SPEAKER_05 0:05

This is the Fellowship of the North, an actual play of the one ring 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. Hello everyone, and welcome to Stories with Dice. We're playing the One Ring from Free League, and this is Episode 6, The Flooded Chamber. But before we begin, I want to address a few things. First, I've given the interrogation scene some thought and come to this conclusion. Punching a prisoner to get them to talk should be considered cruelty and domination. Using the methods of the shadow risk corrupting the character's spirit, so I should have ruled it as a misdeed. After discussing this with the players, I have retroactively given Berenwin two shadow points for that action. This is not to dissuade her or anyone else from exploring actions that might lead them down the path of shadow corruption if that is something they want to explore. I also want to clarify first aid. When Ed asked me if first aid reduced the severity of a wound, I said no, and that was a mistake. First aid does reduce the number of days it takes for the wound to mend, so his wound will now heal in one day instead of two. And finally, in the previous session, I mistakenly called the sarcophagi sepulchres, a late-night slip born of a sleepy brain. For clarity, sarcophagi are stone coffins, sepulchres are burial balls. Our previous session ended with the fellowship in a flooded burial chamber. Stone sarcophagi stood in the murky water, their carved lids just breaking the surface. Some remained whole, while others were cracked or missing. Across the hall, a figure darted into a shadowed passage. Idanian and Branwyn leapt onto two of the stone coffins while Halburn waded into the water. Three undead soldiers rose to attack him. Assel remained on the stairs leading to the submerged part of the chamber. Our tale resumes as a distant crash of falling stone echoes from a dark corridor and the floodwater begins to rise, steadily filling the chamber. Halburn stands waist deep in the water, surrounded as three undead soldiers advance toward him. But the danger is far from spent. The water heaves once more, and five additional corpses push their way up from the black depths, glistening as they wade toward you with grim purpose. So you will collectively need six successes to cross the chamber. It's a laborious task, leaping from stone coffin to stone coffin, or forcing your way through the rising waters. Each of you will roll athletics, whether for jumping and keeping your footing on the wet stone or for wading through the water to stay ahead of the undead creatures. If you get collectively six successes, you've reached the other side unscathed. If you fail to get six successes collectively, you still make it across, but the undead will have had a chance to swipe at you with their claws, and you may be damaged. They may also seize you and try to drown you. But we'll get to that if and when that happens to Ed. Yeah, that's a fair point. And you can also always accept to uh change your failure to a success with woe, and we'll get into that too as we move through. So woe is me. Off of the recording, Ed was mentioning he may want it he wanted to roll a lore to see if he knew anything about these undead creatures.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Yeah. Let me make a lore roll now then get that out of the way. Let's see how this goes for me today. It's a failure?

SPEAKER_05 4:26

Or is it a success? No, it's a failure. It's a failure. Yeah. So you don't know anything about these undead watery soldiers. If anyone else wants to make a roll before we a lore roll before we move on to your athletics test, we can do that.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

I forgot if I use my distinctive feature, I need to use hope, right? If I want to use it. Keep on forgetting this. Sorry. Okay. So I will just do a straight roll.

SPEAKER_05 4:49

We're off to a fantastic start. Yes. Tony rolled a lot of dice and got a failure. Alright. Ed, let's start with Halberin. Can you roll athletics, please? Remember, you can spend you can spend hope. You can invoke a distinctive feature to become inspired, which gives you two hope, two dice in your hope bonus instead of one.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

Which I think I'm going to do that. I think, I mean, one one of my distinctive features is bold. So I am just going to like, having seen where they've just risen from, my plan is, I mean, I could try and jump up on the sarcophagus and stuff, but I think that's going to be too tricky for me. I'm just, I've already got myself into the water, so I'm going to try, you know, when you kind of like wade as fast as you can, straight across, trying to avoid the other undead or dead soldiers. I can try and help you out. No, no, I think I'll just basically, I'm just going to really sort of like steam across. I kind of get the sense that if I get up, I'm going to probably fall over. And so I'm just going to like rush forward. I'm going to use bold and I'm going to spend a point of hope because that seems to be what I do all the time. Okay. And it's athletics. So let's make an athletics roll. I am going to use one hope. And I click on inspired. I think that's correct.

SPEAKER_05 6:04

Yeah, that's correct.

SPEAKER_04 6:05

And I'm going to make a roll. Let's see how this goes. Fingers crossed, I break this curse of mine. Let's go, Ed. Oh, oh.

SPEAKER_05 6:15

It's a great success. Great success. So that actually gives you two successes toward the six that you need. Whew! Thank goodness. And once once we've done these rolls, then you can all sort of narrate moving across to the other side. Baranwin.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Alright. I think I too might use a distinctive feature. Because I'm tall, I'm able to jump longer distances, theoretically. Yeah, yeah? You gonna accept that? I'm gonna accept that, yes. Alright, so I am going to I mean it's a conversation, right?

SPEAKER_06 6:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

I offer something up, and you are the the arbiter if you want to go with it or not. Skillroll.

SPEAKER_05 7:03

A great success. Two more successes towards your six.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Sweet deal. I Danian. So I think I'm gonna use my I'm gonna spend hope and use my uh distinct feature Kenite because you know I'm jumping between sarcophagy and you know, I need to be checking where I land in.

SPEAKER_05 7:25

So yes, these are great creative uses of your distinctive features. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah, so I will use my uh so I need to click on hope, and then I'm inspire because I'm using my distinctive feature. Is that right? Correct. Anything else I need to do? It's no okay, perfect. So I'm rolling for that. There you go, please. Oh, he rolled an eye! Oh is this is is just so annoying.

SPEAKER_05 7:54

The eye awareness is now ten. He's rolled an eye, he has failed.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

One question. What happens when are we are we gonna get Sauron coming here? When it gets to a certain certain threshold? What happens?

SPEAKER_05 8:10

Not the actual not the actual Dark Lord, no. Now let me ask you, Tony, do you want to have a success with Woe? Whoa. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

Okay, so let me see. Marco, just just asking, because it's uh it's a group task role, does that mean we all get the woe, or does only Tony get the woe?

SPEAKER_05 8:36

Only Tony gets the woe. It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

I can't take it.

SPEAKER_05 8:40

So you can accept this or not, but if you want to have just a regular success, which would put you at five successes as a group, I'll do it. You you will drop your long sword in the water. That's fine. So you've lost your long sword. I've marked it as dropped on your character sheet.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Ed has a second one he can money. Assole. Alright, we need to pump up asshole.

SPEAKER_05 9:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Your rolls are going to be great this time.

SPEAKER_05 9:08

This is gonna be tough, asshole. You're you're weary. You need one more success from you.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Our fate hinges on you. No pressure. If you're gonna be successful in a role at any time, this is it.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Right. So you are you are you spending hope? Yep, spending hope. That I've clicked expired. Because I'm using my swiftness, digging deep. There you go.

SPEAKER_05 9:37

Everyone is laughing because he also rolled an eye.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

It's like we're splashing in the water to try and attract the uh Dark Lord's attention.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

I think it was right in thinking, Marco. That the majority of the eye awareness has come from Pete, correct?

SPEAKER_05 9:51

Uh you I think it's come from you and Pete. Me and Pete? If I'm remembering. Okay. So now, Pete, do you want to uh turn that failure into a success with woe? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Survival depends on it, I think.

SPEAKER_05 10:08

Yeah. I'm gonna say. So so next you guys are just gonna sort of give us a narration of of how you how the of the difficult crossing to the other side of the chamber. For uh for Assole, you're gonna lose your leather shirt. So one of those creatures tries to grab at some point, maybe you lose your footing or something. One of those creatures sort of grabs a hold of you, but you wrench yourself free and it just rips your leather shirt. And and the the undead soldier is is left with holding the a torn half of your leather shirt. So you have no armor. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 10:47

Pete, maybe maybe as you were kind of crossing with me, they went to go grab you, and then I pulled you up as as you were kind of getting out, and that's where you kind of like got torn and ripped, and we kind of had a bit of a tug of war, maybe, on the other side, just as we've kind of got out. That might make sense. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

So as I'm on the first sarcophagi, I get an eye on the next one that I want to jump to. So I start running and I use the steel cap with a spike on the end of my axe to dig into the edge and kind of like pole vault across the water. Almost slipping in the water, but due to my tall stature, I was able to get footing on the edge and continue my run across the second one onto the final platform that we're heading for.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

As an elf, I probably did the crossing like very gracefully, but somehow I've probably learned how to tighten my my long sword, you know, perhaps and I was thinking about something else, and you know, I jump on top of this guy and and I hit it with my long sword when uh passing by and just grab it and pull it down, but I managed to continue the jump graciously and you know land it on the other side and then jump it again to the you know next to these guys, and that's it.

SPEAKER_05 12:07

But the guy's like, yeah, so the yeah, the the the the undead soldier is like holding out and it's it's in the sheath too. He doesn't even take it out, and he's just like starts starts hacking the air with this sheath long sort.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

I was gonna say, somewhere, somehow in another world. That took like an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_05 12:27

Yeah, and and one of you I think died. It was all a dream. It was all a dream, that's right. So for the folks at home, we actually ran this session last week, but we had connectivity issues where Ed's audio was missing for like 60% of the episode. So we've we've run through it again, and this time it it it happened, it went through beautifully, more or less. So you're you're on the other side of the of the chamber where the figure had darted into that passage, and you see that that passage is actually a staircase that climbs up. And so you you climb up the winding stone staircase, and you emerge onto the surface again. Uh there into a vast expanse of dense ruins. There's a sea of thick rolling mist all around you, the air is cold. Above you the moon hangs as a ghostly crescent, its pale light a sliver in the fog. The castle that once commanded this height lies cast down, raised to the ground by the wrath of the Witch King. Now only the scattered bones of its once majestic hall remain, along with a solitary tower rising defiantly from the ruin. At its broken peak, a cold blue light burns, crowning the tower like a star. A flight of wide, cracked steps leads up to the ruins of the hall. Its walls are scrawled with crude orcish graffiti, and over it all runs a thread of Elvish script. Hi Danny, can you read this?

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Let me try him. So I would use I guess lore.

SPEAKER_05 14:10

Uh well it's it's in Elvish, so you won't you don't you speak you speak Elvish, so you don't have a problem knowing what this says. It's it's written in the Black Speech. So the Black the Black Speech of Mordor doesn't really have its own language, so it uses the Elvish scripts. I'll definitely have a look at it. As you read it, you will have to make a wisdom test to avoid getting two shadow points. But this is what it says By your blood and by your crown, bound in shadow, no man may reveal. Let sorrow cling and circle round and feed the hunger of her grief. Her grief? Who is Oh wow, nice. An eye. Perfect. Perfect. The eye awareness is now twelve. So give yourself two shadow points. And I'm miserable. Okay, so that means when you roll an eye, you automatically fail your roll, no matter what the result of the die roll is.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

So do you read that out to us?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Yes. I read it loud. I mean, I'm just starting reading, and I tell you what, this is the tongue of Mordor. And I'm while I'm re you know, I read it aloud at the same time for everyone. And you see that my face changes like heck, you like something I don't feel well by reading this ugly tongue because it's it's it's still elvish, but disgusting somehow. The way it's it's set up and the way the grammar is or orthography, something bothers me, and you see it in my face how it changes.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Something darkens your mood. Are you okay?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

No. No, I'm not okay. Dark uh I feel a dark presence in here.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Oh, maybe we should try and make quick work of this place and get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Indeed. We should.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

Marco, I have a look at the place as I'm kind of like stepping forward. Okay. Do I uh remember any record of this or anything like that that I might have learnt about it? Or does this bring any bells as to what this place is or anything like that? Give me a laurel. I'm just gonna do a straight war. I'm not gonna use anything else. No. I was like, Yeah, you sleep.

SPEAKER_05 16:22

You were asleep during that class. Yeah, you you you don't you don't recall any ancient stories about about this place and the battle that took place here.

SPEAKER_04 16:33

Does it have like a kind of like unique look? Is it sort of like, is it Numenorian? Is it you know, is it dwarvish? Is it is it?

SPEAKER_05 16:41

No, it's it's from Arnor, so it's from the old Kingdom of Armor, Arnor, so yeah, Numenorian. So Arnor broke up into three smaller kingdoms, Arthodane, Cardalon, and Rudar, and then those eventually all fell to Angmar, to the Witch King. So at some point in that sort of long history of the collapse of the North Kingdom, there was this uh this fortification here on the hill, and then that town grew, sort of grew around it. That the you know when you were in those ruins earlier, but you don't really you don't really remember hearing any any stories or tales about it now. Anyone else?

SPEAKER_02 17:18

I think I'll just poke around a little bit and see see if there's anything of interest or notes.

SPEAKER_05 17:24

Okay. While you just like in t in the ruins, or are you sort of studying the the writing on the wall, or what is it exactly that you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 17:38

anything hidden underneath or any signs of people, persons, or things.

SPEAKER_05 17:44

Okay, so if you're looking for something in particular, you can give me a scan roll. If you're looking for enemies or or any other individuals around, you can make an as you can make an awareness roll.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

So you can decide We saw somebody going up or something like this, and we we there were two people also in the in the camp that we didn't find yet, right?

SPEAKER_04 18:05

There were two people that went in, weren't there? So the we know that two people went in, the other person ran up the stairs. So it should be three people kicking somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

So they should so it would be important, so I probably mentioned it to you if you're looking, like, ah, do you see any tracks?

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Yeah, I'll I'll do awareness to see if I can find any any evidence on them. And that's a no.

SPEAKER_05 18:24

Yeah, you don't find anything here, or no, you know, in the within these ruins, this ruined hall that would lead you to find anyone of interest. It's just broken stone, vegetation, old bones.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yeah, I see nothing here.

SPEAKER_05 18:42

And then suddenly you hear a sharp, terrified cry cutting through the misty air, and you whirl around toward the sound. It's on the other side of this wall. You're you can kind of just see it through a break in the wall. About away, close to the tower. You see that figure that went up the stairs, a South Ron, standing in the fog, face to face with the ghost of the lady that you had seen wandering that night in the ruins. And her flesh is almost like a veil of smoke, and her eyes are glowing like the embers of a campfire. And thin strands of white hair slip from beneath her hood and drifts on the chill wind, and in her hands she's holding a long pitted sword. Sabian, she hisses, why have you come? And the South Ron falters. His eyes are darting over the ruins, and you can tell that he's terrified. I I I bring an elf for the Dark Whisperer, he stammers. I am no servant of Morlos, she says, and neither are you. What game are you playing? R Remember his promise to us both, Sabian says. There's there's still time for for you to claim the elf. The one the one who escaped. I I have trapped him below in the flooded chamber. She lets out a terrible keening wail. Sabian, you fool, have you forgotten what I told you? There is nothing here but death and she plunges her sword into his chest and he crumples to the ground. Then she turns her hollow gaze toward the tower. My lord, soon our long torment will come to an end. And then she moves toward a set of stairs and moves out of sight, going down. Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

All Sayas? Yes. I tell you, could that be the victim of that awful c curse? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

We'll have to see. I will probably move uh to the other side carefully to see what happened with this, you know.

SPEAKER_05 21:02

Yeah, he's he has a a wound in his chest from a sword. And he's right through his heart. I mean he's he died fairly quickly.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Can I check if this is like a regular sword or if this is something different? Because you know, I know of the let's say uh probably I know that if if is this sword was from the un unseen or from the from the dark art. Yes, it's not like a mortal blade or anything like that, yeah. Yeah, that's a question. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

Yeah, I'll kind of like make my way down the rubble, keeping an eye out for the other two that might be around. I've sheathed my sword, but I've got my bow out. Just in case I see anyone else.

SPEAKER_05 21:50

Okay. You want to make uh make an awareness check? Sure. Ooh, an automatic success. Beyond the ruins of this hall rises the tower, and And the Sabian and the ghost of the lady were close to the base of the tower, but you just have to walk uh you know a little bit of a short distance to get to the to the base of the tower. And you spotted two dead bodies by the broken door to the tower. Where everything else has been raised to the ground, this tower appears forged of perhaps tougher stone. It's you see its highest floor is damaged, and jagged stone and splinted timber claw at the clouds, forming sort of like a ruinous hand. And at the base of the tower, there's a mound of rubble and those two dead bodies. The door has been ripped from its hinges, and stones and broken beams lay tangled among the weeds where these two dead bodies are. And you also see a battered chest, like it might have fallen out of the tower. And its iron bindings are twisted and scarred, and the wood is cracked and splintered where it tumbled from a great height, and in the gloom, dozens of tiny points of light are winking and shimmering among the broken stone and splintered timber, like fallen stars among the rubble.

SPEAKER_04 23:16

I um I whistle low towards Assel, who's near me, kind of catch his eye and kind of point in that direction. So like say, two bodies on the floor, cover me. Yep. And I'll kind of make my way towards the base of the tower, and I will switch from my boat by sword as I make my way towards the base of the tower.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

I will follow him. This just to be clear, because we I remember that we were on this mountainous thing, and so we went down and then we came up. So do we see all this area that we were before this forest, or are we more within the mountain yellow?

SPEAKER_05 23:56

You're above that area. So you can you can see below this this cliff face, that whole area. Yeah. Okay, interesting. Okay, so Halbrin, you ASL is covering you, you've gone to the to the base of the tower where the bodies are and the and the broken chest and the and the broken door. What are you doing? You so the bodies are those two South Rons. They uh also have wounds in their chests.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

I just want to make sure they're not gonna suddenly get up and do anything. So I'm a little bit kind of like sort of a little bit wary as to whether or not I'm, you know, they're gonna actually come alive again. But yeah, I'll kind of Calbrand pointing them with the sword. Yay, it really matters. It's kind of what's happening. I'm gonna get in closer and then I'll kind of like kick their boot and prepare to like stab them in the face if that's the case.

SPEAKER_05 24:49

And now that you're now that you're here, close to these bodies, you can see that that those tiny points of light that was sort of twinkling is good it's gold. Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

Um look around and kind of like throw a glance towards, I guess, Baranwin and say, Gold.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

It's tempting, but we should probably keep our loads light for heading into the tower. Maybe when we're done here we can come back and take a closer look. And with that, I'm gonna move towards the chest and break the the lock. Link is the open.

SPEAKER_05 25:29

Oh, it's already been broken. Oh, so it opens with no issues? The chest is the chest was is broke had broken in the fall, so it's and all the gold spilled out and everything else.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Well, so that was in there.

SPEAKER_05 25:40

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

unknown 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:44

There may have been other things in there. I don't I don't know. Check for anything useful.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Alright. I will check for anything useful.

SPEAKER_05 25:53

Would you like to make a scan roll for me, please?

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Yeah, but it probably won't end well. I don't think my scan's that great. I got one. Would you like to spend hope? Not really. Okay. Do I want to spend hope on this? What is my justification for spending hope on this? Do I believe that there would be something here that can help us? Oops lucky that there's something in that. Like Branwin's not a very sorceress character. Like, she doesn't really meddle in that kind of stuff. She does she kind of shies away from it. Like herbal healing, like nature healing and magic and that kind of stuff, sure, but not this, so I'm not spending a point of hope. Actually, actually, you know what?

SPEAKER_05 26:37

Don't roll scan. Just roll one feet die.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Alright, let's see how I do this. Manual die roll. Okay, normal, number of die, none. I'm hoping that this does feet the roll, not savored or anything, right? Okay, let's see if this works.

SPEAKER_05 26:54

You don't find anything. So essentially these are at this point, you're the rolling the feet die, you're looking for an enchanted item. So if you roll a Gandalf, you found one, if you rolled an eye, you found one that was cursed.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Just trying to see, you know, what is this tower? You know, I'm kind of interested in in lore in ancient artifact or ancient knowledge. So my character, yeah, I don't care about what they called or anything, I don't care about what is this tower about, what contained in the past, why it's important, why it could be important, or why the Dark Lord or the agents of the Dark Lord were around. This is what interests Aiden.

SPEAKER_05 27:35

Yeah, so I mean you know that this tower it was part of the castle, part of the fortifications. It was built by the men of Arnor, so the the descendants of Numenor, and it fell when the Witch King of Angmar uh attacked.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Side question. Is Idenion interested in replacing his sword that he dropped?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

If you're thinking of these two guys that are there, they will not take their sword.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

No, I'm still got my bow drawn and keeping an overwatch on everybody.

SPEAKER_05 28:11

Okay. And Halburn?

SPEAKER_04 28:13

Yeah, I guess I'll um if if Burnwin's kind of looked in and not seen anything, I'll just make sure I kick open whatever's left of the chest. Just just on the off chance there is something else that's kicking in there. But other than that, no.

SPEAKER_05 28:28

Wanna roll a feet die for me? I'll gonna roll a feet die for you.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Bong and off.

SPEAKER_05 28:35

See what happens. So you you you kick it, and the only thing that you hear is like this the sound of like a like of a flask or something sort of tumbling into the tumbling down by your feet. And it's uh it's a a silver flask. Yeah, I'll pick it up. It has some liquid in it. Okay. And there's on on I Daniel, you notice that the flask is of elvish make. There is a mark on it that says that it is from Rivendell.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Well, this is anything else? Can I gather what is this? Yeah, it was useful.

SPEAKER_05 29:14

You take the the the top off, you give it a in you know, you inspect it. This is Miravor. It's a cord the cordial of Imladrus. So those who partake in it will recover all lost endurance. It will also cancel accumulated fatigue, and it will reduce the number of days required for a wound to heal by one.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

We'll give it to Asal and tell uh I will tell him, look, take this. We are lucky to have found this. This liquid, it's a well-known curative from Drivendel. Enjoy it. It will make you feel better. Well, if you sure.

SPEAKER_05 29:52

Right, I'll neck it. And so there's only enough left in the flask for two people to to drink from it. So, asshole, you your wound has I think your wound heals in two days, right? Yep. Now it heals by in one day. You've remove all your accumulated fatigue, recover all your lost endurance, and you are no longer weary.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

And then if there is extra, we'll probably give it to Alboran. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 30:17

Yeah, there's there's enough for one more person. So Malburn, if you partake.

SPEAKER_04 30:21

I do not. I'm going to uh put the uh the flask in my pocket because I don't need it right now. You're wounded. I am wounded. If you get wounded again, you will die. Yeah, but I'm still gonna be wounded even if I take it, because there's only one day, so it's not gonna make any difference, right? So What do you mean? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 30:40

It will reduce the wound by one, so that means it goes from one one day to zero. So I'll actually lose the wound. Correct. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:51

In that case, sure, I'll drink it.

SPEAKER_05 30:54

Okay, so you can remove all accumulated fatigue, recover all lost endurance, remove the wound.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

You know when you play a video game and there's like health stuff lying around and you go look at it and use it, and then you're thinking to yourself, ah shit.

SPEAKER_05 31:08

So it looks like our Danian has just stepped into the tower.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah, what I'm wondering is like, why is there this meter bore laying around here? Does this mean that there were elves around? This is what I'm wondering at this moment.

SPEAKER_05 31:23

You you s you step into that first chamber, the air is heavy and thick, you smell rot and dust, the walls are cracked, the floor is littered with rubble and scattered skeletal remains, and through uh this doorway in front of you, you catch the glimpse of a of another chamber just beyond.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Yeah, I'd go in and I'll follow behind. I'm looking if I see any traces of elves or any anything else.

SPEAKER_05 31:57

You don't, no. So that second chamber, it's larger, dominated by a spiral staircase in the corner that rises from the floor. Its iron railing is warped and rusted. Crumbled stone and broken beams litter the floor, and you can see skeletal hands jutting up from the rubble, from underneath, like from out of the rubble, as if clawing toward the light, as if they were buried alive and they had tried to free themselves. Is there any way to go up or any other? Yeah, so there's that staircase in the corner, and then there's another doorway to your left. Wait, to my left. So this chamber is narrow. Fallen pillars lean against the walls, and the floor is slick with damp. You see faded scorch marks on the stone remnants of some long past fire, and a single fractured window lets in a sliver of of light. And in the center of this narrow chamber is a low stone pedestal, and it holds in a recessed niche a clay jar. No markings or anything? It has the markings of the steward of the castle. So a man of Arnor. Is it closed?

SPEAKER_00 33:16

It is, it's sealed, so you can open it if you want. Can I gather way what is this about? Is this like a like an urn and the ashes of this person might be inside or anything else?

SPEAKER_05 33:28

No, you you know that the that the steward who recorded sort of the a record of events would would leave the parchment in a sealed clay jar to protect it from the elements.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

In that case I will take it, because it's something that interests me, like uh not recover lost knowledge, but I will not open the girl. I will just put it very carefully in my backpack to try to conserve the parchment as well as possible. This is not the place to analyze this information. I just you can see my greedy eyes taking this in, you know, like if I found really the most you know, the most the biggest richness possible. This is for me like gold.

SPEAKER_05 34:12

Are the rest of you I know that Halbrin went into the tower, but are the rest of you in the tower?

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_05 34:19

Okay. Yeah, I'll follow in last.

SPEAKER_04 34:21

And so now what do you do? If Daniel went left, I guess I'm gonna go right. To the stairs? You're gonna take the stairs? Uh so I look at the stairs. Uh I take it there like a uh another set of routes, like say spiral stairs. Spiral stairs going up. Spiral stairs going up, yep. Okay. I'll kind of have a look briefly just at the bottom of the stairs and look at the stairway itself. How how how how many people can get across it? It's like two people standing, or is it?

SPEAKER_05 34:51

Yeah, it's two people standing, the staircase looks to be intact. Uh-huh. In good it's in decent condition. So, yeah, two abreast can go up.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Cool. I'll I'll I'll sheath my sword and use my spear ahead of me so that I've got a bit of distance from whoever or whatever's up there, and I'll just kind of like step onto the base of the stairs, looking back, waiting for the rest of them to kind of follow.

SPEAKER_05 35:16

Okay, and as you do that, you hear the echo of the lady shrieking and wailing somewhere in the distance.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Okay, so just to be clear, these stairs go up and not down, right? Correct. Because I think you said that she went down when she went inside.

SPEAKER_05 35:33

Correct. She didn't go into the tower, she just took a set of stairs down to the underground portion of the ruins where you had been. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

I think I'll be right behind Halbern. Axe in axe in hand. You're climbing up?

SPEAKER_04 35:54

I'll wait for the others to get behind me. I'll I'll assume sort of like Assel will kind of like touch me on the back or movers behind me to say that they're there, and then I'll wait.

SPEAKER_05 36:04

So you go up the stairs once you've collected everyone. There's broken furniture and scattered debris strewn around this small chamber. Everything is everything is decayed and sort of mildewy. There are faded tapestries on the walls, tattered and moth-eaten. Whatever they once depicted is long lost memory. There's nothing here. But the air grows colder and the shadows seem to deepen.

SPEAKER_04 36:35

I'll kind of like kick things around the room if there's anything sort of you know, if there's any detritus or anything on the floor, a little rubble or anything like that. But if there's nothing of any kind of like note, like nothing that tells me anything, then I'll just wait for the rest to kind of catch up.

SPEAKER_05 36:50

Yep, they've all caught up to you, and yeah, there's nothing of note here at all. Yeah, we'll check the tapestries, just if I can gather more lore or more understanding of Yeah, those tapestries are are so badly damaged by time in the elements that you you glean nothing from them.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

The only way is forward, up, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 37:12

Yep, I go back to the front of the stair the front of everyone and get the old spear out ready and make my way up the stairs again.

SPEAKER_05 37:20

Okay, so then this chamber gets narrower, so as you're going up, the the chambers are getting s narrower and narrower. The walls feel like they're pressing in on you. There's dust and ash all over the floor on the third f on the third floor of the tower, and the smell of decay is even stronger here. You see a few skeletal remains slumped in the corners, there's a light from above that's faint and filtering down through cracks in the stone ceiling. I Danyan, you find an elven clasp that would like hold a like a cloak or something, just sort of lying, catching a bit of that light that's filtering down.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

May as well recover it, and I will tell I'll probably say on after Halboran. And so I will tell Kim the elves over here. We are getting closer.

SPEAKER_05 38:13

And you hear again that wail, and now it's starting to get closer, the keening wail of the lady.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

She's back! Hassel, you still behind us? I I really wouldn't I really wouldn't want that woman coming back up behind us.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

That's probably ahead of us. I mean, the wail comes from upstairs, right? No, it's coming from outside. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

Yeah. What about the light coming through the cracks? What does that seem to be from?

SPEAKER_04 38:42

Whatever's on top of the tower, because remember there was that light coming from the tower, right? Star in the mist. Is the um yeah, is the it's still really kind of like getting narrower and narrower as we're going up. Yes. I'll switch from my spear to my sword because I realize I'm not gonna be able to do anything with it. Okay. And I look at Buranwin.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

She's got like a double-handed axe, hasn't she? It could be used as one-hand or two-hand. I typically use it one-handed with my buckler. But you switch to your sword from a spear, but if we're getting into a narrower place, your spear would be more ideal for forward thrusting. You won't have the room to be able to do a big slash. Just stabby stabby.

SPEAKER_04 39:23

Yeah, stabby stabby is where it's gonna be. Oh, I've got my knife as well, if necessary, but let's go. Only way but up. Ed, you seem nervous. I don't know what you mean. I mean, what could go possibly go wrong going up towers in the Lord of the Rings?

SPEAKER_05 39:39

I mean so the the you've reached the fourth floor, and it's more of the same debris, detritus, rubble. The air but the air here is even thicker, and there is this really horrible smell of death and rot and mildew. And and the the spiral staircase is getting tighter, coiling tighter as it goes up to up to the final floor. The the keening wail of the lady is now so loud that you imagine she must be at the base of the tower. Shit.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Whose idea was this to go up here? I think all of our is.

SPEAKER_05 40:20

I think it was yours, actually, no.

SPEAKER_04 40:24

Who listens to me, honestly? Okay, well, I'm I'm bold of heart, so uh I I'm although I'm still feeling sort of quite shaken by everything that's happened, I'm gonna I've still got some hope left. I think we can uh we can deal with whatever is up the top here. I'll make sure that the rest of my my companions are behind me though.

SPEAKER_05 40:51

Don't stop believing So you climb up this these the the staircase as it gets narrower and narrower into the top chamber, it opens to the sky, its ceiling long since collapsed, those jagged stone and splintered timbers are rising up like fingers, clutching at the clouds. The wind is howling up here through the through their open ruin. And here you see sitting on a on like a throne in the middle of the room, the mummified remains of a man. There's an iron crown nailed to his head, and a blue gem set within it that glows with an eerie light, a strange and dreadful beacon visible for leagues across the desolation around you.

SPEAKER_04 41:46

Well, I'm not gonna do anything until there's anyone else behind me.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Hey, Daniel is following closely. Does this mean anything to me? The crown, the jewel You recognize the jewel as being elf work.

SPEAKER_05 42:03

And the crown, it's not well made. No, it's it was it looks like it was probably made by orcs or something. It's it's it's a it's it's like like shaped together sort of in mockery of a of the crown of a of men, basically, right? So that's yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

So is the person that's on the sorry.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

No, probably we're gonna ask the same thing. Is this a human? Yeah. Or or can I gather if this is an elf or a human? Or a man, sorry, a man. A man, yep. A man. Can they make the connection with the kind of this person that gave us the sword? You know, I forgot the name or if and the woman, is this any connection? Yeah, thank you. Is there any connection that we can gather from or I kind of make it?

SPEAKER_05 42:57

Well, Beridor was a captain of the guard here, so he wouldn't have been like a lord. So no, there's no connection between those two.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

I'm thinking about because we thought that this wailing woman was kind of with Beridor, no, but Yeah, that was your yeah, you made that you made that assumption, yep. Exactly. So I'm wondering if because the woman is still around here.

SPEAKER_05 43:24

And she has said, My lord, my love will be together again. So and she looked, and the last time she said it, she was looking at the tower.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

So So we can think that yes, that it was not the other one that because I thought it was gonna be the captain, so I'm reasoning it's not the captain, it's this one here. So looking at this, can I think if somehow this person is cursed? I mean, I'm not cursed, but whatever they did to him makes him be kind of attached or connected to where he is, and that's why he cannot rest in peace? Can I make this assumption? Give me a riddle role. I have nothing, but I will roll nonetheless. Would you like to spend hope?

SPEAKER_05 44:13

No? No.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah. In any case, I don't I just speak loud when I'm thinking about this and trying to make the connection to also to to share these ideas I have with my companions and and to see if they see the connection or you know, trying to remember the writing that you saw on the wall.

SPEAKER_05 44:39

I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

I have a goldfish memory, so no, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_05 44:42

But but you have the memory of a gold. By your blood and by your crown bound in shadow no man may reveal. Let sorrow cling and circle round and feed the hunger of her grief. I'll put it in the chat so you guys can see it. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Thank you for those in need, that's me.

SPEAKER_03 45:08

So I'm the same today. So bound by the crown, and you said it this the crown appeared to be almost nailed onto the head.

SPEAKER_05 45:18

Yes. The crown is nailed to the to the man's head, yes. Guessing that's the cause of the curse. And so the woman's wailing, keening scream echoes up the spiral staircase.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Give me the elf, and you yet may live. Or join me in my torment.