a religious order known as the Viz in a realm called Optisphere. Have you heard of it? No. Can't say I have. Nope. Could you use it in a sentence? No.

Apparently it was meant to be a routine mission of retrieving a relic that was stolen from a religious order known as the Viz in a realm called Optosphere. Could you use that in a different sentence? Well, the story goes the Infinites traveled to Optosphere and made initial contact with the Viz, but that's when all contact was lost from the group. For seven days and seven nights. No reports, no news, just sheer silence.

Then, out of the blue, the Infinites returned to Boulderay as if nothing had happened. No relic found, no word as to what took place, and to this day, the mission remains a mystery. He blows out the candles, and you hear a dish get knocked over and something crashed into the floor. Ow! Could someone please get the lights? Ow!

I go for the lights. You sure you don't want me to knock a bursting arrow to explode the lights on? Nope, I go and gently light the torches. Okay. Duncan nervously replies, oh, thank you, that's much better. Anyway, that's the tale, but whatever you do, don't mention it to Doctor Ahem. And from behind you, you hear a familiar voice say, ask me what? I don't know.

Should we just say it? I mean, you do you. Well, I don't want to go against Duncan. He serves us coffee, so. Hey, Dr. Ahem, have you ever heard about the Stairmaster? Dun, dun, dun. Oh, that's a painful tale. A failed mission of the original Infinites. You guys are much better. Don't worry, though. What happened? Well, you see, the Infinites were sent to retrieve an artifact, a relic known as the Eye of Claire from the Viz,

And the Viz are a religious order that live in the Optosphere, and the Viz are all comprised of flumps. Flumps. Well, here's a little more audience participation. Anytime someone says the word flump, everyone needs to make a farty noise with their mouths. So we'll do a practice right now. Your masks are going to smell so bad by the end of this. The Viz are comprised of flumps. That was a weird sound to hear from an audience. It's a good thing we have mic covers on these. Yeah, right? Yeah.

The leader of the Viz was a flumpf.

named Orbob, and you'd called upon the Infinites to answer the plight, but the heroes failed to return the relic. The heroes and Sleek, who was also there. Yes, yes, the heroes, the Infinites, including your best friend Sleek. I know you hold him on a higher plane, to a higher standard than the rest of the Infinites. False, false. Would there be value in us going and rectifying this failure and getting that relic ourselves? Only if we want to fill the next 78 minutes of this panel.

Good news, we definitely want to, so let's go. If you could go retrieve the Eye of Clare and expel the creatures that have occupied the tomb of the Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun, dun. The creatures are known as the Prickups. Find any clues as to why the Infinites failed their mission. And I'm sure the Viz would be willing to compensate you for helping them out. How much? $10.

Well, that's up to the Viz. Where is Viz? They're at the Tomb of the Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. This is getting off. Right, so sounds like we have a mission. Where are we going?

to the Tomb of the Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. Sensational. I knew I could count on you all to crack the case of the Tomb of the Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. We're gonna die. But first things first, I will need to reach out to Orbob, the leader of the Viz, and let him know you're on your way to... Whoosh! The lights go out. Duncan is very confused and says, Um, that wasn't me. And you hear voices chanting. Hmm...

I'm sorry. I'm really hungry. That's my stomach. A chorus of chanting voices surrounds you and a glowing sapphire blue line begins to draw something in the air before you. First, a small circle, then another larger circle around that one, and finally a curved line above the circles and another below them. Dr. Ahem stutters, it's an...

The sapphire eye grows larger and larger until it's as tall as the tavern ceiling. The eye tilts and floats above the four of you. It suddenly blinks, but when the eyelids reopen, instead of an iris, it reveals a starry night sky shimmering above you.

C, C, C, C. Simba. B, B, B, B. The eye drops and consumes you all like an open maw, flashing your eyes with a glare of sapphire. Everyone go ahead and roll a perception check. Oh, no. You got it. Here we go. That sounded like a cheat code we should have written down. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That has a different meaning in D&D.

I rolled a nine. 16. 18. You're playing Wordle, Chris. 11. 11. There it goes. All right. Wordle. Remember that? Kyborg, you try to rub your eyes, but an eyelash gets stuck behind your eyelid, causing you to blink uncontrollably. I do have beautiful eyelashes, Ryan. Gum Gum, you look up to see two gleaming moons gaze down back at you. Their moonbeams reveal you're on the edge of a tree line. Hello, moon.

Bart and Mud, you focus on the trees and notice small worm-like creatures covered in bristles crawling slowly among the branches. And a wispy voice fills your heads. Welcome to the Optosphere. Bartholomew of the Fins, Kyborg of Everwinter, Mud of the Bramblecracks, and Gum-Gum of... Do you know who my dad is? Ha ha ha!

And gum gum of, do you know who my dad is? You turn around to see two flumps floating in the air, staring unblinkingly at you with long eye stalks. Their bodies are shaped like flat saucers with at least 20 tendrils hanging below. One is tall and draped in sackcloth, and the other is short, wearing a helmet. Do they look like jellyfish, kind of? Yeah.

If one of us touches them, do we have to pee on each other? Bart, you're always looking for an excuse, aren't you? You know, don't yuck my yum. Yuck. Move on. I said don't yuck my yum. Move on. Hello. I'm Mud.

Is this some sort of portal to your realm? Greetings. Indeed, you are in the Optosphere. I am Orbob, Minister of the Viz, and this, pointing to the shorter flumph in armor, is Pieper. She will be your escort through there, pointing to the trees, the forest for the trees.

That is where you will find the Tomb of the Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. Wait, what? I just started today. This is my first. Not another peep out of you, Disciple Peeper. If you are committed to the viz, you will lead these people to the Tomb of the Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. Yes, Minister Orbob, forgive me. And Peeper bows low.

Do you have any questions before you enter the tomb and retrieve the Eye of Clare? What's it look like? Oh, you will know it. It is the only mighty relic that remains in the Tomb of the Stairmaster. That's an answer someone gives who doesn't know what they're supposed to be answering. Yeah, I don't have that in front of me. The prickups have expelled us from the tomb, so we are unable to enter, and they have no doubt looted everything that we have left behind.

Are there any enemies down there? Should we be aware of or prepared to fight? Oh, indeed. The prickups are evil and have no doubt an entire army of enemies that you will have to face. That's all right. We have a gum gum. So if

If you could go in, retrieve the Eye of Clare, slay or expel the Precups, and bring the Eye of Clare back, we will reward you handsomely. That seems simple enough. I'm down. Let's get going. Adventure on.

All right, follow me, guys. And Peeper begins floating off, heading towards the forest, passing countless moonlit trees for several minutes. And you see, like I mentioned, you see worm-like creatures covered in bristles crawling slowly among the many branches of these trees. Can I stop and ask if they know who Smarsh is? Roll a nature check. Nature, got it. How are you on nature? Plus two, actually. What else? 17. I say, Smarsh is king?

Several of the creatures turn towards you and begin inching closer towards you as if they wanted to whisper something to you. They start crawling on your shoulder. Oh, these are earworms, it sounds like. They crawl up your cheek. Okay. Over on top of your eyes. Okay. And they begin eating your eyebrows. Okay.

I shoot an arrow at myself. Get him off! I try to wrestle one of them off of his eyebrows. Oh, yeah, they easily are swiped off, but now Kyborg is missing his left eyebrow entirely.

Is that canon now? Don't look at me, I'm a monster. Peeper says, oh, be careful with those browlers. They like to eat eyebrows. Thanks, Peeper, you're a real keeper. Jeepers, peepers. You all continue on, and eventually you come upon a set of stone stairs covered in moss leading underground. Here we are, the Tomb of the Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. I'm not nervous at all. After you guys, go ahead. Okay. I follow Gum-Gum. I follow Mud-Gum.

I follow Kaibork. Say, "Hello!" Hello! Is anyone here? Anyone here? That's pretty good. I'm helping Micah with the sound design. I'm turning this so you don't see the map, Chris. Okay. I have Claire Says What?

A valiant effort. As you reach the end of the stairs, a stout darkness fills the air. The sound of trickling water echoes around the room, and you notice puddles of murky water on the floor. Mmm, water. I try to avoid the water. Could I touch the water? Yeah. Someone grimaced. Someone did not like that. Make a constitution saving throw. Uh-oh, Bart's gonna die.

Bart drowns, but it's only a foot of water. I hate you. That's a 10. For your constitution saving throw? Yeah. You survived the water. It's nothing. It's just stagnant, damp water. You dork.

So we're in a cave and there's some standing water on the ground. What else is there? It's like a carved out room. It's about 15 feet deep and maybe 25 feet wide. You said you looked around. There's a long table that runs along the western wall. Anything on the table? Yeah. There's like some towels, some soap, some candles and a book. I read someone's bathroom. Sounds like a spa. Yeah.

I go get the soap. Don't drop it. No, no bath. Gum, gum, when was the last time you bathed? I don't know. I start washing my hands with soap. Okay, yeah. You get a plus two to cleanliness. Okay, cool, cool, cool. You have advantage against communicable diseases. There we go. I take one of the towels, I whip it between my legs, and then I start flossing and going...

All right, yeah. Your undercarriage is thoroughly decluttered. Oh, good. Is there anything across the water? Yeah, there's an exit on the other side of the room. The water is very, it's like puddles in this room. It's not like a deep trench of water or anything. Should we use this table as a boat? It's puddles. It's puddles. Puddles. Could I do a detect magic on the items on this table? Okay, and the detect magic works, I believe, up to 30 feet radius, right? But you're concentrating on the table? Yes.

Yeah, you cast Detect Magic and there are a few items that glow with magic. So, when we record these, this all gets cut off in the final version. Micah sends me messages and that's what he just did right now. Still on the job. Yeah, the

appears to glow with slight magic. Oh, there's a book. As well as you feel like there's a little bit of magic in the ceiling above the center of the room. Oh. Mud goes and picks up the book and looks into it. Okay, yeah. You take a look at the book.

and it's, you know, bound with leather, and on the title, or on the cover is a title branded onto it that just says, The Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah, like, what's inside of it? You start flipping through it, and it seems like it's all the story of the Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. I forgot.

And you seem like unnaturally drawn to it. You can't like put it down. It's so compelling. You learn that the Stairmaster was the... They were not going to let you get that one by. It was the founder of a religious cult known as the Viz. And legends say he never blinked once in his entire lifetime. Thus, he was able to truly see beyond this plane of existence.

And one day, the Stairmaster... Dun, dun, dun. ...vanished from this plane and was never heard from again. This sacred tomb was built and added onto his dwelling place in his honor. And it is the goal of every Vizio, the disciples of Viz, to stare as long as possible and not succumb to the heresy of blinking. Dry eyes trying clear eyes. How did he sleep? With eyes wide open. Eyes wide open.

There's a door at the end of this room? There's not a door necessarily. It's just like an opening that leads out on the opposite side. And just FYI, since you read the book, John, you have become so knowledgeable that you're going to have a plus three for this session for intelligence-based ability checks. Nice.

Way to go. I'm smart, y'all. Smarty pants. So we heard that there was a piece of the ceiling that was glowing with magic. Yeah. What kind? Can we go investigate? Yeah, so Bart, you walk over, I assume, under it to go look at it? Yeah, and I stand up on my tippy toes. You walk under it.

I'm taking my cloak off. It's actually covering my ears and making it hard to hear. And then I'll lift Bart by his feet up higher. Well, Bart goes and stands in the center of the room on his tippy toes. And as he does so, a tile under his feet triggers and sets down slightly into the room. And as he begins looking up, water pours straight down into his face. Ha!

dousing him. And a soothing voice from above declares, "Be cleansed, my child." - All right, is that a short joke?

Make a dexterity saving throw, Bart. Here it comes. Bart is drowned. Oh, nine. Yeah, the water catches you by surprise and knocks you to the ground prone, and you're just being pummeled with water, and then it stops after a brief moment. So wait, the water was rushing and then stopped? Yeah. Oh, okay, so it's like a shower. This seems like it's like a gym. Like, there's talk of a Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun.

And then there's this room that's like, it's got towels, soap, showers. It's a tomb. Sounds like a gym, though. Like a gym, yeah. It sounds like a tomb, though. It's made for you. Listen, I'll make a gym out of anything. So we're in some sort of room that is a cleansing space? Sounds like it. All right. I think we should move forward and go into that other area. You okay there, Bart? Yeah. Can I go and pick up Bart? Yeah. Gum-Gum helps Bart to his feet. Okay. Okay.

Can we proceed through this room? Yeah. Okay. Let's go through the opening. Hello, my foul-smelling friends. Please tell your friends about this show. You can show them one of our stinky puppet videos or animatics. Just head over to at StinkyDragonPod on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Plus, we have a marvelous StinkyDragon subreddit community we'd love to have you part of. They are folks just like you that like the show, post theories, D&D item ideas, hilarious memes about the show.

Don't forget, if you post on social media using #StinkyDragonPod, we might name an NPC in the show after you. The second Stinky Soundtrack album is available now on all your favorite music streaming platforms. Sweeten your ears with Sleek Symphony in the City of Urbloom. Delve into 19 tracks of musical motifs, themes, and songs written by Micah Reisinger, including the second character song, Gum Gum's Wake-A-Bye. Listen to it now wherever you listen to music.

While you're at it, go check out our Stinky Puppet videos on social media at StinkyDragonPod. Relive hilarious moments from the show in puppet form with dolls handcrafted by John and Micah's mom. We posted a few videos on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter at StinkyDragonPod. So share them with your friends. Let us know what moments we should puppeteer next.

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Y'all go through into the next room. That first room you walked into was pretty brightly lit. This one's kind of dim now. It seems like maybe the only source of light was coming from outside, and now as you're getting further away from the stairs, it's becoming slightly more dim. And this room is about 10 feet deep by maybe 25 feet across, and the musty stench of mold reeks throughout the chamber, and the air is bitterly cold in your lungs. Do we see anything around us?

Yeah, you look around and you see there's a cabinet running along the western wall, and there is a door on the opposite side, on the northern end, opposite from where you entered. I go check the cabinet. Yeah, you check the cabinet. So I assume you open it up, you take a look inside. Yeah. One second, loading. A facehugger launches onto me. Loading traps. Yes.

Oh, right. I forgot something. There's also a closed wardrobe that runs along the eastern wall. Okay. Go to the wardrobe. So you go to the... Which one did you want to go to, Kyborg? I'll go to the cabinet. Okay. You go, you open up the cabinet, and you see a bunch of items inside that are all covered in frost. Frost.

There's a chalice of some kind, a bowl, some rope, and a key. Okay. Does anyone have, like, fire or anything that we can... Like, frost or, like, they're, like, frozen solid? It's covered in frost. Okay. Can I take those items? I want to take the key especially. Okay. Go ahead and make a constitution saving throw. Oh, my goodness. Oh, here we go. 22. That's pretty good. As this is happening, Bart is still going...

No, knock it off, Bart. You'll be fine. Yeah, as you reach in, you said you grabbed the key and what? Everything else. Everything else. Oh, you grab everything. You feel like an intense cold around your hands, and you see a little burst of a cloud inside the cabinet, but you're able to pull the items out before whatever dust or burst of cloudiness it is is able to touch your hands. Good thing I have a metal arm.

I still pull them out. Yeah, you pull them out. You've got them. This thing farted on me. I don't know. The cold fart. Yeah. What about Gum-Gum? Yeah, I go to the wardrobe. Okay. Was it Mud and Gum-Gum who went to the wardrobe? Oh, I did not. Oh.

oh okay i did not i'm witnessing them all just springing every trap there is in this place gum gum you open up the wardrobe and inside there appear to be a handful of velvety violet ropes and they're covered in some kind of mold or something looks like they've been here a long time ropes robes robes velvet ropes velvety violet robes are we saying robes with a b thank you okay it's

B as in fart. Can I pull up my magic wand and see if there's a detect any magic on it? Yeah. You pull out Boomba and open your third eye, trying to ascertain if you feel any magic. And that works up to 30 feet, I believe, correct? You feel no unexpected magic. Okay, I don't want this. Bye. And I close it.

- What was in the wardrobe? - A bunch of clothes. - Okay, and maybe they were important for some reason? - I don't think so. - How many robes were there? - Yeah. - How many? - I opened it back up and I start counting. - They're kind of like all, they're also really cold and kind of stuck together. You'd have to like start trying to separate them if you really want to count it. It just seems like there's several all stuck together. - I just pull it out and start counting. - All right, make a constitution saving throw. - Okay. - Hold for roll. - 12.

All right, yeah. You didn't see this, but very similar to what happened to Kyborg in the cabinet. A puff of smoke or dust or something comes out of the wardrobe, but you're able to pull the robes out away from it in time. I don't know what the big deal is. This place isn't harmless. Yeah, we're nailing this. It's very dusty in there. X-Infinites suck.

How many robes are there? Yeah, you start separating them and there's five. One, two, there's four of them. I don't want to wear one of those robes, so I changed my cloak of many fashions to reflect those robes. Okay, you have a violet robe of many fashions. All right, great. I put one on. You put one on? Yeah. Roll a constitution saving throw. This is exactly why I did that. I'll be fine.

21. Okay. As you touch it again, there's like weird dust or smoke or something that comes out of it. And you actually, since you put the robe on, you're inhaling it and it's making you cough, but nothing else seems to be happening. I don't understand this place at all. I mean, you look fabulous. Thank you. Makeover montage.

Is there anything else of note in this room? No, just the door on the opposite wall. I think we nailed this room. We should proceed. Bart, you have like an illusion thing where you can change your clothes, right? I have like a disguise kit. Okay, so if we need to be disguised, you can do that. Or Bart will just turn invisible. I'll keep the robes. In case you want to change clothes later.

In case I poop my pants later. Let's keep going. Yeah, let's move on. Next room. Okay, you all open up. Who opens the door leading to the next room? Mud. Shotgun. Bart. Bart skitters in front of Mud and opens up the door. Okay. The door opens pretty freely. The next room is...

The room's pretty dark. Now they're getting further away from the light. The room is a bit hazy with the smell of smoke clinging to the walls. This room is also about 15 feet deep by about 25 feet wide. You see four different exits to this room, two on the left side, two on the right side. A workbench sits against the center of the northern wall, stained with spots of blood, and it bears various jars of fluids and tools on top, and they're all covered in webs.

A lectern sits in the center of the room with a pristine book resting on top. The floor is covered with piles of ash and peppered with footprints. Mud and gum gum roll constitution saving throws. Mud and gum gum? Mud and gum gum. The two that are wearing the robes. I'm not wearing a robe. That is a 20. 20. I hate this party so much. We are not springing any of these traps. This tube sucks. Ugh.

All right, yeah, so like I said, there's the lectern, a workbench, a book, and there's two doors on the left and two doors on the right. Cut into the door. The doors on the left are like straight west and then northwest, and the doors on the right are straight east and then northeast. Can I go to the center with the lectern and look at the book? Yeah, you take a look at the book, and the cover seems to be made of some kind of golden leather, and there's a title etched into it. It reads... You can read, right?

Bart comes over to help Gum-Gum read. What's your intelligence, Gum-Gum? Four. Wait, your intelligence is four? Yeah. Jesus. Jesus.

Why do you-- what-- why-- I have a minus three. I know, but that's just so low. The title of the book reads "The Cure for" and then some word that you don't understand. You don't know. The cure? Could I come over and help him out? Yeah, Bart, you walk over and take a look, and the title of the book is-- You're intelligent. You're regular, right, Bart?

I'm regular? 12. 12. Mom always said that. Stupid is a stupid. Bart, you can read that the title of the book is The Cure for Christophobia. Christophobia? Christophobia. Christophobia. Yeah. Oh, I'm pretty scared of Chris's. That's true.

It seems to you to be some kind of alchemy book, maybe. Alchemy, okay. We should probably take this book, huh? Okay. Mud goes over to the workbench and checks out what's going on over there. Before we get to that workbench, so you pick up the book and put it in your... You're either one carrying the book, right, Bart? Yes. Okay. You pick up the book, put it in your pack, and all of a sudden you feel a lot lighter. Hmm.

As if I needed to feel lighter, but all right. I don't know, like you put it on yourself and something just feels different. Like a weight's been lifted off of you. Yeah.

How you feeling? How you feeling, Bart? I feel great. Oh, okay. Ready to take on this Stairmaster. Thank you. It had been a little while. And Mud, did you say you went over to the workbench? Yeah, why not? Okay, there's, like I said, spots of blood and some kind of jars and tools on top of it that all appear to be covered in webs. Anything that would stand out to me is like out of place here. Make an investigation check.

Would love to because I'm totally good at investigations. That's a one, my dude. No, it's too dark to see anything. You have no idea. Can I go over and blow all the dust off?

Yeah. Gum-Gum, you walk over and blow and like a bunch of webs clear from all the items on the workbench and go straight into Mud's eyes. Hence the one. Yeah, he can't see anything. He's going to have to spend a round or two getting all the junk out of his eyes. But yeah, you clear all the webs off and make an investigation check as well, Gum-Gum. Okay. Which is also an intelligence roll. Yeah. I got this. Come on, Chris, you can do it. That's an 11. 11.

Oh. Batter. Nothing really stands out to you. Like all the stuff on the workbench, if Gum-Gum were to categorize it all, he would categorize it as gross. It's like blood and maybe various organs and body parts floating in some of the jars. Someone cook dinner on this thing. Could I go see if there's any eyeballs over there?

Yeah, make an investigation check. And I assume you're just, are you looking just at the bench or anywhere in particular? Well, you said there's the bench. There's also cabinets in this room or no cabinets? No cabinets. It was just the bench and the lectern that you got the book from. Is there any other, I guess before I leave the lectern, is there any other like items inside of that thing or like underneath it? No, that's it. And then like I mentioned, the floor is covered in ash and there's, it's peppered with footprints.

Oh, could I actually look at the footprints and see if I could tell, like, who they might belong to or what kind of creature? Absolutely. Make an investigation check. 13? 13. It looks to you like the footprints are from spiders and humanoid creatures. My people. Can I perceive what kind of ash it is? Like, was it, like, a dude who got vaporized, or was it, like, a fire in here? That's a really good question. Make me an arcana check. Ooh.

It's a minus one, but hopefully I get a good one. Seven. It's ash. Something burned. Hey, Bart. Yeah. Does that cookbook have anything that we should cook? Probably, but I also don't want to alarm you, Gum Gum. I think there's a person with a pet spider walking around in here. Oh, okay. That's okay. I think that's mud.

I guess I should look in the book. Yeah. If there's a good something to cook. Yeah, is there anything that's in the book that would help us understand what we're supposed to be doing in this stupid tomb? Yeah, let me take the book out and kind of go through the pages and see if there's anything. Make me a history check, Bart. Ooh, 20. Nice. Woo!

Nice. Yeah, you, when you start flipping through it, you've read this kind of text before, maybe. It's a book about curing the fear of gold. Of gold? Yeah. Make me an arcana check. Oh, no. I'm not scared of gold. I'm scared of getting old. 13. And just for fun, make me a wisdom check. Oh, no.

12. You realize that this is a book about curing the fear of gold, and you have gold on the mind, I guess, so you decide to pat your coin purse, and it feels significantly lighter. I open up my coin purse. It's filled with ash. Wait, Qyborg, what's your arm made out of? Not gold. Okay. And then you realize that all the gold you had on your person has been turned to ash.

Okay. My rings! This is not canonical, right? It's okay. It's a one-shot. I'm imagining that Qyborg saw that and then he also compares the ash to the ground and I guess I'm assuming like maybe there's some sort of crossover between these two things, you know? They might have something in common. Maybe there's gold on the floor. Maybe the floor was made of gold. Or there was like gold items in the room that ashed all over. Yeah. So there's two doors on the left, two doors on the right? Correct. Correct.

Should we just start heading to another room? Well, I would say let's see, where do the footprints lead? The spider ones and the human ones? It's like peppered all over the place. It's like, it wasn't one set of footprints, it's many over the course of probably years. I think the audience knows which way we're going to go.

Do I have disadvantage in perception right now? I'll tell you what. Actually, I'm going to roll back just a second. Kyborg, you asked me a question. I should have had you make a roll. Make me an investigation check. That is a zero. Did that answer your question, Gus? The Throne Gauntlet Tavern looks really weird to you. It's a one minus one.

I'm sorry. I'm lucky. I'm lucky. We're going to roll it again. And this will be a good one for sure. What's your modifier? Negative one. 15. There you go. Okay, that's much better. Actually, in studying the footprints, you use your knowledge of, you know, eight levels of a fighter, and you realize that these footprints are from a battle.

Oh, a battle? Yeah, it appears that there was some kind of battle between spiders and humanoid creatures. The battle started from the southeast door and then proceeded along to the northwest door. Okay. I let the team know that. I feel like we should follow whatever this battle went. Yeah. Do you want to know where it starts or where it ended? I don't know. What do we do? Probably where it ended. I want to see some bodies. Okay.

- Uh, gross. - Okay. - Okay, so northwest. - West. - Okay, so y'all want to exit out the northwest door. - Yeah, let's see what happens. - And if we're facing north, then that means we will still be going left, so Kyborg is A-okay.

Okay. There is a door that leads out to that exit. Who's going to be the one to open it? I'll open it. Okay. Brave boy. Make a dexterity saving throw. Have we ever checked for traps? Nope. Nope. Not a once. We have a way of checking for traps. Okay, that's a 16 and a... You have advantage because of danger sense. Oh, 22. Oh, okay. Okay.

The claps for good rolls is a different thing. It's great because it's like a golf clap. It's very scholarly. Well, that was a nat 20. Yeah. You successfully managed to open the door without spraining your wrist. I did it. Good job. Good job. So proud of you. You all enter this room and a clicking sound circles around the room from above. It's the predator. He's here.

Everything in this room looks like it's wrecked and it's just been destroyed. There's a fresco on the eastern wall. A fresco? There's a piercing on the eastern wall depicting a hooded flumph on his knees with wide piercing eyes. Flumps of knees?

There's a broken wooden pallet on the ground nearby, an overturned cask in the northeast corner, and you see there are three doors. You came in from the southeastern door of this room, and then over to the left in the southwestern corner appears to be a golden door. Okay. And then we heard clicking. Yes. Can I try to see where the click is coming from? As do I. Both of you make investigation checks. Does Kyborg get advantage because he's got ulveneers?

Extra good hearing. And dark vision. Well, say no. Okay. 19. Four. It's hard to see. It's so dark. I know, Kyborg, you have dark vision. Mud, do you? I do not. I don't believe fear bogs do. Okay. Yeah, it's very difficult to see. You really can't tell. You really can't see anything. It's so dark in this room. You're so far away from the entrance. Does somebody have a light? Could I cast an illusion that would be a light? No.

Say that with confidence. I could press... Nope. I'll light a torch. No, wait. Actually, this would actually help. I have prestidigitation, and I can make a... Thank you. I have overcome my speech impediment, and I can make a campfire, like, up high. That's a thing that you can do with that. Yeah. Wait. Is it floating, or is it just you make it up high and it falls? No.

It's floating. Okay. But to answer Bart's earlier question, a minor illusion cannot create light. That's right. So you're using what spell again, Blaine? You know the one. Just Prestidigitation. I think your mic's cutting out. Could you? Prestidigitation. Oh, pretty good.

It's like rolling like a 12 on that. So you instantaneously light or snuff out a candle, a torch, or a small campfire. It doesn't say you can actually create the light source. You can just light an existing source. There was a broken pallet, right? In that room? Yes. Okay, well then I gather up those wood pieces and then... Voila! Start a fire. While we're doing that, Mud and Gum Gum roll Constitution saving throws. Good lord. I should take off this cloak.

I don't think it has any use other than trying to make me sick. Uh, 17. I hate you guys.

Okay, yeah, so Kyborg casts Prestidigitation on the broken wooden pallet on the ground, and it lights up, and the fire quickly begins spreading out of control as you realize that there are broken jars and spilled paint all over the floor. And the room begins filling with fire uncontrollably. I didn't know paint was flammable.

Guys, I made a no-no. That's not good. The fire spreads to the cask in the northeast corner, which also catches fire and bursts into flame. You all need to quickly decide what you're going to do. I'm going to use my Rainbringer staff. Pee on it. And do a sleet storm. You're going to cast a sleet storm in this room. Yes. On us. Yes. On us. Yes, I committed. Yes.

Don't worry, I will summon water. This is gonna be good. Okay, so Gum-Gum very deftly and quickly pulls out his Rainbringer staff and casts

sleet storm, which causes a 20-foot tall cylinder with a 40-foot radius of a storm. It covers the room. Fusing rain and sleet. Okay, and the ground is now covered in slick ice. The entire area is heavily obscured, so y'all can't see anything anymore. This is Gus trying to get us to get out of this room and move on. And the flames are all doused. That's a good job, Gum Gum. Good job.

I took care of the fire. You sure did, bud. I skate over to the door. Was there a door that there was like more... There was a gold door in the southwest. I'll go over to the gold door and perceive if there are any traps. Yeah. First for everything. Oh, man, you... Okay, Ragnarok.

Roll an investigation check. You're just with these investigation checks. Well, you're investigating. It's a 20. Oh, really? Yeah. 19. So Nat 20. That's amazing. We should bring them in for our actual recording. I know. We need a live audience.

And make me an arcana check as well. Okay. Wee! 14. Not bad. Not bad. So you're looking at the door, and, you know, you see that it appears to be made of solid gold, and there's a small window at the top.

and a square-shaped recess in the center of it, and there's no handle or lock on this room. You think that this door is cursed, however, and you think that there's some kind of trap on it. However, you rolled really well, by the way. I've got to give you props. -Thank you. -You suspect that if something small and square, like a box or a book, was placed into the recess, that the door might open. -Okay. Guys, this door, it cursed.

But if we put something square inside this hole, like Gum-Gum's toys back at the castle, the circle peg and such... Bart reaches into his pocket and pulls out the book that he just found and holds it up and goes, will this work? Yes. May I take it and put it in the door? Uh, no. But hard to get. Okay, Bart. I shall do it. Okay. And then I lift you up like Simba. Why didn't you give him the book? Because it's my book. Okay.

Respect. They found the book. So, Bart, you place the golden book into the square recess and the door immediately turns to ash. I did it! I did it! Good job. Do I perceive if the curse has been lifted?

Yes, you believe that the curse was tied to the physical door itself, which has now turned into ash. Is the book also ash now? No, the book falls into the pile of ash. So your book is basically an anti-gold book. Anti-gold. Okay, it's good to know. Just keep it away from Trump Tower. That place will just... Oh no, I'll bring it straight there. That got an applause.

All right, so now the door is just completely gone in the traps, I'm assuming, associated with it. The curse. You said it was cursed, but you also said that there was a trap.

Yes, you believe that it was tied specifically to the door, which is now lying in ash. So you think it is inert. I proceed into the next... Is that okay, group? Should we go to the next room? Yeah, basically the room was burned up and then doused and now it's full of nothing. Ice. Should I stop making ice? Oh, can you turn it off? Yeah, okay. Have you just been doing it this whole time? I'm doing it! I'm doing it!

It's only my second time casting a spell. And we're all proud. Yeah, let's go through the door. Okay. And Kyborg will walk in first, but carefully. Good man. I also pick up the book and put it back in my satchel. Good call. Cool. Oh, did the book still exist? The what? Yeah, the book still does exist. Oh.

Okay, yeah, you all walk in, Kyborg leading the way, and you walk into this room and lit gold braziers hang in every corner. On either side of the room are piles of gems and coins. Two gnoll witherlings are crouched and whimpering behind a chest in the back of the room. Two gnoll witherlings? Yeah. What would they look like? They're kind of like, gnolls kind of look like dog people. Aww.

Can I go, hey, doggies? Hi. Yeah, I'm going to show you guys a gnoll just so you guys know what we're dealing with here. Gum, gum, that might be offensive to them. I don't know if you want to call them doggies. And they're... Oh, cute. Cute. Cute.

There's a chest, and they're whimpering behind it? Yeah. They say, oh, no, close the door quickly. Okay. There's no door. There's no door. As you turn to look at the door, a swarm of criders are swarming into the room along the ceiling. Crying spiders. What are those? What's the bloody hell is a crider? Crying spiders? Yeah, they look like spiders that are swarming into the room. That's the footprints. Oh, okay.

You hear the gnolls yelling to each other, quickly arm yourselves! They pull out their weapons and begin engaging in combat with this swarm of critters. What do you guys do? While the spiders are coming in, I start to jump ahead, and they're all bottlenecked in that door. I want to shoot an exploding arrow to

to see if I can take out as many as I can as quickly as possible. Bursting arrow. Bursting arrow, sorry. Yeah, make an attack roll. Okay. Yes, yes, yes. Of course, of course. All right, I use the longbow triumph. And that's a 12. You rolled a 2. Yeah, I know, but I got plus 10. Lucky, I'm going to roll it again. Does that hit? You don't get to know. You don't get to know. That's not how lucky works. And I roll a lucky, and I roll a nat 20. That's a 30, baby. Whoa. Whoa.

Uh-oh, I critted. That sounded gross. Uh-oh. Like we need to check your pants or something? Yeah, go ahead and roll damage. Okay. That would be

but then we also have the thing where you add the crit die or whatever. Yeah, so then it's add like a maximum damage as well. And then I also did the... Oh, God, what was it called? Bursting arrow? Bursting. Yeah. For the record, the 12 would have hit. Well, it would have been a crit, so it's still cool. Just letting you know. I know you're trying to make me feel bad. I don't feel bad because I got a critical, so it's fine. You sound like you don't feel bad. I'm fine. Hey, you're freaking out. I'm not freaking out. Okay.

2d6 force damage. Here we go. Yay! It's four, but it's in feet radius, so a bunch of them get hit, I'm assuming. So what was the total damage? I'm sorry. I've already made that disappear. 12 plus 9 is the damage, and then 4 is the exploding. So 21 plus 4, 25. See, sometimes I ask them to do math when I'm stalling. Like, I knew the number already. Okay.

Why would he? What's wrong with him? Yeah, the bursting arrow explodes, encompassing the swarm of critters that are coming in, and they all fall off the ceiling down to the floor, dead. However, I need all of you to roll initiative for me right now. Come back!

I also have another attack, just so you know. Okay, we'll have you at the top as like a surprise action, and then we'll go into initiative then. You got it. That's a four for my... That's 16. Nine. 23. Damn.

Bards first. We'll see. I got to roll for the gnolls and stuff here. I'm going to wear this the rest of the day. Since we're in this new room, Gum Gum and Mud, roll me Constitution saving throws. Guys, take off the things. We don't know that anything is happening. I refuse to. I roll a nat 20. What's the... 21. Oh, my God.

Hey, GumGum, these robes are fantastic. Yeah, I know. I like it. I look so good in this robe. It's very slimming. You look incredible. I feel so confident. It's lovely. I hate you guys so much. I hate that you're rubbing it in my face.

I'm just getting my initiative order set here, so I'll be just a moment. Should you guys take off the robes? I refuse to at this point. Gumgum doesn't even know that anything is wrong with them. Yeah, as far as we know, nothing's happened. We just have strong constitutions and look fabulous. So you feel pretty happy with yourself, Kyborg, that you vanquished that swarm of criders so quickly. And then as they fall to the ground from your bursting arrow, you hear like a loud scream.

and a large monstrosity crawls into the room along the ceiling. It looks like, if you had to describe it, it would be like a cross between some kind of spider and banshee. It drops to the ground in front of you, has multiple arms and bleached white hair across its body that flows down their head. It pulls out weapons. You see it has four arms, each of which has an extra joint.

Each of their hands and feet are embedded with claws, which seems like it helps them move around quickly. Its face holds faceted eyes and mandibles attached to its mouth. Are we in the finale of Stranger Things right now? It opens its mouth and lets out a scream at you. However, you did still have one more attack, so you have a surprise action you can take here if you want. Okay. What's she going to do? If I scream back at it, that's just like a thing, right? That's not my role, right?

Right. Okay, well, I want to intimidate it. I want to scream. Keep in mind I have the Dread Helm. Your Dread Helm gives what, like plus two or something like that? I think it gives me advantage on intimidation. So it yells at me, so then I yell back. It's a 13 and a 7. So it's a defined scream. And that's for intimidation, you said? Yes. I don't think that's going to intimidate it. I don't think so either. I'm just trying to waste time. That's a big nasty. Yeah.

It does not seem to be affected. And it looks at you and points and says, you killed my children. And then I shoot an arrow at it. That's a 25. That hits. Okay. My children. You killed my children. That's a, yeah, it's a 10. And then I also want to make that...

Let's call that one another arcane shot, but maybe we should try to do... You need more jelly arrows? I do not. Let's do a grasping arrow. Creature hit by the arrow takes an extra 2d6 poison damage. Its speed is reduced by 10 feet, and it takes 2d6 slashing damage for the first time. On each turn, it moves one foot or more. The brambles last for one minute until you use this option again or until any creature uses an action to remove them. It's the bramble arrow. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

So what do I do? Extra 2d6 poison damage and 2d6 slashing? I believe so, yes. Okay, I'm going to roll for the poison, and that would be 10. So it was already 10 before that, and now another 10? Yeah, it's a 20. And then I'm doing the slashing, and that's 5.

Great, so you've done a total of 25 points of damage. Yep. Damn. Okay, and it's hit with this Grasping Arrow, correct? Yes. Okay. Oh, yeah, it seems like it's taking quite a bit of damage, but it's still, like, roaring at you, waving its arms menacingly.

Bart, you had the best initiative roll, so you go first. All right. How far am I away from this thing? I don't think you're too far away. This room's not that huge. Oh, this room is not big at all. You're maybe 10 feet away from it. Could I cast polymorph on this thing and try to turn it into a fish?

Interesting. Let me read Polymorph. I'm assuming that's a fourth level spell? -Yes, fourth level. -There it is. The spell transforms a creature you can see within range into a new form. An unwilling creature must make a wisdom saving throw to avoid the effect. It has no effect on a shape changer. A creature with zero hit points. The duration... New form can be any beast whose challenge rating is equal to or less than the target's. Okay, so it can be less. Oh, my God, this is awful.

So it has to make a wisdom saving throw of 14. Yes. But you have to maintain concentration to keep it a fish for up to one hour. Specifically a goldfish, by the way. A goldfish. That's plenty of time. I'm concentrating. Okay, so I'm going to roll the wisdom saving throw here. Is it perhaps a disadvantage because it's in the brambles? It's... It's wisdom modifier is minus one.

Come on, you can do this part. Eight. Yeah, this fearsome creature that's screaming at you vanishes in a poof of smoke and a little Magikarp-looking fish is just like flopping around on the ground where it once stood. Oh, there's another goldfish for me. You killed my children. Can I go pick it up and put it in my water canteen? I stop him and I grab the fish.

No, we should leave it there. It's in the brambles. No, I'm stopping him from putting it in his canteen. Yeah, what are you all going to do with this fish? He's in the brambles. I want to stomp on it. Kill the thing. Mudd understands polymorph and understands that Bart here has to maintain concentration and knows that if we take this with us, it will turn back into Mean Mommy. Well, I'm not going to leave it in here. The drink.

to drown. This is not permanently a fish. It's going to turn into the nasty thing it was a little while ago. The gnolls are seizing this opportunity. One of them turns to the other and says, Milkins, let's go! And they both start running for the door. That's fine. Bye, Milkins! I say we stomp it to death. I wholeheartedly agree. No, it is my fish! Okay.

Well, whose turn is it in initiative? Initiative-wise, it's the gnolls, Lizard and Melkins. They run out of here. Then after them would be Gum-Gum. No! What?!

Hold on, wait. Is my turn over, though? Yeah, you cast Polymorph, and now you have to cost... You can move, I guess, but that's it. Could I move and just step on the fish? Yeah. Yeah, what's your movement? I mean, it's more than 10 feet. It's 10 feet away. Normally, I would say that would be, like, an attack action. You just step. You just step. It's a literal fish out of water. Just walk in here. Roll, I don't know, D6 stomping damage.

A three? That's three? Yeah. The bottom of your shoe is coated with fish guts. Fish. Yay. Did a murder. I want to give a quick shout out. The Knowles, Lizard, and Melkins are named after people on social media who interacted with us. Lizard is named after at Eliztat, and Melkins is named after at Maddie the Giant. Thank you for sending us a message on social media. Yeah. Yeah.

Everyone in the audience, go follow StinkyDragonPod on social media. This monster had so many cool attacks. We'll never know. And so many awesome things that I was looking forward to doing. It was going to go after GumGum. Well, GumGum was going to go after it until it got stomped. No, I mean like initiative-wise. Like after you, it would have been its turn, and it was going to mess you guys up.

Not with Bart around. Nice. Yeah, so now, I mean, you're just in this room, and I guess, yeah, you've only been in this room a few seconds. I mean, what was it, like, two turns? So you've been in this room, like, 12 seconds.

We're efficient. Can I go get the remains of the fish? Yuck. Gum-Gum, drop it. I gotta give him a burial. Okay. We gotta go find a toilet to flush this fish corpse into. While Gum-Gum is gathering the remains of a dead fish, I'd like to look at the chest that the... What the hell were they? Gnolls. Gnolls. Bart, keep your book away from all this stuff. What's in the chest? Roll a dexterity save. I'll be fine. And I roll a big, fat 21. Mm.

You, uh, you might as well deftly avoid getting a splinter in your hand as you open the wooden chest. And you open it up and you look and there is tons of coins. There's copper, silver, gold. You see gems, a vial, and a robe. What, uh, can I tell what the vial is? Is it filled with something like a potion or anything like that? Or a label on it?

Yeah, sure, why not? It's got a label on it. It says, Sacred Flame. All right. And then the robe, is there... What's it look like? It's adorned with eye-like patterns. I grab the robe and I put it on. You said you put it on? Yeah. What about the other robe you're wearing? You can layer. Since you're disturbing the other robe you have on, make a constitution saving throw. He really wants this to work. This is a 22. I hate it.

You put on this robe, and it's like your senses are... One moment. Yeah, no kidding. We should have made the DC higher. It's like your eyes are opened in every direction. It's almost like you feel you can see for the first time in your life. For the first time.

You feel like what was, you know, in the other room was pitch black. Like I said, you can see clear as day into that room now. Nice. And you can just see everywhere and everything. I would say every piece of clothing I found in this tomb has been fantastic. Yeah.

This is net gain. Okay, for the sake of trying to get to our final goal, I just gathered all the jewels and everything into my bag and then grabbed that vial of some sacred flame. Sacred flame, yeah. And I tell the group, there's a bunch of gems and coins. I promise we'll split them as a group. We've at least got some jewels from this adventure, so net gain. Could I test something here? Are we still in initiative? No, but you can be if you want. What are you doing? Bart cast invisibility.

Where did Bart go? Oh my god, where did Bart go? You have to make a stealth check, Bart. Oh, dang it. I'll roll for your check. All righty. Here we go. Should I roll for perception with my, like, superpowers? Well, I'm going to see what Bart's stealth check is first. Coming in hot. 22! Woo! Woo!

The three of you, please make perception rolls. Do I have advantage? Let me know what you roll. Twelve. Four. Thirteen. Kyborg and Gum-Gum, you have no idea. Bart just vanishes out of your sight. Bart? And disappears. Mud, you ask Bart when he's going to try to hide.

Dang. Wait, could you, Mud, could you see me? Yeah, Mud sees you like you're not even trying to hide. I point at Bart. Oh, that means you can see things that are invisible. Yeah. Okay. I take off my spell. I stop concentrating on it. Okay. Because I don't want to sit on the floor anymore. Kyborg and Gum-Gum, you see Bart again. Oh, hey, Bart.

And actually, since your vision is so acute now, you feel like you see that the party should progress through the door to the north. Wow. A.K.A. we have 15 minutes left and we need to... Everybody, I'm seeing a clock that says we've got 15 minutes to get through this tomb. We're going through this door. All right. Okay. I perceive that there's any traps in the door. I brush through the door. All right.

You go into the next room. A cool draft softly whistles about the chamber, and it feels like there's patches of soil and grass sprinkled around the floor. In this room is a large, unlit brazier that hangs overhead in the center of the room.

And two rows of pews face the eastern wall. A large stone archway stands near the eastern wall. Seems like we're in a church. Yeah, I could walk up to it and then... To what? To the... Brazier? Brazier. And then get down and close our eyes and say, let's, I guess, pray. I would love to hear your prayer, Gum-Gum. Go ahead, Brother Gum-Gum. Go ahead. I would like to say I'm sorry.

for killing that goldfish or at least witnessing its murder and not being able to save it. And I would say that I like ice because this place likes ice. Amen. Beautiful gum gum. Wow. That's lovely. What's that do to the room, Gus?

The razor falls from the roof, killing Gum-Gum. Gum-Gum might be our most pious party member. Nothing seems to happen, but Gum-Gum, you feel better about confessing your sins. Oh. Uh, K-Borg? Yeah? Can you light that brassiere? Yes. I use that spell that everyone knows the name of and I don't need to repeat. Yeah.

And I light that brazier. I said it wrong, but brazier. Brazier, yes. So you use Prestidigitation to light it? That's the one. Do you have to do anything for that, or does it just cast automatically? I think it just casts automatically. Look at your damn spell. Honestly, I don't even know if I have it anymore. I'm like, it's been too long. Oh, yeah, it's here. Spell's a minor magical trick that none of those spellcasters use for practice. You can create one of the following magical effects within range. It's just an action. Yeah. He just does it.

Make me an Arcana check. Okay. Oh, 18. Wow, you're getting really good with your Arcana checks. I know. We normally don't do well with Arcana. Thank you. I also never use that spell ever, so... Because I can't sound it out. Proud of you. Thank you.

The brazier lights illuminating the room and showing you that there's two paths out of this room, one to the left and one to the right. But with your high arcana check, you also feel like there's maybe the presence of a portal that's unactivated inside the archway under the brazier. Okay. Okay.

Team, there's a left way, a right way, and then there's a portal that needs to be activated right there in that archway. Mud, what do you see? Oh, yeah, do I see anything? I'm looking specifically at the pews. Anything interesting about them? Anything interesting about the pews? Nothing stands out to you about the pews. It's just two rows of them. They're facing that eastern wall. And they're facing just a wall? Yes. They seem like they might stink a little.

Uh-oh, stinky. The pews are facing a wall and they're stinky. Can we perceive if there's anything up with that wall? That's kind of a dump. They're PUs. Oh. Micah, go home. What are you doing, man? Can I...

perceive if there's any magic. Same. Oh. Yeah. You detect that there's dormant magic in this archway. Oh, because of the portal thing. I think we should probably go into one of the rooms and then I think Mudd should tell us with his supervision which one looks the most appealing. We're going left. Thank you. He's your dear friend of mine.

You exit this room, walk to the left, which is the western side, and you walk into this room, and the air smells faintly of incense and smoke. This is a circular room. All the other rooms you've been in have been very square or rectangular. This room in particular is a circular room, and there's three beds in a circle that sit in the middle of the room. Looks like they're made out of wooden pallets, robes, towels, couch cushions, and in the center of the beds is an unlit campfire.

and scattered about the room are piles of bones. You see a lantern on the western wall with the letter L etched into the wall below it. L? Loose? I don't know. Mud lays down in one of the beds. Brave of you. Yeah, make a, I don't know, let's say a dexterity saving throw. Let's say I roll... Dexterity saving throw.

A 16. Nice. Yeah, you make yourself comfy. It's not the best bed you've ever slept on, but it seems to be all right. And as you're laying, make me a perception check. Mud. Oh, and also, Mud and Gum-Gum, make me constitution saving throws because we're in a new room. 26 on perception. You're going to get them sometime, Gus, I promise. I'm trying so hard, Barbara. That's a 17.

That's a 21 on Constitution. Oh, wait, actually, sorry, 20. Mine was a 20 because I had to go to the chat. You lay down and you make yourself comfortable on the bed. And as you're doing so, maybe it's the robe or something, but, you know, you're looking at the ceiling and you think you see movement. And you see three creatures hiding on the ceiling. I...

Can I see what they are? You've never seen any creature like this. They seem to be eyeless creatures crawling around on all four. But obviously right now they're grabbing onto the ceiling, trying to be as still as possible. They have forearms tipped with razor-sharp claws. They have giant ear cavities that you think allows them to hear since they can't see. Be very quiet. They probably know where the eye is.

Maybe. Do you guys want me to light that campfire up so we can see better? Oh, I don't know. Is this one of those situations where they're more afraid of us than we are of them? Possibly. Yeah. I don't know. Should we attack them? No. No, no, no. No.

But what if we attack them? What if I shot an arrow at one of them? I cast Call Lightning. Oh. Call Lightning? It's a big spell. It's a big spell. That'll deafen them too. That's going to be so loud for them. A storm cloud appears in the shape of a cylinder that is 10 feet tall and 60 feet in radius. What if they help

guide us to where we need to go. I'm just trying things here. No one's trying anything. You're trying murder. Guys, we got eight minutes to kill these things. We gotta pick things up. Mud woke up and chose violence. Yeah. Ten foot tall, sixty foot radius, stand on a point, see within range, a spell fail. When you cast the spell, choose a point, bolt of lightning flashes down from the cloud to that point. Each creature makes a dexterity saving throw. So I see me trying to

cast it on them. Yeah. They all must make a dexterity saving throw, so I'm going to roll three dexterity saving throws. They have a... I'll roll for damage just to go ahead. Okay, they have a plus six on their decks, FYI. And they need to roll a 16 or better. Stairmaster. Thank you. 20, 21, 22.

Only one of them fails the save. Oh. So that one takes 11 damage, and the other two take five. Not much. A little lightning. Just a light lightning. I'm writing them down so I can keep track of this. Gum Gum yells, we mean you no harm. Flum. Flum.

Yeah, so you cast your call lightning and, you know, two of them don't take the full brunt of damage, but one of them does. And the three creatures fall to the ground in front of you. And the biggest one of the three says, please leave us alone. Okay, can we help you with anything? Make a perception check, Gum-Gum.

Can we not do that? We make mistakes. We learn from our problems. We grow. That's a five. Okay. These are weird-looking creatures. They say, we're just trying to leave. We want to get back to our home. Sorry to accidentally hurt you. Our friend here has a bit of an anger problem. We're looking for this eye. Do you happen to have seen anything...

Make a perception check. I know that might be offensive to be in position. Have you heard of this A? That's A25. Oh, my God. Ooh.

Yeah, that's right. It looks to you like the smallest of these three creatures is wearing a silver circlet around its head with a sapphire eye bejeweled in the center. Guys, guys, I don't mean to alarm you, but I think the smallest one has exactly what we're looking for. May I ask your name? The biggest one who first addressed you said, I'm Talon, and this is my family, Maddie and my daughter, Val.

Oh, no. Y'all seem very peaceful. We're trapped here. Oh.

And by the way, those are named after people who've interacted with us on social media. Talon is named after at Talon Tardis. Maddie's named after at Magical Madoka. And Val is named after at V Stymack. Please, we're trying to find our portal to go back to our land of Aurali. Tell them that it's in the next room over, but it's not activated. Hello, I am Gum-Gum the Great Flower Wizard. Come upon my back and I will carry you to the portal. For a price. Yes.

Right, Gum Gum? No. I think they paid the greatest price of all, lightning. We'll take you to this portal you need in exchange for that thing you got there. Yeah, the eye. Little girl. I point at it and then realize that she can't see. Oh.

Oh, absolutely. Here, you're more than welcome to take it. Talon, you know, reaches over and grabs the relic off of Val. And you see as he does so, he like puts an arm on Val as if to like calm her down.

She's electrocuted. Mutt turns to Bart and goes, yeah, teamwork. Do they come towards you? Bart goes, I've never met him before in my life. I'm sorry. Talon says, it's okay. We can walk if you can just help us to figure out how to activate that portal in the other room. Okay. I take the eye. I give it to Bart because you've been dealing with a lot of our magical stuff and I just want to make sure Gum Gum doesn't have it.

And then I say maybe we should go to the other room. Let's rush. Mud, it seems to you with your new enhanced perception that on the other side of the room, you know, like I said... There's the L, the L torch. Correct. In the other room on the other end, there's a similar torch that has R marked under it. Left and right. It's just left and right. We probably need to light both of them. Hacks.

Do it. Light it. Light it, K. Berg. Uh, all right. With what was it? Digitation. Yeah. That one did not deserve a round of applause. You light both, and a sapphire portal opens up in the archway in the previous room you were in. We're just going. We're zooming. All you need to do is speak the destination, and the portal will take you there. What was the name of the land that these creatures are from? Uh...

It was very hard to hear you on the microphone because of this room. Yeah. It wasn't the optosphere. I think the audience heard that, right? Yeah, you're not better than us.

You all don't remember. See, it's not easy, is it? I like how you said you're not better than us, but there's way better cosplayers of our costumes right in front of us. I just mean memory-wise. Could we ask, where did you want to go? Talon steps forward and says, Aurelie. Aurelie. And the three creatures walk through. Wait, wait, before you go. Two minutes. Take these magic cloaks. They're very powerful.

They are a gift from me to you to make up for the lightning. Make a constitution saving throw, Gum Gum. Karma's gonna get you for that one. You might have this one coming too. Oh, that's a one. Wait, no, seven plus six, 13, sorry. 13, I think. Why did you say one? It looked like a one. A seven looks like a one.

He's learning. That's what you need. You need a 13. So I made it? This still works, yeah. Talon turns to regard you, listens to you, and says, why would I take those cloaks? They're covered in brown mold. One person's mold is another person's gold. Oh! Oh!

Before they begin walking through, Talon says, thank you, and make sure you stay careful in your world. Beware of a woman named Paralite. And then he steps through the portal. We've heard of her. Too little, too late. And that's it. You all have successfully navigated the Tomb of the Stairmaster. Dun, dun, dun. I, uh...

Mud, so excited for how good we did, gathers the party around and gets a big group hug of the whole party. Aww. And then Bart starts going, RTX, RTX, RTX, RTX. Thanks to everyone for coming to our panel. Thank you. Big thank you to Micah for writing the Tomb of the Stairmaster. Thank you.

Yeah!