SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is Juniper Sum, a Forbidden Land's 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. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode. Welcome, welcome, Marco. How are you? Hello. Are we do we know each other? I think we met once at the spot no. We met once in a mall surrounded by zombies, I think.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yes, we did. We did. Tony, how are you, sir? All good, all good. Getting ready for the last game. Scott, how about you?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Yeah, it's been a nice quiet Sunday. Not a lot happening, a little bit of shopping, a little bit of housework, and now some nice relaxing gaming where absolutely no carnage or murder is going to happen. I imagine that that would not be the case. Yeah, I know. I have had a half a busy day and half a quiet day. I bought a new kitchen. So that was fun. Cool. We're getting a new kitchen too. Ours comes in October. So does ours. We'll have a we'll have a kitchen off. Cool. Well, we'll get on with uh the game, shall we? Yes. Nobody wants to hear about our kitchens. No, no. But uh let's get on with it. After you've murdered some poor guy, well. It's not murder. It's true. It's not that either. But you you haven't killed everyone. You've got a a prisoner who's unconscious and tied to a um column. Right. Well, what are you gonna do? Uh I'm not gonna do a rehash. We already know. If you want to know what it is, listen to the previous episode. Yeah, there aren't that many of them. So, why? What's the plan? I love the fact you think we have a plan. I mean, I say that hoping that there is some kind of a plan, but there is no plan. Understanding there is no plan. We've got a room, so just to recap for everybody, we're down in we're under the in the basement under the Dwarven Tower. We found the echo chamber, which is a giant columned room which amplifies all any noise you make in it by the magnitude of five. We found a bunch of empty chambers. There's a couple that have got a lot that are sort of half flooded with water, and we found two locked doors that have got bronze runes etched in them, one of which we think is a combination lock. Looking at the map, we've got two rooms that we could three rooms that we could potentially explore, one of which we know is currently sealed off and has lots of water flowing out of it, and a couple of other rooms that lead off some of the passageways that we've already explored. As to a plan, well, this is this looks like a a long corridor, doesn't it, that we haven't explored yet to the northeast, and then to the southeast there's a sealed door that we haven't had a chance to open. Indeed. Just through the door to the southeast here, was that what was that one of the etched etched bronze doors as well? Just an etched bronze door as well. Yeah. But no one no one did anything with that door. Look, go and having a quick look at it. We tried, it was logged, right? No, you have not. Going and having a quick look at it and comparing it to the etchings on the brass rubbing that I've taken. Similar, the same? Same. The same. Cool. Can I wake this guy up? I mean you've literally just smashed him in the head and made him unconscious. If we if we if we leave him awake, he could call for help and do other things. No, but I I thought he could leave. I thought he could guide us to where these other folks are. Yeah, I mean we could keep an eye on him, but it's someone we've got to look after and potentially worry about in a fight. No, because he's tied up, and if he tries anything, I'll rip his throat out. If you want to bring him with us, we can do. But he's unconscious, who knows when he's gonna wake up. But he's also tied, he's tied to the pillars as well. And Hulk tied. Have we have we removed all of his weapons and stuff? You have, yes. Okay. His short sword is somewhere in the in the watery pit, and we've taken his axe and his shield. He had a knife, a short sword, he was wearing some leather armor. He also had a spy glass tucked into his belt. A spy glass tucked into his belt? Indeed. Alright, well, let's I guess go down this corridor, right? Or this corridor here. Okay. Would you also have an axe, axe and a shield in his in his portrait? No. Uh okay. In that case I'm going mad. There was an axe behind him, definitely, by one of his colleagues. Okay. Okay. So north or southeast? Or are you gonna split up? Well, if we walk down to where to the first chamber the to the second of the circular chambers with the locked bronze door. Yeah. Looking looking east down this corridor, what do we see any further than that? Uh you see as soon as you actually get there and you can bring the light across, you can see there's a door. I like leaving this guy behind. What if he wakes up and gives us away? You could shut the door behind you. We could we could gag him as well as tie him. It appears the doors are a good way of stopping the noise from radiating. But somebody could I have a better way. I've I have a better way. I cut his throat. Okay. You uh make an empathy roll, please. I think someone needs to get the talent killer. Any modifiers? Uh no, straight roll. Yeah, you kill him. You're like screw it. I I failed.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Oh jeez.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Which means you which means you can kill him. Excellent. Yep, you slit his straight. He wakes up briefly enough to like check on his on his blood and then dies about a minute and a half later. As I say to him, you'll never tie us up again. Okay. That'll get him. He kind of rolls his eyes into like spasms and then dies. Taken care of. Let's go. What did you do? I took care of it. I did what had to be done.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

What did you mean? He won't be bothering us or anyone else, don't worry. And look at your bloody hands. I'm like, no, you didn't. Don't ask questions you won't like the answer to, Anduin.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Just keep playing your flute. Okay. Cass kind of looks at Anduin and like, the drummer of the band always has to do the hard work, doesn't he? The heavy lifting. That's what he does. It's not enough that he keeps the rhythm. She he basically offers the stairs for you.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Well. Yeah, yeah, I let him go first too.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yep. Cass hands back to you as you walk down, Anduin. And he looks at you. She goes, Should we be worried about Grey?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

I think so. I think we might have to reconsider our band. She says, I'll be right back. She wanders off, leaving you at the top of the stairs. Where where does she go? She wanders back into the other room. Where where the other guy was, turned? Yeah. Yeah. But she has no light, right? No, but but you've got light, haven't you? Yeah, but I need to go with her, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

I mean if you stand in the doorway, if you stand in the doorway, she just pop in. That's fine. Okay. She picks up the uh short sword of Tarn and she basically loots him. He's not gonna use it, is he? That's the spirit. And then she kind of pops back. Meanwhile, Baradon and Gray are looking at this door. Hey Baradon, and I like slap my bloody hand on his shoulder. How's it going? Any luck with that door yet? Oh, don't worry about that guy Tarn. He's not gonna cause any more problems. Look at him. I started to speak that I don't want the. And I'll try I'll try the door. Okay, you try the door. It appears to be locked. Looking at it again, similar to I'm assuming exactly the same to the other door? Uh it's exactly the same as the other door, yeah. Does it have a keyhole or anything? It doesn't. It's got sort of like a like a handle to a degree, and you can see there's loads of scratch marks and ben marks where the door was, but it appears to still be locked. So it looks like someone's tried to get through it but has not been. Has not been able to, yeah. Which you've seen on all the other doors, you know, that there's been obviously either picking or prying or whatever has been happened. Don't we have a thief in this fucking band? Do any of do any of the doors look like they've actually managed to get through them? That we haven't so we've got the ones you've been through have they they seem to have got through. The ones they haven't got through, it doesn't appear that they managed to get through them. And I checked this door down here. You can? Okay. Same thing. It's unlocked. Unlocked, so it appears as maybe they got through this door. Correct. Bear it on this way. I step through it. Same thing. Another circular room, all the frescoes and stuff are on the walls. The the room themselves, they look like they're actually spheres. So you've got all the frescoes going up in a sort of a rounded sphere.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

You know, you the the frescoes have are fallen off the off the walls, all the paint's kind of gone, where it's obviously been damp at some point. And there is a corridor which leads out to a door. And that door, does that door appear to be the same as the others? Meaning we can't open it. Well, it's not open, it it's shut. You don't know if it's locked or not. And you know, what are you doing? You and Cass are just keeping up the rear, I take it. They're plotting against me. They're gonna try to kick me out of the band. No one kicks me out of my band. Who employed the psychopath? I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Well I don't know, you incorporated. And again, I thought we were a merry band of musicians, but no. It was all fired up until this last couple of episodes.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Grey's steady descent into madness has been uh Okay. You've got a door. What happens when you tie up a wolfkin? Drug him. Apparently he goes into a murderous rage. Okay, yeah, you've got a door. I'll take it. I will check it. Okay, you check it. You open it. You do indeed, you open it. As you kind of like walk through, you can see Mira, the dwarf. There she is. There's the dwarf I wanted to see. And Nella, the the woman with the sort of like bone dark kind of clothing, so all the bone necklace and sort of like the the bone sort of headdress stuff. As you kind of walk through, that's exactly what you say, they kind of look at you. There's various sort of like in the room, there's all sorts of sort of camping equipment and there's digging equipment and various other things is clearly is where they're staying. And uh Mira looks up at you and goes, For fuck's sake. That's funny, that's what your friend said before I ripped their fucking throats out. Okay. Mira basically looks at you and picks up a spear. She just gives this big s big sigh, and she looks at you and says, uh, alright, alright. You can see Nella. She's just next to her going, Oh no. Takes a step back. You brought this on yourself. You didn't have to tie us up, you didn't have to drug us, but you did. And now we're gonna challenge you to a battle. A battle of song. And then she throws the spear at you. Now you decide you don't want Right. Well, I guess we'll uh we'll go into combat then. Right, Mira's going first. No dance tonight. Mira basically throws her spear at you. Well, let me see here. I have two willpower. You have two willpower? From being wounded, I'm gonna throw mine first. Or can I move and then she's not moving towards you, so I can't use it. She's not moving into your space, as it were. It's just a rush in to attack you, but she's actually throwing the spear rather than trying to stop. Okay, that's fine. Sorry. No, that's okay. Bring it. Okay, she's gonna bring it. Let's see how she brings it. She brought it, she throws a spear at you. Would you like to dodge said spear? Yes, sir. Make a dodge roll, then, kind sir. Do I have any modifiers? Nope. I take it you're not just gonna throw yourself onto the floor, you're gonna try and just try and step out. If you're gonna roll myself onto the floor, do I get a bow? If you threw yourself, you do, you get plus two. I'm throwing myself on the goddamn floor. That will make you, you know, prone. Yes. Yes, it will. Okay. How successful. You throw yourself onto the floor and the spear goes flying and scatters behind you as Mira picks up another short spear from behind her and readies herself. Okay. Well, I guess. Veridon, you're next. Veridon's gonna look at her, pick up the spear and throw it back. Okay, yeah, go on then. With absolutely no range combat ability whatsoever. Okay. But the other my my alternative is to go and stab her. So no, you're not. You're you're you're you're just fine. Just out of curious. Is it Marx mission? I'm guessing. Yes. Oh. Yep. You're uh you logging. No successes, but no failures. I just log the spear in general. That's a very long action, isn't it? Yeah. And I don't think I'm going to war cry just yet, because I'm gonna wait until Grey's standing. Okay. Cool. Before I walk right. What I am going to do is dodge behind these. Is this some crates and some stuff, yeah. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna interpose the crate between myself and the dwarf. Cass kind of like goes along the other side of the room, drawing the short sword, but hasn't done anything else. Great. I take it you want to get yourself up. So I get to have a I get two actions, is that right? I think getting up is one of your actions. Yes. That'll be your standard sort of movement action. I think you get one other fast action. Or a slow action. But she's not within melee range, so you'd have to if you want to attack anyone, or I'll do something else. How far can I m can I run? You'll easily get to her. I mean, you can clear the room in one run. It's not right Can I just plow right into her, tack tackle her to the ground? Sure, why not? Oh no, grappled rules. Son of a bitch. I just made Ed get up out of his chair to grab a book. Dear me, grappling. We love a bit of grappling. Sure, why not? Tell you what, I'm gonna Because you know, my strength is so good. Yep. Which is so so weird for a guy who's part wolf to have really low strength. Yeah, you're not kind of doing a great job at sort of the Yes, roll melee. Modifier? No, that's a modifier. She can parry or so if she parries you, obviously she can hurt you. Ooh, I got a six. That's a success. Okay, and she's gonna use her action. She can parry, which she's going to try and do at minus two. But if she hits you, then obviously you're gonna take some damage. Ha ha. She basically she goes to parry you. You cancel each other out, so you kind of like grab her, and you've got got hold of her hand and her spear, and she's sort of grappling with you. So you can see there's quite stocky dwarf and the wolf skin, but sort of like trying to like get control of the spear and sort of like move around a bit. Okay. It's Nella's turn. She kind of looks over at all of you, and she sort of looks in your direction, Anduin, and she starts to chant. Fuck, she's casting a spell. Indeed! Stop her! Anduin, you look puzzled. It's still her turn, no? It is. And she sort of like, as you're sort of grappling with with Mira, she sort of her hand reaches out and goes to touch you on the shoulder. And then she just looks really quizzical. Nothing seems to have happened. I'm immune to your witchcraft, witch.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Anduin, you're back over there by the by the doorway. I will stand in the middle of the room and say, stop this madness right away. What are you guys doing? Who let Neville Chamberlain into the band? I'm a pacifist. I'm a pacifist. This is this is I'm like, start this madness. And and I and I go and I and I grab you on the back, uh Gray. I try to grab you, to hold you.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Okay. Well, grapple over grapple. I mean, why why give me some life's easy easy easy rules to sort of follow? Thanks, guys. And doing like a three-way.

unknown 16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

It appears that way. Okay. Let me position myself on your back properly. You please make a melee roll. Yes. Ah, Marco.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Mirror is going to try and also do the same thing to break free from you. I failed. It's a resisted roll. Did you want to try and push? No, okay. Oh, I also failed. They're just still like struggling with each other. Also shouting, Anduin, get your fucking hands off of me. Anduin, would you like to make a melee roll?

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah, it's gonna be one day, but God for it.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

There's your goal. Look at that. He kind of grabs you from behind and sort of like pulls you. So you're also like trying to struggle with now both of them. He hasn't pulled you off of her, but he's definitely meaning that it's very difficult to kind of try and keep in control of her. You can, of course, let her go to grapple with Anduin, or you can grapple with Mira, but you're out grappled, because there's two of them. I'm the monkey in the middle here. You are the monkey in the middle. Scott stepped away for a second, so you're still proned, right? No, no, no. I don't know what's happening with Scott, but he's just turned up and it's like headphones all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I mean so having fun back there, eh? Yeah. You you rush to put your headphones.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

It's it's that rock and roll lifestyle, you know how it is. Yeah. He was he was busy trashing at the hotel room with his supermodel girlfriend. That's it. It happens on a Sunday night on quiet Sunday night. I'm telling his wife. Berodon's just Baradon's looking up from behind the crates. He's not entirely sure what he's seeing. No, what's happening? Yeah, yeah. So you're you're seeing Anduin wrestling with Grey while Grey is wrestling with the dwarf. Does Nella seem to be paying attention to cats or Anduin's? She's she looks like well, she's just cast a spell on what looks like on Grey, uh, but she's keeping a suspicious eye on the other side of the room as well. If they're looking in that general direction, Berylan's gonna sort of run try and run around the back. Okay. Past the brawling pair and try and rugby tackle Nella. Or actually, no, he's no he's not. He's gonna do something even more dramatic. He's going to just charge and swing his loot at the back of a head. You'll have to fucking movement to do that. Uh yeah, you could run around and just go behind mirror and then yeah, yeah, yeah, go on then. Uh I think what you can do is you can make a make make a stealth roll. Yeah, yeah. Followed by a move roll and then an attack roll. So the stealth is a success. Yep. You basically go, right, keep low and run. If I don't make the move roll, it's fine. Well, that's fine, it's a success anyway. The move is a success. And then it's a melee roll. And here we uh I'll take that.

unknown 19:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

And you give her a massive whack on the back of the head. It doesn't break your loot, but you clock her on the head, and whatever she was doing, she's like very distracted. And then and a beautiful G chord echoes around the room. Which case that gives just enough of a of a break in everything for um cast to come running around, and she basically whacks Mira round the other side of the head with her short sword. Mira goes down with a thump. Mira or Nella. Sorry, Nella goes down with a thump. Okay. Grey. Yes. You're in the middle of this uh double grapple. I am in the middle of a double grapple. You have to pick one or the other to grapple with, and you're gonna be at minus one dice from whatever you do due to Anduin, like trying to grapple you off. I let go of the dwarf, and I whirl around to face Anduin, barring my teeth. And I growl at him. Okay. If you were any other man, I would rip your throat out. Unhand me! You can choose to try and break free from Anduin now you've let go of Mira? Yes. How do I do that? You both have to make a melee roll, the person with the most amount of success has wins. Okay. And if I have one success. I have succeeded. You basically push push Anjuin off you. That's right, that's that's you've done. Okay. And then I will say, I will say, do that again, and you will lose your hand.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

See how you play the flute without your hand. Don't kill anybody. They didn't do anything bad to us. They didn't kill us. They could have killed us, but they didn't. Right? Tied us up, they drugged us.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

That's not bad. Mirror's turn. Mirror's gonna stab Grey in the back. Veradon. We're kicking this flutist out of the band. He's dead weight. Okay. Yeah. Well, did you want to make a uh you've done, right? Do I know that she's attacking me? No. Yeah, so I can't really I can't really dodge it. Take two damage to strength. Do you have any armor? No, you don't have any armor, do you? Thank you, Anduin. I am now dead. You're not dead yet. It's fine. I have no strength. You're not dead in a bit. That's fine. I have zero strength. That means I'm unconscious, right? You are down to zero, which means that you are broken, which means That you roll only critical injury for the type of damage. So let's roll you old critical injury roll, shall we? Let's see what she did to you. Now I'm gonna kill Anduin. Oh dear. And I will kill you. Upon yourself, Chamberlain. And and thus we have the first breakup of a bat of a rock band in the in the forbidden land. So how did you guys break up? Oh, we murdered each other. Okay. Yeah, so she basically turns around and stabs you as you sort of like notice this movement behind you. As you turn, she catches you in the side of the face, ripping open part of your cheek and your lower lip, and it's and then she smacks you and you kind of like get dazed and fall to the floor. At which point we get the next uh next hit song. Grey gets knocked down, but he gets up again. He has nothing to keep down. She can't really perform anything apart from cruel, but you can also you'll have to try and recover, but you'll have to wait for a second. Or Anduin can cast a spell and recover you. I have a feeling Anduin's not gonna do that. He's fallen out of love with me. See what happens? I I I bit his rope too soon. Too soon, too much. Beridon gonna do. Is it back to Beridon already? It's back to Baradon. In that case, Beridon will she's busy stabbing Grey. She's gonna get a loot to the back of the shwad as well. Thank God then. I'm gonna push that one. Because otherwise, I think I might end up with a broken loot. Let's push it. There we go. Nice. That's a success on the on the final on the on the push. Yep. You clock her one on the back of the head. She sort of like stumbles a bit. And she took turns towards you. Okay, in which case, cast basically. Can I war cry at this point as well? Vandals. I think that a war cry is a slow action. It's a slow action, is it? Yeah. Okay. So you'll have to you'll have to wait, I'm afraid. Yeah, no worries.

unknown 24:00

Cast.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

In that case I would just block her on the head. Jumps over with a short sword. Okay, fair enough. And stabs Mira. I think Mirror's got some armor, I think. No, Mira does not have any armor. That's already handy. In that case, Mirror goes down. Okay. They're both down. What are you gonna do? That's the end of combat. Somebody help me.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Are you gonna stop killing people? There's no one left to kill.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

As you can hear, the sound of running coming from the chamber above you.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

I will do the he has a critical or a normal?

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Uh he's got a critical. He has got a ripped cheek. He's got a crystal, it's not, it's not dead, it's not it's not gonna kill him, but he does have a critical.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Okay, I will use my main wounds, which is rank two.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Okay. I see I thought Andrew was gonna just put him out of his misery.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

No, but I I I'm giving him a warning, like not to kill people that we can parlay with. So it's a it's a warning. What do I do? I just click on roll on main wounds? Yeah, you click it's click to roll. I think your willpower gives you the next one. You've got one success. Okay, so that's the critical wound out, I guess. So mend wounds, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

I think that means if I remember correctly, you can't.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

You can use magic to heal broken bows and bleeding wounds. This spell immediately heals a critical injury. Okay. A little injury requires power ball. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Okay. Uh fine. So you no longer have the critical, but you're still broken.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah, and I will do now the nature's cure. No, the healing hands, which basically is the healing. So obviously, depending on how much willpower you want to spend, we'll determine. Only one, I guess. Just the one. And I failed, I guess, or not? Well did you use the one? I I just got a two. I don't know if that makes a difference.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Uh so that's a fail.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

No, I'm not gonna push it.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

That's fine. Uh so it uses your willpower and nothing happens. You didn't free leave system, it punishes mediocrity.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

It does. Well, but if you only have one die and there is no way that you can raise your die, unless you use more willpower, I guess. But indeed, you need to uh you need to hurt yourself a lot to get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I can see. Mm-hmm. So we'll do regular healing, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Uh yeah, you can make a regular healing roll. Uh but you can't do that just yet, because uh in fact, yes, you can. Go on.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Just take out my healing pouch, I guess. Yep. And try to do something. So I get two. You do. You get two.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Grey gets two health back and it's no longer broken. Meanwhile, Verandon, you get two actions to do. Along with Cass. And we can hear the sound of movement coming from up. From the north? You can. And you can actually see three people. As you look up, you can see Dreg. You remember Dreg. And then you can see two other people, two other dwarves that you don't recognise. So actually there are there are three dwarves currently running towards you. Myra is Myra still alive or is she dead? She looks like she's dead or bleeding out or something.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

I will try to heal the others if I can. Okay. Nella's unconscious.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Okay. My dead. Well, let me just check with poor old Mira. I think I need to just make some rolls for her. But yeah, let's see.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Two me time to heal this wolves.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

I'm just gonna put my hand on Anduin's shoulder. Don't heal her just yet. We might need to use her as a bargaining chip. Let's see what happened to both of them. And you smashed her you smacked the other one around the head, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

So let's have a look. Well, Mira, when she got stabbed in the in the in the groin, basically several leg artery. That's never a good sign. Who stabbed who stabbed Mira? Cass. Cass Cass has got the highest kill count of the end of the party so far. So far. I mean she's the warrior, I suppose. And then the other one is on poor old Nella, which you basically bashed. So I think Nella is just unconscious. Just unconscious. I did roll though. I realize that none of us have used our pride. It was a great moment when I could have used my pride with Anduin, but oh well. So close to the moment is over. She's just over on the floor. Well, maybe there might be time now. This is true. Yep. Cass turns around and starts to prepare herself for a charge. To us. Let them come to us. Yep. Barundon, you can do your war cry, I guess. I'm gonna hold my war cry until they until they start coming in. Okay. Do anything that they've got ranged weapons. So you can see. I will unfortunately for those not watching, because you can't. I'll just uh audio only mediums. So uh I'll show you a picture of Dreg. He's got an axe and a shield. You have got the other two. One guy looks like he is where he's got like a large spear of some kind, and the other one appears to have a similar kind of view, and they also look like they are related somehow. They do all appear to have gone to the same tailor, don't they? They all look like being to the same tailor. One of the guys who is running towards you clearly is wearing sort of chainmail, the others seem to be wearing feather armor of some kind. And they are definitely slowly but surely making their way towards you. How big is this box of this box of crate? Small crate, similar to the other one. It's probably sort of like you know, stomach type of convenient environment kill-sized stack of crates that we could topple on to on top of them. No. Full of full of anvils and other such weighty. Unfortunately, no owls or any kind of you know, melodic instruments to kind of crush them with. Okay. Well, that's should do we wait for them to come or anybody? In which case, Gray, what do you want to do? Gray is going to move to this side of the door here. Okay. And Anduin, you want to try and heal Mirror?

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Try to see if if I can save her.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Okay. Don't save her until she can come back into the fight. Do you want to Okay, well, I guess that's how much do we more willpower points have you got left?

SPEAKER_00 30:29

I'm not gonna use any anyway.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

You wanna try and heal her critical?

SPEAKER_00 30:33

I have no willpower, so. Okay. Alright. I use everything on grey. Okay, well. In that case, did you want to just stabilize her? I don't wanna stabilize her. Yeah, go on then. I don't wanna bring her up, it's just that she doesn't bleed to death. And I guess I got one extra access. So uh in the first combat action, you will be stabilizing her.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Okay. Dreg comes running through the door, axe and shield. It's like, ha ha, you fuckers. Can I use my willpower now? Uh you can indeed use your willpower now.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

I'm gonna use my willpower.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Guessing what you're going to do. You guessed correctly. Uh did you do your war cry yet, Baradon? Not yet, I haven't. It's not got to my turn yet. Well, son of a gun. I'm Hmm, I'm gonna go anyway. Off you go, Marco. Beer to the side, I'm guessing? Yep, one success. Did you want to push that role at all? Yeah, I'm not gonna push it. Okay, but the pains will give you uh they'll give you a willpower. I still have one point left. Okay. Yeah, as he kind of comes running through, you basically reach out and stab him. You stab him, your spear skids off of his studded leather armor, and he turns to face you. Well, fuck. Okay, it's his guy. I guess he's gonna attack you. Would you like to parry slash dodge? I would like to parry slash dodge, yes. Well then do that, kind sir. That's a lot of dice. So why is the parry giving me a negative one, a negative two? So because using uh using a spear to parry is a minus two. Because it's a bit a wooden weapon, he's gonna hack your thing with his um axe. Or dodge, which will not give you that, so if you want to dodge. And obviously you get a plus two if you throw yourself prone, but if you don't, it's just a standard roll. Yeah, I'm gonna dodge and I'm gonna throw myself to the ground. Okay, so that's a move roll, and you get to add plus two. So our successes can I push it, please? Absolutely you can. Fuck. Okay, that's it. I'm out again. I'm dead. Don't really understand for some reason you rolled for disarm. I don't really know why you disarmed. I made I made a boo-boo. Weird. You did make a boo-boo, so uh shall we do that again? Do that again. Yes, instead of disarm, you wanna make a move roll too. That's a bad one. There we go. One success. Two successes. That's fine. Two or one success? How many successes do I have? That's one success. One success. So yeah, you um you throw yourself out of the way as he kind of like wings the axe past your head and you roll onto the floor. Uh, he does not connect it to you. You are not hurt. Can't touch this. This is our next song, Baradon. Can't touch this. Doom do do doom. Do doom do doom, can't touch this. Baradon. Baradon is going to grab Myra's head, lift them go, and hold his dagger and say, Right. Should we all just calm down a second? No need for your sister to die. The the only dwarf that's in the room, which is Dreg, goes, fucking give a shit, and steps towards the grave. The other two stop and give pause for a second. In their case, Beridon will work, right? Oh wait, you said this will stop and give pause. Yeah. We'll look meaningfully at Dreg and then back at them. Okay. And hold his ass in and see what they do. Okay, right. Well, this dwarf steps forward into the into the room and goes, now you think about what you're gonna do. As he's pointing his finger at you. In his left hand, he's got his pike in his other hand, and he basically walks closer towards you. Does he make any effort to stop drag? He does not. And uh Cass basically steps between you and the guy who's walking towards you. And she says, think about it. Right, Marco, what are you gonna do? Am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? I don't like these guys. I will get up first of all since I was prone, and uh I'm gonna run over to Mira, and I will stick my spear at her throat.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, and if you get in my way, you're next. I'm I'm well I'm I'm key I'm estabilizing her. Uh yeah.

unknown 35:05

Good.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Stabilize her so I can fucking kill her. The other dwarf also comes into the room, puts your weapons down, and they're like, You think about what you're doing? I have thought about it.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

And you were gonna do. I mean, can so can Grey kill her or not?

unknown 35:23

Later.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

No, no, he's just basically putting the spirit out there.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Well, I'm continuous her. Okay. So she doesn't bleed out. I'll pause come back for the second.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Dreg is kind of like warping his way around. Stay still. The other dwarf is also sort of like fanning out. And you can see another person sort of like sticking their head around the wall. Fuck. Who's this person? It's a human of some kind. Now, because we're getting it out flanked now then, because I was kind of hoping they'd say where they are. It's starting to kind of like move. So they're not, they're not they're not doing anything like coming towards you, but they are moving into the room. This at this point, I'm gonna kind of go hail Mary, and hope Cass Grey can deal with this. I'm gonna drop a five willpower war cry. Okay. To do what? To basically give everybody five additional dice in this next in this next round of combat. In that case, I guess uh we will Are you sure you you wanna fight this? I mean leave this to you guys as the players. I'm more than happy to discuss it, but I think we are massively outmatched at this point.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

But that's why I don't think we should be fighting this. We should be talking our way out of this.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

I mean, I have no melee or if there were th if there was if there were three of them held up at the top, we could we we had a negotiation position, now we don't. So I'm thinking just let's go Hail Mary Blitz. Okay. In fact, I'm gonna do a three and then a two. So I'll do three this round and then two next round. Okay. I'm gonna So how does that how does that work for you? You're gonna encourage them to basically just just attack them. So basically, mechanically, Cass, Grey, Anduin, and my s I I don't know if it applies to me. I don't think it applies to me. Okay. Because it says grants all your comrades.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

I don't think it applies to me. Nope. So the three of you will all get in the first round, you'll get three extra dice. In the second round, you'll get when I do it again, you'll get two extra dice. So to to bolster them, are you basically gonna go, now's a chance, get them? I mean, is there that gonna be that kind of thing and then just basically yeah, that kind of thing. Just it just give them the give them the war crime, basically hit a chord or what have you. Uh-huh. And and inspire them into act sort of for valor and hope that everyone is vaguely competent. Cass is the first person that can react, and Cass rushes one of the dwarves, swinging her uh short sword, which she does, she's happy to follow that. She gets one, two, three, four, five successes. Good girl. That's technically doing seven damage. Okay, yeah. She basically rushes forward and sticks her short sword straight in and under the dwarves arm, straight to the sort of like the soft part where the armor is less secure, and sticks her short sword into his armpit. He kind of like starts to sort of like spur a load of blood, goes down, something clearly inside hemorrhages. As Grey charges, Kabara don't shout. Grey, sec him. So that's if Grey's gonna do that. Grey will charge and her charge. Jack. You get an extra plus three dice. So that's plus four. Three, four, so plus four dice. I take it you're going after Dregwin. Yep. That's only one success. Do you want to push this? No, because then I'm dead again. Well, yeah, okay. Right. Well, you rush to poor old Dreg, who doesn't succeed in his armor role. One damage, you say? One measly piece of damage. He gets scratched by a rusty tip of my spear, and I hope he gets terrorists. Scratch him down the arm and he kind of like steps back. Okay, right. Anduin. I'll shout out to uh Baradon. Stop Anduin from bringing Mira back.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Well that happened already, no? I'm guessing I still.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Yeah, she's stay she stabilized, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

But she's still unconscious. I have no healing, I have nothing. Play your flute, that's what you're good at.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Okay. TikTok, tick tock, Tony.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Yeah. I don't know if uh Okay, fine. I I will take out my short bow and and shoot an arrow to the shield or the guy without the shields? The guy in the middle or or the one that's fighting grey. Uh without shield, I guess. Which one it is? The one with grey? So one in the middle is the one without the shield, and the one with the shield is fighting grey. So I'll go for that one. And I get two more die or three more die? You get three dice to add to your three successes.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Yes, Android. Three damage. Um, and we need to make a critical injury roll for him, see what happens to him. You shoot him in the throat and he dies horribly. You sever his artery. You make that square in the neck and uh he hits the floor. You've you've taken out exactly as many jugulars as Grey. Yeah, at that point, the guy with the the the shield basically takes a step back and goes, fuck. He's completely outmatched now, because there's more of you. And uh he sort of starts to sort of like beat a hasty retreat back. Grey, I guess you're the closest, so what do you want to do? Fuck him up. Go on then, stab him up. No more war cry, huh? Um actually no, the dot goes before you, so technically you can do another two. I think that's what he said. Yep, so I will fire the second or fire off the second war cry. That's fine. Which gives you another two dice. Plus two. So you get plus three for this attack as he's retreating. Hot of a bitch. Oh, do you want to push that? Yes. Go and then low. Yeah, there we go. There we go. Successes. Yeah. Which into the wall. Armour is rubbish today. Yeah. You basically you stab him as he sort of like goes to sees that you're coming towards him, he goes to move, and you catch him in the side, and you stick your um spear in his in his abdomen as it kind of like scratches down into sort of like his lower leg, and he hits the floor, and he basically lays there and goes as he puts his hands up. Do I get it? Do I do I get a critical? A critical. It goes into his leg, I think it was. Let me just do it. Let's see. It was a stab. I'm going to name my spear now long jinus. What did you do? Oh, I lie. It's a pierced eye. So yeah, you basically stash him down, but as you you bring the spear back and you stick it back into his face as he's going down, and his eye just pops, and you slash out the rest of it. He hits the floor and he kind of shakes and he goes still. They're all down, we're out of combat now. What about the guy who's looking around the corner? The guy who's looking at the roller goes, fuck. Puts his hands up. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He says, Who the fuck are you? He says, uh, I'm Brenner. That's supposed to mean something. Hey, look, they they kind of employed me to sort of find a way into this place. So I'm like, you know, you just got rid of my bosses, so hey, I'm without a boss. You do what you want. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. He says, um, alright, boss, I take it we won't bother about negotiating terms, right? I'm gonna drag Mira pipes by this is I think this is going to be pro bono work, isn't it? Uh yeah, that seems fair fair enough to me. Yeah, you drag Mira, basically. Mira's still alive, Jack. Mira and Nella are both still alive, aren't they? They are indeed. They're both unconscious. You will I will and I will ask Cass's help and we will put Nella in we'll put Nella in the crate and we'll nail the we'll nail the door, we'll nail the uh we'll nail the lid on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that's not a problem. You basically basically stick her in the crate while you're doing that. Alright. So you basically drag Mira as you kind of go in into the other room. You can see Bruna is just looking at you, kind of going, Hi boss, how are you? Get us to where we want to go. What would you like? Wherever the fuck they were going. Up here. And you basically says, um, we just as you guys were like coming in, we just managed to get through, and there's a door at the top of the off the room. Open it. Okay, he says. He kind of like goes to the door and opens it. Says, uh, I believe it's uh the resting chamber of off Style. Veradon, this is your gig. I'll go and check it out. It's again another one of these these circular rooms. There's no other entrance or exits out of there. There is a black granite sarcophagus towards the other side of the room, which kind of seems like it's carved into the walls. It's etched with interlocking runes that seem to sort of like shift in your sort of torchlight. You can see a picture of the Dwarf on the front, well, a carved uh relief of a dwarf. Underneath, you can see that it says, you know this now, Brutung and the family crest. This appears to be the crypt of Stein Brutung. There's, as you sort of like see, on top of the sarcophagus, there is rusted chalices, braided beards with of gold filament and a bunch of shattered oath rings, liberally decorated across the um thing, almost like it's a shrine. Does there look like there's a scroll case or anything? There is not a scroll case, but there does appear to be someone scratched into the uh into the side of the sarcophagus. Just just, you know, for any archaeologist, this would just be terrible. What was once, what was sung once, whines twice. What was broken, echoes. Looking around, is there anything else? There's no nothing, no bookshelves or as you sort of look around, you can see that the room is very much the same as a lot of the others, except it appears that water has not managed to get to this room. So there is the reliefs and stuff make more sense than the others. You can see there is a relief on the murals uh which show multiple dwarves, what look like uh I guess they're dressed, well, I guess they look like choirists, I suppose, singing, and there's notes coming out from the uh from from the people that are depicted. Their mouths are open, but all their eyes are hollow. One mural which looks very much like Bru Tung, as if he's sort of like mid-transformation. Looking at the notes that are being sung, do they correspond with the ones on the door to the other two? Yes. Uh-huh. In that case, the brass rubbing comes out. Do we want to open the sarcophagus? We came on the way here. I have Mira's body. I have dragged her in here with us. Okay. She's not dead. I know. She's unconscious. Oh no. Oh no. Okay. Please don't tell me that Grey's going to put Mira in with Stein and then steal her back in. It's like you've read his mind. Okay. You you go to the you're gonna open up the sarcophagus? Yes. We are we are the worst kind of murder ever. All add a can you all roll make a strong roll? Or if you've got might, you can use might. I've no might. What's a strong roll? Is that strength? It's just strength, sorry, strength. Click where it says strength on the character sheet. If you don't have might or tick might and it'll do it for you anyway. I think. Let's have a look. Is it gonna be uh cast cast the rescue? Three successes. How many successors do you guys have? Just the one from Beridon? Okay, that's fine. So you both do the heavy lifting and the sarcophagus lid comes off, scattering all the chalices and all the rings and everything else. One ring falls to the floor, which does not look like it's damaged. My precious and there's a clunk noise as the top of the sarcophagus falls to the floor. You can see a dwarf in what looks like plate mail armor wearing a sort of elaborate headpiece, and where the armor is clutched over its chest, there is a scroll. I will reach in very, very gingerly to try not to disturb anything else. I would very much like you to make a roll for me. That role would be sleight of hand. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

So for those of you without sight of Veradon's uh You know that you can use you have the talent, the adaptive human. You could use it.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

I do I do actually have adaptive human. I can. Do you have any willpower points left? I've got no because I've I've spent them all on the on the water. So make your roll for me, please. Come on, Veradon. I have still got standard my standard agility role, and I'm gonna post that. I'm gonna push it or not. You can push it, yep. Come on, Veradon. There we go. What success? You very gingerly take out the scroll from the hands. And indeed, you now have a lost scroll, or at least you appear to have. I will unroll it and look at it. You unroll it and look at it. As you unroll it, the glyphs start to shimmer like a whitish blue color, and the runes start to appear. You don't read Dwarven, but somehow this artifact allows you to actually read it. As you look at it quite intently, you realize that this indeed is your goal. This is the scroll that you were looking for. This is it, guys. The scroll of the deep wood echo. Good, let's get out of here. I put mirror into the sarcophagus. Throw her into the sarcophagus. I want to like make sure she I want to like, I don't know, can I try to wake her up? She is unconscious, she can be unconscious for hours. Unconscious for hours. I'm gonna I'm gonna bring some of the gold with us as well. Alright. I throw her into the sarcophagus, put the lid back on top, find the heaviest rock I could pick up and put it on top of the lid. I am not going to aid in the tombing of Mirab. I'm actually not gonna be I'm gonna I'm gonna get plausible deniability by going and looking at some really interesting inscriptions in the other room whilst all this is happening. What's Angelo gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Well, let's say I was outside the door because you're like, I don't really want to get involved in this.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

Okay. You have the scroll of Depot Decos? Marker, did you say you picked up the ring? I just made a one ring joke. I said my precious. But yes, I did pick up the ring. Okay, you have Stein's Sickle Ring. Okay. Are you going to search the robbers' equipment and gear and stuff, or are you just kind of like, now you've got it, you're gonna go and leave, or are you gonna do anything else while you're here? I will take Grey and suggest we go and rob the robbers. Nudging and and I'll try and gesture to Cass and to get that bloody sarcophagus back open. Why would I want to rob the robbers? Does they have cool stuff? I don't need cool stuff. I have done what I needed to do. I have avenged those who wronged us. In that case, what what do what do they have? Do they have anything of note? If you're gonna spend a bit of time basically looting them, they have gear, they've got money, they've got a bunch of equipment, they have a whole load of digging equipment, and they've got their own personal equipment, which you I'm happy for you to sort of like take small items and stuff. I assume you're not gonna like loot the dwarves from their like armor and stuff and carry all that, but anything that's easily carriable, like coins, silver, that kind of thing, feel free. If you want to take a half of the rings that are broken and damaged, you can do that to kind of like satisfy your need for wealth. What you do find is a ledger that's been written by Garrick Pike, who is the the oldest brother of the three of it appears Garrick, Thorn and Mirror. And it appears that there is a connection between this place and the actual place that you were looking for, which is what you heard about, which is the vault. The Echo Vault. This is not the Echo Vault, this is indeed the crypt of Stein Bruton. But it appears that in the Shrouded Forest, there is a map in the ledger which leads to that, and it looks like there's a large question mark, and that is towards the center of the um of the shroud forest in the mountains nearby. But having taken your stuff, I take it Grey, you're gonna like leave, then as Grey leaves, you're all gonna like get mirror out, leave her there, and then no Grey, Gray's not leaving them behind. Okay, he doesn't trust these fuckies, these fuckers. Well, in that case, as you're sort of like mopping up, trying to figure out what to do next, there's a tense moment, and who knows what might happen, because maybe we'll have that for a second season. Because I think that seems like a good enough place for us to leave and figure out in your minds, or maybe in our minds, what happens to the Fog Vandals Club. It started off all nice and happy and lovely, it ended up in brutal murder. Who knows what the next season might look like? Maybe we'll go back to being very happy and friendly. I do believe the words from an all from a film Me? I'm the bad guy. Really? I think in that space, that will round up our small but interesting little side quest into the Forgotten Lands, or Forbidden Lands, I should say. And we'll kind of figure out if we do this again. I mean, we could take it up from there. Who knows where that might go? But hopefully you enjoyed our little sojourn in into the Ravenlands. It seemed nice and friendly, but it ended not so much. Um wanted to say thanks to you guys for for bringing something very different. It's not quite what I expected of the Forbidden Lands, but definitely kept me very amused throughout the whole of it.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Oh, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Yeah, so thank you very much. If there's anything you guys like to say, feel free. Thank you for a wonderful first season and for being wonderful bandmates. Don't touch that dwarf. Marcus, still in character. Thank you very much. It was fun. It's like shaking his head, like, oh my goodness. Tony is reconsidering our friendship. He's gonna jump ship to some other some other slightly less psychopathic podcast.