Stories with Dice
Stories with Dice is an actual-play podcast where a fellowship of everyday gamers explores fantastical worlds, distant futures, and parallel realities through tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) from Free League Publishing, Chaosium, Modiphius Entertainment, and more.
Over the years, we’ve told stories around our virtual table in the worlds of Tales from the Loop, Pendragon, Mutant Year Zero, Star Trek Adventures, The One Ring, The Electric State, Forbidden Lands, Legend of the Five Rings, and Symbaroum. Going forward, we’re focusing on a smaller lineup of games, giving us more opportunities to return to each story sooner. As campaigns reach their natural conclusions, we’ll add new stories from the worlds of Twilight: 2000, Vampire: The Masquerade, The Walking Dead, and more.
We’re not voice actors, professional entertainers, or trained performers—just friends from around the globe sharing virtual dice, stories, and a laugh or two as the game unfolds.
Stories with Dice
Juniper Song Episode 6: A Forbidden Lands Actual Play Podcast
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The Folk Vandals Club has been captured, tied up, and left in a dusty bedroom. Was their performance the night before really that bad? Did they even play? Time to escape, search the keep for their captors, and find the scroll.
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This is Juniper Song, a Forbidden Lands Actual Play podcast from Stories with Dice. If you're enjoying our actual plays, please subscribe to Stories with Dice so you never miss an episode. Don't forget to rate and review us. It really helps others discover the podcast. Follow us on social media to stay updated. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode. Hi.
SPEAKER_02Hi to yet another wonderful episode of ours. I wouldn't go that far. Well, fuck you. We'll start early to the start. Well in that case, I'd like to say hi to Tony.
SPEAKER_03Hello, I'm back from holidays. How are you guys doing? Fine, feeling refreshed.
SPEAKER_02Unfortunately, because of Tony being away on holiday, we haven't had to record some episodes. So it's short because of him. So all the hate mail, please go to Tony.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and he's totally getting that hate mail because he stood me up, that motherfucker. I sailed to Spain for this dude, and he stood me up at the harbor. It's a hard life.
SPEAKER_03I forgot. You know, I was very busy sleeping and drinking and completely understand, sir.
SPEAKER_02Also, we have the wonderful Scott, sir. Hello, people, how are we doing? Yeah, good. Glad now that we get to do some more episodes. And of course, last but not least, my uh partner in crime. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I thought you already said hello to me, and I said fuck you.
SPEAKER_02Oh, right, fuck you then. In that case, uh, I guess we'll do a very brief roundup, so we haven't played for a few weeks or so. Two weeks.
SPEAKER_00Two or three weeks, I think. Two weeks, I think.
SPEAKER_02Something like that. Uh so yes, you all had gone for a bit of a wander, gone south of your of your map, and you kind of ended up finding or you were following one of your legends, a legend of Stein Brutung, who happens to have some kind of like dwarven sheet music scroll type thing that you're after. And you followed all the way to this old dwarven tower where you met some people who were already there. And they appear to have been staying in the tower. You there was a bit of a tense moment, a bit of a standoff, but you all kind of end up talking to each other until you were all well, drugged. You all said hi to said, I think her name was Mira, a dwarven female who sort of like who sort of like shook all your hands and spoke to you and stuff. On second thoughts, you know, what could that have been? Well, there's a specific drug that's like a a dust that Rona rubs on from someone when they sort of like touch them or whatever.
SPEAKER_00But I remember just distinctly saying, I don't shake hands. I know, and they touched you on the back instead.
SPEAKER_02Son of a gun, they roofied us. They did indeed. You all woke up in a bedroom, or what could have been a bedroom, hands tied behind your backs at the top of what you think is a tower based by the outside looking outside the window, which is where we end up last session. This session, though, we'll start with all of you doing your best impressions of grubs crawling around on the floor.
SPEAKER_00But you know what I forgot to do? I forgot to log into Foundry. I mean there's yet one other job to I had I had one job to do and I failed miserable. It's fine, we're recording. That's fine. Yeah, it's okay. It's Juniper Song, that's par for the course.
SPEAKER_02Indeed. Well, while you're logging in, what is Anduin gonna do, Tony?
SPEAKER_03I look very distressed around to see my companions, and I'm like, what is going on? Are you tight as are you also tight?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Can you move? No, very, very tight. I can wriggle. I can wriggle semi-effectively.
SPEAKER_00What about you what about you, Gray? I'm not sure what's going on, but uh The game is paused.
SPEAKER_01That was a that was a very cryptic thing to say, Gray. I don't know what you mean.
SPEAKER_02One day. One day. It's only taken me like six years of podcasting to not get that right.
SPEAKER_00So are we are are our hands tied like behind our backs? Yeah, how are we uh the sometimes about but your feet are sort of able to move around. Okay, none of our gear, right?
SPEAKER_01No, I think there are cooler gear was all right.
SPEAKER_02No, your gear is in a corner, just shoved up in the corner.
SPEAKER_00Alright, can I like shimmy my way over to it? Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_03Do I need to roll for that or no? I do have an idea, Gray. You know, I kind of remember you have very sharp teeth, right? Yeah, what of it? You can't chew on my rope? I mean, if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's a there's an offer you don't get every day.
SPEAKER_00I'm very, very flattered, Anduin, but you're not my type. That's what we're operated.
SPEAKER_03Keep your children away from this podcast, people. Well you mean, it's you know, you you we we need to free ourselves, I mean.
SPEAKER_02You can hear Cassie fucking some of her she's like struggling as well.
SPEAKER_00She's trying to also I turn my back to him. Is there a way for me to rummage through my pack for my knife? Yeah, make a move roll for me, please. Actually, sleight of hand might be better. Slight of hand might be better. That's good.
SPEAKER_02Actually, you can have sleight of hand or move at minus two. Whichever you prefer.
SPEAKER_00I failed both of those.
SPEAKER_03I'm not sure I want to push it. I'm not sure I'm gonna push that. Yeah, I in the meantime I'm getting closer to Grey, you know, and showing him my bag. Try to move. Okay. Come on. Come on.
SPEAKER_01What does that Meridon want to do? Very done's just sort of propped himself up against the back of one of the walls, and he's looking around to see if there's any anything. It's it's a sort of a rough stone-hewn tower, isn't it? He's looking to see if there are if there are any rough sharp edges or anything like that that he can he can rub up against.
SPEAKER_02Probably you could probably rub up against there's sort of like a a corner to the room, which you can kind of like start rubbing up against the stonework. You can try that, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sort of on the that fireplacey bit that's just to the north here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Why doesn't Beridan try using might to do that?
SPEAKER_01Because his mite is rubbish. Genuinely terrible. But hey. Give it a go. No, I break my wrist with because I've just rolled it. No, no, no, but you succeeded, kind sir.
SPEAKER_02There's a success. So yeah, you kind of like start rubbing, you f you feel the rough rope that's kind of like picking apart. You can you reckon if you did that for a little bit longer, it it'll probably snap some of the things you might be able to squeeze your hands out of them. In that case, Beridon will continue to rub against the fireplate.
SPEAKER_03I'll just rubbing.
SPEAKER_01Further lowering the tone of this as well.
SPEAKER_02For the love of God. Meanwhile, Cassia's kind of like sort of like skewted over and sort of done a little bit of athleticness or athleticism, and sort of ended up getting her hands underneath her butt, over her legs, and to the front of her.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna start I'm I'm gonna start chewing on Anduin's rope.
SPEAKER_02And around about the same time that Baradon has managed to sort of But if I get a hair if I get a hairball, I'm gonna puke up on her. Yeah, you start chewing on the rope, and Cassie says, with her hands in front of her, would you like me to undo your rope?
SPEAKER_00I I get up from behind Anduin. Well, I mean I she says, I'll I'll happily leave you there if you want. Yes, please.
SPEAKER_02Yes, please, undo my rope. So while she's like trying to figure out how to undo your rope, Baradon breaks free, and then you can undo Anduin. I could.
SPEAKER_01But he's a really shitty flute player, so bye Anduin, see you later. Baradon will untie Anduin's Anduin's rope without his teeth.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're all untied, rubs are off, you've got your kit, you can put all that back up onto your persons, which leaves you with a doorway exiting and only one doorway. There's no door on it, it's just an empty doorway. Do we hear anything? We did not hear anything.
SPEAKER_01This was a really bad attempt at keeping us hostage. Or presently.
SPEAKER_00And they've clearly underestimated us. Or they're just really dumb. It could be any of the above. I go into this other room here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's basically it kind of takes you round. I'm just gonna reveal the whole thing for you. Yeah, you kind of realize you're at the top at the top of the actual tower. There's a couple of rooms, there's some corridors, there's a stairwell that takes you all the way down, which is all the same stairwell. There are no doors or anything, and what's left of some doors is sort of like propped up against some of the walls, but there's nothing in here. There's no there's nothing, there's no library like you were told there was. There doesn't appear to be anything up here.
SPEAKER_01For our audio listeners, this is a very strange room that there's a bedroom in the north that leads into a small ante-room, that then is into another room, and then a giant corridor that sort of snakes around back on itself to a stairwell. It's really inefficient building, and frankly, the dwarves should be ashamed of themselves.
SPEAKER_00They're definitely not the the dwarves that built Moria, that's for sure. Definitely not.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, you you kind of you continue to sort of like look through the um rooms. There doesn't appear to be anything of any helpfulness at all. And you pretty much carry on exploring all the way down back to the sort of like other rooms. You realise there there are there are three other floors to go down, and you can see that you're back on the ground floor.
SPEAKER_01There's nothing of them.
SPEAKER_02You don't see any of them, you don't see any of the stuff they mentioned. They mentioned there was some there were some bedrooms and some libraries at the top. Definitely is lady bedrooms or libraries at the top, at least ones that are that are actually usable or anything like that.
SPEAKER_01So you have no idea. On the second floor labelled workshop.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01Is there anything of interest in there?
SPEAKER_02Nothing. It probably was an interesting workshop at one point, the way it's laid out, but unless it's made of stone, everything is gone. There's also sort of like open windows in some places, there's leaves and dirt and stuff that have obviously accumulated through the years, but there doesn't appear to be anything else.
SPEAKER_03Would I be able to do like a survival role to get an idea of when they left? I mean, if I find any places or anything, then telling me what happened.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you kind of come when you get to the ground floor, you obviously there was there was some sleeping rolls and stuff here. And some of those sleeping rolls are still here, but the gear and stuff that's that was stored here is not. I would try the main door. Is it lock? Um, you go to the main door, the main door is locked from the inside. We've just lost Marco. That's not good.
SPEAKER_01Well, we could do it without him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it'd be fine. Um hopefully the recording will be fine. The wonderful towels of Perylon and Anduin. Now we became a duet? You still have Cass. Cass is like, well, well, they don't appear to be here, do they?
SPEAKER_01No, but they've locked it from the inside. Which means they've they means someone must still be in or they climbed out the window, which seems to make no sense because they're all arrow slity type windows, aren't they?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's no way. No one's climbing on the floor. But is the basement? Is that basement? Do you remember them talking about a basement? Make a make a scouting roll for me, please.
SPEAKER_01Nothing. I failed twice. Because I apparently cannot succeed in a role on any game with anything to do with a free league system. It's a free league system, you're never gonna ever, ever get anything, right?
SPEAKER_02That's just the way it goes. Cass basically points out that there is a corner of the st underneath the stairs that looks like a scrape has basically happened, and you find that. You find some stairs. The stairs go like into a bed into a basement. Yeah, they go down into a basement. There's a spiral staircase that goes down into a basement.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's draw weapons and go down and kick some buttons.
SPEAKER_00I thought you were gonna say let's draw straws and see who goes in there. No, that was my proposition, in fact.
SPEAKER_02Well, my my first question to you is who's going up front. Let's do a marching order because we love that sort of thing. I'll go. Okay, Castle follow you up, then Beridon. Berindon, then Andrew and you're the back.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I'm happy doing the back. Okay. We know that about you, Andrew.
SPEAKER_02We've we've really figured that out. You go down the on sort of like a really tight set of spiral stairs, and you come out into a corridor. The corridor goes left and right, and you can see that on the floor of the corridor, there's a whole load of brickwork that's been broken down. There's some shovels and picks and stuff, and you can see some ropes that have basically been tied to some rough, sort of like pitons and stuff that have kind of been thrown down into this hole.
SPEAKER_00Do we have a torch or something that we can toss down the hole? Dunno, do you guys have a torch or something in your character sheets? I don't. I do not, I do not. Beridon, do you have torches?
SPEAKER_01Beridon does have torches, but Beridon's also looking at this hole and this rope that's clearly their only way of exit from this place. And is very, very tempted to just fill it with like all kinds of stuff. We don't know. We don't know if it's their only exit. But it would just be nicer. It would be petty and fun. But yes, Peridon does have torches, so we pull out a torch, he lights the torch and hang and holds it over the over the hole, looking down to give us a bit more of an idea of how far down it goes.
SPEAKER_02Um you can see that the the ropes kind of like go down in about, I don't know, ten or fifteen feet before it kind of disappears into darkness. Or drop the torch. You drop the torch, the torch drops, and it goes maybe another five foot and it illuminates a set of stairs. The torch then rolls down a couple of sets of stairs stairs and then stops.
SPEAKER_01It appears that you've come out over a stairway. If stair down there, they probably they may well know we're here now. Good. I want them to know when I rip their throats out who it is. I would imagine they will know. That's not the kind of thing you miss. Don't you be smart with me, Baradon. No, simply just pointing out the fallacy in your logic. Anyway, let's go and give you the opportunity to do some throat tearing, shall we? I climb down this rope.
SPEAKER_02Okay. You climb down the rope and you kind of end up on a long set of stairs. The stairs seem to kind of go up and down, and you kind of like happen to about come out on top of the stairs as they go down. The stairs go down for a little way, and then they turn a corner, and they disappear. And that's where basically the the torches fall into. Right, I'll pick up the torch. Yep. You can see the stairs continue around to the right, and then sort of like you're on a landing, then they go down again, and then they turn to the right, and presumably they go down again.
SPEAKER_00I'm just gonna keep going down.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah, you all climb down following grey. You go down maybe two flights and you come out on into well, you see a light as you come out around the corner. So clearly, someone else has been here. You can tell there's a lot of scuff marks on the um on the stairs as you're going down. Clearly, this has been quite a bit of traffic in the recent times. Make your way down the stairs, and you come out to whoa, I will reveal a map. No, it's a room full of columns. It is a room full of columns. Um I'll give you a description of the said room full of columns. Yes, you kind of like make your way down the stairs, and as you sort of make your way down the stairs, it kind of comes out into this sort of like squared-off room. There are a bunch of columns in the room, and you can see three set three doors, one to the head of ahead of you, one to the left, one to the right, and five columns with one column missing. You can see on the walls of this this room, there are sort of mural fragments in sort of like stonework and colour and and sort of like some paintings, which have all since sort of like split and peeled off. It looks like a lot of damp has kind of got in. You can see on the left-hand side, you can see water or some kind of like dark liquid oozing through the door.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna check this door over here next to the missing column.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you go as you walk across the uh the floor. Every time you're do you have boots or do you have sort of like just your feet have got sort of wolf kind of feet?
SPEAKER_00I I I I never gave it much thought. I imagine I have like, you know, wolf wolfy feet. Wolfy feet.
SPEAKER_02As your claws clip against the uh the stone floor, it makes this sort of like this vibration and this echo as it echoes around the chamber. It seems that the the columns themselves reverberate the actual sound. And see on the far side to the north of the chamber, there is a torch in a sconce, and it looks like the torch is probably three-quarters of the way burnt down.
SPEAKER_01Veradine, you were going to ask about the oozing liquid. Yeah, the oozing liquid, is it actually moving like running walked or flowing, or is it just a puddle underneath the it looks like a puddle. Okay, so it's not oozing and moving or anything like that of its own.
SPEAKER_02No, it looks like that in the light, but then as you sort of like step closer, you can see it's just a puddle that's kind of every now and then there's a little bit of movement, but not that much.
SPEAKER_03Do I I don't have a lot of lore, but do I recognize anything on this from like the paintings that tells me the origin of this? What about you, Peredon? Do you recognize anything here? Do you you're an expert in all past knowledge, right?
SPEAKER_01Don scratches his uh scratches head for a moment looking at it. Roughly the kind of time it takes me to roll my wits and my lore, and that is a success. This sounds familiar.
SPEAKER_02You have to stop and think for just a a short moment. Then you remember something about in Stein Brumaster's crit, there is a thing called the Echo Vault. And this sounds similar to that.
SPEAKER_01I will read I will relay my my thinking about the Echo Vault. Yeah, just try to see how check my notes because Minimum put the scroll in the ruined crypt of Brew Tung, part of the stone chorus, could build stone through song, the vault of Bruton could show the way to the Echo Vault, which is hidden in the Shroud Forest.
SPEAKER_03So you're telling me that this is the place where the uh he was playing his music and recording? This would be his burial chamber.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so if this is the cry if this is the crypto brew tongue, or the or the vault of Brug, this would then this could be sort of a a smaller version of the actual Echo Vault, which is in the which is deeper into in the Shroud Forest. Or this could be the Echo Vault. Could be.
SPEAKER_03What you really need is a dwarf who knows these kind of lores. Do we f do I see marks of passing off all these people? Like a scouting roll for me, please.
SPEAKER_02And I'm terrible. There is a lot of like movement between all the doors, and it looks like someone has been through each one of those doors. And a number of people, but you don't you don't know how many. It could have been two or three scuffing around, it could have been fifty. You have no idea.
SPEAKER_00The door that I'm near, is it locked?
SPEAKER_02It doesn't appear to me. The door itself is a sort of like strong copper kind of coloured door with lots of rivets in, and it's got a simple handle mechanism, which you click and try, and the door opens without a sound. What do I see? You open it up to a circular chamber with a doorway heading to the north, up a set of stairs, and a door to the south. Again, it's got the same sort of like reliefs and frescoes on that have all kind of like been damaged by damp, and it looks like there's a lot of cracks. A lot of the plaster work has fallen down on the floor. And if you were to sort of like pick something up, you might see like an effigy of a dwarf with a with half an axe, or and you know, it's just it probably was very kind of ornate at one point, but it's been damaged for such a long time.
SPEAKER_00I can't even think of the word, I'm so mad. I go to the other door and I check it. Is it locked?
SPEAKER_02Uh the door to the south. Yeah, you go to the door to the south, and the door also appears to be unlocked. I will open it. Okay. Grey, can you make a scouting roll at minus two, please?
SPEAKER_00Scouting roll at minus two? I have a s I have a success.
SPEAKER_02You can see that around the edges of the door, there's a lot of scratch marks, as if someone has tried to sort of like do something to the door. Part of the the door is sort of like maybe bent a little bit and but it's openable. But it's openable, so as soon as you do that, it kind of starts to swing open. So what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00What do I see when it swings open? So you're in you're in the north, right? So we've gone in directly across from the staircase.
SPEAKER_02Yep. You can see crossroads. Meanwhile, Tony, you've kind of gone into sort of like the circular room.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm checking the stairs. The stairs were going up, you said. They are going. Are they going? Up? No, they're going down, sorry. Going down. But do I see the next drum or is it too dark?
SPEAKER_02Well, Beridon's the only one with the light, so wherever Beridon is the where the light is. So as soon as I think Grey's Grey's got the light at the moment. Okay, so if you're not with Grey, well actually, no, there's now two sources of light. You've got the small one that was on the sconce, the torch that was on the sconce, which you can pick up. So then you've got two sources of light, and you can effectively split up if you want. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So we've taken the light. Now we'll be uh checking the other room. Where the sick.
SPEAKER_02Grey, you've got the light, and Anduin's got the light. Who's going with Anduin and who's going with Grey?
SPEAKER_01I will I will follow it, Anduin.
SPEAKER_02Follow the leader, leader, leader, follow the leader. In which case, Cass will go with um Grey. We will go to you then, Anduin. Okay, you see some stairs going down. Going to follow them.
SPEAKER_03Little bit if I don't see any light below.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, there's no light below. And by the time you get to the bottom of the stairs, you can see that it is another round chamber. A door heading to the left and an open doorway heading to the right. Go to the left. You go to the left and there is a door. Same thing again. Bronze door. You go to open it and it seems to be shut. But it seems not open.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's your dragon better then. If we knock on this door, we might hear somebody knocking from the other side. Oh, let's give it a try. Great. Back to you.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you've got this corridor heading north. And you can see a uh uh a corridor to the left, a corridor to the right, a little weird annex to the north. You can see stairs going down to your right hand side, and you can see a door on the far end of the corridor to the left, with more water kind of like coming through it. And as you kind of get there, you hear on the other side of the door. I found them.
SPEAKER_00Follow me. Which is okay. I charge down the stairs and I try to open the door.
SPEAKER_02A door is fast shut. On the other side of the door, you can see the handle start to move, but it doesn't seem to do anything. And I I scream, let me in, you stupid dwarf, I'm gonna fucking kill you. You can hear a muffled sound from the other side, but you can't make out what's being said.
SPEAKER_01I will drum the riff from from our opening song on the other side. Yep. You get one of your songs tapped out.
SPEAKER_00Which you can hear through the actual door. I'll turn to Cass and I'll say either our friends are on the other side of this door or they've been captured by these damn dwarves. I think you're probably fine. Well, unless they've been very quickly captured. I imagine it's Baradon. It is Baron and Anduin we're talking about. Well, that's a good point. Well, come on then, open the door. It doesn't open, you try. She switches.
SPEAKER_02You can you can hear on the other side like a rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, and then a kick. Does it sound like they're trying to sort of push against a pull door? They're trying to get through the door, but for some reason the door appears to be locked.
SPEAKER_01Is there any rogues in the pie with any kind of You mean are there any members of this party with useful skills that would be ham that would be helpful in this kind of adventuring situation? You have no idea. No, they're not.
SPEAKER_02It's well and truly beyond your your professional status of how to deal with these kind of things. No. Pretty much you're left to brute force. And they look like pretty solid doors.
SPEAKER_01Can I try an insight roll to sort of look at look at the door and go, uh-huh, engineering wise, if we're not going to be able to do to figure out what if we kick this the the you know the bolt is obviously here, so if we kick here and here, we could yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'll tell you what, if you've got sleight of hand at all, you can make a sleight of hand roll of minus three.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, I can't. Because that would give me a grand total of zero dice. You have no idea. You're gonna go, hmm, you look at it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's no idea. It's clearly locked, but you have no idea how to deal with it. Fancy meeting up again?
SPEAKER_01We I'm assuming we sort of work out at least that we can walk around and get back to hanging out with each other to catch up with.
SPEAKER_02Well, you can try and search some more places, it's up to you.
SPEAKER_01No, it would tell better than well, let's go back. Well, you kind of meet up again. Did you say you said the the bronze door was kind of like embossed and things like that? Is it any particular pattern? Is it worth taking like a brass rubbing or something of it to if you've got some charcoal and some paper, you go ahead. I've got a half bur a burning torch. Yeah, you could do that. You got any paper? Any parchment? Yes, I do. That's cool. Beridon has, if I go to his gear. He's got a hunk of hunker burning torch. He's got basically stuff to to write music.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Cool. In which case, yes, you can you can take a rubbing. All the doors look to be of the same kind of design, so that's no problem. You can do that.
SPEAKER_01And I've actually just checked my gear. I have a lantern, not not a torch. Okay. You've got a lantern burning then. Oh yeah, I'll get that. Get that up and going. Yeah, I'll take a brass rubbing of the door to see if that gives us anything.
SPEAKER_02Which door would you like to take a brass rubbing of?
SPEAKER_01So that uh you've got this one here. The locked one. Between the yeah, between the two. From the left hand side or the right hand side? If I've got time, I'll do both.
SPEAKER_02If they look particularly different. Okay, that's fine. That there's a slight change, but I mean I'll leave you to do the rubbing, that's not a problem. When you guys get back into sort of like the chamber of echoes, you can hear as you get back in yourselves. And the conversation you had as you came into and down the stairs, in sort of like whispers, just like, this way. Is that water? No, I think there's a cat down here and it peed. So yeah, so you get sort of like a uh almost like a recording coming back to you, but in whispers of everything you said, the those footprints, your sound, of your footsteps, opening the door, it all kind of gets replayed backwards, but it's not quite in order, so it kind of nicks and matches. And every now and then you get a for fuck's sake, Garrick.
SPEAKER_03Now we know how to remix this armate. Garrick is one of the names of the people that drugged us, right?
SPEAKER_00Correct. Well I remembered. Baradon. Then Baradon. We should play one of our songs. Beridon is currently busy further. Rubbing furiously. Rubbing furiously with a charcoal. I yell, I yell down the hall.
SPEAKER_02Baradon! Baradon! Baradon! Okay, as you do that, the reverberations echo around the chamber. You all who are in this chamber make a endurance roll for me. For fuck's sake.
SPEAKER_03That's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00So you. Gray failed.
SPEAKER_02As you shout, it reverberates and comes back about fivefold. Oh my god, your ears hurt. You can all take one strength damage.
SPEAKER_01At which point I will back into the room. Yes. Completely undamaged.
SPEAKER_00We should play one of our songs. Not in this room, but we're just have. No, definitely in this room. It would be so cool. It would be pretty rock and roll. It would be so punk.
SPEAKER_03I just want to get out of here. I think we are losing track of what we actually are trying to do here. Dude, uh, dude, are you you're not ready to die for your art? Then what are you doing in this band, man? I mean, I get it. This is a nice place for playing music, but I wanna get out. But it's gonna record our music. Okay, fine, just a small riff, and then we go.
SPEAKER_01I'm ha I'm happy to play a riff. Stand stand at the edge, sort of at the end here and play a riff into the room. Cassie's like, fucking hell. She just basically runs out of the room. Uh, Peridon uns un unslings his loot, takes a power stance and just riffs away.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you do that and you properly sort of like give it all you've got. Yeah, basically. Okay, you do that and it reverberates reverberates around the room. And as it does so, one of the columns on the other side cracks and breaks, and parts of the column start to break off, and then the middle part of the column snaps free, and bits of the roof collapse in on it, and the column falls down. So is that one of these two columns I'm pinging on the map here? In fact, it is, yeah. The left-hand, bottom left-hand column breaks. You realize that that means that's probably what happened to the column that's missing. And it makes this really cool noise and reverberates around, and it's a perfect recreation of what you've just seen.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna play another chord in a different key. Okay. And I'm gonna pound on my drums to see if it does anything to any of the channels.
SPEAKER_02So the party died because they bring the ceiling down and they run out of oxygen. That's all good. Okay. At least we take the other buggers with us. You play another key and it does something similar, but it doesn't do the same. Essentially, what you're playing into it is what comes back, but fivefold. And if you kind of stick to sort of like the lower, softer keys, then it's not a problem. If you really go for it, it's gonna cause more damage. But different different key doesn't do different No, but every time you play something different, you also get the whispers of previous conversations or like snippets of previous conversations.
SPEAKER_01Oh, very cool.
SPEAKER_02And so then you also hear yourself talking about it, and then exactly the same conversation you've just recently have kind of gets mixed in with the others. It's like a big jumble of things that have been said and done in here, which means at some point your big rift might come back.
SPEAKER_01What's the uh what's the earliest voice? Because I'm gonna say because we heard all the voices of the people that you have no idea because I'm I'm just data. No, no, but are are there any voices that don't seem to belong to people we've we've met in the last 24 hours? There's there's a few.
SPEAKER_02But they don't handly go, hey George, all right, Mary, is everything okay there?
SPEAKER_01But if if if there are different voices, that suggests that either it's kept kept an imprinted memory of voices from the last time anyone came down here. Cool. You definitely haven't heard any languages you don't understand. Do we want should we look at this these two doors that have things oozing out of them? Or do we want to avoid anything to do with ooze? Well, it's just water, isn't it? Appears that way. I will go over to it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you go over to the door that's oozing water out. In the hallway, not in the chamber. Yep. And you try the door, and the door is locked. Similar to the door on the other side. I shout, dwarf!
SPEAKER_00Face me.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00You're hearing it. I don't like this. I don't like things I don't understand. Beridon Beridon mutters under his breath.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's pretty much everything.
SPEAKER_02The doors that you have gone through already. Sorry, Scott, just just just to interrupt you for a second. The doors you've been through, have you shut back or are they still open?
SPEAKER_01I think we've only opened this one leading out of the chamber, haven't we? That's the only door that we've opened. Two.
SPEAKER_02We've opened two doors. The north and the and the Oh yeah, the one I'm currently stood in. They should be still open. Okay, fine.
SPEAKER_00Just want to check. And I will repl I will reply to Baradan, say that again, and I'll tear your throat out.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I didn't say anything. As it echoes around him five times and comes back down the shit.
SPEAKER_02So let's try the other door. Okay. You go back into the into the room of echoes, and you try the other door. Other door is indeed open and unlocked. Oh, Grey, what do you see? So, Gray, you look in, you can see another room. It seems to be the same kind of design, a round circular room with a large puddle in. You can also see there is a door in this room to the north and door in the room to the south. Where where you where you can see all the frescoes, they're all almost gone. It looks like at some point in the distant past this had been flooded through. It looks though that this is sort of like on a low ebb on the water table at the moment. And so therefore it looks like it's um it's sort of like maybe about ankle deep.
SPEAKER_03Just is there anything in in the room?
SPEAKER_02There is indeed. You can see there is what looks like some wooden planks which are floating on the water. And it looks like there's a lot of wet footprints or boot box going to the southern door. And the southern door is ajar.
SPEAKER_00Now wait just a minute. Is it a jar or is it a door? My god, that's terrible.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, I'm gonna stick gray there, then you guys can do that. Okay, you go and listen. So you listen at the door. Make a scouting roll for me, please, Tony. One success. One success. You can hear the sound of low muttering. What do you hear? What do you hear and doing? See into the room as the door is partially open. You can see another door as you're looking into the room on the right hand side, and that door itself is also slightly ajar. There's a load of water sort of in the area, and you can see there's loads of footprints and stuff. You can see coming through that door a light that's flickering, but you can't see into that room. Believe.
SPEAKER_03Our captures must be in there.
SPEAKER_02Okay, go on, have a look. I will be happy to. Cassie's got her arms folded, looking at you, Berodon, going, is it ladies first?
SPEAKER_01Oh nice. Beridon smirks at her and just claps once really loudly. Do you? My lady.
SPEAKER_02There's a reverberating clap as it stings your ears. And she's like, oh, you guys can hear this, and it kind of like echoes through the through the door, down into this room, into the other room, and presumably into wherever else it's going, where whichever the doors are open.
SPEAKER_00So is this door right here open? It is. Alright, I'm stepping through.
SPEAKER_02Okay, as you step through, you can see this room is partially filled with water. You then hear someone say, Who's there? You're death. And you hear somebody else say, Shit, it's the wolfkin.
SPEAKER_00I'll I I yell back to to Andrew and say, Tell the others we found these pricks. Okay. So there's only one other door in this room? Uh yes, it's only one door. And what is this thing on the floor here?
SPEAKER_02Uh just basically rubble and stuff.
SPEAKER_00Rubble, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's just where the where the ceiling has kind of collapsed in on itself and fresh has come off the walls.
SPEAKER_00Voices that I'm hearing, do they where do they sound like they're coming from?
SPEAKER_02Uh they sound like they're coming from in the other room. Through this door?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Alright. Is it open? Is it up? Is it locked? The door is a the door is ajar. I'm gonna plow my ass through it.
SPEAKER_02You plow your ass through it. So you come flying through the um through the room, and you're you're standing in the water. I'm guessing Andrew and you're close behind. Yeah, I would signal the other guys, and yeah, they're doing the same thing. Baradon, you'll bring up the rear with the lantern.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Baradon will follow behind Cass.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you can see Tan, the old trader guy, who's in the room, and there is a guy you've not seen before standing in front of you. The guy that you've not seen before has got a couple of bone handled daggers, and he's kind of like slightly in a crouch, in sort of sort of a combat state, ready to kind of pounce on you as you rush through the wall the the door, splashing water everywhere. Uh-huh. And he's like, fuck, as he kind of like spins one of his daggers backwards and the other one's forwards, ready to receive your charge, I guess. And you can see Tar behind, like, shit. Okay. What do you want to do, Grey?
SPEAKER_00Seeing you're the one who's just come through the door. I tell him, I have my spear in my hand, and I tell this guy to drop his weapons. He says, No, you drop yours. This is not a negotiation. Tar has got a short sword drawn as well.
SPEAKER_02He says, Why should I? I have no quarrel with you, human. He looks at you and says, What, you got a quarrel with him? And points behind him with his dagger.
SPEAKER_03Not if he tells me what I want to know. Yeah, let's calm down. There's no need to fight. I'm just trying to, you know, down people and, you know, stay behind.
SPEAKER_01Beridon looks at Cass or sort of leans over and says, two gets your ten, somebody ends up getting murdered to death right now.
SPEAKER_02Is Beridon gonna come and stand in the water or is he gonna stay away from the water?
SPEAKER_01He Berodon's gonna do what he usually does in this situation. He's gonna stand in the doorway. He's gonna stand sort of looking just back. And he's not going to be standing in water if he can avoid it. Just on the edge. On the edge.
SPEAKER_02It's like teaching on the water, looking down. The water's kind of like going everywhere where um Gray is coming.
SPEAKER_00I don't like that he keeps asking us if we're standing in the water. Well, don't be paranoid, it's fine. You're definitely not standing in the water, right? No, I'm stepping, I'm stepping off the I'm stepping out of the water. Okay. They kind of back up and she kind of stepped forward. The guy says, okay, what do you want to know? Who's the asshole? Who's the asshole who drugged us and tied us up? That'll be Mira. And where is this asshole?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm sure she is on the other side of the complex. You're gonna show you.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna show us how much.
SPEAKER_02I'm not showing you shit. You just go straight through the other side. Just keep going to the other side. And what are you doing here? We're kinda the he basically points to a door because um we're trying to figure out how to get in there.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna figure out how I can get it inside your chest.
SPEAKER_02Whoa, whoa, whoa, there's no need to be like that. I mean, you can try, but we'll just end up having sort of like, I don't know, a wolf skin to stick on the uh the floor at home. I mean, Andrewin, what are you gonna do? They're they're ready to like face off each other.
SPEAKER_03I'm like, turn, turn, let's calm down, everyone, please. There's no need to fight. We just wanna get out of here, go on our merry way, and you know, past is past. We just need to get out. Are you fucking kidding me? These people drugged us. You know, there's no need to to kill each other, you know. Peace. Alright, John Lennon.
SPEAKER_02Hey, you you go and deal with Garrick and and the rest of the Pike siblings, and we'll leave you to it. You just leave us alone, we'll leave you alone, alright? I don't trust you. I mean, that's a fair that's a fair point, but you hey, you shut the door, we'll stay here until the murdering and stuff has happened. And then we'll come out. Is this Tarn or the other guy talking? Tarn, this is Tarn talking. Tarn is in the call. He's the older gentleman with the sort of like a beard and sort of. I'm gonna go to the door and I'm gonna check it out. Okay. The door itself appears to have a very different design on it. It's not like all the other doors. Um it's the same kind of colour and stuff. You can see lots of dwarven language written on it, but you can't read dwarven, so you have no idea. But in the center of the door, there looks like four rotating rings, and all the way around the door there's these spectral sort of dwarven forms basically built into the sort of like edges of the doorway itself, sort of in stone relief. Some of them are cracked and broken, but a lot of them are still in pretty good shape, pretty good shape.
SPEAKER_00Peridon, get in here and check out this door.
SPEAKER_01Is the murder is it is there still murdering happening, or is that not happening now? They've kind of like backed off into the corner.
SPEAKER_02They've still got their weapons out, but they're not they're not doing anything.
SPEAKER_01Peridon comes forward and looks at the looks at the door. Okay, you come. Okay, you go over to the door. It's exactly as he described. He pulls out his his brass rubbing, looks at it, looks at it. I'm guessing no similarities.
SPEAKER_02No similarity whatsoever.
SPEAKER_01And looks at the four discs and sort of sort of runs his hands over them. Yeah, yeah, they move. The discs move. Do they move in or do they slide around?
SPEAKER_02It looks like when you when when you look at the the rings, they they they move around, so you've actually got different symbols. And it and it looks like there's probably four or five symbols on each ring. And it looks like there's some kind of combination lock. Is there a combination lock? They look similar to the sort of runes that you can see on the door, but they're not the same.
SPEAKER_01Do they uh Berodon's gonna think back to his knowledge of sort of of music? Do they look like dwarven musical notes? They do. In that case.
SPEAKER_02But you would need something to kind of reference it to decide to decipher it. You don't know anything about dwarven music. You've seen like the odd sort of reference here and there where you've read books, but you don't have like a set.
SPEAKER_01But we do know one of Steinbrutung's songs, don't we?
SPEAKER_02But you've got the older lander version of that rather than the dwarven version. Right, okay. Maybe there's some other clue within the crypts or wherever, which might then ve lend to this, but I made a useful note that had something about music and I da.
SPEAKER_01The Vault of Brutongue. Something in the Vault of Brutongue could might be useful. Anyway, uh I will keep my suspicions to myself because I don't want I don't really want to say anything with these two randoms here. And then I'm going to shrug, look at the others, and say, okay. And wait to decide what Grey wants to do with these two, whether he's actually going to brutally kill them all, or whether we're going to walk out of here and leave them behind us.
SPEAKER_02They've both backed off into the corner of the room. They're still on guard, but they haven't like done anything else. They're just basically leaving you to kind of talk amongst yourselves.
SPEAKER_01Given these people are are, you know, quite keen to hogtie people, maybe we could return the favour? An excellent idea.
SPEAKER_00Hey, if only we had a rope.
SPEAKER_02Not us. Andouin, give me your rope. Anduin, give me your rope. I'm not being tied up for shit, so fuck you, you are. I don't think you'll find I'm gonna be. Who's this?
SPEAKER_01The gobby little the gobby little one with the with the two knives. Gobby guy, yeah. Yeah, two knives. I mean, great, if you want to beat the snot out of these guys, then you know, I I'm I'm equally up for that. Guys, guys, we gotta it's not be right.
SPEAKER_02Well, how's how's Cass looking?
SPEAKER_01She looks does she look like she's up for a fight?
SPEAKER_02Cass is ready for a fight. She's got her knife out and stuff, but she hasn't done anything apart from standing on the edge, just kind of like keeping a wary eye on them. She hasn't made any move to do anything, but she's ready to jump in if necessary. Grey, as soon as you start moving your way towards them, obviously they go back into sort of like combat stance, ready to sort of receive a charge from you.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm not charging. Okay. Yet. But I was just gonna I will say, remember when I said I had no quarrel with you, human? Well, I have a quarrel with you now. Defend yourself.
SPEAKER_02Fuck, he says, as he kind of like guess we'll uh we'll go into initiative, shall we? We shall, we shall. Right, let me just uh put you on initiative because that's always fun. Okay, right. Well tone's going fast.
SPEAKER_00Yes, but I have a will power point to spend on my spearfighter rank two talent. What does that do, sir? Okay, it allows me to immediately strike an enemy who moves from near range to arm's length from you. Okay. Uh the attack counts towards your actions in the ROM but breaks the turn order and a curse before the enemy can attack you. Well, if you want to attack the guy with the two knives, you feel free to do that.
SPEAKER_02I don't like the way you eagerly said that. See what I can do.
SPEAKER_00I might spend some more power as well. You can't do shit. Attack him with your spear, sir. I am attacking with my spear. Don't I get a modifier? I believe I get a modifier, don't I? You have spear fighter? Yes. Uh, what does the rank one do? I think it gives you a modifier to hit. If my memory serves. Yes. Rank one gives you a plus one. Yep, that's correct.
SPEAKER_02So hopefully if it all works well, you shouldn't attack with your spear and it should all add the lot together, hopefully. If not, add plus one. Well, would you like to push that, sir? Yeah, son of a guy. But you might damage your spear. I'm not gonna push it. Add yourself, okay. Yeah, you kind of lean into it and go to to attack him before anybody else gets to go. And he kind of sees it as you step forward, and you just kind of slightly misjudge it. Tarn retreats back into the water. That's what he's gonna do while defending himself. The guy with the two knives decides he's gonna have some of what you did, and he uh attacks you. You got any armor, Gray? Oh okay, in which case you can take one damage as he sort of like slashes out at you. Did you want to try and dodge? Is that strength damage? It's strength damage. Okay, I'm down to one strength out. Okay, you can always use your last remaining action this round to just dodge. Yes, I will do that. Can I push that? Yes. You can indeed. Son of a bitch. Oopsie. Yeah, you've kind of like moved around in your in sort of like the combat as you're sort of like trying to get a better thing, and you kind of slip in the water. There's some moss or something, and so you kind of twist an ankle or something as you do that, and he kind of slashes at you and catches your your chest for the one damage. Ouch. But that's your go, but you're now done. So I've fallen on my ass. You've fallen on your husband. Cass, on the other hand, comes right up behind him and sticks him really hard in the ribs with it with her knife, and he kind of like grimaces as a whole load of blood starts to pour out of his side.
SPEAKER_01Pheradon is going to step up, point at time, and say, get on your knees, hands over your head, and you don't have to die here. Tan looks at you and says, Your word? I look at Gray, who's Yeah, my word.
SPEAKER_02He he kind of looks at you and sort of smiles and says, Yeah, I don't really trust your uh wolf thing. And he kind of is is sort of like backing off, but he's got the short sword still in his hand.
SPEAKER_01Nor nor do I, if I'm honest, but I will do my best to stop him from eating you. He says, I'll just go back here as he kind of backs off into the corner. And then I'll shrug and say, Okay, I tried. And step back.
SPEAKER_03I will step in and ask Gray to stop. Please, Gray. No need to kill anybody here as a stop this madness. Dude, I'm on my ass and I'm bleeding. You're asking me to stop.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I'm asking you to stop, but you're gonna stop. Where's this other guy, by the way? Tom's basically he's all walked to the very top corner. He's like, I I don't want any of this. No, the guy who's the guy who the guy I don't know why he's disappeared. He should still be there. Cass hasn't killed him. I thought Cass hasn't killed him. She stabbed him in the side.
SPEAKER_01In that case, sorry, that completely completely changes what I was going to do. Okay. Because I thought he died. He wasn't dead. Okay. In that case, if I can have this the conversation with Tyron's what I will do, but I'm also going to enact my path of the war cry and just yell out to everyone, keep him occupied, and then I'll have the conversation with Tyron. Okay, make sure we're everyone, everyone gains a until my next turn to act gains plus one for every willpower I spend. So I will spend two willpower.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So everyone gets plus two to their to their combat roles.
SPEAKER_00Nice. And I'll I'll uh complain to Anderwin instead of lecturing me, he should be healing me. Tending to my wounds. Bind me up, bite my wound. Cool.
SPEAKER_04Are you gonna stop?
SPEAKER_02I I mean I'm asking you and and Cass. You're having a conversation. Tar's basically just in the corner of the room, waiting to see what happens. The guy turns around and attacks Cass. Yeah. Goes to attack her with his knife, uh, slashes across Cass, but she sort of catches it in her armor, and she basically looks over at Andrew and kind of with a shrug, kind of ready to stab him again in the face. It's like, what, Marco? It's you. You can get up as your action, it's fine. That could be a fast action, and then you've got one slow action. Yeah. Within sort of like stabbing distance if you wanted to.
SPEAKER_00I don't have a lot of good options with my strength down to one. Fuck it, I'm just gonna hit this guy. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Uh you're gonna get a bonus of plus two because you're sort of like he's now facing off against Casp. And don't wearily keep his head across, but you know, you're essentially sort of like all four of you are like flooding him.
SPEAKER_00So and then I get a bonus from Baradon as well, right? You get a point. Yeah, you get a plus two. So you get plus four. Well fuck it, of course I'm gonna do this.
SPEAKER_01So unlike uh you it says your moles are modified by one. Is that a plus one dice or plus one for every willpower?
SPEAKER_02For every hit point, for every willpower point, so you get plus two.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so is that plus two dice, two plus two dice or plus two to the rolls? So plus two to the to the dice. So the way that works is you get plus two, you get an extra two dice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I'm actually getting six dice, is that correct? Yeah, correct. Okay. Excellent. Again, stabbing in the back. And I got absolutely nothing. No, I have one success. I have one success. Okay, good. What's your damage? The damage is one. It says one. Damage is one? For a spear. Okay. I know, it's kind of lame. Did you want to uh push the roll or are you No. No, okay. No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02Yes. You kind of you kind of come up behind him and you stab him and you kind of catch him in the back, and he's like as he sort of like stumbles forward away from the away from the pain. Tell me he dropped his knives. He doesn't drop his knives. It seems to, although he kind of like flinches, he weirdly does not appear to be handicapped by the pain of being stabbed. But at that point, as he kind of like does that, flinches, and looks back to you. Cass basically buries her her knife deep into the guy's throat and jaw and pushes him up against the wall and then pulls the knife out and stabs him about four or five more times in the neck and shoulders as he forced the floor, his blood mixing with the water on the floor. Seeing this, and now assuming that he is probably dead.
SPEAKER_01I guess he's bleeding out, if not already dead. Pherodon will go back to time and say, right, now that that little bit of unpleasantness is settled. Again, on your knees, hands over your head, and I will try and refrain, keep my Wolfkin friend from ripping your jugular out. If you don't do that, I guarantee nothing. Fair enough. He just says, Look, can you just like stop? See, he's a little bit miffed because your friends knocked us out and then holdside us. Hey, look, Wolfkin don't like being leashed. Right, okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, so on your knees. He basically takes the sword, throws it in your direction, and it lands sort of like a couple of foot in front of you. He basically goes onto his knees and puts his hands up on his head and he goes, Alright, alright.
SPEAKER_01And then I will come over with the rope and I will bind him. If you behave, you have my word, I will do my best to stop the Wolfkin from eating you.
SPEAKER_00I promise. Meanwhile, I'm I'm tearing out this guy's throat. Yep. Okay. He wasn't dead yet. I just I whispered into his ear, I told you I was going to rip your throat out.
SPEAKER_01Tom goes, fucking hell. Yeah, it's it's it's not nice, is it really? He does that a lot. No. It's better best just just you know.
SPEAKER_02Sure, sure. Never should have fucking opened that door. See, I told you. And that was the end of Rask the Pick.
SPEAKER_01He's in my belly. It's a shame, because his artwork is kind of cool.
SPEAKER_00I turn around with like his blood dripping down my face with some man flesh in my mouth, and I say, Yes, it was. They'll kind of look at you with a little bit of like, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02Is this an origin story for a for a villain? I don't know. Okay. What are you gonna do with the dog?
SPEAKER_00You know what they say when a dog tastes blood, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You have to Yes. You have to give him some more. At some point, we're gonna have to put down our own wolfkin. Maybe who knows. Okay, what are you gonna do with Tom? I'm up for tying him up, taking him back to the pillars and tying him to one of the pillars. I like that idea. And if anyone's if if if you know if someone's good at a quick, sharp blow to the back of the head to knock him out, that would be useful. That's fine. You can do that too. He is consider him unconscious and dealt with. And we'll tie him to one of the pillars here. Somebody please bandage me up. Are you gonna use some amazing magic, sir?
SPEAKER_03No, we'll just do the regular healing. Go here. Dick.
SPEAKER_00So that's the last time I chew on your rope.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you can have one one strength back. Right. Well, I think that seems like a good enough place to end it for the session.