C01 - Ep. 31 - Wight Winter - Nail ’em, Jail ’em, Pale ’em
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This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.

This is a Rooster Teeth production.

Previously, our adventurers learned more about Leonard Lank firsthand as each party member played the part of Spectral and partook in momentous memories from the Infinite's painful past. They quickly discovered Spectral's problematic plan of payback and parted ways in search of a peaceful approach at New Valros. Naturally, they ended up in prison. Plop yourself in place and let's delve into this dungeon crawl.

Welcome back to another episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon, this time taking place live from the new Valros Dungeons. Oh. Ba-ba-ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Like Barbara's. Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang. It's on the bars. Are we in like, are we in separate cells or are we on wall all in one cell together? And is there a dog outside the cells holding the keys that we can try to whistle for? Well, funny you should ask. You each find yourselves lying on a pile of damp hay in the dark.

One look around tells you you're each cramped in your own dank cell made of stone and secured with iron bars. Next to you is a splintered bucket in the corner of your cell, reeking of urine and who knows what else. You find yourselves without any of your equipment or weapons, and you're only wearing a uniform made of sackcloth and shackles around your wrists. Someone wet my hay. Bart makes this look good, by the way. You want to make a performance check on that? Yeah, let's see. Can you make it look good?

Does Mud have to make any checks for his wetting the bed? Roll a Will Smith check. Performance. That is a 15. It looks decent. It looks better than you would expect. It's not flattering at all, but Bart knows the best way to gussy himself up. I have a question. Was that a long rest then that we've been since the last one, since we were in prison? We woke up.

I would say you all arrived at night and you needed to have your mission completed by midnight. So we'll say it was a short rest. I'll take it. I'll take it. Oh, that's right. We're like on a... You're on a time crunch. Very important that I remind this party of that. So we're in a cell. We're in separate cells. Yes. I want to whistle. You're going to whistle? Can I whistle my whistle? You don't have any of your equipment.

But they don't... Could you whistle with your fingers? Yeah. I like that right now the audience can't see it, but Chris just tried to start whistling. He made the puckering face to start whistling as Barbara prompted him to. But then I think, I don't know if Gum-Gum knows how to whistle, so I think he's going to hoot like an owl. Hoot, hoot. Perfect. Okay. The rest of you hear reverberating sounds of Gum-Gum howling maybe in pain? No.

Okay. The reverberating sounds of a madman. I think it's only right and appropriate for my character to do a strength test on the bars to see if he could break them. You want to do a strength check to try to like, are you talking about like just hulking out and bending the bars apart? That is exactly right. Miss Piggy could do it. That's right.

I will say you can try, but don't forget your hands are manacled. So it's not like you have the full range of motion with your hands. Is Miss Piggy canonical to Tales from the Stinky Dragon? I think she should be added. I think. She's the big bad evil guy. Y'all just haven't realized it yet. I'm going to get myself out of here or whatever she sounds like.

That's pretty good. No, that's just like that. Then I want to Hulk out of my manacles then. Just like you want to like pull your arms apart and try to like break the chain that's connecting the two manacles together? Mm-hmm. Yep. All right, go ahead and make a strength check. Okay, here we go.

It's a nat 20 plus four, 24. Wow. I think I got it. You really give it your all. I mean, you feel great about it. You feel like the metal just starts bending ever so slightly, but you just can't get to that critical point where it fails and breaks apart. You feel like you were so close though. Can we see if there's any sort of like gate or door that could be potentially picked?

Yeah, there's a door with a lock right in the jail cell where the iron bars are. I got something to do. I got something to do other than try to break metal. I could have done it. Yeah, I'm sure. But I kind of want to get a very accurate visual of what we're looking at. So we're in these cells and there's a door to our cells that is also locked. Correct. So we're behind our own locked cell doors inside of a jail area that then is also behind another locked door.

So you all are in jail cells with iron bar, one of the walls is iron bars, and in that wall of iron bars is a locked door. That's the only door. There is no second, there is no other door. So each of you is behind your own individual doors. Right, right, right.

Can I maybe like actually do something? Everyone's just so excited. I let you whistle. I let you pull manacles. Let me just do my thing. Because I know how this is going to go, John. I was going to try to pull mine and be the action hero, but no, you're going to turn into a spider and everyone's going to go say, oh, Mud, you're our hero. And then I'm just going to be with a metal arm. And that's it. All right, on three. Mud, you're our hero. Nailed it. It's just... Okay.

Are there any, there's no like keys hanging on the wall anywhere like rescuers down under style?

You look around and you don't see any keys hanging on the wall. The way the cells are positioned, there's three cells on one side of the room and then two cells on the other side. So when you look around, you only see your party members in other cells. Okay, last question, then I'm actually taking an action. What's the lighting situation in here? It's an excellent question. There is a, like a lantern hanging from the ceiling between the cells. So it's dimly lit with shadows? Yeah. Okay. Mud turns into a frog. Yeah.

Well, I think we were all expecting spider. Frog is a... I like frog better. Have you done frog before? No, I haven't. This is Mud's premier frog. He says, hello there.

Hello there. Mud the Frog here. Hi-ho. Just out of curiosity, where did you learn frog from? I'm trying to remember. It had to have been the pet shop because it's in that list of animals. It's in that chunk. It's between sea otter and badger when I listed it out. He's a pet shop boy. Nice. So you're going to go ahead and channel the energies to transform yourself into a frog. But for some reason, you feel like you can't get the energy to line up appropriately.

You go through all the motions, you say all the incantations, but you're just not feeling it. Things don't line up and it doesn't pop out. Mud, you're useless, like me. Yeah.

You all hear pounding footsteps approaching from around the corner. A torch comes into view held by a super thick armor clad Valrossian. As they walk closer, the torchlight shines upon their grizzled face and you notice a pronounced scar across their chin. They slowly parade past each of you, looking at all of you with fixed eyes.

What happened to your face? The Valrossian stops and looks at you, almost like they're looking through you, Gum-Gum, then asks you a question. Would you open an envelope that has the date of your death inside? Yeah. Can I have it? Perhaps soon. The Valrossian continues walking around and approaches Bart and asks, Would you be friends with yourself?

I got a question for you first. Does this sack make me look fat? Ha ha ha!

The Valrossian leans over to one of the other Valrossian guards and whispers in their ear. The Valrossian continues walking around and approaches Qyborg. I never answered the question. And asks, If you committed a crime to feed your hungry child, are you a bad person or did you commit the crime out of necessity? I don't know how many children I have, so I don't know if I can answer this question appropriately. Uh,

But watch this as I try to break these manacles. And then can I do another strength check? Sure. Go for it. You do know if you fail this strength check, Gus is going to make you poop your pants. It's an 18. Only if you rolled a one. That's what I'm saying. That's the pulling against something and failing strength check. They were so weakened from the last one that I think I got it this time, Gus. Can we make a video about that? Like when you fail a strength check and you poop your pants? I think we can do that.

Like you're just exerting so much energy. Comes out in the wrong direction. No, I'm sorry, Kyborg. 18. You try. You feel like maybe your muscles are somewhat weaker after your earlier attempt, and you're not able to get the necessary leverage. The Valrasian, though, has a smile across their face watching you try to break the manacles. I impressed him. I impressed him, everyone.

The Velrossian walks over to Sleek and asks, What do you do differently from other people? Sleek looks at him a little confused and just replies, Well, I don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty good at playing the loot. I can find things. So confident. I'm a real people person. Everyone likes me, especially Kyborg. Ask him. False. False. You hear from the next sellover.

It's weird. The word false in Valrossian means true. It's crazy. It's just... Well, today's 100 Fest, so it's opposite day in New Valross. Nah! The Valrossian does not continue listening to Sleek and just walks away. Kind of like the Valrossian. Walks over to Mud and asks, If your partner never finds out that you accidentally cheated on them, would you tell them about it? Mud rears back in confidence and goes...

To seek the Holy Grail. The Valrasian signals to the two guards that were with them and proclaims to you all. I am Unfrey Odom, the warden of these dungeons. You are prisoners that have been found guilty of conspiracy against the crown of V. King Gjorn.

Therefore, you will be executed at dawn for treason, as the evidence found against you was quite damning. Warden Odom gives a knowing look at Mud. Welcome to Nuvaros. I hope you enjoy your stay. It will be brief. Odom chuckles as they walk away around the corner. Can I call after them? Do I- do I really have a child, though? Am I- am I a father?

The two guards unlock Sleek's cell and grab him and drag him out following Warden Odom. No, please! Anyone but me! I won't survive, please! Anyone! Interns! Help me! Klyborg! My friend! Did they already leave? Yes. Dang. Okay, never mind. No, not Sleek. No, please stop. I was going to try to cast Suggestion on him, but he's gone already.

Nice to meet you. So, I can't help but notice that they stared right at you, Mud, when they claimed that we were guilty of crimes. What did you do? What did you take? I'll never tell. Who'd you piss off? Omulet.

It's probably, I don't know, it's got to be when I had the, uh, the, uh, bloody hell. You did it, Blaine. Yes. It's like a damn virus. Um, it's probably, they think that I hurt them all when they were all, all those Valorations were under control, but still, I gave a lot of boo-boos to Valorations, so maybe, I don't know. I don't know. I

I have no idea what the hell you were talking about, Mud. When I had the amulet and then on our escape out of... Oh, from Brumafume. That's right. Brumafume. Okay, so maybe since the DM has no idea what I'm talking about, maybe that's not it. No, I just didn't know what you were referencing. I was like, what is that? Micah knew. Micah sent me a message, Brumafume. Like, oh, right, right, Brumafume. Yeah. My only assumption is either that or they just don't like druids. I think it's the amulet. I think...

Did they take Sleek? They just took Sleek, right? Yeah, they took Sleek away. Okay. How does Kyborg feel about that? Oh, as they were taking him, I thought that they took him. I said, no, stop, wait, please don't. Like, unenthusiastically. As my way of saying, you can have him. It's like Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory. No, don't. Oh, no, our Sleek. He's broken. So does John, does Mutt still have on the amulet?

Can't. If I'm stripped of everything. Yeah, no, you all have nothing. All of your equipment is taken. That would be where we'll leave you this piece of jewelry, okay? We'll give this to you. But you look too cute in it. Yeah, the only thing that was taken was Gum Gum's whistle.

Right. So how are we going to get a jail? My team. Can I do a perception check of my cell to see if there's any weak spots? I was looking for lock picks to pick. Yeah, well, I mean, there is one in the jail cell door that opens up. There is a lock there, but it's not a perception check. Blaine, it would be an investigation check. Copy that. And I do have dark vision as an elf, so I can see in this dimly lit room very well.

All right, we'll go ahead and make an investigation check. See what you see, what you find. You got negative one. Dang it. Little 16. Not bad. 16. Yeah. Is there a particular part of the cell you want to focus on or you're just looking like in general? I think in general, maybe focusing on the door because that's my exit. But if there's like a window that I can crawl through, you know.

Well, there's no windows per se. Focusing on the door, you're looking around, really investigating, trying to find a way out of the cell. And as you're looking through the door, you see a small, rusty, unlit candle holder atop a small table between two of the cells across from where you are. Can I fit my arms through the bars to reach it? It's out of your reach. It's like...

across the hallway on the other end. So you can't get to it, but whoever's in the northern cells would be able to reach it. It's over by where Bart and Mud are. Can Bart's little short arms reach it? Well, I guess maybe Bart can't because his arms aren't quite equipped for this kind of thing. Bart's got mage hand. Use it.

Could I use Mage Hand? Yeah, what do you want to do? I mean, I guess we're assuming here, Kyborg, I assume you tell them. I say, B-Daddy, M-Dog, we're using our prison names. There's a thing we can use as a weapon in our lockpick next to you guys. What was it again, Kyborg? B-Daddy and M-Dog? No, no, no. What was the item?

He's a rusted candle holder. Oh, yeah. He had it. He's listening. He got it. Yeah. I'm not in the first grade, Gus. I can remember three minutes ago. I'm in the second grade. I'll have you know. Yes. I know my numbers to 20. And I should be in the third, but I was held back. I actually was.

Bart, you want to cast Mage Hand? I guess you like peek your head around to like try to see what he's talking about. Yeah. And you want to try to cast Mage Hand to grab at it? Yes, please. Okay. You channel the Eldritch energies and focus them to try to cast Mage Hand, but it just seems like the spell doesn't work. Like it doesn't even fizzle. It doesn't even get to the point where you're manifesting any energy. You feel like you're in a, like a negative space. Mutt turns to Bart and goes, it happens to all men. It's okay.

Oh, I know. It's quite common. It's quite common. Can I do my magic awareness thing?

and see if I can see anything around us that might be causing anything. To action, you can open up your awareness to presence of concentrated magic, and then until the end of your turn, you know the location of any spell or magic item within 60 feet that isn't behind total cover. When you sense the spell, you learn what school of magic it belongs to. Yeah, you try to open up your awareness to the presence of magic around you. It's the closest that Gum-Gum gets to meditating, probably. And you feel...

Nothing. You know, like if you were using your eyes, I guess the analogy would be like if the lights were off. You feel like the absolute absence of magic altogether. Almost like there's some kind of anti-magic space that you're in. The greatest joke right now, I just realized, due to our history with these things, is if you left all of these cell doors unlocked and we didn't just try to open a cell door.

That would be funny. Mudd just puts a ginger hand out just to see if the door opens with a touch.

You put your hand out and press against the door, and it does not open. Good news, everybody. All the doors are actually locked. Have you tried the handle? It's funny you say that, John. I really thought about that. I was like, it would be really hilarious if the doors were unlocked and you guys just didn't try to open them. Yeah, because to be clear, Kaibar's only been trying to break his manacles. He hasn't even been trying to break the door yet. So we haven't even tried the door. So there, I did it. I've removed...

So what are the manacles attached to? And is there anyone else in the space or can we call out to anyone? The manacles, you know, it's like typical manacles. It's like handcuffs, but with a longer chain between the two of them. You know, they're wide pieces of metal that are latched around each of your wrists. And then in the middle is a long chain that goes down to similar manacles on your ankles. Now to get sidetracked from Kyborg's finding.

Can Mud reach out and try to get the candlestick thingy? Yeah, you reach out. It's a little bit of a stretch. I'm a big boy. Maybe. I mean, I feel like you have to make a check of some kind because it's like right at your fingertips. Let's just roll a dex check just to see. Okay, Mr. Fantastic check. Just to make sure you don't like knock it off the table or something.

That's a nat 20, 22. Ooh, that's a good roll. Okay, yeah. You have to, like, push it a little bit to get it rocking back and forth. Then, you know, as it's rocking towards you, you're able to grab it. It's a neat little trick that no one seems to appreciate but yourself, Mud. And yeah, you grab onto this small, rusty, unlit candle holder. Make a shiv. Well, I was going to say, Kaiborg, you have lockpicking skills. I think this might be better in your hands.

I want to clarify that that means you throwing the candle, which is doing a check, and then it's me catching the candle holder, which is also doing a check. Are you backing away from some sort of challenge? You all start to hear footsteps approaching and voices talking. It's in the distance, but it seems to be getting louder. I throw the candlestick. I catch the candlestick. Okay, let's make some checks.

Mud, go ahead and make, let's just do another dexterity check. Why not? I know what you're going to say, but Mud tries to slap his butt and see if the energy is there. You slap your butt and no. I mean, you get a nice little butt slap, but no magical energy seem to be working. But you get the placebo effect. You've just taken everything from us. You've taken everything. You just feel like, you feel a little more confident. Like, yeah, I do have a nice butt. So this is for the toss.

I'm going to roll that again. That was a one. Oh, do you have an inspiration? I'm going to use a nice little inspiration desk right now and try that again. That's a 19. That's a 19. Okay. Yeah, that's much better. It's much better for you. I would have been really funny if you kept the one. All right. So Mud tosses the unlit candle holder in a graceful arc across the small hallway over towards Kyborg's cell. Kyborg, do you catch it? Roll a dex check.

Dex or athletics? Just do Dex. I like how you keep trying to convince them to let you do your other ones. Plus five, dude. You got this. Oh, God. I'm going to reroll that. So you rolled a five. I rolled a five. You have a plus five, which is ten. Yeah. And are you going to use an inspiration die to reroll that? Yeah. All right. Go for it. That's a little bit better. 18. Okay. We got to get out of here.

So it comes across in a slow, graceful arc, and you reach out and snatch it out of the air very quickly and pull it into your cell. So the whole thing went down silently. Not a single noise was made. And just in time, because as you catch it and bring the candle holder into your cell, Kyborg, two Valrasian guards on patrol come around the corner and start walking down the hallway between the cells. They don't seem to really be paying attention to you. They're in a conversation with each other, walking down the aisle, just kind of

quickly glancing over you guys, making sure you all are still in your cells. It's a lovely moment. They make a circle through and then turn around and start walking back in the direction they came from. I do one of those smiles where I just go... You gotta describe it for our audio listeners. My eyebrows are raised and I'm nodding my head. For anyone who doesn't know, it's the classic white people smile as you pass them on the sidewalk.

Lips pursed. Yep. My girlfriend and I were talking last night about how that smile is 100% negated in a world where we have masks on all the time. And I still catch myself doing it. You just have to squint your eyes kind of. Yeah. You look like Robert De Niro. Make your cheeks real big so they bulbous through your mask. Yeah. Okay. So they've left. You hear their footsteps fading away. Barbara just keeps doing that smile.

You hear their footsteps fading away. All right.

I leap into action. I guess I take a look at this candle holder and I try to find like the smallest points on it so that I can use as a lock pick. I have actually, I can actually pick a lock. I have picked locks in my house. So I feel like I only need like two smaller pieces. Have you ever picked a lock in your house with a candle holder? Good question. What kind of a skill check would this be under typically? To craft. This would be like blacksmithing.

To make lockpicks out of a candle holder? I don't have that on my skill sheet. Yeah, me neither.

I think you... I stick it in. I feel like there's a way to do it. Oh, good. I found a feature in D&D Beyond to add a custom skill. I'm plus 30 blacksmithing now if you just want it. Now you just need a forge, a hammer, an anvil, a firestone. We have all that stuff, but not with us. Yeah, it got taken from you. Describe...

The candle holder. You know, what's his name? Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast? Yeah, okay. Gonna Google him. Yeah, like that. Bart knows all about this. It's like a candelabra. Well, not like a candelabra, but like a candle holder you would picture like on a table. Mm-hmm.

Candle-obbers are, like, big and hanging from the ceiling, right? Maybe, yeah. It's a chandelier. Like, this is just, like, on top of a table or on top of, like, a piano. It's like a starter menorah. Yes, that holds three candles. You know, it's like you're not ready for the real menorah yet, so you just get the starter, and then you work your way up. Does he want us to be his guest by any chance, this candle holder? Yeah. Yeah.

Will he come to life and help us pick this lock, perhaps? With his friend Cogsworth? French. You can't just say the word French and that's like your reference. And they don't even... It wouldn't even be French in French, would it? Wouldn't it be like Francois? Francais. Francais. Francais. Francais.

What you described, there are long, skinny arms to it, right? All of those things that you said, and those are exactly what I would need. That end in wide open arms.

half spheres that you put candles in. Yeah, well, I'm strong as heck, so what if I broke those pieces off to then forge, to then just have the pieces that I need? I just basically need two metal toothpicks. So I guess what you would do then is the half sphere where the candle goes in, you just start bending it back and forth to break that part off, so you're left with a little metal pick. You said it was rusty. Yeah, okay. Sure, why not? Go ahead and make a strength check and see if you can...

Break it and bend it to your will. All you gotta do is drink. Check, check, guys. Please. Oh, God. That's a 10. Dang it. You butthole. You giant one-armed butthole. This is what happens when you don't let certain people with certain skills do certain things. Do you have skills that we should have let you do this with? All the skills. I'm so skilled.

Bard is a jack of all trades. Bards can do everything. Can we gamble another toss? Let me sing this lock open. Hold on. Yeah. What's really funny about Kyborg rolling a 10 here is, you know, I chat with Ben and Mike on the side here, is that I told them I would have given you the candle toss at the 10 that he rolled initially. I felt like he used that inspiration die unnecessarily earlier. Oopsie, too late. Why would you tell me that?

We're just being thorough. Can I look at my bucket of slop and see if there's anything in it? Of poop? Sure, make an investigation check. Okay.

I still want to try to break that thing. I'd like to give it another go. I just didn't have a good angle on it the first time my hand slipped. Yeah. That's a four. No, it's really disgusting, Gum-Gum. There's nothing in there that you can find. Now your hands are dirty. Okay, well, I'm still going to keep it. Everyone make a note not to touch Gum-Gum's hands until that boy finds a wash. Don't shake hands. Yeah. All right, go ahead and make another strength check, Kyborg. Okay, this time I really...

I flex my core and I really put my back into it. God. It's a seven. It's worse. It's worse. Your muscles are just getting weaker and weaker. It's the magic of this cell. My friends, I'm worth it anyway. Is there any chance you have like secret stuff hidden in your fake arm? You know, I considered like, ah, my arm is lockpicked, but then that's like Gus would kill me. Go, go, gadget. No offense. It's a little Chris of me to do that. I'm not going to do that.

Yeah, I don't know what to do to make you be stronger. I want to do another strength check. Could I give you maybe a bardic inspiration or something? So it's interesting you say that, Barbara. We're having a side discussion over here trying to figure out whether or not bardic inspiration works in this case. And based on the research we're doing right now, we're thinking yes, that you could. That bardic inspiration actually does work in situations like this.

Okay, could I cast Bardic Inspiration on Kyborg, but could I do it where I do finger guns at him? Because I think I'm probably too far away to slap him on the butt. Yeah, just for reference, I don't like the word cast in this context because you can't cast, but you can use Bardic Inspiration. Use it, yeah, my bad. Yes, no, no, no. It's just, I just want to be clear for like audio listeners. Yeah, you shoot some finger guns at Kyborg. Do you say like pew-pew or anything? Yeah, definitely. Okay.

But I do it too many times. I go pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. So he's so inspired. I'm reading this stuff about bardic inspiration just out of curiosity. And I like this part where it says you might have a quick limerick. So, Barbara, if you ever want to pull out a quick limerick to give us bardic inspiration, I am here for it. Okay. Here it comes.

Trapped in a cell with all my bros. We gotta get out. Let's go, go, go's. Ooh. I don't think that's a conventional limerick, but I'll take it. So, yeah, Bart sings his little limerick and sings some pew-pews over in the direction of Kyborg. And Kyborg, you basically gain a 1d6 inspiration die for the next 10 minutes. Sweet. All right, another strength check. Chest check.

Let's see if I can break this thing, alright? First try. Please, for the love of God, it was my last part of Conspiration. It's a 12+. Plus...

- One! It's a 13 total. - Yeah, no, no. Maybe all these attempts at trying to break off parts of the candle holder have fatigued the metal, but you're finally able to get it to bend to your will and pop off those little cups that actually hold handles. - I think I fatigued my party. - You're left with small pieces of metal sticking out.

Okay. We're not even done with you doing checks to get out of the cell. So to be clear, do I wanted to break off the individual like cups so that I have basically what is it would look like a tiny plunger, right? Like it's just I just need like two long pieces toothpick or, you know. Yeah. Okay. All right. So now I'm going to go about trying to pick my lock. Yeah. Go ahead and make a sleight of hand check.

Go ahead and make your first of four successful sleight of hand checks. 15. That's good. Yeah, you stick the broken piece of metal into the lock. You fiddle with it. You think you're not really making any progress, but after just a couple of seconds, the lock clicks open. I did it. All right. You seem so happy. That's in character. That's in character. He said that. I push the door open, and then I just kind of waltz out. Sure.

Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet. There's Velrossians coming around. And I'm like, big guy on campus. I flex my arm muscle and, you know. Escape the jail cell with my bros. Now we're gonna go, go, go. All right, Bart, you get first up. I go over to Bart's to pick their lock. All right, yeah, go ahead and make a sleight of hand check.

So Barbara's bardic inspiration sounds like the people that come to school and try to convince you not to take drugs with their laps. All right, kids, we're going to rap. Bart's like a hype man, like just trying to make you feel good. I rolled a one. Yeah. Kyborg, you try to pick the lock and it's just not working. You break one of the pieces of metal you were using as a lock pick. So you only left with the other one at this point. You only have one one left.

Could I break off the other... How many candle holder things are on this candelabra thing? Three. Okay. All right. I'm going to use a strength check to break the third one off. Yeah? You still have one that works, he just said. Yeah, you still do have one that works. So do another sleight of hand check. Oh, I guess I'm kind of adding myself here, but you do need to... Shut up. Okay. Okay. Sleight of hand.

The DM is saying. Yeah, these are simple locks. 24. 24, you nail it. Something, you know, clicks in your mind and you're able to very quickly, almost as soon as you put the broken piece of candle holder in there, it just, the lock just pops up. Something clicks your mind like something clicks inside the lock. Whose door was this? It was Bart's. Now I go over to Gum Gum's. Hi. Hi.

And then I say, I'll be right back. And then I go over to Mudd's.

And then Gum Gum throws his bucket of filth at Kyborg. Gum Gum wouldn't do that. Go ahead and give yourself another inspiration, Kyborg. Yeah! Alright, I rolled a 14. So you try to open Mudd's and no, it's just not working. You're not able to pop this door open. Is this maybe a more complex lock? I don't know. You're going to use that dice?

I'll just give it another go. I mean, it has broken, right? Yeah. Give it another go. Okay. Okay. You know, that's a nine. Nine. No. I'm just going to... Maybe Gum Gum, you know, put some bad juju on you for you, like, taunting him like that. I didn't. I'm going to give it one more go. One more go. And then I'll go over to Gum Gum so this doesn't work out. That's a one. I think it's... Mud lives here now. You have broken your remaining lockpick. I have...

I really do actually. This is actually helpful. I'll say this is helpful.

Kyborg needed to be brought down a few pegs and just to have some failures in his life for us all to be able to remind him of when he's in those moments of sheer unearned confidence. Make sure you write all of these down for future reference. Yeah. Bart, I should have mentioned when you stepped out, you feel like you're back in touch with magic now that you stepped out. Oh, interesting. Okay. So do I have one more candle thing to break off to potentially make another lockpick? Sure, yes.

Bart, use magic. Help, help, help, help. I don't know if I have any magic that could do that kind of stuff. Do anything. Fire it all. This stupid rain fighter. What are you? You're a fighter. You fight like a ranger, which is why I always think you're a ranger. Fire. Same here. Yeah. You rolled a 12. Yeah, you're able to fashion one more lockpick out of the third arm of the candle holder. Oh.

Okay. And then I walk back over. I'm just really sweating. I'm getting some bad performance anxiety. Kyborg is right now. Can Bart like charm Kyborg into actually being good at this? Is that like an option? Is that possible? Could I actually cast suggestion for Kyborg to not be stressed out and nervous and be more confident? That's smart. I feel so good now. Wow.

I don't know if that'll actually do anything other than waste a spell slot. Bart is just going up to Kyberg and doing ASMR in his ear just to calm him down.

Could Bart come up to Kyborg and, like, be like, hey? And then, like, he motions with his fingers for him to, like, kind of crouch down because Bart's very short. And Bart puts his hands on Kyborg's shoulders, like, on his, like, traps, and he starts massaging it. And he goes, listen, buddy. All right, you're doing great. Okay? Just relax. You're so tense. You're so tense. You know what, Kyborg? He's right. You are tense. You got this.

This all seems fine to you. All right. All right. You get advantage on the next check.

Oh, yeah. All right. I go up to Mud's door. I pull out my one lock pick. B is for bard. B is for best. It's a 20 plus 5, 25. I didn't even need it. Nailed it. Bard has magical hands. Let's get out of here, team. You just look at the lock and it like unlocks. It pops open. He wingset it and it just falls apart.

Mud slaps Kyborg, but slaps him on the face. Gives him guidance and says, go get Gum-Gum. Yeah, but he's also obviously, as Mud steps out of the cell, he feels in touch with magic again. Okay. All right. Now I go over to Gum-Gum and say, hey, big guy. Hey. Hey.

Who are you? Okay, well, I rolled a seven plus five plus... D4. Here comes the four. It's the pyramid one. It's a one. It's a 13. No, no. The lock seems to have the best of you. All right. One more sleight of hand. Here we go. I got to put my back into it. 13 plus five, 18. There it is. The lock pops open and Gum-Gum is free with his dirty hands.

Hi. High five. Bart runs up to hug him. I've missed you. It's cute. I've missed you too. I would say that Kyborg saved the day, but I just, I don't even want that anymore. I'm just embarrassed. It really was a group effort in the end. Yeah. I became very good friends with the wall. We wore friendship bracelets. Oh, what did they look like? Well, it looked like a wall. No, your friendship bracelets, Gum Gum. Gum Gum.

Oh, it looks like my friendship bracelets, but they were attached to the wall. Oh, that's pretty cool, buddy. Proud of you. Hold on. Is Gumbo with me? No, Gumbo is not with you. Mud's going to kill every walrus in this place until we find Gumbo. They are dead.

I know we're on a diplomatic mission, but this has changed. Killing all the walruses to avenge the Ishbjorn? I don't know. That might be bad. Killing all the walruses to find Gumbo? Oh, it's on. Ben just called you Mudwick. No, don't take a druid's pet badger. Everyone knows that. Don't wear white after Labor Day and don't steal a druid's badger.

Hey, everyone. Don't forget to give us a follow on social media, Twitter and Instagram at StinkyDragonPod. We're always looking for fantasy slash D&D tavern drinks for our intros, for our bartender to talk about. Maybe some magic items you could send us that the party could come across in their travels. If you have any ideas, go ahead and send them to us. Use hashtag StinkyDragonPod.

it might end up in the show and you might end up in the show because we take names for NPCs from people who send us stuff on social media like Warden Unfree Odom who's named after at John Lee Odom Sour Amy named after at Sour Brun J2J named after at BlueJ22 Hairless Hutch named after at Isaac Hutchinson Charming Channing named after at

Channing Sherman. Oh, and don't forget, Princess Pack Rat is named after at Rat Princess Art. And also we have some new merch out at store.roosterteeth.com. We've got a couple of shirts. We've got a Roll for Black flip shirt and a party character art shirt. Both are great. Please check them out at store.roosterteeth.com.

The Matrix Resurrections is a continuation of the story of the first Matrix film starring Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss reunited as Neo and Trinity. It's an unexpected expansion of their story that ventures back into the Matrix and even further down the rabbit hole. And in this mind-bending new adventure, the world is more provocative, reality is more subjective than ever, but all you need to see the truth is to free your mind. In The Matrix Resurrections, return to a world of two realities. One, everyday life. The other, what lies behind it.

To truly know himself to find out if his reality is a physical or mental construct, Neo will have to choose to follow the White Rabbit once again. And if he's learned anything, it's that choice while an illusion is still the only way out of or into the Matrix. Neo already knows what he has to do, but what he doesn't know is that the Matrix is stronger, more secure, and more dangerous than ever before. Deja vu. Watch The Matrix Resurrections in theaters and on HBO Max at the link in the description on December 22nd.

So are we out of the prisons now? We're all out? Yeah, you're all out. Where you are in this hallway, there's only one exit that you see out to the east. I'm going to do something just to preemptively. I'm casting Pass Without a Trace. Okay. Is that on all of us? Yeah, it's a Veil of Shadows and Silence, Radiates. We all get plus 10 on stealth checks. Cool. Okay.

Plus 10 on dex. Really overpowered spell. It is, but we're literally trying to escape a jail. Feels like a good time to use it. Yeah, excellent. Gum Gum wanted to go and collect the doodoo's buckets and combine them into one big doodoo bucket, or at least two. Oh, what's going on? Gum Gum's got a plan. Okay, all right. Okay.

I keep my distance from Gum-Gum. Also, I still have the rest of that candle thing, which at this point, it's probably like a bludgeon, right? I mean, it's the base of the candle. You could probably do that. Okay. Gum-Gum, do you want to combine all the buckets into one bucket or two buckets? I think two. Okay, you're going to take two buckets. Pirate, do you have disguising abilities? Do you have magic or is it just a...

I have invisibility. Okay, I didn't know. I also usually have a disguise kit, but it's not. I imagine it's not on me right now. I couldn't remember if you had the spell or anything like that. Mudcast disguise self to look like one of the Valorossian guards. Ooh, smart. Don't come look. It's one of the Valorossians. You got to hit him with the poop bucket. Stop.

Maybe make it so it seemed like I'm having to go take out the poo-poo. That's what I was thinking. You guys are all manacled still, right? Yeah, everyone would be manacled still. Yeah, you could probably transform out of your manacles, right? Because you're still manacled too, technically. Yeah. Unless you turned into a frog. I guess I could...

hide those and pretend to be like taking us somewhere else like as prisoners okay I'm just gonna I guess I'm using a ton of magic right now mud turns into frog manacles have to fall off if I'm frog yes absolutely

Okay, so Mud turns back into Furbog, Furbog. He's a disguised self. Looks like a Valrathian guard, and I've got my three prisoners. Okay. The one apparently has buckets full of poo-poo. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Mud's frog debut. Da-dun! Just blip, blip. Yeah, I like that you just went... Just the accordion is your body. Well, then I want to hide my candelabra thing. Okay.

Candle holder. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Easy enough. You can hide it in your sack. My butt. Yeah. I don't like us using the words sack and butt so close together like this. Let's get moving. Open the door, Kaibar. He's got the lockpick. Get it. Well, there is no door. It's just a hallway off to the east. You can all walk down.

Then let's walk. Okay. You reach the end of the cell block and climb a small set of stairs. You reach the top and find yourself at the far corner of another cell block with three small jail cells. Along the hallway is a small bench and a table outside the cells. Further down the hall, there appear to be some more steps leading upwards. Is there anybody in the jail cells? Yeah, you take a look and it appears that there are three prisoners in the respective cells. So there are three prisoners, three cells, one prisoner in each cell.

Mudd starts walking forward and pulling his team and just yelling out, dead man walking, dead man, dead man walking, and just like trying to make it through the jumps. All of a sudden the Valrosians are Texans. Dead man walking here, fellas. Go ahead and make a performance check. Aw, damn it. I knew you would have to do that. Fifteen.

Yeah. Yeah, it seems all right. You walk past the cells and the individuals in the cells look up and give you mean looks, Mud, as you walk by. And they're examining the party members. I wink at them. And Gum-Gum's super nervous because he thinks there's a zombie around now.

God. Dead man walking. There we go. On the long table, was there any equipment or gear or anything? You can make an investigation check. That is a 14. Yeah, you see an unlit oil lantern on that small table between the jail cells. Cool. You need some oil? I mean, Gum-Gum could stick it in his poop bucket. Yeah, I'll take it. He is a hoarder. Well.

What are you going to do with it, Gum Gum? You grab the unlit oil lantern? Yeah. But wait, you have a poop bucket in each hand. How are you going to grab... Like, what is this? I can carry two poop buckets in one hand. They have handles, right? Okay, yeah, yeah. All right, so you put two poop buckets in one hand and then use the other hand to grab the oil lantern? Yeah, and can I look at the other prisoners and see if they look friendly and say, Hi. Hi.

Yeah, one of them's watching you. It's a bugbear. And he sees you grab the oil lantern. And he starts talking to Mudd, saying, Hey, guard, look at him. He's taking a lantern. Mudd slaps Gum-Gum. Oh, God.

Put that down. Put it down. Okay. I put it down. Didn't I do a good job, guard? Yes. Can't you let me out? You'll have double rations tonight. Teacher's pet. I was just thinking the same thing. Snitch. Snitch. And we keep walking. Okay. As you all continue walking away, the bugbear who ratted out Gum-Gum says...

Don't forget, that's extra rations for Jaded J. For who? Jaded J? Jaded J. That's, yep. Copy. What's your name? I say to the other one. You look over and the one you ask is actually an orc. Maybe that's why you notice her. It's a female orc. She's looking at you and she says, I'm Sour Amy.

Hey, Jeremy, why are you in prison? I was stealing candy from infants. Classic. Gum-Gum's a half-orc, right? Yeah. She gets up close to the jail cell bars and she kind of whispers to you, Gum-Gum, hey, you want some candy?

Yeah. No, don't do that. She quickly moves away, then loosens a rock in her jail cell and pulls out a little pouch and comes back over to you and puts two small pieces of rock candy in your hand. Oh, yummy. Thank you. Just keep that between us. Okay. Do you want some poop bucket? I've got one already. Thank you. Okay. Do you want some poop bucket? Give me a slice. I'll never forget this.

What was your name? Sour Amy. And you are? I'm Gum-Gum. Galindor. I'm sure we're going to meet again on the outside, Gum-Gum. Yeah. You can pay me back by putting in a good word with the guard. Yeah, I'll make sure we won't leave without you. You're leaving? Are you all being freed? No. I just mean when I get released from prison. I haven't ate your sins.

Oh, what did you do? Well, I ate a baby. You ate a baby? How did it taste? Were they delicious? No, it took my candy, so then I ate it. That's a good one. What kind of candy was it? It was a candy.

I was imagining us walking past these cells and this was like the brief five feet that Gum Gum had to talk but now we're just standing there watching Gum Gum talk to Sour Amy. Just looking back and forth between the two. They were sour patch kids. Oh those are my favorite. I love sour candy. That's why I call myself Sour Amy.

No, no, no. The kids, they were sour. They were sour patched kids. They tasted very sour when I ate them. Oh, delicious. Hey,

Anyway, bye, Amy. Let's go. That's a very nice little time meeting your friend. Let's go. Let's go, prisoner. Somehow I feel like sour Amy's going to come in handy at some point. And jaded J. Wait, so there's a third one. Can I size that person up? Yeah, you look in the third cell and there's a lizard folk there who's just

staring at you all. The lizardfolk doesn't seem to have said anything yet. You don't know if they speak or not. Life's tough in the clink, eh? The lizardfolk looks at you and says, yeah, tell me about it. They've got the wrong guy. I didn't do anything. What are you in for? They claim that I snuck into the barbershop to steal hair. I mean, who steals hair? That doesn't make any sense. So what'd you do then? What'd you actually do?

Nothing. I didn't do anything. They're just out to get me because lizard folk don't have hair. So they assume that I would have a hair obsession or that I would dream of wearing hair like some of you folk do. Interesting. It seems like you might actually wish you had hair, my friend. Yeah, sounds like some unresolved issues here. The lizard folk reaches out a scaly arm and says, Hairless Hutch, what might your name be? Kyborg.

Kyborg. Yeah. Yeah. You got some nice looking hair, Kyborg. Okay, hairless hutch. That's enough. We'll see you later, bud.

I think that guy actually did what he's accused of. I think so too, Bart. I'd like to pull out a little bit of my hair and give it to him. Oh, you do? Yeah. Okay. You pull out some hair and give it to Hairless Hutch. The look on his face is like you put gold pieces in his hands. Then he quickly runs to the back of the cell and you can't see what he's doing, but it seems like he's stashing the hair behind the bucket.

He's making a hair doll. Absolutely, 100%. And I try and wink at him, but instead I just blink. Oh, he likes that. He's a lizard folk. Is it one of those, like, double winks? Yeah. One eye or the other. Okay. It's time to go to your execution. Bye. Bye, hairless dude. Sour Amy looks at Gum Gum and says, I thought you had eight years. Yeah, I did. It's the end of the eight years. Oh, man.

She looks confused. Oh, sorry to hear. Okay, well, have a good execution. I think we're getting executed because we just gave a prisoner hair, which is apparently another crime here, I think. I would offer to help these guys out, but we all know how that's going to go. Plus, I don't know if I can trust any of them. Sour Amy seems pretty cool, though. Do you mean the one that admits to stealing candy from children? Yeah, but that's just funny. I can get behind that.

We have a snitch, a baby candy stealer, and a hair monger. No, a snitch can rot in his cell. The hair stealer, I'm afraid, would eat my hair in the night. Yeah, he doesn't. For the record, he doesn't sell hair. He's not a hair monger. He's just a hair enthusiast. Yeah, that's so much better. Let's go. We're leaving this room. Bye. All right. You all climb the stairs to a third cell block. This one only has one large and long jail cell to the left.

Along the hallway is a small bookcase outside the cell. To the right is a wooden door and just past it are a pair of iron barred windows. Is there anybody in the cell? Yeah. Yeah, there's two prisoners in that large jail cell. As you all are walking by, they come up to the bars to consider you all. Hello. One of them is a female troglodyte and she speaks up. Hey!

Where you all going? You tell us, guard. Oh, they're getting executed. They're very naughty. When am I getting out? When are we getting out?

I don't deal with your paperwork. The other prisoner that came up is a male Kenku and just seems to be staring at Kaiborg. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, we're not talking to this guy. We got no business with you, sir. He's like tilts his head to the side. He's just staring at you with his bird eyes. Go, go. No, not interested. Thank you, Kenku guy. Mutt just looks right at the Kenku and just starts saying, Kaiborg is a weenie.

Kyberg is a weenie. Kyberg is a weenie. Not this again. Not this. No. The Kenku opens its mouth, but nothing comes out. The troglodyte says, oh, Charming Channing's a little shy sometimes. Charming Channing. All these names. So catchy. Almost like they're people from social media who...

Who tweet at us or send us stuff. What's a tweet? Sour Amy, named after Sour Brun. Which of our fans did you make the hair enthusiast? From BlueJay22, Hairless Hutch is Isaac Hutchinson. Charming Channing from at Channing Sherman. And you haven't asked yet, but the female troglodyte is Princess Pack Rat, named after at Rat Princess Art. Love it.

We appreciate your patronage to our podcast. You steal candy from children. You take people's hair. You have a hair obsession, yeah. Yeah. Like and subscribe. Buy the merch. I feel bad about the Kenku now. Princess Pack Rat. She's like, yeah, yeah, why don't you just let us out of here? We didn't do anything. I think we should let them out. I mean, we're...

We're going to execution. Sad face and Bart does a little like eye tear motion. So I don't know if you want to be let out, really. I think you guys are safer in there. Just, you know, just don't follow us. Executed? What for?

This guy ate a baby. This guy ate a baby. Stone cold killer. Who do you point to? Gum gum. He ate a baby. That's right. The baby had it coming. A sour patch baby. Princess Packrat turns to Charming Channing and says, Oh, we got to tell Sour Amy about this. Oh, she knows.

We go way back. You met her? You knew her on the outside? Yeah, me and Sal Raimi were like a pair of lemons, you know. We made lemonade. Oh, God. The Kenku opens his mouth and says, We made lemonade. Oh, no. Sounds just like gum gum. Can I have some?

Uh, he looks at you, Gum-Gum, and says, Can I have some? I don't have any. I drank it all. Uh. You can have some of this if you want. It's what all I got to drink. What do you, what do you? I hold up the poop bucket. Both Charming Channing and Princess Packrat step back away from the bars.

Okay, good. He broke the loop. Yeah, no, we're good. There's a bookshelf in here? Yeah, there is a small bookcase outside of the cell here in this hallway. I'd like to look at it and see what's in it. Yeah, go ahead and make an investigation check. I will gladly click that button and I will roll an 11. You know, it's just a few books. There's like Diary of a Wimpy Kobold, Hunger for Names, One Lich, Two Lich, you know, just like kids books.

There's a table, too? No. All there is is a small bookcase outside the cell, and then the cell block with the people that you're talking to. And a door. And then, yeah, and then to the right across from them is a wooden door. Just past it, there's a couple of iron barred windows. I'd like to look out the window and see what my fear ball guys see. You take a look through the windows, make an investigation check. That's a six.

Not having a good view, I pick up Bart and point Bart out the window. Whee! You don't get a good view because you look, but then you quickly look away from the window because inside you see three Valrossian guards sitting around a table. That's not good.

All right, so there's three Balrossian guards on the other side of this door. What are we gonna do? What are they doing around the table? I can only make one person invisible, right? I believe so. Okay. Did you ask what they're doing around the table? Well, I was just asking Mud what he saw. I'll say he saw enough to figure it out. It looks like they are playing cards. Okay, I have a plan. Lay it on us, Gum-Gum. All right.

There's a sewage pipe burst. And what we'll have to do is cover each other in the poo. No. No. And then we'll run in and explain that there's a horrible sewage accident.

And then Mud will be a guard and say he's evacuating the prisoners because there's sewage and not to go in and to run. All right, I actually think Gum Gum's halfway to a good idea. Halfway. What if, since you guys have passed without a trace, I do open the door, but you guys hide behind the door

and I let them know about a sewage issue. Maybe less of a sewage thing since I don't think we have, we don't have like toilets or anything, but like I could say like the prisoners are throwing their poo everywhere. Interesting. I cast Druidcraft while I do it and I cause a horrible stench to actually follow up my claim. I tried to get them to follow me and then we jumped them

when they come out. Or, or I could cast myself invisible

go in and try to see if there's a way to cause a distraction or something to essentially sneak past them. I think just you going in as reconnaissance is not a bad idea. You've got past a trace and you could be invisible. You'd be basically undetectable. Really quick, I don't think I ever attempted to unlatch our manacles or to lockpick them. Should I try to get barts before they go to see if I can help?

Let's do it. Sure. Guys? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right. Make your sleight of hand check. He's 20. Yes, 25. Oh. Maybe the practice of unlocking the jail cells has made it easier for you. But yeah, the manacles pop right open and you're able to free Bart entirely, both his hands and feet. Cool. Most excellent. Can I just try that with everybody? Is that cool?

Yeah, it's up to you guys. Yeah, I mean, might as well. If we do need to act fast, it's good to not be shackled. All right, I'll do gum gum first. Mud gives some butt slaps to the cardboard kid. 22, first try. Okay, yeah, you're able to get the manacles off of gum. So all that's left is yours, cardboard. Yeah, here we go. Here we go. 17 plus 5, 22. All right, yeah, so you all are now free from your manacles.

And I think you mostly have a plan put in place. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm casting invisibility on myself as well. I don't know if I mentioned that. Okay. Yeah. You had mentioned it. I wasn't sure if that was actually part of the plan. Can we see what the makeup of the room is? Like, it's a room with them playing cards at a table. Is there, like, any other doors along, like, the back walls? Is there any other exits anywhere? Yeah.

Well, if you're invisible now, you can look without fear of them seeing you. You can get a better look at the layout of the room if you wanted to. Yeah. Yeah, when you look in, you see that there's three Valrossian guards sitting around a large wooden table in the center of the room, and they are playing cards like you suspected. It doesn't seem like any of the three of them have any weapons on them. It just seems like they're, you know, really into their card game, playing the cards. You see some spears on a long bench along the southern wall of the room.

And it appears there's another door leading out from the other side of the room. So we probably have to get out there. We have to not let them get to those spears. Buddy, you should go deal in.

How about this? Mud, who is disguised as a Valrathian, opens the door. Just like casually, like nothing's going on, and then maybe gives like a little nod.

who's invisible, sneak past you, behind you, and do some, like, reconnaissance in the room and maybe see if the door is open as well. And in the process, if the door is open, take their spears and...

as well, very quietly, and bring them out the door. And when you guys see that's happening, that's when we all make a break for it. - I don't think we think through these things. So you're gonna have some floating spears coming. - But Mud, you'll be keeping their distraction. You'll be able to- - Yeah, you'll be talking to them. - You'll be like, "Hey guys, whoa, look in over here." And then the spears will be in the background. - And he's with Gum-Gum who's talking about poop. And maybe he's talking about like, he doesn't know what to do with this prisoner who's all obsessed with the poop buckets. - You're taking me out to empty the poop buckets?

Because they've just overflown. Yeah, yeah. And in the process, I trip...

The poop buckets fly everywhere. All over, anywhere we don't want them to go. So then they'll evacuate away from us. And that's when Kyborg jumps them. All right, let's try this. We have to do something. So we're going to do that. So I'm taking Gum-Gum in. Bart's going to come in and be invisible. Kyborg's going to be ready for an ambush.

Yeah, but can I get a spear tossed in my direction? Not in a killing me sort of way, but in a here, take this so you can fight with it sort of way. Mutt puts his hand in. All right, on three, team. One, two, three, go. Go. Go.

No, on three. One, two, three. Number two. Number two. One, two, three, two. One, two, three, two. Is there anything we need to check or do before we enact the plan, Gus? Nothing yet stands out, but I think once the plan gets going, then there will be, depending on how things go. Mud loosens up and opens the door. Mud goes to open the door, and it is locked. God dang it. There is actually no handle on it. Mud...

Knocks on the door. How do you knock? Oh, stop it. Is this going to be like Inglorious Bastards where it's like I'm going to knock the wrong way and they're going to be like that's not how Valrathians knock. You put up the wrong number three. How about Gum Gum knocks? Okay. Why don't you knock for me? Give me an example, Chris, of how Gum Gum's going to knock. Okay. Gum Gum goes up and he goes knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock. I'm here with the poo-poo. Ha!

Merry Christmas. And you say that as well? Yeah. You hear some shuffling inside the room and then you see Valrossian faces at the window looking out in the direction of the door. Who are you? What's going on here? I've got this prisoner. He's got some poo that we have to dispose of. Yeah. You're going to need to make a deception check here, Mud. Mud pats himself on the chest.

And just like kind of like kind of like clearing his chest like You know a little bit of that. Nice. Okay So that's 15. They look at you, Mud, and then they look over at Gum Gum and say

These are full, my dude. You see how full these are? How are we supposed to leave these? They're just going to get more and more overflowed. Do you want these cells to just reek more and more of filth? We have to walk through these cells. I got a sense of smell. You got one?

Truly role-playing. That's what normal people say, right? That's what people say to each other all the time? That's what we all say to John, yeah. Okay, okay. I was just checking. It sounded so natural. I believe it. You made your deception check against me. For those who don't know, John, who plays Mud, does not have a sense of smell. Just a fun little thing. I'm role-playing. Let me be in this space.

And Gum-Gum, you have two buckets of filth, right? Yeah, they're pretty full. Two buckets with four buckets worth of filth. Yeah, that's true. You see them turn and confer a little bit with each other. All right, this doesn't seem normal, but okay. And they open up the door. Hurry, don't spill any of that in here, though.

Are the spears still on the wall? No, they're now holding their spears. Okay. So each of the guards has one of the spears in their hands. Oh, no. Okay. Okay, here's the first bucket, and I hand it to one of them and, like, splash it on them. I guess make a dexterity check to see, like, if you splash it on them, and they're going to make an opposed dexterity roll to see if they get out of the way. If they can avoid the poo. Okay.

-That's 11. -Okay, yeah, you spill it, but the Velrossian is quick to jump out of the way and says, "Careful with that. I said not to spill it." -I'm sorry. -He picks up his spear and starts pointing it at you. Then they look at Mud and say, "Control him. Go take care of that right away." -Yes, I smack him over the head.

Don't do that again. Whatever you do, inmate, do not throw those entire buckets on these three Valorossians standing in front of me. Whatever you do, don't do that. Qyborg is around the corner, just puts his head in his hands. Just, oh, God. Okay, I'm sorry. I won't do it. That's about how I figured that was going to go. How should I clean this up? Ah.

Go empty those first and then come back and clean this up. All right. Okay. We walk past them a little bit. Are they following us in sight? They're just watching you. They're not like, you know, walking along with you. They're just following you with their eyes. Okay. What's Bart doing during all this? I feel like we should update on what Bart's doing.

Could I go see very, very slowly and gently if the door on the opposite end is open? - You have advantage on stealth checks plus you have plus 10. Yeah, go ahead and make a stealth check, but with advantage. - I'd say 13 for the first roll. - And don't forget you get plus 10 'cause you also have pass without a trace on you. - And then I rolled 13 for both rolls. - All right, so it's a 23.

So I assume that's good. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good. No one seems to turn to look at you as you sneak across the room. And you make your way to the door on the other end of the room, and it appears to be locked. Could I try to pick it? Unfortunately, not without a lockpick, you know, or something similar. But as you're checking the door, you notice one of the guards starts walking along with Mud and Gum-Gum toward the door, and they pull out a key from their belt. Okay. Bart stands a little to the side to see how this will play out. Mm-hmm.

Not just that. Just hiding up against the wall. Yeah, the guard pulls out. He has a key ring with three different keys on it, and he flips through them, finds the appropriate one, puts it in the door, and unlocks it. And he points down the hallway to Gum Gum and Mud and says, Do you know where to take it? Absolutely. Bye, Kyborg. Bye.

Yeah, I'm just like frozen there. Like, can they leave me? Am I gone? Are they gone? Now Kyborg's in a party with Sour Amy, Princess Batarang. Tune in to our spinoff podcast where you follow the adventures of Kyborg and his friends. Tales from Sour Amy's jail cell.

You know what? I'm just going to be a big assertive fear bog. Okay. One of the dudes is at the door. He's got it open. Yeah. And then the other two are by the initial door where you all walked in. Okay. I grab one of the buckets out of from Gum Gum and chuck it all at those guys on the other side. Yuck. All right. Go ahead and make a dexterity check just because you're kind of talking. Is this the way you saw this going, Gus? Yes.

Honestly, I had no idea how y'all were going to do this. Ten. Ten? All right, I'm going to roll for them. They got a 19 and an 18. So you toss the bucket at them, but they're able to step aside and dodge the filth that you toss at them. They bring their spears down, point them at you and say, what are you doing? Bud uses poop. It's not very effective. Oh, no. I've seen this in the Outer Lands. He's got...

He's got mad poopy eye. Everyone go ahead and roll initiative. Oh no. I rolled a 24. 20 for Bart. 12 for John. Solid six. That's my favorite character from Metal Gear. Solid six. All right, Kyborg, you're first. You rolled the best initiative and nobody aside from your party knows that you're there outside the door. The poop has hit the wall. The bucket is rolling around. That's a signal. That's a signal.

- Oh, what do you want to do? - So I'm in that hallway that's outside of that door. What am I near out in that hallway? There's a bookshelf. - Yeah, that bookshelf is there with some children's books. There's those two windows looking into this guard station and you're still relatively close to that second set of prisoners that you saw, the male Kenku and the female troglodyte, Charming Channing and Princess Packrat.

I wonder if I can trust them to help us fight. The Princess Peckrat hears the commotion and says, "Hey, hey, hey, let us out of here. I can help you. I've got some tricks." And then the Kenku repeats, "I've got some tricks." Ah, what the heck? I'm unarmed. I don't know what else I can do. I'm gonna go help him out. I'm gonna go pick the lock. If you don't get this in the first try, it's gonna be a complete waste of your advantage. Oh, God. All right, go ahead and make that check. All right. Slide a hand. I shake off my hands. 15 plus five, 20.

- Oh yeah, you do it. The lock clicks open. - Thank goodness. - I'm Kyborg, I'm here to rescue you. - Why is your voice like that all of a sudden? - You're kind of short for a fighter. - Luke Skywalker reference. - Nice, nice. - Luke Skywalker reference. I like Star Wars. - Guys, we're playing D&D here, all right? Let's keep the nerdiness out of it. Thank you. - This is very serious. - I think I've only been in three movies and in each one I've manipulated a line to make a Star Wars reference.

The only references we allow here are Muppet references. And Simpsons. Simpsons are okay, too. Princess Packrat says, thanks. Yeah, well, we're all going in the same direction. So we got to work together for at least a little while. And she reaches into a hidden pocket in her pants and pulls out a small wooden flute. Bark, you're up. Oh, God. You're invisible. I am invisible. And you don't see what Kyborg has done out there.

You've only seen Mud toss the poop buckets at the Valrasians. So what's the layout of everyone in the room right now? I'm, I think, near that locked door at the back. Right. And there's one guard there who had unlocked that door. Gum Gum is probably the next closest person to you because he was walking in this direction. Okay. Then Mud's just on the other side of him because he grabbed the bucket and then tossed it at the two other Valrasians who are on the other side of the room by the other door.

Are those two Valrasians near any of our party members? They are relatively close to Kyborg, but he's around the corner. Within five feet? No, because he went over to the jail cell to let the other people out. So you don't know that, but he's not within five feet of them. Cast it. Cast it. Can I cast a cloud of daggers over those two Valrasians? There it is. I was wondering where you were going with it. I like that one.

Okay, cast it. That's a 10. I got four, three, two, one. - So 10 points of damage?

Out of nowhere, it seems like the daggers just appear. You know, it's familiar to you guys, but it catches the Valrossians purely off guard. And they're, you know, swiping at this cloud of daggers all around them. And it looks like it's really cut them up severely. They look like they're in terrible shape now. Princess Packrat pats you on the shoulder, Kaibor, and says, thanks, trust me, you won't regret this. And she starts playing a small tune on her flute.

You wonder what she's doing, but then you realize that Ash is playing a swarm of rats. Starts appearing from all kinds of cracks and crevices in the walls. It just seems like a flowing mass of rats. And she points into the guard room and they all run in there. And they begin attacking the two guards who are right by the door in the cloud of daggers. And they start biting at them to see if they're able to hit them.

That was a good call on my part. So some people can play instruments that summon animals. So the swarm of rats pours into the room and overruns the two Valrosians by the door, and they fall to the ground into the passage. Princess Packrat says to you, See, I told you you wouldn't regret it. Yeah. Good.

Glad he got out. Charming Channing runs over to the bookshelf and starts grabbing the books that you all saw there before and stashing them under his arms. Interesting. Fair enough. Mud, it's actually your turn. Give me kind of a detailed explanation of my relationship to physically in the space to the one that opened the door, the Valrossian. You're not too far away from that Valrossian by the door. If I had to say you're probably like 15 feet away, you know, he just kind of

moved quickly up to get past you to open up the door before you all got there. Okay. Is he close to the wall? Yeah. The room kind of narrows down to that door at that point. So it's like a really tight hallway to get to the door. So he's by two walls. Okay. Mudcast Ice Knife. Ice Knife. The ultimate murder weapon. Ice Knife. And rolls a 23 to hit. Oh, that definitely hits. And then 1d10 piercing, which will be

Ooh. And then hit or miss, the target must succeed on a dex saving throw. Dex 15. I'm going to roll. Dexterity is... That is a 10, so fail. 2d6. Explody ice damage. Roll it. So it's 9 damage and then... 2 damage. 11 total. Yeah, the ice knife hits the guard. Seems to really injure him, and then it explodes, which finishes him off. He falls down to the ground, incapacitated as well.

Everything went according to plan. Our diplomatic mission to murder three Valrasians has come into effect.

Princess Packrat and Charming Channing around the corner to look into the room, and they see the Valrasians all down, and they see Mud still standing there looking like a Valrasian, but no one seems to be attacking him or engaging him, so they're just kind of eyeing him warily. Hello, I'm Mud. I'm a fear bug. I'm not a Valrasian. This is just really good magic. The Cancun repletes. This is just really good magic. There we go.

Sol, should we leave the jail? I guess we're out of combat now, yeah? Yeah. It's up to you guys. Yeah, combat is over. Can we take the spears? Yeah. There are three spears in here total. I want one. Can we also use the chains that Kyborg unlocked to chain up the guards? Yes. Did we break them or are they still usable? They're usable. You just picked them. I'm adding a spear to my equipment. All right, so who has the spears? Bart?

Kyborg. Have them three do it. And Gum-Gum. Okay. Should we go get the other ones, the other guys that are downstairs? Because, I mean, these guys were really helpful. Princess Pack Rat says, you guys go on ahead. We're going to find our own way out from here.

All right. Before he leaves, Charming Channing walks over to you, Kyborg, and he reaches around in his tail feathers and pulls out a scroll and hands it to you. Thanks, Charming Charlie. I say with, like, some reluctance because I've had bad experiences with Kenkus. Why don't you look at what the scroll is? The Kenku and the Troglodyte leave the room going back in the direction you came from. Okay. Can I look at the scroll? It looks like it has arcane writing on it. You're not quite sure what to make of it. Oh.

Okay. All right. Fair enough. Does anybody else want to take a look at this scroll that Charlie gave me? Can the magic boys look at it? Okay, sure. The magic people. All right. Here you go, Gum Gum. I mean, Mud. I noticed that Gum Gum's covered in poop still, so then I give it to Mud. I'm not covered in poop. You probably spilled some on you, didn't you? You sloshed around a lot. No, I spilled some on them. Oh, right, right. What is this poop that you think this is? Sloshing around.

It was a mixture of poop and pee. I mean, maybe I said me too. I don't remember. You did. They have bad prison food. That makes sense. Can you read arcane writing, Mud? Yes. Mud's looking for a new item to possess him. Ever since he lost that amulet, he really just wants to have a curse.

Make an Arcana check. Well, that's not good either. Uh-oh. I'm going to slap my butt. Oh, it's not going to work anyways. I rolled a four. Ain't no amount of rolling that D4 that's going to help. No. You know it's some kind of magic scroll. You're just not sure what spell it is or what it does.

Hey, Bart, you know some magic. Any chance you read arcane glyphs? I don't see that in my languages, but could I still try to take a look? It seems like something a bard would give a shot. So yeah, why not? You can make an arcana check on it. My intentional naming of my character to mess you guys up is working every time. So confusing.

Okay, arcana check? Yeah, why not? I got a 19. Ooh, you've heard stories of spells like this. It's a spell of silence. Spell of silence? Like in what form? Like to silence a person? It creates a sphere of silence in an area. Ooh.

Interesting. That could come in handy. I think the little lad who can read it should hold on to that scroll in case we need to use it. Yes. Let me just wrap this up here, and he wraps it up tight and tucks it into his shorts. Is he wearing shorts? I imagine in a prison uniform I have shorts of some kind or pants. I thought we were all wrapped in like... Oh, we're in like a burlap sack. Yeah. I would like to imagine that he crafted shorts so that someone else can eat them.

Exactly. Alberto. So let's go. And we leave. Let's get out of here, fellas. Should we check that room to see if any of our gear... I mean, surely they would have left our gear somewhere in the prison, right? Oh, you all haven't looked around that room. You haven't investigated it or anything. May I?

Please, Lord. May I? Make an investigation check. Oh, God. Someone else roll. That was a three. Mud's also looking for his stuff and rolls a one.

I will also look. Bart! 16. We're rolling intelligence, Bart! We're rolling intelligence? Gum-Gum, you notice everyone's just like staring at their feet. You're not sure why. But when you look around the room, you realize that there's like a pile of coins in the middle of the table where they were playing cards. Oh, neato. Can I pick it up and then see how much it is? Yeah. It's 15 gold pieces.

Eight silver pieces and five copper pieces. Okay, I guess I'll split it amongst everyone. I don't think we all can just be holding on to a bunch of loose change, so why don't you just hold on to that little bag for a little while. Okay, and can I also take the cards? Yeah, you have a deck of cards. Good choice, good choice. Makes them explode with kinetic energy, like Gambit.

Gum Gum rolled 16 and that's all you saw, yeah? Yeah. You know, there are like things on the guards. Y'all didn't really look at them, but I mean, they're wearing like armor and stuff like that. You took their spears. I don't know if you want to investigate them any further or not. I'm less interested in that. I want my stuff. I want my damn badger. What about your mushroom mushroom?

Snake! Snake! Should we leave the room? Yeah, I think we leave the room. Something stinks. Ah!

Nice. Luckily for you guys, before he was incapacitated, the guard did unlock this door for you all, so the door is open. Excuse me, that wasn't luck. That was all according to the plan. Yeah, exactly. You enter into a dim, small stone hallway. There's an iron door to your left, a wooden door to your right, and another set of stone steps leading upward. Oh, not options. This is our worst enemy. Well, options are only second to doors.

You're right. Of which there are two doors here. Yeah. It's like all the bad things combined into one. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am.

Stuck in the middle. I feel like the iron door would either lead to solitary confinement or it would be the armory that they would want to protect and that's why it's made of iron. Uh, Kyberg, you still have your lockpick thingy, right? Heck yeah. You want to try your hand at that iron door? There's no Valrasians here. There's nobody here, right? We're alone? No, you don't see anybody here. Can I, like, look into the door? Is there a window on the door? No. Can I press my ear up to the door and see if I can hear anything on the other end before

before I open it. Make a perception check. Ooh, actually a plus two on that. And it doesn't matter because I rolled a nine. Eleven. You can't hear anything. Maybe it's because the metal's too thick. Okay.

Or maybe there's no one there. You don't know. You just can't hear anything. All right. Can I do my magic awareness to see if I can sense the presence of concentrated magic? Things such as, like, my flower staff. Oh, good call. Wow. Does it work through doors? It's nothing that's behind total cover, but I assume that we can, like, peek through. Yeah, doors would be total cover, but you don't know what's above the stairs, right? Like, whatever is up past the stairs would be...

Not behind total cover. And can we look through like a crack in the door, like underneath the thing? No, this is still considered like total cover. Okay. What are the walls made of? Here it's stone.

Okay, so Gum-Gum begins meditating again using his magic awareness and he doesn't pick up a lot, but he does pick up very strong magic emanating from this iron door. And what school does it belong to? It seems to be of the Abjuration school. Okay. Okay, so Abjuration. That means there's something in that door that's protecting or suppressing magic. So that means that's probably why we couldn't cast magic when we were in the cell.

So then by that logic, it's probably another cell because someone, they might be hiding someone in there. Yeah. Yeah. Let's try the wooden door. Really quick. Really quick. I knock on the door. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Then I wait. Bart goes, dun, dun. Because you can't by any chance let a musical...

chorus go without finishing. All right. You all complete your two-person knock on the door, and there is no response. Okay. Should I open it? I'd cast detect magic near the wooden door, which detect magic would be able to go through that wooden door. Okay. Let's do that. Let's

Spell can penetrate most barriers, but is blocked by one foot of stone, one inch... Oh, that's why you're asking what the wall was made of. Yeah. One inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or three feet of wood. Three feet of wood. Is this a three-foot thick door? I don't think so. It is not. Could be. That's an unnecessary door then. 30-foot range. Yeah, you cast Detect Magic... How long does it last? Up to 10 minutes. Okay. Forever. Forever.

And, you know, of course you get you detect the magic on the door, just like GumGum said, the metal door that's on the other side of the wall. But, you know, as you focus on the wooden door, you can't really get a fix on any other magic coming from that side. There is no magic in the door with the wooden door. There's no... I'm going to do one more try. There's no magic in the room with the wooden door.

The only magic you sense is on the metal door, on the iron door itself. I don't think we open that metal door. So I'm going to lock pick the wooden door then. I love it. I love it. Go ahead and make that check. Slider hand. 20 plus 5, 25. 25. Okay. Yeah. The lock sounds like it just clicks open for you. Open the door.

What's behind door number one? I open it up. You open it up and it appears to be some kind of pantry or kitchen. Okay. Like,

Like with food? Can we go in and look? Yeah. You look around and you see there's a wood-fired oven on the east side of the room with a pile of wood logs and a tinderbox nearby. Then along the western wall, there's numerous crates and barrels that look like they're filled with food and drink. Is there any knives? It looks like you see some utensils on one of the countertops.

Mud would like to take a bite out of something numbers. What is there? You see in the crates, there's like all different kinds of things. Bread, cheese, fish.

Wine, ale. Mud takes up some cheese and bread and eats it. Does that help Mud feel better? You reach into the crate to grab some of the cheese and bread, and as you do, you see a swarm of rats eating the food, and when you start reaching in, they all start scurrying away and running around on the floor. Well, that's fine. I like rats. Where's Stinkin' Amy when you need her? Stinkin' Amy. You mean Pat...

Patches Patty. What was her name? Patty. Princess Pack Rat. Princess Pack Rat. There's rats? Yeah. Is there like bread and cheese still I can take? Yeah, it's still there. You still eat it if you want. It's been nibbled at a bit by the rats and there's droppings everywhere. Okay, I'll leave it alone. I add the droppings to my bucket. Oh my God. That's a cocktail. Gum Gum's like the dirty kid. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Should we bother with the iron door or should we just go up the stairs? I think we should bother with the iron door. What? Do we have any other spells that we can use to detect what's going on in there?

can you turn into a snake and sneak underneath it i actually can turn into a snake is there what's the what's the clearance underneath the door it's actually really tight there's barely any clearance i don't think a snake would be able to to fit under there what about a swarm of spiders what about a spider oh spider spiders could get just about anywhere though can i i can turn into a swarm of spiders can i like squeeze all my little swarm underneath the door sure why not

All right. What turns into a bunch of spoders? You turn into a swarm of spiders and you sneak under the iron door, right? Yeah. Okay, yeah. So you look around the room as a swarm of spiders and you see, you know, a few things laying around. There's a desk, a long wooden bench, a couple of barrels, a cabinet. It looks like this is probably someone's office. I want to open and I want to look in the barrels. Okay. The swarm of spiders swarms over the barrels. It seems to you from your inspection like there's probably oil in them.

There's oil in the barrels. And then what was, what was, you said there's barrels, then was there something else after you said that? A cabinet. I want to look at a cabinet. Okay. You squeeze yourself into the cabinet as a swarm of spiders, and you see there's a few glass vials with liquids in them. Any chance I know what those liquids are? Make an arcana check. That's a 12. No, you're not quite sure. I'd say one of them is a bubbling green liquid. One of them is a shimmering gray liquid. And the other one seems to be a boiling red liquid.

Those all seem safe and fine. I check the desk. Okay, yeah, the swarm of spiders goes over to the desk. The desk is kind of in the center of the room. It doesn't have any drawers, but on top of it, there's some papers that are neatly stacked and a stack of coins. Anything written on the papers? The papers have a list of the inmates. You see some of the names of the people that you met along the way. On the way here is Sour Amy, Jada J, Hairless Hutch, Charming Channing, Princess Pack Rat. Mud, go ahead and make me a perception check. Yes, sir.

That's a 20. 20. Good Lord. You do notice that there are some things on the bench in the office that you haven't investigated yet. What's on the bench? Do you just look at it or you go over there?

I don't know. That's all I got to ask. No. I go over to it. You go over to it, and as you get closer, you notice a shimmering that seems to be calling to you, pulling you closer and closer. And you realize that it's the amulet. It's your amulet.

It's sitting on top of the bench along with a weapon of some kind. It looks like the weapon that Lord Baxter was using at Room of Hume. It looks like a ship's anchor that's been fashioned into a pick. Good news, everybody. I found my amulet. We're all saved. All the little spiders collectively drag it out of there. Yeah.

Something seems a little off about the western wall of this office. It's a stone wall, but you feel like you notice that there's a little piece of metal in the middle of the stone wall that seems to be kind of discreetly attached there. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall. Mud is a big fan of our D&D World's version of the movie Clue. So he obviously knows that if there's a metal thing in the wall, pull at it.

We all knew that. So it doesn't pull out from the wall, but instead it seems to slide parallel along with the wall. Oh. You want to go and slide it like off to the side? Yeah. And I want to do a kickball chain as I slide across with it. Kickball chain? What is that? It's like a dance move, right? It's a dance move. But is a spider doing this, though?

Yes, all the spiders are doing it. All the spiders are doing it. Terrifying. You're doing four of them because they have eight legs. So each of them is doing it with two legs. I'm a swarm of spiders to be exact. So I am a swarm. I am just a whole like line of dancers. The swarm of spiders turns into one human shaped swarm of spiders and it has a kickball chain. Quite coordinated. You slide the little metal tab across the wall and you realize that it opens up like a little spy hole. So you can see into the next room from it. Like a little eye slot. I found the speakeasy.

Or that could be another hole. I cautiously put some of my spiders into the hole to see through it. Not quite sure how I perceive things as a swarm of spiders, but let's just say I have pointed how I view things towards the hole. You have sufficient spiders in the hole, which sounds terrifying. Yeah.

When enough of your spiders get into the slot, you see the warden who you saw earlier and he's holding a hammer over a bloodied sleek and screaming at him. Who is the leader of your party? Who is it, you decrepit dwarf? Bloodied sleek? Is sleek talking?

No, the warden's talking. I know, but is he snitching? It's a real concern. I don't know what he'd say. I will 180 right now if Sleek says kyborg. I will change my perspective of Sleek if he says kyborg. Well, people are going to have to find out next week to find out what it is that Sleek is saying on Tales of the Stinky Dragon. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll see you guys next time. Bye.