Tavern Tales - Maze Rat Pack Ep. 01 - The Sky Blind Spire Part 1
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Nah, not quite. What's up? Sell my car in Carvana. It's just not quite the right time. Crazy coincidence. I just sold my car to Carvana. What? I told you about it two days ago. When you know, you know. You know? I'm even dropping it off at one of those sweet car vending machines and getting paid today. That's a good deal. Great deal. Come on. What's your heart saying? You're right. When you know, you know.

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Kindest regards to all you rodentia. Skitter on into the stinky dragon. Sip on our latest libation, 10-gallon rat. It's a mixture of... Pardon me, Guzzler. I do hate to interrupt, but don't you and Duncan ever get thirsty talking about all these beverages you've brewed? Huh. You know, no one's ever asked us that before, but now that you mention it, yeah, I do have a hankering for a vermin hat. Hmm?

Mmm, and you know me, I'll never turn down a cup of joe. Cough, cough, cough.

Ooh, whew, that's better. Feels good to be talking in my normal Duncan voice again. I wondered as much. Now, I'm no expert mixologist like yourselves, but I'd be happy to look after the bar while you take a load off and, as you say, swallow your latest swill. Wow, that's mighty generous, friend. Yeah, thanks. Think nothing of it. Besides, I believe I know a tale that would interest you in particular, Guzzler. Oh yeah? Which one is that?

The Tale of the Sky-Blind Spire.

You ever think that, like, Gus's wife fears for her life when she's listening to this? No, I just want an entire one-shot of Gus switching around to all the voices he's done. Hello, everyone, and welcome to a special one-shot Tavern Tales episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon. I am not Gustavo Sorolla, but rather Micah Reisinger. Woo!

Normally the writer, editor, and composer for the show, but today I am your dungeon master. Let's go! I am joined today by a party of four lovely players. Please introduce yourselves, your character name, and a brief physical description of your character. Hello, everyone. I am Barbara Dunkelman. Hi, Barbara. Today I shall be playing Muffin. Muffin? Muffin is... Let me just go through the list. She's delicate. She's got nine fingers.

She's got some patch clothing. And her personality, she's very menacing. But the little secret about Muffin is that she talks in whispers. What's the distribution of the nine fingers? Well, you know, I have like just

Just no thumb. Oh, okay. I don't know if it was like six on one and three on the other. That would be really cool, actually. So every movie you see is not good because you can only give it one thumbs up. One thumb up is still pretty good. It's like halfway. I take it you're female, so are you womanising? I'm womanising, yes.

I'll go next. I'm Blaine. And today I'll be playing Billy the Rat. Billy is a pudgy little character with button chops. And he's kind of like a whenever you think of like a mafia boss and you think about the little henchmen that he has next to him that are always kind of like rubbing their knuckles and saying, yeah, boss. That's Billy the Rat. He's what is called a fingersmith. So I think he's going to be like a tinkerer and he can like lockpick stuff. Gotcha. Wait, fingersmith. Yeah.

Yeah. Kind of insulting to me, I think. I'm so sorry. It sounds kind of ableist when you put it that way. But I'm going to call everybody boss. Boss. Maybe Billy can smith you a new finger. Yeah. Ugh.

I do like that. Hello, I am Gustavo Sorolla and I'll be playing Eric Ratmansky. Oh my God, I just got it. Eric Ratmansky is a very barrel-chested individual wearing ceremonial clothing with also a menacing personality. You can be womanising, Muffin, I'll be menacing. And he has a rather large birthmark on one of his cheeks.

Wait, cheek on the face or? You can see the one on the face. Maybe if we get to be better friends, you can see the other one. There's a matching one somewhere else. It's interesting. Billy the Rat was described as being like the henchman. I figure Eric Ratmansky is more like the boss, like the mob boss. Like, yeah, see, we're going to go and we're going to break their legs. Yeah. I feel like

I feel like we got a theme going with our run. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. That's funny. So that's Eric Ratmansky in a nutshell. All right. Well, I'm John Reisinger and I am playing Big Benny. Big Benny to his friends. His Christian name is Benjamin Ratcliffe.

But Big Benny's a rather large rat, big chested. He's got some blood stains on his clothing. Yeah, he's going to be the muscle around here if you're okay with that. Oh, yeah. So that's Big Benny right here. I can also say yeah. Yeah. Sounds like I got some good muscle here, you see? Everybody say yeah on three. One, two, three. Yeah. To

Today we are playing a wonderful one-shot that I found called the Skyblind Spire. Cool. And what's more, we aren't playing D&D 5E. What? We're playing a different tabletop role-playing game called Maze Rats, as you can probably guess by these names. Rats! We'll be playing a much simpler system, fewer rules. Instead of a D20, every role in the game is a 2D6.

So you roll two d6s and then you kind of add those up. And if it's 10 or above, then it's a success. If not, then it's a failure. There's only three stats in the game, strength, dexterity, and will. The first two are pretty self-explanatory. The third will represents using force of personality, perception, or willpower. Every player is tiny, tiny, tiny with four maximum hit points.

and a limited number of items. So delicate. So tiny. There are only like three classes in the game. Funnily enough, everybody chose the same class. No way. Except the path that you guys chose. So in the third, the third class is like a path you get to specialize in something. Three of you chose the same path and I'll let you guess, the fourth is not a man and chose a different one. Okay.

Wait. So three of you chose. I chose. We rolled dice. That's true. No, you could choose the path. Oh, I rolled dice. You could choose a roll. Mine was randomization. Well, there you go. Yeah, I did. I did the fates. Let me choose it. Yeah. I followed the rules. The thing said roll dice. I rolled dice. I rolled dice too. What are the odds that we all ended up on the same thing? This doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah. Wait, so we're all the same strength and dexterity and will or the same paths like the job or whatever? The fingersmith. You're all three of your fingersmiths.

And the one without a finger, the one missing a finger is not a fingersmith. Yeah. I feel like this works out pretty well. Yeah. Which you're a briar born. Is that correct? Briar born. Yes. Yeah. So fingersmiths are good at like tinkering, picking locks, picking pockets. Briar born is good at tracking, forging survival stuff.

Other than that, all the listener needs to know is that our party today is comprised of rat humanoids that I've come to call rodentia. That is not a rule in Maze Rats. You don't have to be a rat. I just thought it'd be fun. I like there were rats. I want to be a rat. Yeah, definitely. Any questions about that? About the rules of the game team? Does Eric Radmanski have like another podcast about like eating food or like a regulation podcast? I'm just curious. The fact that you just didn't straight up name him Eric Badour.

It's also an homage to a project we never got to make. There was a podcast we wanted to make called Good News Rat Man. Breathing life into something here. Exactly. All right, let's begin. Murin is an elderly rodentia. He's hired you all to find his missing son, Vol,

I'm gonna pause right there and say if you're not taking notes, you might wanna. I'm opening it up right now. I was looking for my notebook. I'm ready to go. I'm already like missing son Vol. So Vol has been gone for 24 hours. He recently heard of a tower filled with treasure and teeming with magic.

Vol insisted that he and his father, Mirren, should search the tower immediately. But Mirren refused, saying that it was too dangerous. After all, if Vol had heard these rumors, then it's likely other more unsavory types had also heard the same rumors as well, like the Reekaloo, a rodentia gang of greedy cutthroats led by a shaman, Pestis.

Murin's best guess is that Vol has run off to the tower, but God forbid some trouble has befallen him. The tower is about half a day's ride north through the scrublands and is surrounded by a large lake. Murin is paying each of you 50 silver pieces to find his son. You may keep anything you like in the tower. All he wants is his son. Touch nothing but the lamp. But the rat. Do you have any questions?

So, Pestis is a shaman and he leads what's the name of the game? The Rikalu. Rikalu. Rikalu. Rikalu. Yeah, we're taking down this Rikalu, see? We're going to bust out the pipes and we're going to hit him in the knees. Yeah, that's right. Bust him in the knees. Okay, maybe we don't have to, like, resort to violence. Maybe we could just kind of sneak in, get what we need, sneak out. Yeah, stealth mission, yeah. Violently. Yeah, violently, though. Okay, yeah, you guys are definitely a bunch of guys. Yeah, guys, see? Yeah.

Mirren approaches the four of you and looks particularly at Eric, thinking that this must be the boss. Um...

Eric, are you sure you follow up to this? I really do insist you need to find my son. Yeah, see, we got the muscle and the brains. We're going to get in there. We're going to make sure the Rikolu aren't in there. And we're going to bust up Batiste and we're going to get your son Vol back all by dinner time. What are you cooking? Yeah, dinner time. That's amazing. I'm quite thrilled. I was hoping we'd have dinner together. That's perfect. All right.

Go about half a day's ride north, past the scrublands, you'll find the lake, and that's where I think he'll be. Yeah, I don't want no scrubs. Scrubs is the kind of guy that can't get no love from me. Hanging on the passenger side of the best friend's ride. Trying to holler at me. Yeah, see? I don't know this song, so I can't join in on this. You need some TLC in your life, brother. Yeah. Tender Loving Cheese. That's the name of the group, right? Yeah. Tender Loving Cheese. Okay, okay.

Anything you want to do before you head off? You said, uh, past the scrublands, right? Yes. Any, uh, any foes we should be aware of the scrublands? I don't know that area too well. Shouldn't come up to much trouble in the scrublands, but I would beware that if there are other people that have heard of this tower, they could be rivals in your venture.

And there's no telling what's in the tower. Are you also paying them 50 silver apiece? Like, are we, you know, kind of combating against some other people you sent off to rescue your son? Or are we the only ones? No, of course. I want my son to be found. If perhaps one of us does not come back, can we split their 50 silver apiece as well? That is completely up to you. Perfect. Good to know. Why do you look at me like that? Sounds like a plan.

Why is everyone staring at me, see? Yeah. Mirren, I got a question for you. Yes, go ahead. You got any, like, equipment that you can send with us? Like some weapons or some potions or something, see? You don't have any equipment with you? I've got the crossbow and a short sword, but if you want to hook me up with something else, that'd be cool. Is there something in particular you're looking for? I don't want to die. I'm very weak. You're telling me this now before you go on the venture that you're very weak.

You know, I know that you know that I'm weak. I'm just saying, if you got any medicine, see. Don't worry, Billy. My boss, Eric, may or may not use it. I'll protect you, Billy. Just get under my arm here. Yeah, I'll wrap it around you. Hold you tight. If the enemies come, I'll put you between me and them. Yeah, cuddly and warm. Wait, what? I just rolled a dice to see for luck. If Murin happens to have a potion of healing, he does. So I will give you one potion of healing that basically gives you one hit point back.

Do you have room for that in your equipment? I will hold on to that. Okay. Oh, actually, would I have to drop something else that I have? I think y'all started full. Is there something that you'd be willing to let go of? I have a large sack. What's a steel mirror? You probably don't need that.

Steel mirror? It's like looking around corners and stuff. Looking around corners, yeah. That sounds pretty cool. Chalk? I don't need chalk. Yeah. I quit school, yeah. I'll tell you what. If you put it somewhere creatively, I'll let you hold onto the potion. Well, I got a tail, see? There you go. I'm going to hold onto it with my tail. All right. You can also put it in your mouth and pretend it's one of your teeth. Yeah, see? It's from my mouth. Excellent for an audio podcast. Mwah.

Anything else? You got any food? Uh, sure. I mean, yes. I'm a fellow Redentor like yourself. I'm sure you want some brie. Uh, yes. I prefer Gouda, but brie's fine. Oh, let me see if I have some Gouda. Oh, Vol must have taken it.

Benny takes all the brie and shoves it in his mouth. Excellent. I hope you enjoy that. Vol's got all the good, it's all the more reason to go find him, boys and muffin. Yeah. Thanks for being inclusive. Yeah, sorry, I didn't want to... Broad generalizations was the guy's term. Broad generalizations? Oh, no! Oh, what have I done? Mirren kind of looks down at his, like, fake watch on his arm and goes... Let's go, let's go, let's go.

All right. You all head out and start heading north, I assume, through the scrub lands? Yes. Yeah. You said it's about a half a day's ride to the north? Half a day's ride. Yep. What are we riding? That begs the question, what are we riding? Yeah. Well, what do you want to travel by? Oh. I want to travel by Eric. Okay.

Since we're small diminutive rats, are there like larger beast of burden rats that we could ride to take us out to kind of like a... That's not how this works. We don't, as humans, ride larger humans. Like a Secret of NIMH kind of thing, how Mrs. Frisbee was smaller than the rats of NIMH. Like there's bigger mice or bigger rats that we could be riding.

Don't mama possums let their babies cold onto their skin and then they just kind of walk around with them. Maybe we can do that. Find a possum. I've decided big Benny has a pet cat that he rides. Oh, that's pretty tough. A big pet cat. Yeah. Can I have a cat? Sure. Am I allowed to? Okay. I have a cat. What's the cat's name? Uh,

Oh, this is my cat. Funny enough, he's called Muffin as well. What? That won't be confusing at all. How do you get that with two Fs or one? It's actually with the P-H. P-H, yeah. Oh, Muffin. How about for sake of confusion, we call them Little Muffin? Yeah, I'll call you Little Muffin. I'll call him a Cat Muffin.

No, other way around. Yeah, see, our friend is regular-sized Muffin, and the cat's little Muffin, see? A mini Muffin, if you will. Mini Muffin. Fine, fine. All right, so I've got someone's riding a cat. Another person is riding another person. I'm just going to go off on my own. I'm going to just run myself. You're just going to run. That's fine. I think Muffin would be very quick on her feet. Sure. Me.

Mr. Atmansky, I'll carry you, sir. Yeah, I'm real fast. See, here's my beast of burden, see? Yeah, that's me, beast of burden. Yeah, beast of burden, see? I like to think Muffin's doing like the Monty Python and the Holy Grail thing where you're running, but you're acting like you're riding a horse and like making the clip-clop sounds. That's great, I love that. Yeah, so y'all take off through the scrublands. It's early morn at this point.

The only kind of rough spot you encounter along the way is a bit of cloud coverage that turns into a bit of a drizzle. It's a bit wet along your journey, but as you're making your way kind of past the scrublands, you start to see in the distance on the horizon a lake.

And as you're getting closer, the clouds sort of part, the rain subsides, and the sun peaks out, and it's actually a bright blue sky today. You head on towards the lake, I assume? - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's a sign. - Yeah, see? It's a sign. - Yeah.

One of the things that you recall about that Mirren also told you in this like request to go on and find his son is that this tower was built by a wizard named T-Tardinal. T-Tardinal? T-Tardinal. T-Tardinal.

I appreciate the difficulty in spelling everything. That's great. Yep. Now you know what it's like when first campaign. This is tough. This is tough. Funnily enough, I did not come up with that name. Yeah, this is pre-written. There are some names that I made up in this thing, but this is not one. T'Tardinal's spire was to be his greatest work. It's a stone tower crafted as a giant arcanum, granting a great reward to those who unlock its secrets. Nobody knows the secrets, though.

because Tartanel fell to his death before he could use it. As you approach and come to the shore, there's a rowboat, and you can easily start making your way across. Who's going to be rowing on the oars? Benny, get to it. Who's the strongest? Yeah, I tie a little muffin to a tree, and I say, I say, a rowboat.

Daddy will be right back. Okay? You stay right here. I thought you were talking about me. Nope. We have already established this. I wanted to call him Little Muffin, but you said you needed to be Muffin, so the cast of Little Muffin. I'm the OG. I'm the OG Muffin. It's your regular-sized Muffin. Yeah, it's your regular-sized Muffin. This is Little Muffin. Okay? And Little Muffin's going to stay here, and I'm going to be right back. Okay? Daddy will be right back. Bye.

and I get in the boat and I just start rowing without even waiting for anybody to get in the boat. Muffin takes off and jumps in. Yeah, I'll follow Muffin and jump in as well. Oh no, I was petting a little Muffin. I swim to the boat. Just a little rat hand like

Does Little Muffin enjoy cheese as well? Do you share any of the brie that you collected? No, that's silly. Cats don't eat cheese. Dairy's bad for cats! What is wrong with you, Eric? See? Yeah. Actually, my girlfriend's cat loves cheese.

My cat loves butter, so there you go. I love that you guys, oh wait, is it vegan butter? It's vegan butter, yeah. I was going to say, I like the idea that your cat only likes real butter and you guys are vegan. You just got real butter. We have bagels off in our household and butter is like a constant thing that happens, so our cat loves to go and try and get the butter. Anyway, y'all jump in. Let me guess, it's peaches. Yeah, it's peaches. Peaches.

You all jump into the boat and start rowing across this massive lake. Now that you've had a chance to kind of get closer, you can kind of start to make out the form of this tower. It's like I said, it's five stories tall.

There are individual windows on each floor. Sorry, from the third floor and above is what I meant. There's four on each side. In other words, cardinal directions for each window. So there's like a north window, an east window, south window, west window. You said four on each side. Is it one in each cardinal direction? One on each side, four all around. Okay, got it.

Yeah. So there's five levels, four windows, three doors, two roofs, and a partridge in a pear tree. Each seem to have a chain bolted to their sills, like the window sills, and they're dangling down to the window below. So like a connecting chain?

Sort of, yeah. Like it's connected to the window sill and then it's dangling down to the window below that one. So if it starts on the third floor, does that mean like from the second floor window, you can reach the chain to crawl up to the third? Potentially, yeah, potentially. Okay. So the first floor, you can't really seem to reach it unless you have another means of climbing. Yeah, lake is all around you. You see mountains in the distance. The sun is rising to the east. Okay.

The weather seems clear. You've finally reached the shoreline. And what do you want to do first? There's also a door at the bottom of this tower.

I want to hop out of the boat onto the shoreline. Me too. I'm following Muffin again. Yeah, come on, Eric. It's a good idea, yeah. Wait, so we're on an island? Is that what we're on? Yeah, so it's an island in the middle of the lake. Tower's on the island. And we're at the shore of that tower right now? Yeah, shore of the tower. There's a bit of mud and grasslands kind of leading up to this tower and then a door at the bottom. Can, uh...

What is my name? Billy the Rat. Can he hop out and then flip the boat over and then cover it with foliage to keep it like hidden, like camouflaged? Yeah, absolutely. You look around and you see there's a few sparse shrubs that are still on this island, but it's full of high grass as well. So you start like, I'm assuming, like hack away at some of the plants and start covering with twigs and shrubbery. I just don't want nobody stealing our boat, see? Yeah. That's a good idea. So you're covering it in like shrubs and mud? Yeah. Who's mud?

Benny goes over and writes in the mud that's covering the boat, boat here. I don't want us to lose it. Good call. That's a great call. Yeah. Smart. Yeah. Could Muffin look around to see if there's any sort of like traps?

or anything like hidden in the grass kind of nearby the door. Interesting. Yeah. You start inspecting, kind of looking around, making sure you're taking in your surroundings, seeing if there's anything of mischief. And on closer inspection of the shore, you see that there are small barefoot tracks in the mud going in and out seemingly of the tower. Guys, there's bears here. Oh, no! Oh, no!

Also, as you're kind of like circling around the tower and checking the walls and stuff, you see that there are holes dug around the perimeter of the tower. Several, like just kind of in a circle all around the tower. Like mole holes kind of thing? Like just like a hole in the ground or like a trench? It looks like they've been filled back in. Oh.

Maybe someone's looking for like a hidden key or something. Maybe, yeah. That's a good point. You said barefoot tracks. So are they like humanoid feats? Rats. Or like rat feats? Well, when you look at them, you see boot prints. So like it's hard to tell. Like it would be the same size as you. So yeah, humanoid in nature. And they're clearly bipedal. But difficult to know like what maybe the race or species might be. And do I know...

What kind of like race the Reekalo is? Reekalo. Yeah, you have heard of this gang and they're similar to you in that they're Rodentia. Okay. Guys, there's tracks going in and out of the tower and also all these holes around here. Maybe they were looking for something. Yeah. I did have one point of clarification I wanted to ask about. I'm sorry. Gus is just little, yeah, Gus is little, yeah. Yeah.

And then just going right into his Gus voice to talk. It's like in-game versus metagame, right? No, I liked it. I liked it. How big are the holes? Like we know there's holes there, but like, are they big enough for us to crawl in? Or are they just like big enough for us to put our hands in? Good question. Yeah, they're very small. Like maybe dug out with either a small spade or even your hands, like very, like almost like a flower size, kind of like what you'd put into the ground.

Does that make sense? Yeah. I have a crowbar. Can I like kind of as safely as possible, just like poke a hole, maybe use the crow. Oh God. What's the hook on a talon? Is that what it's called? Crowbar? Yeah. Yeah. Can I use that to kind of dig out a hole? I don't know. Yeah, sure. Hope it's not a landmine.

but I just kind of want to see what's in these holes. Yeah, absolutely. You can start trying digging your way through one of the holes. Just one of them, I'm guessing? Yeah, try it out. I'll try another one as well. Sure. Yeah, you both start digging and after like maybe a few minutes of getting some of the dirt and like digging through roots and stuff like that, you come across a single tooth and you both find each a single tooth, like just a normal tooth that you'd find in a humanoid. Weird. In each hole? Yeah, someone's trying to grow dentures here.

There's holes everywhere. It's like Swiss cheese. Yeah. Should we look in the other ones to see if there's teeth in all of these holes? Or I don't know, if someone like took other teeth or buried their own teeth in here, maybe they think like the tooth fairy comes to this castle. Yeah, I don't know. It kind of creeps me out. Is that how it works? Are you supposed to do that with your teeth? You're supposed to bury them when you lose your teeth. I lost all my teeth very young. Oh, here, you can have this one. I'll hand muffin the tooth that I have. Could I?

Can I inspect it to see if there's anything special about this tooth? Yeah, you can. Eric came to the tooth and you start inspecting it. It doesn't look anything remarkable. It just looks like any other tooth. Maybe it's like a different particular one in the mouth from say, uh, Billy's tooth, but. Is it bloody? There would probably be some dried blood at the top, like where it might've met the gum. And you said it's a different one than the one that Billy found.

Yeah. Probably from the, like, could be from the same species and mouth, but it just, you know, a bicuspid versus, you know, a molar or something like that. Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out if it's maybe like the same creature's teeth all in different holes or if it's from different creatures. Yeah. Yeah. Worst case scenario, we can say we found Vol's teeth. Yeah. Maybe we'll get 25 silver for that. Yeah.

Not bad. That's the point. So you said that they looked like freshly dug. Was that safe to say? Or was it just kind of like it set itself apart from the rest of the land? Yeah, if you had to guess, it was probably dug within the last day or two. Okay. And then the door. We keep talking about the door, but we haven't really approached it yet. Yep, there is a door. I slam my fist onto the door. Oh. Ha ha ha ha.

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Getting back on the saddle isn't always comfortable. Good news is Sierra has massage guns. And chafe wipes, too. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. What were you going to say? I was going to say, like, I don't know. Is there anything peculiar about the door? Anything remarkable? It's a large double wooden door.

Okay. And there's no locking mechanism of any sort on the outside. You don't see anything though. Okay. Yeah. Let's go in. Gang, do you think we should try to just go into this here door? Yeah. You want to try opening it? Yeah. What the heck? Eric, do you want me to open the door? Yeah. Go for it. Ah, buses.

It says open the door. I got to open the door. I opened the door. All right. You opened the door and it unlocked, swings wide. And yeah, you can kind of see inside now. What do you want to do? I'll shove Billy aside and step in. Oh, I thought you were going to shove him in. I kind of wanted you to.

All right. So Eric steps in first. Is that what I hear? Yes. Okay. You enter a large stone hall filled with iron gibbets. These are like cages that are dangling from the ceiling, and they're each filled with bodies that have been long decayed. Oh.

It looks to be about six of them splayed out in this hall. Could I go up to one of them and see if they're missing teeth? Boom. I see the same thing. As you and Eric, as Muffin and Eric walk in, just as soon as you step in, you notice something on the floor. You see a special tile that is ahead of you, and it begins to glow, and it seems like it's slightly depressed into the ground, almost like a shallow bowl. Got to get it some Prozac.

And that tile is an etched number and it says one, like the number one. And seemingly at the same time, a spark of light appears over each of your heads.

Did you just get a good idea? What's going on? I'm sorry. You said you wanted to look at something in there? Yeah. I don't know if we are like close enough to these hanging cages to see or if like we could see the mouths of these bodies. I know that's kind of gross, but like to see if they're missing any teeth.

Yeah, you go and inspect any body in particular or just any of them. The closest one. Yeah, sure. You come to the closest one and they look like they've been decayed for a long time. Some of them are missing teeth. Some of them aren't. And as you're inspecting this one that you're nearby, the skull that is on top of this body is adorned with a dusty but ornate mask.

and the mask is covered in, you can only guess they're like tongue-like symbols, like symbols that are meant to represent a tongue. A tongue? Yeah, that's what you find in the first one at least. Okay. When Muffin moved over to inspect the cage, did Muffin change position on that tile? Did Muffin step off of it?

She didn't step on it necessarily. It was just like the first thing you see when you come in and you kind of notice it as you come in because it's maybe they're looking up and then like kind of glance down. Oh, so it's depressed on its own and it's lit up and there's a light above. Yeah, she didn't depress it. It was already in her hand. Oh, okay. And there's just a glowing light above me and Eric's hand. Yeah, like a small mote spark of light.

Regarding the glowing light, are glowing lights identical? Are they different colors? Are there different numbers or anything noticeable between the four of us? So all of you step in? Yeah, we haven't stepped in. The only people who said they stepped in were Eric and Muffin. Oh, I'll step in. Yeah. Big Muffin. Okay. Yeah. Spark of light appears right over you. And to answer your question, they look all the same, like similar size. They look just...

Like a small spark of light, almost like either a moat or like what you'd imagine in movies, like a fairy might look like or something like that. But it's not, it doesn't have any particular shape to it. It's just like kind of an orb of light. Is it telling us to, hey, listen. Funnily enough, my voicemail ringtone is like, hey, listen. Oh, really? That's so funny. I don't know how you get annoyed by that.

I'd be like, shut up. Can I go up to that tile, that depressed tile and stomp on it? Sure. Yeah. You go up and step on it. No stomp. I'm very clear. Sorry. Stomp. Stomp. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. My mistake. He does a stomp routine really quick. Beat New Orleans down. See? Yeah. I'll do it.

A voice comes through the hall and says to the left this time. Yeah. No, nothing seems to happen other than like it kind of echoes in the hall. Benny wants to go over. Benny wants to walk in. Yeah. So does Benny get his own light as well? Yeah. Benny walks in. He has a light that comes over him. Okay. And I'll also say that now that you've kind of had, you all four have had a chance to kind of look around. You notice that there are a few egresses out of this hall.

a few ways that are in different directions. -Those are exits. -I'll pause right here and also say that you might want to keep track of where you go from here. -We're in this room. What's the shape of this room? -You're coming in from the east. It's mostly a rectangular hall. I'll just keep it simple. It's very rectangular. It's pretty tall as well. -Is it long ways rectangular from where we're standing or rectangular wide?

- Yeah, rectangular down the way you're looking. - Okay. - Like from east to west. - I'm just gonna warn you now, I'm picking up my phone, I'm not using it, I'm drawing. If you see me using my phone, I'm drawing a map. So I can keep track of what we're doing. - Yeah, yeah.

Benny wants to go over to the same skeleton that Muffin was looking at in the cage. Is it reachable? Like, could you reach your hand into the cage? Oh, yeah, absolutely. They're like only dangling maybe a foot or so above the ground. Can I lift the mask off of the skull? Sure. Sure.

Okay. And is it a rodentia skull? Oh, is the skull itself? Is like the skeleton rodentia in biological nature? Yeah, this one seems to be. Okay. Can I tear one of the teeth out? Sure. Yeah. You just use your fingers or you're using something in particular? Oh, actually, I have iron tongs. Okay. Gross. Gross.

Yeah. So let me get this straight. You lift the mask of tongues and pull out your tongs. Yeah. Oh. And I just reach in and just shake it right. Just...

And he pulls out a tooth. Just a bit of dentistry. Just a bit of dentistry. Amateur dentistry. And then Benny proceeds to go outside, dig a hole, and put the tooth in it. Okay. Yeah. I'll say that takes you a few minutes to go and do that. But what does everybody else want to do in this room? I'd like to count the number of egresses and see how many there are and where they are. You said there was three? Three.

-No, there's actually two egresses out of this place. Sorry, we got caught up in the map thing. -What's an egress? -It's an exit. -Thank you. -I say that because they're not always doors. For instance, the one to the south is a corridor that leads to a room that smells of a bonfire. That's what you can tell from right here, it smells like a bonfire. To the west,

a door off its hinges, like kind of on the floor, crooked, and it leads to another room that doesn't seem to have any particular senses to it at this point. Okay. Doesn't seem to trigger any senses. I should have used a bigger piece of paper to draw this. I'm like, oh no, a room to the west. No more room on the west. One last thing I'll give you all is that as you're kind of looking around, you notice that the

ceiling, like I said, it's really high above you and you notice a hole in the center of the ceiling, maybe 30 feet up. It looks kind of like a chute, like a hole that a chute is going up past the ceiling. So like things would have been coming potentially down it. Potentially. And then you said there are six cages of dangling bodies, right? What is the like

of them throughout the room? Like, is it like two rows of three? Or is it just random? It's pretty scattered. There's kind of three towards the front and then two in the back. Okay. They don't look like they were hung in any particular way. So there's five total? Sorry, there are six. I don't have the sixth one on here, but there are six on here. Okay.

We've mentioned like this is the tongue one. We haven't really looked at the other masks on the other cages. Can we like inspect those? Oh, could I also have taken the mask? Yeah, I assumed you wanted to take the mask, right? Yeah, I took the mask off. Yeah, I'm holding that. Mark it as mask tongues or something like that. Before we look at the other one, Blaine, there was just one last thing I wanted to circle back on. Those were the only two exits out of the room to the west and the south? Yeah, other than the one you came through. Okay, great, great. Thank you. Sorry.

nothing to the north. Billy, you wanted to look at one of the other bodies? Yes, but before I get too far from that, the entrance that we came in from, is that north or east? That's east. East. Cayman East. There's an exit to the south and west. Trying to get my mapping skills. Trying to get your bearings. There you go.

Yeah, that's pretty close. Looking at a map that Gus drew. This is what mine looks like. Similar. Yeah. Working on it. We're all on the same page, more or less. There you go. Is there anything peculiar about the inside of the mask if I look at it? Like I said, it's a bit dusty. It's ornate. It's kind of carved with these tongue-like symbols. I put it on. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Roll for a new character. As you put it on, you feel a surge of ethereal magical energy kind of course through your own mouth. Ooh. So one thing you should know about old school role-playing games is that the longer you spend in a room, the more chance there's going to be things that will happen. Oh, I didn't know that. Other creatures may find you. This is a living ecosystem kind of thing. We are screwed. I'm going to roll right now.

and I'll be honest with you if something happens or not. Okay, as you put on this mask, I'll kind of conclude that first. Like I said, you have feel search through your mouth, and you feel like you might be able to speak in other languages now. Oh. Boy, mate, I feel smarter. As you do that, it's just by chance that you start hearing voices, actually. Not just you, but everybody starts hearing these voices

big, deep voices kind of cascading, echoing through the chamber, and you can't tell exactly where they might be coming from. It could be to the, maybe to the south, and it sounds like they may be like singing a song.

The voices of an angel. I love this song. One of my favorites. It's the choir nerds. Let's go get them. Yeah. Are there, are the bodies in this room wearing masks as well? Or was it just that one? Yeah. Let's go back to Billy. I think you were looking at one of them, right? Yeah. So yeah, both, both you and Muffin start looking around, I guess, at these, at these other cages. And the other things you find in the cages, there's one that seems to be holding a,

pewter scroll case. I'm going to grab that. That's all you find on actually the rest of the sticks is those two things, the mask and the small pewter scroll case. All right. Billy would like to grab that. Sure. Do you want to look at it or just hold on to it for now? Inspect it. Open it. Open it. Open.

I realize that I have it in my hands. You're so used to other people doing things. Yeah, you open it up and you see there's actually a message. Excuse me, I said that really weird. A message inside. Massage. Okay.

from the ancestor of a nearby ruler. Looks like it says King Oswald, and they seem to be begging T-Tardinal to give up his mad project. It's really confusing. And the only thing you can make out is that he wants him to, like, return to his seat by the throne, some sort of advisor,

So does this imply that T. Tardinal was like an advisor to a king kind of thing? Kind of sounds like it, yeah. He's off doing his little spire and the king didn't want him to maybe. And who sent that again? King Oswald. King Oswald, yeah. He's asleep upstairs right now. I forgot. Oh, yeah. He is King Oswald. A lot of people don't know this, but Gus is a huge Penguin fan from Batman. As you're all kind of inspecting these cages, the doors that you came through suddenly slid

Maybe it could have been the wind. Maybe it's something else. You're not sure. And you start hearing thumping sounds coming from the south. Spooky. Like big boom, boom, boom. Let's go get him. In the same place where the singing was happening? Mm-hmm. You seem to think, I guess, where it was coming from. Was it Bonfire Room 2? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Could Muffin like kind of sneak around like the door down the hall and like see if she sees anything? To the south, you mean? To the south, yeah. Yeah, there's no door. You just see a corridor. I meant the like archway. Yeah, yeah. You kind of like peek around the corner of the archway and you're trying to see what's down the hall. Yeah. You can't see anything yet. All you can hear like as you get closer is like thumping of big feet. That's all you can imagine is like these huge feet are just stomping down the hallway.

Okay, so I don't know if we should go that way. Maybe we should go to the west? Yeah. Yeah, sounds like a plan. Yeah, make scary noises. But also I want to say that nobody heard her because she whispers. So you said that, but nobody really hears it? At that point, she runs to each of you and goes, I think we should go to the west. I think we should go to the west. I think we should go to the west. Yeah.

- Yeah, lead the way, regular-sized muffin. - Y'all head west towards that door off its hinges, and you enter a narrow corridor lined with six stone rooms. So it looks like you enter one of the rooms itself, so this is one of the six.

And in the middle is like a hallway and spidering off that hallway are five other ones. So like three on each side kind of thing. I'll give you more directions in a second, but I'm going to describe this first room. As you enter, you notice a similar depressed tile in the center of the room. And it has the number two. Oh, we're going in. It means we're going in the right way. Come.

- Yeah, yeah, see, we're on the same page, same page. - Do we still have lights above us? - You actually do. You all four still have a spark of light above you. - But not two. - Can Benny like reach up at it and try to grab it? - Sure, and to answer your question, Muffin, you just have one, each of you have one at this point. - Okay. - Big Benny, you try to swipe at your spark of light and your hand goes right through it.

but you feel a little cold mist as you kind of swat through it. -Okay. -So you come into this room, and there seems to be a hallway right in front of you that goes north and south. So you've come west, and now you're hitting a hallway, T-intersection that's going north and south.

And all along on either side of that north and south are three rooms on each side. You're in the middle of the right side, if that makes sense, the eastern side. -Gotcha. -And you said there's three rooms north, three rooms south. -Three rooms to the west, three rooms to the east. Hallway running north and south. -We came out of the middle on the east side.

Correct. Oh, okay. We came out of one of the six. So we came out of one of the rooms. Yeah. Okay. And was the number two in that hallway or was it like in the corridor? In the first room. So as you go into the room, they see the two. As you exit that room, you see this hallway. And was the room we came out of, like if there's like three down, were we in like the middle one coming out or top or bottom? Yeah, the middle one. Middle? Okay. Okay.

Could Benny turn around and try and pick up the door that was off the hinges and try to jam it back into the hole that it was pulled off of? Yeah, I'll say we'll make our first roll just for fun because we haven't rolled anything yet. So roll a 2d6 and add your strength modifier. Ooh, good rolls. Because you're trying to kind of brawn your way into slamming this door back into place. That is 11 plus 2, 13.

-Yes, above a 10, you succeed. You grab it. It's dangling with handrails. It's really rusty and with no problem whatsoever. It feels like it's made of paper. You just slam it into the wall and it just perfectly aligns with the archway around it. -Nice. -Benny just turns around and goes, "Yes."

That's how you do it. Yeah, yeah. I also dust off my hands. Yeah. Dentist and a carpenter. What can't Benny do, yeah? So yeah, you're kind of in this hallway. You see six or five other rooms, six total. To the north, the hallway keeps going to another room that kind of smells a bit like a wharf. A dwarf? A Klingon? Yeah, exactly.

Those are the two things you kind of see right now are all these rooms and another way out north. And that's one of the doors or is that a separate exit? It's just the hallway keeps going north. Gotcha. Okay. And not south? It doesn't go south. It just has those six rooms that you can see right now. So it's kind of like a dead end at the other end of the hall? Seems like it. Okay.

From what you can see. I'd like to enter the hall and immediately take a left and try to open the door at the southeast corner. So like when we came in the one to our left. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. So one thing you noticed right away, none of these rooms have doors on them. Oh, just egresses. I'm just going to bravely walk in then. To the southeast, you said? Southwest? Yeah. So like you do a little...

-Turn. -Southeast, like a U-turn kind of thing? -Yes. -Yes. You walk into a chamber with two windows in the walls. One window is to the east, another one's to the north. Each has a chain bolted onto its windowsill. A nearly naked Rodentia corpse is sitting on the floor, leaning its helmeted head, so it's got a helmet over its head, against the north windowsill.

Got you with your pants down, see? Yeah. A crude knife, it seems to be plunged into his stomach. Seems to be a male from what you can tell. And a trail of blood drips along the floor to and from the eastern windowsill. I would like to approach the eastern windowsill and try to look out of it. You look out the eastern windowsill

and you start to get confused and a little bit of vertigo or something. It doesn't make sense. You should be on the first floor, but you're looking like you're on the third floor. - Gotcha. - Huh. Did we go up somehow? - From what you can tell, like, you just walked straight. You didn't elevate or descend. You just stayed in the same plane. - Hey, boss, the third floor's got those chains on the windows. Maybe we could climb up. - Yeah, get out there and do your best climbing. - Yeah, you got it, boss, yeah!

I'll go up and I'll climb. I'll see if I can climb from that window up to the next one. Because these have the chains on the windowsills, correct? Correct.

What I'll do is since it's a little high up, it's a little risky, but it has a chain. So I'm going to give you advantage and you're going to do a strength check to just with advantage. So 3d6 and you take the two that are the highest rolls. Three and a six. Plus. Yeah, plus. Plus one. So 10. You just made it. So you did roll 3d6, right? It was three and a six. Yeah, I rolled a three, a six and a one. Just making sure. Got you, got you.

- Cool. Yeah, so you climb out the eastern windowsill. You're three stories up, it seems. You start grabbing onto the chains, and are you just like arming this thing? Are you like using your feet to kind of shimmy your way up? What are you doing? - Yeah! Let me see if I have anything that's relevant to this. - Yeah!

Yeah, no, I guess I'm doing that thing, you know, where you, like, lock your feet so that you can kind of, like, heft up to the next arm hold, you know? I mean, rats can have, you know, they have, like, pretty good dexterity with their feet. Yeah. Yeah, so you start climbing. Climbing, yeah! All right, you reach another windowsill on the fourth floor now, is that right? Yeah.

You're going up? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. And you come in, you kind of like peer in, and before you enter, you see that it's some sort of study, and there's books and shelves of a dozen tomes or so, tons of sketches kind of sprawled out along this room littered on the floor. You notice that there is in the corner another one of those depressed tiles, and it has the number 22. Oh, no. Ooh.

Jumped ahead a little bit, you see? Yeah, a lot of nerdy stuff in here. I'll also say, I didn't mention this, but as you entered this southeast room, Eric and Billy, the spark of lights above your heads don't come with you. They seem to stay in the hallway. What are you doing in there? Why aren't you afraid to come in here? Go on.

Oh, we lost the spark, boss. Oh. Wait, are you actually with me? No, you climb. No, I'm still- Yeah, I imagine I'm just looking out the window at you. Okay. So I can see you. We can talk, but yeah, we're not like right by each other. All right. I communicate all the information. Bunch of nerdy stuff. Number 22 on the ground, and I lost my spark. I ain't got no spark, see?

What do I do, boss? I'm scared! I've got an idea of what I want to do, but I don't want to steal the show from Muffin and Benny if they have any ideas, if they want to do anything while we're doing this. Well, I was going to say you might want to try to find a chute and go back to the start to go back down to the first room because it did have that chute going down. I don't think I told you this as well, but when you came into that first room with the two windowsills...

It had the number 23 written on it. Oh. That was the one with the decaying corpse? Corpse. Correct. And then you climbed up, Billy, and you found 22. The party is split three ways right now. So Benny's going to help us a little bit and join the corpse room. Okay. In that case, I'm going to yell up to Billy. Hey, hang out for a sec. You got a boss. And I want to go peek out the north window and see what I see from the north window.

Yes. As you're approaching the north window, you start to hear that same pounding of feet coming closer down the hallway. The hallway where Muffin is? Correct. Let's jump back to you're in 23, correct? Correct. Yeah. Okay. You look north and...

disorientation kind of takes over your senses and you're looking from the fifth floor. But not just that, you should be looking north, but you don't recognize it as the same direction. It looks like it's actually the opposite direction, south. I think we might be in a maze. No. Real confusing. As you all are kind of

reeling from this realization, you hear these stomping feet coming down the hall from kind of the western direction, about across from 23, and

And what do you want to do? So Muffin's in that hallway. Yeah. And they're stomping coming from that west way. Yeah, I was coming in through that corridor where the two was. You guys went into that hallway and turned around. Yeah, so like the southwest is where these feet are coming from. Southwest. Okay. Could I...

Like without going into the rooms, kind of like look into them to see if I see any other numbers on the floor. You do. I'll give you this. You go through each room and starting from top left to top right. So northwest to northeast. You have four at the northwest.

three at the northeast coming down out of the end of the middle you have five on the west side two on the eastern side which is the one you came through first you go down to the bottom level six on the southwestern side and 23 on the southeastern side in four and three those are the northern ones they each have a window as well and you notice that

They're heading in different directions on different levels. Gotcha. So there's some type of weird... Portaling. Yeah. Who's in 23 right now? I'm in 23. Benny and Eric. Yeah, 23 and me. You came back down? No, no, no. He's just confusing it. He's making a joke. I'm making a joke. You know, I'm a bit of a joker.

-Yeah, I'm standing by the northern window looking out. I had yelled at Billy to maintain his position up there, and I think Benny came into 23 with me. -Billy's still holding perfectly still. -Benny, as you're looking around, you notice that this rodentia corpse has something holding-- he's holding his hands, like grasping it tight. -I look at what he's holding in his hand. -It looks like a torn piece of blue fabric.

and just as you're looking at it, it kind of like not disappears. It's not invisible, but you can't seem to find it anymore. Huh?

I try to reach out where it was in the hand that I just saw it in. Yeah, you reach out for it and you kind of find the arm and you start making your way up and you can feel it, but you can't like visually see it anymore. Like it should be there, but it's not like for some reason your eyes can't find it. This is very confusing to me. Glock of invisibility, see? Yeah. I grab what I can't see.

and I pull it as hard as I can out of the hand. - Yeah, you pull it out of the hand, and as you look down at your hand, like your vision kind of like unfocuses, focuses, tries to find it, and you can like sometimes catch glimpses of it, but then other times it's just like, it's not there at all. - How big of a fabric is it? - Very small piece of torn. - Okay, little scrap. If I take the scrap and I put it over my eye and I look at Eric.

Yeah. Does he disappear? What happens? What do I see? Yeah, you're not seeing through anything, but you're just seeing, it's almost like you have an eye patch over your eye now. Ask Eric what he sees. What, hey, Eric, what you see over my eye right now? I turn around and look at Benny, annoyed. What do I see?

You see him holding up his arms and you're having a hard time seeing what he's actually holding. Is he covering his eye? Is his hand masking his face? Like, you're not sure. So can I see his eye through it? You can't. So what does he see? Does he see blackness or like the wall behind me or? No, like I said, he sees you like holding up something and he can't tell if it's like your hand covering your face or if he's holding something. It's hard to focus on it.

Okay. Very confusing. Hey, Billy, Benny lost his eye, yeah? Oh my God, what's going on down there? Where's your eye, Benny? Do you wanna come back down? Do you wanna come back? Yeah, come back. Okay. I'm gonna deal with this a little bit later and I put the piece of fabric in my pocket.

Okay. And I'll say, Billy, you come back down. No problem. Yes. And while I'm there, there was a knife in the corpse. Yeah. There's a knife in the corpse. I pulled the knife. And the corpse is also wearing a helmet. Just a reminder. I checked the helmet. I'm not trying to sway you. I'm just trying to make sure you remember all the details. Yeah, all the details. I like that you're bending down as if you're going for the knife and then an inch away you switch over to the helmet. Your other hand is reaching for the other thing. Yeah.

- Yeah, so you go for the helmet I'm hearing? - Yeah. - Okay. Yeah, you go for the helmet and it's kind of like the knight helmets where it's flat down covering his face. What do you want to do with it? - I lift the visor up. - Peekaboo. - You lift the visor up and it's the strangest thing. It's the same phenomenon that you had with this piece of fabric you saw. - Is it feminine-omenon? - Feminine-omenon. - You should be seeing this person's face.

but it's like a square is kind of covering it, but you can't tell what it's made of. - Weird.

-Okay. -What do you want to do? I'm going to go with Benny. He punches the face just to see what happens. Okay. Yeah, you punch the face and whatever this is falls down and into like maybe the corpse's lap kind of on towards the floor and you start to get a better vision of it. For whatever reason, you disrupted something that made it kind of more visible and it looks like a blueprint. Billy wants to join and he starts kicking the body. Yeah, yeah, get him, get him.

Start kicking the body and it's like jostling and it kind of slides down the window sill onto the floor. That's right. Yeah. You showed him. And also as this thing falls off the face, you recognize this person, this corpse. Oh. From a description that Murin gave you. Uh-oh. You think this is Volk.

Oh no. What's the teeth situation? Mission accomplished, boys and girls. Let's get back and get our money. So Vol is the missing son that clearly looks very passed away. Dad.

Like 24 hours passed away? Yeah, it doesn't look like a skeleton or anything. Just clearly is deceased, clearly has been plunged with a knife, and is nearly naked. I just want to be clear. He was dead before I punched him, okay? Hold on. The blueprint was in front of his face inside the mask. Yep.

Okay, I just realized that weirdness of it. He's nearsighted, see? See? Inside his biker helmet. Is the piece of fabric you got part of that blueprint? You can compare the two if you want. Yeah. Is Muffin going to join us? No.

So let me resolve something real quick. Okay, I'm going to look at this blueprint, but I want to know what Muffin's doing. Let me resolve something real quick. As you're looking at this blueprint, you see something written in blood in the corner, and it's the words Rikalu.

Invisib, and then it kind of trails off. Okay. I think I know what that means. And Rikalu is the leader of the Pastis. No, they're the gang. They're the gang. Pastis is the leader of the Rikalu. They might be... Invisible. Yeah. They're probably wearing whatever this fabric piece you got was. Oh. So you have this fabric piece that you're looking at and comparing it to this blueprint, and it dawns on you that they're both, like, as you get glimpses of both, they're both blue.

but they keep kind of shifting out of perspective. And I'm going to send you all something in Slack. All right, boys, let's grab Vol and get out of here and get our money. Mission accomplished. Billy, pick him up. Let's go. Yeah, yeah, I'll pick him up. Yeah. You tell Billy to pick him up and not Benny the giant rat. Well, Benny's got his hands full with the blueprints. Oh, wow. All right, I was right-hand guy. What's the matter, C? So as you're looking at this blueprint...

you see that it's the entire layout of this tower, and it really doesn't make sense how this is built because it should just be up and down, but there are chambers all over the place of various sizes, heights.

And it seems like it's been marked out to have all these numbers that you keep finding on the floor, like where they might be located and what might be inhabiting some of these rooms, at least at the time of his exploration. Gee whiz, my map was all sorts of wrong. Wow. I do want to say I'm pretty happy. My map is pretty close, but this is mind bending a bit. Oi, muffin, we found a map. Yeah, but I found the numbers.

So why don't you get back down here? We probably have to go in order. Get back down? I'm still, like, where we came out, and you guys went... Down the hall, she means. No, we're still on the same level. Yeah. Oh, okay. This here picture shows a bunch of storks and birds. That seems kind of fun. Maybe we want to go to number nine? To be clear, I'll pick up Vol, and I'll walk out of the room back towards where Muffin is in two. Okay. Okay.

Does the moat get back onto Benny's head? Do I get my light? Yeah, the light starts following you again as you're in this hallway. Okay, so that means we don't have to go all the way back to one and then I'll do it all over again because that would be a headache. Yeah, as Benny walks towards back to Muffin and sees his light, he just starts humming, just a light of my life.

- Muffin slapped Benny. - I slapped Muffin back. - At the sound of this slapping, you hear big stomping sounds coming from the Southwest room that you know as the room six. You see this head pop out from the corridor, but it can't seem to protrude through into the room, it's too big. - I smell rodent. - I stab it in the eye. - All right, we're gonna roll initiative.

Oh, we're fighting. All right. So what I need since Eric, you're the one that wants to stab this thing. Roll me a D6 and I will roll against you. Three. You got a three, I got a five. So my side, we're doing side-based initiative, is going to go first. That means in this first round, the giant in this case is going to take a turn and that's the only person in this party that you can see. And then when he's done, you guys will have a turn. You can go in any order you want on your turn and then we'll reroll initiative again.

So you want it to stab it in the eye. Go ahead and make an attack roll with your 2d6, trying to get a 10 or above. That is a four.

Actually, roll with advantage. Since it was a surprise attack, roll with advantage and just see if you hit it. One more dice. One more dice or three new dice? Just do one more. You got it, boss. Here, have my dice. That's a... Yeah, thanks, see? That's a five, which would have made it an eight. Five plus three, eight. So yeah, you try and go for this eye and maybe the head is just...

still squirming around and a little too high for you to reach as a rodentia, and you start to stab at it, but it just squirms out of the way just in the last second.

Okay, so that was kind of a surprise attack. Now it'll be the giant's turn. And the giant kind of sees that you're trying to stab its eye and it kind of reaches out behind it and starts pulling something from its body. And you see this club kind of like fall to the ground and it can't seem to swing it, but it's going to hit you. So it's going to try and like land on you basically. And he rolled an eight and he has a plus one. So that's a nine.

So it's actually gonna, you're gonna take one point of damage from this. - Ah! - 'Cause what we do with damage in Maze Rats is you roll to try and meet the AC or beat it. And the difference between the AC and the roll is the amount of damage. So in this case, nine and eight, which is your AC. So you have one point of damage.

Avenge me, boys and girl. Boss, no! Now it's all the rest of your turns. Everybody can go, including Eric. I want to attack next. I want to defend my boss. So then I'm going to take my... I'm going to keep some distance and shoot it with my crossbow. And I will say also that in Maze Rats, you can do 30 feet of movement on your turn, and you can take one action. And that action could be attacking, could be running away, could be any number of things, creative solutions that you want to come up with, and we'll roll with it, okay? So you're going to try and shoot it with your crossbow.

- Yeah. - Go ahead and roll 2d6. - 2d6 coming up. This one's for you, boss. - Yeah. - Two and three. - So five total? - Yeah, five total. - You gotta do better. - Yeah, you fire off your crossbow and it pings the side of the giant's face, but it doesn't seem to phase them at all. And just gets kind of angry and goes, "I'm gonna get you." - And you see like the archway starts to rumble and the stone starts to crumble on the outside of it. Who's next?

- Hi guys, I think we should just run away. This thing can't get through. We gotta get through this maze. Why don't we just run? - I like that idea. - Yeah, run, yeah, see, run. - We already got the biggest guy on our team down a point, so, you know. Bad news bears. - Flattery gets you everywhere. - So could Muffin start running towards the room with the three, which would be the northeast? - Sure, yeah. You can easily make your way up there and you kind of move out of its eyesight. What does the rest of the party wanna do?

I'll follow. Follow. Okay. I want to follow. I can take an action before I move though, right? You can.

And I'm like right up on the giant's face. He wants to stab it. No, no, no. Can I shove a vial in its mouth? Uh-oh. And then take off running following Muffin? Yeah, what kind of vial? A vial of poison. Oh, okay. Ooh, you got poison. This is going to be risky, so I'm going to make you roll for it. Okay. In this case, you're really fingersmith nimble with your hands. Yeah. So you can roll with advantage on this.

-Okay. -So 3d6. -That is an 11. -An 11 beats it. -6 and a 5. Yeah. So you shove this vial of poison into the giant's mouth. And instinctively starts chomping down, thinking that maybe you put your hand in its mouth.

and poison just starts to pierce its lips and sizzle and like you see its veins around its face start turning green and it immediately like starts thrashing about and like reversing its entry into the room and back where it came from and you just kind of hear it rumbling not necessarily stomping down the hallway but it's clearly moving away from you all.

Yeah, that's what you get, see? I'm going to take off following, running, following Muffin. That's what you get, see? And you hear yells of pain in the distance. Probably a good thing you did that because we'll have to go into that room at some point. Yeah, see? Clearing the way.

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Oh, it's such a clutch off-season pickup, Dave. I was worried we'd bring back the same team. I meant those blackout motorized shades. Blinds.com made it crazy affordable to replace our old blinds. Hard to install? No, it's easy. I installed these and then got some from my mom. She talked to a design consultant for free and scheduled a professional measure and install. Hall of Fame's son? They're the number one online retailer of custom window coverings in the world. Blinds.com is the GOAT!

Shop blinds.com right now and get up to 45% off select styles. Rules and restrictions may apply. So I guess we're still going to three. Yeah. And then I guess we just want to hit the remainder of these doors in the corridor, four, five, and six. I think probably what we have to do in this scenario is go through all the rooms together.

in numerical order. Yeah. I don't think we could skip anything, so... Yeah. It's good that we have this map now because we could see the sequence of rooms and the directions we need to go, so it kind of provides the answers for us. But do we have to? Yeah. Take Vol back, see? Get the money. Yeah, I mean, that would be a quick way to end this. I mean, how many episodes do we want out of this adventure, see? Maybe, Benny, you should drop Vol off over there at the entrance with the gibbets, yeah? Sure.

You have to carry him the whole way, because then it's a lot of heft for you to be carrying around, yeah? Okay. Yeah, you're a little guy. You don't want to carry this big old heavy thing the whole time.

I feel like I'm making fun of my saws. No! We're just a bunch of big guys. All of us. Equally the biggest. All of us. Benny goes over and, I guess, pushes on the door that he secured. Yeah, you push on it and it just kind of falls off its hinges onto the ground. I walk into the room and I put Vol's body near the tile that glows with one. Sure. Okay. And then...

to head back to my team and go to we're all in three yeah okay we're in the third room yep and the spark of light seem to follow you as you go to this third room and like i said before you have a window to the north and um that's really that's all of this in this room the number three in this window to the north i see it says forward w so w obviously stands for west

but does four mean we could get into room four from that window? -We'll have to find out, I think. -Maybe you should look out that window and see what you see. -Could Muffin look out that window? -Absolutely, you can. You look out that northern window and it should be--

like the shoreline that you saw in the distance as you came towards, but you actually see the west and you seem to be four floors above and you're kind of seeing maybe the noon sun above you heading towards that direction. Oh, so I think the numbers with the west, north, east and south, it's like how many floors up we are rather than the room. I think so. Okay. That seems to track with what the windows you've seen so far. Yeah.

Oh, so nothing in this room then. So should we just go over to four? Four? Let's go across the hall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Across the hall is four. Yep. Across the hall, there's a four on the ground and a northern window. And you kind of look out and see that you're in the same direction as the previous window in the west, but it's the third floor now. I run back over to three and I go look out the four window and look down. I go, hello, everybody. Hey, what are you doing up there? Hey. Hi. As you leave four, you see that your spark of light doesn't follow you. Oh, okay.

I go back and I get my spark. Okay. But did we, we did see him. Like if we are all looking out the window, we could see each other from floor to floor. If you're looking up and down. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

But then if I look out the window and then look down the hall across the hall, do I still see his butt? Yeah. Whoa. Right? I'm not tracking that again. If I'm sticking out the window, we're playing portals here, okay? Yeah. And I can wave down to them and they can look to the right and they can see my butt in that room. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

- Okay. - Excellent. - This is fun. - Point of clarification, the mote of light followed us into four, but when Benny left to go to three, it did not, it followed him into the hall, but did not follow him into three. - Correct, yeah, it would have followed to the hall and just stayed there. - Okay. - Okay. So I think, did we all go to four yet? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Okay. - Give me five.

Okay, Nick, one more down. We're doing this, team. All right, you go down to the west and you see that there's a five and there's nothing else in this room. I assume you leave that and go down to the sixth one as well. Correct. You assumed correctly. Where the giant came out of? Yeah, so the southwest room is number six.

and you see that the corridor seems to keep going northwesterly on a stairway. Where's the giant? You don't see the giant, actually, right now. You do see trails of, like, green poison and blood going down towards what you see on your map, this...

into the next room and then south from that room. -Okay. -You don't see him because I killed him. Yeah, so you don't mess with Eric Ratmanski or you get the poison. -Yeah, you would get him to work for you. -Did your poison make someone disintegrate? -Yeah. -There's like a trail, right? -But no body. -Yeah, there's a trail. -Okay. -So you're at the bottom of these stairs. What do you want to do? -Climb up. -I'll take the lead. -I'll follow Benny. -Yeah, yeah, and go up.

All right, Benny, you climb up into this room and you see it's a large fountain with an aquatic statue. It stands in the center of this room to the east is that of the fountain is a bowl-like tile and the floor bearing the number seven.

As you enter, immediately these serpent-like spirits kind of emerge from the water in this fountain and start diving for your spark above your head. What do you want to do? Go, snakes!

I don't know. Could I try to evade it? So you want to climb up the stairs as well and join him? Yeah, it was just me. So I'm in the room. The snakes are coming at my little note. I thought you were just following or leading. If everybody's following, we can say you're all there at the door. Let's do that. I've got a steel mirror. Maybe the reflection will make them bounce off and go away. I like that. You hear it say, give us the spark.

I'll give you some mirrors. What if we just leave guys? Yeah, just go to eight. Oh, that's true. It's gonna lunge after Benny. I dodge and go for a tuck and roll, a roll like a somersault to the north. Excellent. Make a 2D6 roll with dex added to it as you're dodging away. That's my dex plus one. That was only eight. Okay.

You are trying to dodge the north, is that correct? Yeah. For some reason, as this serpentine spirit comes out, there's dribbling water across the floor and you slip. And so as you're diving, you may only make it like halfway there and you're kind of at the eastern side of this fountain now. Yeah. On the ground. And it's still coming for your spark, trying to grab it and thrash at it. What are the rest you want to do? While it's distracted by him, could I run in and jump and try to grapple the little snake guy? Yeah, go for it. Oh.

Go ahead and make a strength check. So 2d6 plus strength.

I have a zero strength. I believe. Nine. Oh, so close. Just the same as the number of fingers you got on your hands. Oh, my God. I'm going to call this an attack, in essence, because that's what you're trying to do is grapple this thing. And you meet its AC. Oh. Or you beat its AC, I should also say. Oh, cool. Because you're interacting with this thing. So I'll let you know right off the bat that its AC is six. So you had a nine. Is that correct? Yes.

Yes. So you have a death grip on this thing now. What do you want to do with it? Can I try to rip it in half? Absolutely, you can. I'll say with a nine, you absolutely rend it in half, and the spirit is still alive, but on both ends, it's kind of like wriggling in each of your hands now. Yeah. Is it like when you cut a worm in half and it turns into two worms? Yeah, it's sort of ethereal. You don't understand how you're actually holding this thing, but it has some sort of corporealness to it. So it's alive still. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Could I shove it into the water in the fountain? You do that, and you see that it's two halves start joining back together as you're putting them together. No, no! No!

- Oh no, magic water! - Quickly take it out. - Okay, they separate again and then they start wriggling in your hands. What are the rest of you gonna do? - Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it! - Get a blow dryer. - So we got Eric and we got Billy. - I'd like to, while Benny's on the ground and Muffin is wrestling with that spirit, I'd like to use that time and their distraction to try to run around the fountain and get to the northern exit. - Okay, do you wanna go west or east around the fountain? - The east side where they are 'cause I wanna use them as that distraction. - Gotcha, okay.

Yeah, you start running just normally across the side of this thing and you can make it easily to the corridor to the north. Yeah, you kind of come to this room that has a number eight on it with a couple other exits come branching out from it. Come on, you knuckleheads, quit messing around. Let's go. And what does Billy want to do? Billy would want to follow suit, but based on what's been happening, theoretically, would he be able to deposit his light and then come back to help the others? But his light is in safekeeping and eight.

Oh, like lock your light in room eight and come back. Oh, so you want to go all the way to eight and then come back, backpedal, or not backpedal, but for sure. If I have the movement to do it, or at least pull my crossbow out to assist the other two who have not made it to eight yet. Yeah, absolutely. You follow suit with your boss, Eric, and you kind of make an about face, seeing your friends kind of in trouble, and you want to fire your crossbow? Yeah, I say, you hold right here, Sparky. You stay here, Sparky. And then I pull out my crossbow and I...

I don't want to shoot the one that's in Muffin's hands because I don't want to accidentally hit Muffin, but I do. If there's another one. Yeah, so there's another one that pops out and is starting to head towards Big Benny. Stay on target. Stay on target. I'm going to shoot at it. So go ahead and roll 2d6 and fire that crossbow. I have an idea after this is done. That's a seven plus. Do I need to add anything? Not for the crossbow, no.

That's a seven. Seven beats it, and so it takes one point of damage as this bolt fires from your crossbow and impales the side of its face, and it starts thrashing around because you've blinded it. You half-blinded it. Yeah. Cool. It's kind of stuck in midair, thrashing about, trying to look for this Big Benny rodent. Come on, Benny. Come on, Muffin. We got to get going. What do you want to do, Big Benny? I have an idea. I want Muffin's idea. Okay, go for it.

Go for a muffin. Can I run over to the window and throw all these snakes out the window? Absolutely, you can. So you're going to go towards the west around the fountain to the south and chuck it out the window? Yeah. You do that. You take both halves and you just throw them out the window and they start falling.

falling all the way down. And they're like from the fifth floor, they just seem to fall almost all the way from the top of this tower all the way to the ground and kind of land on the grass below. I'm sick and tired of these snakes in my tower.

All right, Big Benny, what do you want to do? Benny wants to scramble back to his feet and get to the north door out of this room. Yeah, I'll say if all of you want to make your way to the north, you totally can. Yeah. Hey, you know, looking at the map, if I'm in room eight, I'm looking out the third floor window to the north. Theoretically, would I be able to see the snake fall past me? You absolutely would. Yeah, so this third floor northern window, you just see it. The green snake's...

Yeah, after throwing the snakes out the window, Muffin also wants to head to the north. Benny turns to Muffin and just goes, thanks, I appreciate that. I'm in your debt. Yeah, you know, I've seen the movie Snakes on a Plane, but never Snakes in a Water Fountain.

Snakes in a spire. All right. Snakes in a spire. You all safely make it to the threshold of room number eight to the north, and your sparks all follow you, and this second serpent spirit seems to be thrashing about, can't seem to find anything, and dives back into the fountain. Okay. Note to self, don't go to that fountain ever again. So now you find yourselves in this four-way room. You've come from the south.

It's a square room with these cardinal directions in each way, and then there's an 8 on the floor and a window in the northwest corner. Hey, Billy, you wanted to see some birds, yeah? Yeah, birds, boss, yeah, I like birds. So looking at the map, there's a staircase that leads down into what looks like floor 9.

But there's also four giant pelicans. Are they awake? Like, what's the status of these big old birds? You gotta look in that room. You wanna listen down the stairwell? Yeah. Yeah, you listen down and you absolutely hear the ruffling of feathers, the squawking of giant creatures that are bird-like.

and it definitely smells like something of a wharf with, like, guano and grass and mud, that kind of stuff. Oh, this connects back around to the earlier passageway where you said it smelled like a wharf to the north. Okay, I gotcha. Okay, gang, so we got a bunch of birds in the next room. What are birds not like? How can we put these birds to sleep? Get Little Muffin in there, yeah. Little Muffin shall chase them away. Should I go grab one of those snakes and bring it into this room and just unleash havoc? Ha ha ha ha ha.

I like it. This might be a controversial idea. What if we just ran? I like to run.

What if I know anything about birds? If you make a lot of noise and you just wave your hands around a lot, then the birds are scared of you and you can run past them. Yeah, bird brains. I got an idea that might not be as dangerous. Okay, so in the northwest corner, there's a window facing to the north on the third floor, okay? Alright, now follow me along. If you look at

There's another window in there, and it's the second floor window facing the north. So what if I distract them in the window, and you guys run behind them while they're looking at me, and then you get from room nine to room ten? I love this. How are you going to get to ten? I don't know, but I want my team to get along. As long as Mr. Eric gets through, that's all I care about. Also hand this to you. If you do that, I will totally let that happen. And you know that all four of those windows from your map

are on the same level and all you'd have to do is swing to the next one and to the next one and to the next one because they're all the same level but they're all the cardinal directions so west, north, east, south. A lot of athletics checks but I think I can do it guys. You guys believe in me?

Hands in the middle. There's also a corridor that says E all the way to the east. I was going to point that out, but then I realized I think if we do that, we skip nine. Then we go straight from eight to ten. Yeah. Yeah. You would assume that's right. We have to go in nine. So let's build on Billy's idea. Okay. Yeah. You go from the window in three north down to two north to get into nine. Go back to the window in three north. Then go to the passage marked E. Then come about the other side and go to ten. Yeah.

I am so lost right now. I'm just gonna run. I'm just gonna follow suit. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, hold on. I do the window thing, right? Yeah. I'm distracting them from the window, okay? You guys run from room 9 to room 10. Yes. And then one of you goes out the door to the east hallway and then comes back to room 8 and then you distract them while I

- While I'm going through the window. - Yeah, okay. - Into room 10. - You mean the hallway labeled E, is that what you meant? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Okay. - Hopefully that door is open. - Let me just clue the audience in here. From eight, there's a Western path that's labeled E and it wraps around to room 10. It's almost like you're going out the left side, coming in the right side. - It's like Pac-Man. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's a portal. - I don't know how we would have done this without the picture.

Yeah, this is nuts. It's hard. Billy, you're going to go out the northwestern window that's labeled 3N, and you're on the third floor on the north side, and the rest of the party goes down the stairwell. Billy, you're going to climb down, I'm assuming, to the second level on the north side still? Yes. Okay. You do that, and you start approaching the windowsill of that pelican room with all these eggshells and mud and sticks and these things.

huge, dire pelicans that are just enormous and squawking. The rest of the party, you start making your way down the stairs, I'm assuming sneakily, and kind of wait for his signal. Walking on eggshells. Exactly. Go to one, boss! What do you want to do? Bird shells. All right, so in order to distract them, I have a crowbar, so I'll hold on to one of the chains from the windowsill, and I'll take the crowbar in the other hand, and then I'll start just banging it up

*Screaming*

You know from your experience with birds that they hate high-pitched sounds and shiny objects. Yeah. They're, like, weak to them. So you start doing this thing, and, like, it just starts making this racket that echoes off the corners and the walls of this room, and the birds start going crazy and just flapping about. That's the signal, guys. I'm making the signal! Signal! Run, run, run! Run, run! I start running from eight through nine, trying to get over to ten. Okay. Same here.

Okay, so yeah, you three kind of hug the southern wall away from these birds as they're looking northward towards Billy making a racket, and you slink past, and as you're getting towards the corner, you see the number nine mixing all this hay and straw and swigs, and along the way, I'll also say, as you're approaching the door for ten, you see on the ground a pelican beak from a dead pelican, like it's been, it's fallen off of it, and you see three venomous quills, like

like something that they're sort of poison, like it died from poison. And there's something lodged inside the beak as well. As I run by, I pick it up and grab it and take it out of the room.

Absolutely. Yeah. You all head towards 10. And meanwhile, Billy's on the window sill and he's making a racket with this chain and crowbar. What do you want to do now, Billy? Oh, yeah. You got their attention. Okay. So theoretically, I would be able to see them run through the room and then enter 10. So then I would know that's probably my signal to climb back up to safety, quote unquote. Yeah. Into room eight and then await someone to come in through the east hallway. Okay.

that connects room 10 to room eight and then have them distract on my behalf. - Distract on the other side? I got you. - Yeah. - So go ahead and make a climb check as you're going back up. So you're gonna do a strength check and you're gonna do 3D6, like I said last time, 'cause you have advantage on this chain being here.

This entire show, I've been listening to Blaine's voice and it's been triggering something in my head. I'm like, I know this voice and I finally figured it out. Did any of you watch Bear in the Big Blue House? No. Okay, so Kristen, I told her, I gave her a taste of my voice this morning and she was like, oh, that's the rat from... It's Tutter. It's Tutter. You sound... If anybody pulls up any clips of Tutter from Bear in the Big Blue House, it sounds exactly like Blaine right now. I thought it was... Sizzler? No, Mickey Mouse. Oh. Oh.

I rolled a six and a five and then plus strength, I guess that's a one, so 12. You have done this before now and you're just racing up this chain up to the next window sill back into room eight. Who's coming out of 10 to distract? I wanted to open the door to the passageway E that's in 10 just to make sure it's unlocked and open. Absolutely. You go for that. You reach for it. It's unlocked. It swings open. I can go distract. All right. Go ahead, Muffin. I'm brave. I'm fast.

What do you do to distract the pelicans? They're all in a tizzy right now. They're trying to look out this window and they can't seem to find what was making all this noise. Luckily, Muffin also has a crowbar.

So she wants to take it out. And then is there like, there's like a, I assume like an archway. Archway that you're looking through, yeah. Could I just like bang it on either side of the archway? Yeah, absolutely. The birds follow suit and start flapping their wings, cawing and looking for the source of this racket. And one of them eyes you and starts lunging right for you with its beak.

Uh-oh. Okay. As I'm doing this, do I see if Billy is getting through the room? So, Billy, you're going to the hallway E? No. No, he needs to go through nine. I would go back out the window now that they're looking. Oh, you're going to do the same thing the party did? Yeah. I'm going to go back down now that they're newly distracted, and then I'll run through nine into ten. Okay. Yeah.

You start sneaking on your way southward, same thing, but there's a giant pelican that's blocking your entrance because it's going towards your friend, Muffin. Wait, I have a question. Couldn't he have just stayed by those windows as I distract them and then hop into the room via those windows and skitter out? He could have. We're here now.

I mostly just wanted to hop out of the way to aim. Well, yeah, I could have done that. I just didn't know if the Pelicans would attack the longer I was there. I'll give you this, too. You would know that since you kind of were making a racket in this window still, the spark would have gone into nine if you want to leave it there. Oh.

and you can keep going either way. I'll let you decide what you want to do. Okay. Well then maybe while Muffin is distracting them at the stairs, I'll run through East hallway through 10, dip my toe into nine on the other side of the room from the distraction and then head back

- Okay. - Okay. I'll say that this all happens in the same sequence we just said. You climb down, you go into room eight and make your way down the stairwell and see that there's this giant pelican. Anyway, you backpedal and go towards this hallway and kind of come out on the other side of 10 and you dip into room nine. You get like a toe in there and the spark comes flying towards you. But still there's this giant pelican beak coming from Muffin.

- So now we're all in 10, but the pelican is about to attack Muffin. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's trying to squeeze its way in. - Can I shoot my crossbow at the pelican that's about to attack Muffin? - Sure, you can do that. - All right. - Go ahead and roll 2d6. - I hope their AC is low, it's a five.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to meet the pelican. I guess you're a little bit frazzled. You've run. You're kind of sweating and heaving from all this exercise, and you fire, and it just fires off to the side of the wall and misses completely. Can I look at Benny and Eric and say, we need to make noise. We need to help Muffin out. I got this, guys. Hold on. Okay, do it, Muffin. I'm surprised they could hear me. Okay. Muffin then takes the crossbow and...

starts to run the other direction, but as she's running, hits the beak of the pelican with the crowbar. Crowbar. You're doing like an improvised thing. Trying to stun it, kind of. Yeah, I would say it's more like a dex or strength. You kind of decide which one you want to add to this.

- Plus you dex. So 2d6? - Yeah, 2d6 plus your dex. - So that would be an eight total. - It meets it just on the dot. So like you slam it on its beak and its beak kind of like hits the floor, kind of dazed, and you have seconds to kind of get out of this thing's eyesight. - I will run towards Hall E so I could get back into room 10.

I think you're in room 10, correct, right now? Yeah, you can be, because you're in nine, you can move into 10. Is there a door, anything we could slam shut? If you want to make a door, you can, or if you want to look around for something, you totally can do that. Okay. Could Muffin look around for like a big plank or something to like shut the door with? All right. So you're in this room 10. It's a square room with paths heading in three cardinal directions, north, east, west.

There's a depressed tile with a number 10 on it. You don't see anything on the ground, but you do think that you might be able to pry this door to the east off of the wall, like what Big Benny did before. It's really rusty and on its last hinge. -Guys, get the door, get the door and shove it on this archway.

Muffin's kind of out of breath because she's so scared. I do that. I drop the pelican beak that I grabbed and I go do that with the door because I'm so good at that. So strong. It's your area of expertise. All right, pelican beak drops to the ground and you lunge this door into the archway. Make a quick strength check. That is 14.

Yeah, easily. Same thing. Slam it into there. The beak is shoved back into room number nine and you all are safe in room number 10. Dang, you rolled good. We did it, gang. Woo-hoo. Muffin all of a sudden sees the beak on the floor and goes, I thought one of them got in here. Yeah, can I pry the beak open now and see what was inside of it? Yeah, you have three quills that were stuck into this beak.

You also open it up and you see that inside is a bottle like with liquid inside, some kind of potion. Ooh la la. I pocket that for now.

-Okay. I'll say that it has a label on it. It's just a picture, and it has two feet with arrows pointing down below the feet. -Two feet? -Two, like, shoes. -With arrows pointing down. -Oh, is it like a potion of slow fall or whatever it's called? -Might be something like that. Or it makes you go really fast down. We'll find out. -Yeah. -We'll find out in the moment. -Feather fall, maybe. -All right. So you have a corridor to your north, a door that you've taken off the hinges to the east. Now that one's on the west.

And those are the three ways out of this room. It's corridor time, boys. Well, hold on, boss. My danger sense is tingling. Looks like there's like a giant pit in the hallway between 10 and 11. Yeah, you better go first so you can find all the danger for me. Get in there, Billy. Yeah, you got it, boss. Micah, is that pit that seems to be in the hallway in front of us, is that there? That's the thing, right? You want to go into that hallway? Yeah.

- Atta boy, I pat Billy on the back 'cause he's so courageous, but it's like also subtly pushing him into the hallway. Yeah, get in there. - Thanks boss, thanks. - I'm not trying to trick you. I'm just trying to make sure that, so you know on the map that it's there and now you're gonna go into the hallway to see if it's there, correct? - Yes. - Okay.

You enter into this narrow corridor and yeah, you do in fact see the pit, but for some reason the pit seems like longer than it is on the map. You can't make sense of it. It's similar to that kind of feeling that Big Benny had earlier with this torn fabric and this blueprint map.

It just seems like it shouldn't be as big as it is. Oh, I know this one, Billy. I heard before the penitent man has to, you have to just kind of go. Yeah, yeah, Indiana Jones, Last Crusade, Sean Connery, it's a classic, yeah, yeah.

What do you want to do? Do you have any dirt? Do we got any dirt? Now, the penitent man's got to kneel, yeah? Dirt on who? Oh, yeah. What was the faith one you had to walk across? It's the leap of faith. There you go. It's the leap of faith, yeah. You know, I have chalk. Hey, hello. Oh. So I want to crumble up the chalk, and then I want to...

blow it onto where that hole should be. Into the hole? Yeah, I put it up to my little tail, my rat tail, and I go... He just spits all over it and just makes it wet. Just wet chalk. Absolutely. You crumble up this chalk into dust and you blow it and you see that it does in fact land where you think it should on the map. Like this hole is only maybe like three feet across and wide, but it seems like it's seven. But when you blow the chalk, you find the rest of the floor and like

It's no longer obstructed. It's where it should be. I'm going to take the leap of faith again!

I'm gonna take it. I'm gonna run. - All right. I'll try to jump the chasm. Yeah. Go ahead and make a dex check. - The full three feet jump. - So it's two dice then plus the modifier? - Yeah. - Okay. - I'm gonna call you Billy Big Brain. Look at the big brain on Billy. - That's a six plus two, eight. You follow the chalk, the dust, and you leap across. And just as you're about to clear it, you start to fall and you're half on this ledge on the other side, sliding into the chasm now.

Oh, God. I'm going to jump across and try to help pull him up from the other side. Don't hurt yourself, boss. No, don't leave me here. Make a dex check to try and clear the gap and be on the other side, right? Yep. I like that the fail on this is just resulting in more rats like falling into this chasm as we all try to help. So 2d6 is 4. There it is.

- There it is. - What? - What happens is you land on top of Billy and start sliding down his back and now you're holding onto his ankles and you're dangling down his calves even more. - Come on, Nincompoop, pull us up. - Now there's a rodentia ladder. - Could Muffin try to jump across? - Third time's the charm, absolutely. - Let's do this. - My deck is high, so hopefully it'll help. - Let's go.

That is a 10. Okay. So you clear across Billy's head and onto the other side. Now, what do you want to do? Muffin, pull me up and then pull Billy up afterwards. Eric is actually lower, but he's like, pull me up first. Well, I mean, it does make

sense to pull one person up at a time because trying to lift two people is definitely more of a strength. So I will try to actually... Yeah, that's what Eric meant. I probably can't reach Eric with just my arm, so could I put my crowbar down? Absolutely, yeah. You can hold your crowbar down and what are you going to do? Grab the crowbar, Eric. Yeah, I start grabbing at it. Okay. And I'm going to try to pull him up.

I'll say either one of you can make a strength check with advantage or both of you can make strength checks and see if you both make it. What's your strength like? Yeah, I think we should both do it. I got a plus one, see? I got nothing. Yeah, let's both do it. Okay, so we're both making strength checks? It just increases the chances of failure. I know. I see Barbara's face. Before Barbara reads it, I do want to say...

Earlier, a couple rooms ago, this is exactly why Eric did not stop to help at the fountain. Because he didn't want to get himself into more trouble. That's why he tried to run by. Look what happens when he tries to help. He tries to jump in and help Billy, and he's going to fall into a pit to his death. You had to get across this chasm anyways. And we conclude this adventure with the lesson, don't help each other. Yeah, yeah.

What did you get, Barbara? I got a seven. I rolled a nine, but my strength is plus one, so that's a ten. Okay, so you're holding on just fine, Eric, but it starts to slip in Muffin's hand and falling down. You have a great grip on this, though. Okay.

Drop me a rope, Muffin. We haven't heard from Benny. What does Benny want to do? Benny! Benny, help! It's so up to you! So now you have two people that are in this ladder hanging on the ledge and you have Muffin that's starting to either lose track of this crowbar or herself is starting to fall down as well. Oh, I would sooner let go of the crowbar. Your grip is loosening on it. Yeah. Okay. Um...

-Benny's gonna make a jump. -Okay, make a dexter. -Oh, God. Oh, God. -Don't worry, fellas. I'm on my way. -He's gonna die. -That is a 10 exactly. -Wow. -You clear everybody in like-- Maybe even run wall across the side and avoid all these bodies that are in your wake. -Do a wall walk. -Parkour. -You land on the other side. What do you want to do? -I crack my knuckles and I-- -We don't have time for you to crack your knuckles.

I have arthritis. You can shut up. Arthritis. And I grab Muffin and I start pulling Muffin back. Okay, so just to be clear, she's losing grip of this crowbar. Well, then I put my hands, I put my arms all the way around Muffin and onto the crowbar that Muffin's holding and pull back.

All right. I like this idea and I'm going to give you something. You've torn two doors off their hinges, no problem. So you have like all this strength and all this confidence. I'm going to give you advantage on this strength roll because you're just completely in the clear on this. You know it.

12 with advantage. I'll say you start pulling up Muffin. You get the grip on the crowbar as well. Muffin's in the clear and I'll say that now Eric is holding onto the shoulders of Billy. So now they're kind of level with this ledge now. Can you crawl up? Yeah, I'll put my feet on his shoulders and lift my weight up and pull myself up. Daddy time boss, whatever you need. Billy.

Really great grip. He's got good grip. I can do this all day.

- Yeah, veins are just throbbing in Billy's veins in his head. So go ahead and make a strength check, but do with advantage since the other two are on the other side holding that crowbar for you. - This is for me or for Eric? - Eric. - Eric. - 'Cause you're climbing up. - That is a seven. - Come on, Eric. - That was with advantage? - Yeah, it was a three and a three. It was a three, three, two. - Oh, for the love of God, would you just get up on the other side of the thing? - Oh, plus one, okay.

So now you lose grip of the crowbar and now you're starting to slide on the back. Billy, pull us up. See? You got it.

These rolls are going to hit her hard with 2d6. They are. I try and I grab Billy and I go, Billy, I need you to pull with all your might, okay? Okay. So I'm going to roll strength. You're going to roll strength. You're both going to roll with advantage because of the confidence that... Actually, let's do this. Let's do this. Big Benny is going to make a will check real quick. We haven't done that yet. That's not good. Oh.

Is it a zero, your will? That is correct. Trying to inspire confidence into Billy right now. Okay. So I'm doing a will check and he's doing a strength check. Just do the will check first. Just do the will check. That's a six and a four. That's 10. All right. Nice. I'm going to say we're going to speed through this because you guys are doing so well on these rolls now.

You inspire this confidence into Billy. Billy and Eric manage to thrust themselves back out of this chasm and you safely all land, breathing and heaving on the other side towards the room 11 on the far end. I like a kid that just got out of a swimming pool from drowning. I make my way up to Eric and I'm like, Boss! Are you okay, boss? I just pat him down. Boss!

Yeah. After all these jumps and leaps over this chasm, Big Benny, you look down at this potion. You feel like it's surging with power, like you've been doing something that it wants to do.

I down the potion. Oh, you're down it right now? Okay. Sure. As you drink it, this green liquid kind of seeps down your throat into your body and trails all the way down into your feet. And you feel like you could jump maybe double, maybe even triple your height of what you could before. And I'll say on your next jump or two, you'll be able to do that. It won't be wasted right now. Like you'll be able to do on your next jump. Benny proceeds to jump back over the chasm and then back, back over the chasm to where we are. And the green stuff goes away.

Wow, that was cool. I'm gonna kill you. All right, you guys are on the threshold of room 11 to the north.

It's a very sparse room and it only goes one direction to the east. Is that where you want to go? Yeah. Let's do it. We're going east. Go east and you go through this short hallway to another small room labeled 12 on the floor. And there's one window to the north. And then to the east is another corridor that leads further on. And you can see that on your map. Okay, gang. I don't want to rely too heavily on this map because our audience at home can't even see it.

However, if we're looking ahead, there is like a series of staircases and really, really big statues of big scary things. We can't see that yet. We're not in there. I know, but we can see it on the map. Muffin, stay with me. Stay with me. So there's a window here, and I think we can avoid all of that junk if we just... No, never mind. Never mind. I know what you're talking about.

All right. Do you guys want to move forward? Benny pushes Billy through the window. He's institutionalized. He loves going in and out of windows so much he's got to do it all the time now. Yes. Benny walks into the next room into what he thinks is room 13. Yeah, you see this huge staircase of several levels and landings.

moving north and south. And along these staircases are four statues that look like altars. I told you! Each of them has a bowl or some sort of tray at the bottom where all these offerings have been laid at their feet. And then to the north, at the top of this staircase, you see this ominous figure. It's just standing there, some sort of

They look like they're in rusty armor and they're not looking at you. They're just staring off into the distance. What do you want to do? I would like to approach that rusty armor and investigate it. Okay. Yeah, you get closer to it and you see that there's this person. It looks very gaunt, like it's covered in armor and you can tell that it

It looks like it's a skeleton inside and it's kind of swaying uneasily, staring off in the distance. What do you want to do? Can I look, like follow its gaze and see where its gaze is looking in the distance? Sure, yeah. You kind of turn around and look down this staircase, kind of following where it's looking and you don't catch sight of what it's looking at, but you follow the trail and it seems like it's following something that's floating in the air, maybe like a piece of dust or a bird like that you can't see. I don't know. It's weird.

What are the different statues or like figures that we're seeing? Each of them, like I said, have these offerings. They're just humanoid looking statues that seem to be cloaked. They kind of represent maybe different species that you're aware of, of humanoids. And at the bottom of each of these, you see little offerings. Do you want to look at one in particular? Yes. I got all cardinal directions in the corner. So which one do you want to go to? I want to go southeast. Southeast. Okay. Okay.

You go to the southeast and you see there's this flask sitting on the bottom and it's kind of sizzling where the cork is. -Could I pop it open? -Absolutely. You open it up and you can tell that this is no doubt acid that's in this flask. -Oh. -You're not sure how it's not eating away through this flask, but maybe it's some sort of material that can't be dissolved. -You know, everything in my bones tells me I should take this, but I'm really worried about taking an offering from one of these things.

I'm gonna do it anyway. That is not the end of that statement I was expecting. As soon as you pull it away, an immense phantasmal door appears in the middle of the staircase and out steps a large looming spectral figure. Its penetrating gaze fixes squarely on Muffin and immediately begins gliding menacingly towards her. That I did expect.

Thanks for listening to episode one of this Tavern Tales adventure. Stay tuned for episode two next week when you can enjoy the thrilling conclusion of The Skyblind Spire. Did you know that you can directly support the show by becoming a patron at patreon.com slash thinkydragon? Become a patron and you could get your name shouted out like at Lady Gardenia, at Stephanie Shear, at Andrew Benick,

@GuaravSharma and @KellyDillard. These patrons directly support the show and get ad-free episodes, even more tavern tales like Sea Squad, a superhero mini-series. Hey, my brother did that.

access to our patron-only Discord server, bonus content like Second Wind and Behind the Screen, and much more. Again, that's patreon.com/stinkydragon. We can't thank you enough for your support that lets us make this show. This episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon was produced by Ben Ernst and edited by Micah Reisinger and Catherine Arnold.

A special thanks to Michael Prescott for letting us use his written module. Want to run this adventure on your own? Head on over to trilemma.com. That's T-R-I-L-E-M-M-A dot com. Or find the link in the show notes. Tune in next time for another thrilling episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon.