Hi i'm Olma, Flynn, March, Ceallach, Shraya and i'm your DM Ethan welcome to Venture Forth

hi i'm kalec flynn and i'm your dm ethan welcome to

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ventureforth [Music]

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so [Music]

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previously you all had traveled south after meeting a curious dwarven man by the name of hayfreed

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after expelling some sort of demon out of flynn and trapping it into the body of a helpless sheep um you guys were

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able to imprison this in this empty void of nothingness that hayfried had created

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back in the day after this problem was solved you guys had decided that you guys need to keep

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moving on to oak inspire to find xavier and after offering a bit of a quicker

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way of travel you guys decided to move on by foot

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you guys had traveled down from marstock or up rather over the series of

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mountains that lay to the east and you guys crested over the top of those and began heading south

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hoping to meet up with the gulf of akanbandir and the town of dire hand

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that would afford you guys a ship to then move on to oak inspire as you guys traveled south you saw the

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two mountain ranges on either side of you converge into a narrow valley in

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front of you and at the base of this valley you guys saw a checkpoint

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some sort of passing way through these mountains but in order to to keep these travelers sort

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of in check caldor has set up this waypoint as you guys approach you guys decided on

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what to do you guys were going to be these traveling uh emissaries where kalec was going to uh try and

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talk his way through shrai had transformed into a wolf and as you guys approach even further you guys can just

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see at this checkpoint a cart being looked through

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and a few figures standing off at the side as you can see soldiers of calder beginning to raid

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this cart so as you guys are approaching what would you like to do

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um can i tell uh what they're searching the cart for is there something um

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does it look like they're looking for something in particular or is it a cursory inspection um i'm gonna have

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you guys are still a little ways away um not close enough to be

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really noticed by these guards yet so i'm gonna have you make a reception check for me

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that is 21. this is pretty good it's 21. it's pretty

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good no it's 22. oh either way

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yeah you can see that it doesn't look like there's really any aim to it um you can see a couple of

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crates in the back you can see a couple of bags that are now wide open you can't really spot exactly what's in it um but

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it doesn't it seems to be like they're just sort of searching through their stuff okay okay um i'm just gonna take a

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look at the the gang um kel don't you have like a a pin or

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something that we can wear um that may be which do we get it i think uh the the the way that uh

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we've used it for the the latter there is is adequate if i'm uh uh simply a

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clergyman i wouldn't have any kind of insignia uh for the military yeah yeah it's fair sorry

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my hand is kind of just resting on tri-wolf as i'm just like

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whatever whatever you think as they're talking i i go up to kayla and sort of

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jump up and like have my bus a little bit like come on

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[Music] get on my back legs again and i guess we'll approach this uh yeah as i'm

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laying there just like i'm the bodyguard well if you're the party guard shouldn't

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shouldn't you wear the pen no you i i don't think it's a good idea for any

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of us to suggest that we're part of cal doors okay yeah okay sure you see you're a subtle house what

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about me though what about me i could be fine all right you're studying you're

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studying under me and uh you're being uh taught to be a healer well maybe it's maybe it's my dad's pin

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okay how can i deny that look

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and i just take off toward the toward the checkpoint try it

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all right and uh as as you are uh running up you can see the the guards starting to put their hands up and uh

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one of them yells back to the group of you and and uh he says hey get control

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of your dad sorry sorry apologies lads try it try out boy come here and i just

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just stopped dead in the tracks just like get like leaning down the unruly pope

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hey if if you'll be good here there's trades for you later i promise right that's right and we'll go on a hunt

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maybe uh maybe a a a a sprint

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all right see you guys [Laughter] um you guys approach this checkpoint and

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uh at this point you can see the um the people who have the cart you can see

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them a lot closer now um it seems to be uh a family of half orcs um you can see

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they're dressed very simply um in these like dark navy

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sort of simple cloths um you can see a uh a male half work a little bit older

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in age and a little bit of gray starting to approach on his temples um you can see

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both of his tusks are are very pronounced and his hair is pulled back into a tight bun

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um you can see at this point he is kneeling down he's just trying to pick up what was thrown out of the cart by um

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these guards um you can see a

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female half work at this point too she's sort of standing off to the side and very similar um navy

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um just very simple cloth and you can all tell she is very pregnant um

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you can see her belly comes out quite a bit and holding her hand is a little half-orc

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girl um probably no older than three years old and you can see they're watching as

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presumably the father of the family is sort of cleaning up and and putting the cart back together

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you can hear one of the dwarven soldiers in um this uh this piecemeal armor

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he can say uh you guys are free to go back on your way

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um you guys are no longer welcome here and you can see the uh the father is

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sort of oh god he's trying he's like saying things under his breath you can't quite tell exactly what he's saying but he's putting things back on the cart and

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once he's done um you guys finally approach and they turn the cart around and start going in the opposite

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direction could we have discerned what from their cart had

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provoked this response um you see a lot of just like very simple you

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see um some like a crate full of corn you see um a couple of open

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bags of like wheat and you see a bag of apples you see a bag that's open that's got

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clothes coming out of it nothing that would spark any sort of raid like this was anything kept

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not that you can see no how far away are we you guys are now

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right at the checkpoint approaching and as you guys approach um the same dwarven

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guard puts his hand up to you guys and says stop what is your business uh hello there uh

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my name is kellick gray uh i'm a healer uh i'm uh traversing these lands uh

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spreading the goodwill and taking care of folks who need uh aid and i'm hoping to make my way to oak inspire

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uh with uh my group here that's good work you're doing um you

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have your papers uh yes uh one moment sorry and i will uh grab the paper off of

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flynn i'm imagining it it's crumpled under his arm or something yes uh right here sorry

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oh thank you um i am going to have you make a persuasion check for come on at advantage i

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okay sec advantage rules nice uh persuasion you say yes

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uh 18 18. okay um he looks through and he says oh

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all right um sir you are free to go thank you kindly

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and as he hands you back the paper you feel a slight tug on your robes nope

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and um the tug persists and soon enough you feel sort of a

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larger tug as you feel this this little girl was sort of

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tugging on your robes and her father came and picked her up and took her away and started walking back to the cart um

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and said this we're not welcome here we we have to go back i don't know why but we have to go back

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um as they're turning away i will um look to the guard in front of us and um

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if i'm waiting to trouble you what uh what prevented their entry into

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the countryside they don't have their papers in order they're undocumented for this region um

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they're welcome to go back home towards their uh their home wherever that may be but they're not allowed to pass through

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here right here you gotta have your paperwork hey

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uh um i'm just gonna look into shreya wolf's eyes

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i stare back with a kind of like confused expression as i

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turn my head to the side and start scratching my ear and then

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do it do i see him have this interaction with the with the okay yeah you will yeah okay so then i i look back i then

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and then i look back toward the family and then like [ __ ] my head to the side once more

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like waiting for like the full expression of this

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like new relationship we've formed as like master to dog

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i am waiting on you buddy i'm on the i am i in front of you kellich are behind you you're in front

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of me or that's how i listen okay um not seeing any of this elbow behind me um

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into kelly's ribs come on let go let's go come on

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uh i'm gonna cast one last look back to this family dm you

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cruel sick bastard do they look

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healthy make a medicine check oh boy

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[Laughter] uh little timmy's limping

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uh uh 24. they don't look hungry as they've got a bunch of food in the

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cart um the wife is very pregnant

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[Music] it and as you know coming from marstock it is

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a journey to get back to the closest civilization [Music]

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as a medical professional you would not advise giving birth in the wild

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oh god i'll uh peek um my eyes open as i notice that the horses

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aren't moving um okay like what's going on

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um nothing in me stomach's just troubling me can i after i open my eyes can i notice like that he's kind of like

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checking that family out and like looking at them and worried about them but i noticed that would i clean makeup

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perception or make an inside check at disadvantage disadvantage cause i'm tired

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oh that's a two uh so that's like really bad i don't know like five probably but yeah

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i can look but i'm pretty sure it's going to be dead yeah no need got a plus 15 to inside

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[Laughter] no you can't you can see he's looking at him but you can't tell what's going through his head um

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what do you what's wrong with them uh that's that's uh let's press on we have

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we have work to do yeah and i'll just move the horses through the checkpoint

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all right oh yeah let's start mine up and put my head back down on it and start falling asleep

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okay all right you guys make your way through the checkpoint

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you guys continue on walking south

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just do it kellic is just not i just am looking my my eyes have completely glazed over as we continue this

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since i'm in front of kellet can i feel him stiff like do i feel i'm stiffened or do i feel him like

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uncomfortable in any way um she'll probably feel you shifting i

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think so certainly the like the the normal sure-footedness that i would be moving this horse forward is now but

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the horse even is probably detecting that i am unsure and it's just like meandering

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yeah you did you got us through great job thank you oh my i just

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that woman could die what woman the mother

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back at the checkpoint oh

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why why why do you think she's gonna die

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i mean i can't know anything for sure but um it's a long road back to marstock

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and uh they're not traveling at the speed we are they're burdened

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with the cart and uh

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i'm gonna turn the horse around kelly kelly before you turn before you go we we we can't help them and it's not

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our fault that they didn't get it i can help them no you can't because i can help and i choose not to then i it's as

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good as killing them myself but we have things that we have to be doing what about xavier what if he dies because you

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turned around to help somebody else as as i know xavier isn't

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some form of stasis you don't know that though why was he taken to a new place after months you have no idea what could

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be happening here we're already on the path

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and we got through how do you know we're going to be able to get back through

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well they let me through once why couldn't i if i go back

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i i could just uh make sure they make it safely to

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somewhere that's the baby can be born and and that's all and then i'll come

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right back through the checkpoint calendar it's not your fault none of that is your fault it's just like when we it's just like when you decided with

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flynn to get off the boat and help at that big giant war and then flynn blew up a ship full of people

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okay that's not our mission we're not there for that and we're not here for this either it's not the same as a as an

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ill-begotten war oh my this is this is an act of altruism how do you know

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because it's [Music] about someone's safety

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it's not about your feet in a full the fall here is the elements you don't even know who that person is i

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know but i care about people i don't know but what about what we're already doing

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[Music] i can i'll walk back maybe you can no

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we have to stay together yeah turn my horse around too

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start heading that way the cat was gone then we stayed we don't even know we don't even know what we're doing and we

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don't know how long xavier's gonna be here my horse at this point is just like is not moving in any direction and if we

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miss if we miss out on on saving him and we don't know where he went then i'm never gonna find him again

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quick time check dm how long has it been since i've wild shaped into my little beastie friend little dire dire

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wolfie um you transformed pretty much it was like yeah at the

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beginning right it was right before um you guys approached so it's probably been about 10 minutes 10 minutes okay i

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feel like just keeping track of that you're probably gonna do it like trying wolf is doing is like looking back and

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forth between people um yeah i guess basically another question as we're sitting here

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arguing and um being indecisive what are the dwarfs doing are they noticing this are they

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picking up on it are they seeing this we've walked through the checkpoint yeah

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yeah i was imagining you guys have well cleared the check so is it kind of like a like a building or something or is it

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like i was assuming it was like an open area yeah so um the checkpoint that you guys walk through um the mountains sort

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of uh come into a valley on both sides of you um and then

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right resting up against each of those mountains is sort of like a tower and then a little gate in between both

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of those um so and as you guys were walking through you could see dwarves posted at either of these towers and um

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they had to um they had the gate open from when the the family had approached um so you guys were just able to walk

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right through so it's kind of um we're kind of like out of your shot and they don't seem to like a lot of people okay

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i mean let me just run over there and give them some gold or something

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will that help you can't barth a baby with gold fun what else can we do

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exactly i i can deliver a baby do we stay with them until that happens

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how long do you or a few months it's not going to be months from what i

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could tell but it is not the gestation period of a half-orc baby i don't know

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alma but all i have to do is just make sure that they're safe somewhere

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that's odd and then we'll come right back how far was the last town before we got

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to the outpost it's far right you guys were on horseback and it took you most of the day and their card again

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did it have a horse like did it look like it was struggling to be pulled um it did and from what you could tell the

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horse was definitely not like the horses that you guys are riding um the horse um looked maybe a little bit malnourished

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um not as like strong and and as much of a workhorse as the one that you guys are writing caleb if

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we gave them a better horse would that help their chances and some gold

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and some food they have plenty of food they have plenty of food

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we can't go with them we do have someone we need to help but i am agreeing that we need to do

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something i can give them this horse i can ride try it seem like he's okay with that

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what size

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to believably be able to be like like a larger like half wolf half dog basically

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so that it could be a convincing yeah dog pet yeah i mean conceivably that's the only thing

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i can think of i mean we can't stay with them i mean almost right we we have to get somewhere but i i understand that we

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should probably try and help them if we can all right uh let's see if we can get back through the

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checkpoint first um it'll be quick you don't know that let's just ask he's got a potion of talking good

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are you is that uh are you for this right okay try it

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bark once if you're for going back to help the family and twice if you'd rather proceed down

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the road toward or conspire oh come on try a simple instructions i

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think was it one hey that was like it was like it's like one and a half it was like a wine actually it wasn't really a

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bark try it go the direction you want to go and then i just

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sit down is he hungry

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i'm gonna jump off the horse and bring my face right up to try his

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face and put my hands on either side of his muzzle and look into his eyes and say

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can you even understand us and then i slowly nod

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so rude [Music] are you just upset because we're all

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fighting and then i nod even more slowly

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i slowly pet his muslim let's just go ask him see what they say see if the guards will

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let us back through alma i promise i won't we won't go any farther past the checkpoint just just just to where the

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family is and no further you can't help them get through the checkpoint i'm not going to do that

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i think flynn's right you know maybe we can give them faster transport something more stable

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and you know i i maybe i don't know maybe i can do something so

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that they're safer on the road i don't know just imagine if it was your mom or if it was i don't even know my mom so what are

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you even talking about imagine if it was someone you cared about wouldn't you you're all here and i am

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trying to help somebody i care about that's why i'm trying to get to xavier yeah so imagine if that was xavier wouldn't you go back and help him

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save your can take care of himself when he's not in a prison that takes away all of his magic

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let's go on

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i i don't want uh obsession

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i want us to be a team why do you have to help everyone why do you have to stop what we're doing all

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the time all of you

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because it's the right thing to do it doesn't involve us we have the power

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to help sometimes you just have to focus on yourself and not worry about people around you

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because you don't know who they are and they could hurt you

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give me this one

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it's not like i can stop you i know but i don't want to i don't want to do this anymore i want

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us to work together [Music] i can't do anything for them

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so i can't help you work together you're young and strong smart as a whip

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got lots to offer to anyone not them

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all right cheers all right well we get back up on the horse

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i'll walk with triumph fine

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go with him yeah all right you guys head back uh towards the crossing in the middle of these two

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mountains and as you guys approach um you can see the

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um dwarf who looked at your papers before and let you guys through um you can see him sort of

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resting on top of um one of these these two towers you can see him sort of leaning over um the banister that's on

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top there and as he sees you guys approach he yells down and he says hey did you

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forget something i uh you know it's a bit silly i

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i need a bag of ashes to to mark me arms so that people know uh who i represent

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and what i have to offer i left it back at our our uh campsite uh

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just just shy of the border here that's a shame um yeah hey let them through they're good to go

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i guess sir and they open up the gates and you guys are free to walk through

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um can we see the family uh on the horizon line here um yes actually

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you can just just barely see them off in the distance um the distance that it took you guys to walk and then double

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back um it seems that they've traveled about half that distance okay um

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we will gallop a piece and and uh catch up to them um do we wait for

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um oma and try to catch up and do we want to put oma on someone's horse or are we letting them stay at the outpost

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um i was assuming they were traveling with us oh yeah because she's moving quicker yeah

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well follow along but at our own pace affirmative grunt

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okay um as you guys approach this family um

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you can see the father is now he's don this this very wide brimmed hat

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and um it's it's just a very pale looks like um sun bleached and as you guys

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approach he brings the horse to a stop off um sort of on the side of the path

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he gets down off of the cart steps into the middle of the road and pulls out from behind his back a very small dagger

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oh no nothing like that sir uh greetings uh uh i'm calek

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uh i couldn't help but notice uh you're in a little bit of a bind here

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yeah what do you want about it i i just wanted to offer some assistance if we might yeah i don't know why you've been denied

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entry and i don't care honestly uh i i doubt i can offer you any way to get through

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but um i thought maybe we could offer you one of our horses

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uh so that you might make better time back to marstock so that your family can be safe

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and he looks at you very suspiciously and you're just doing this out of the kindness of your heart

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believe it or not [Music] make a persuasion check for me that advantage

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oh i needed it oh my god so much better literally a one

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oh my god petrifying uh 23. 23. um he looks at you and then he

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looks over at his his wife and daughter and he looks back at you and he looks over at his wife and daughter and he

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sheathes his knife behind his back and you sort of get that it's not

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necessarily out of trust for you but out of the necessity of the situation um and

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he says uh all right um yeah how how do you wanna help

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um i'll get off my horse um and i'll start taking off the stuff that

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is ours and i'll leave the stuff that they would need like the saddle and all that stuff and i'll start taking off

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that stuff and lead it towards their cart well you can have this one

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okay um i don't know if that's gonna do much good we were gonna actually

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leave the horse once we went up into the mountains are you not taking the cart with you

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we're gonna take as much as we can but we have to get to dire hand um and we saw a cave

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a little while back we're hoping that'll take us through the mountain um a little bit more of a direct route

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caves can be dangerous i don't i don't see we have much of a choice why do you have to get the dire hand we

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have family there can you not head back to marstock just for the just for the time being i don't know

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that we can make that journey back the journey here has already been difficult and he looks over at his wife who's like

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trying to like almost massage her legs

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but maybe with the stronger horse you could make the journey back to

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marstock i i i don't mean to

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insult you but just it's foolish to take this family of yours through the

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caves i'm gonna decide what's best for my family and we have decided

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that going to dire hands and delivering the baby there safely is our best course

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of action have try and i made it here now you are just approaching um are you still on

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your horse i am yeah caleb um i am going to walk up towards kelly's leg and tug

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on his robe just like the little girl did and say they don't want our help come on let's go

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if they want to have the baby in a risky place under a cave that's their choice

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well is there

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is there anything i could offer you to help you catch through the cave is there anything

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you can think that you might need i don't know what we're gonna

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see in the cave i don't know i can't predict that

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you all he looks sort of you guys up and down you well

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both of you as he looks to kellik and flynn look decently well equipped we've got

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about 11 gold pieces we could offer if you would like to come with us it

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would go directly to dire hand i know it's not much but

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we have safe passage through the checkpoint kellick do i know from our

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um from our study of the map prior to leaving what the

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time difference might be with a a cave through this

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certain doom mountain um looking at the map you

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from where he was describing the cave to be it would pretty much be a direct line through the mountain

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instead of traveling all the way south towards the gulf and then back up north

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so it's theoretically faster theoretically a shorter distance but obviously

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from this map you can't tell what the cave system looks like

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uh hold that thought yeah

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almost arms are crossed over her chest why do we do we vote what do we do

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one of us is a bloody dog he can understand us i think yes but he refuses to communicate

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not with me just with you i was talking about you uh

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the uh oh my

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the factor to consider here is it might might get us to xavier faster to go through this okay of theirs

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we don't know what's under there and you want to travel with a little girl and a pregnant woman

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do you remember what happened last time we were in a cave they were giant worms

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and they hurt us yes but we survived we triumphed yeah but we had one extra person helping us

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and we didn't have a child other than me or a pregnant

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woman um just to verify uh going through this cave is going to

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um go back the way we came or go forward through because my understanding is we're going back so we'd have to then go

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through this cave again to get back to the checkpoint we're going around the checkpoint by going we're going around the checkpoint by going through the cave

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they're trying to go to the same place we're trying to get so you guys are currently at the base of two mountains

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um from what he described there's there's sort of a cave just a little bit up north that would take you guys

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through the mountain tour directly towards dire hand um instead of

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traveling south and then coming all the way back up we are in between right now okay you guys are understanding so we're

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going to kind of go around and go down and kind of circumvent sorry and so we're going to go like around and so

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yeah what what you can see on the map this this direct route through the mountain will take us

34:55

around it would be a shorter route than this going around the mountain i mean it's on

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it's it's only going back guys it's going to go this same way we're going if we can help someone

35:07

[Music] what is that you guys see off in the distance just to

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the south towards the gulf of akanbandir a storm beginning to brew and some thunder

35:20

just beginning to make its way towards you [Music] caves are good for storms do you believe in all omens

35:28

why sometimes the world has a way of telling you

35:35

things when you're unsure of yourself that storm

35:40

that's what we could become how do you know the storm doesn't agree with me right sometimes i think you're the storm

35:50

but that would make you the daughter of the red wolf and that'd be confusing

35:56

i don't know who my dad is so maybe you don't know i guess i don't

36:02

um uh how you said there's a kid right how old does that kid look and it was

36:07

like a young girl a little girl um probably no older than three

36:13

[Music] i'm just having a staring contest with alma

36:18

alma's arms across and she's staring back i jaunt out toward the storm put my nose

36:23

up in the sky sniff around a little bit and then how oh [Music]

36:29

no one knows what you're saying you're worse than daddy is right now we never know what he's saying

36:35

that's true is he more or less ambiguous than before that's the question

36:41

uh he he's very concerned and looking in the direction of the storm and like ice

36:46

squinting and sniffing the air and then uh paw going over face

36:55

you don't want to get wet if we affirmative grant affirmative grunt

37:03

if we take this family throw the mountain toward the cave right we healed two wounds to one's half

37:09

it's it's not a it's a no-brainer to me

37:16

you don't even know what's down there we don't know anything about where we're going on well we know we can get through

37:22

a checkpoint and be safe above ground it's not 100 though especially with this storm rolling in we

37:28

don't know what's on the other side of that outpost it could be just as dangerous as this cave

37:34

and if we go to the cave route we're helping someone besides you don't want to get wet do you

37:40

i don't care about water

37:49

we'll be quick omar i don't like it

37:56

well you can say i told you so when we're all laden to death in the cave later i will okay

38:03

all right so hold your toes all right so it's decided we're helping kelly you want to do the honors

38:11

sure i don't also and i'll grab his um i don't really care about the gold oh no

38:18

don't worry clinton you're gonna fall asleep in like two seconds you're basically useless right now

38:23

what uh real quick dm i'm just gonna look over

38:29

this family make sure nobody's got any red wolf cloaks hanging out he's nice i just want to take a glance

38:35

at them no most of what they're wearing is in fact blue okay tremendous

38:40

the only red that you see on them are the apples that are in their car get rid of them

38:46

that's our one condition [Music]

38:52

well uh i know this seems suspicious sir but

38:58

i really do want to help and we're headed toward dire hand anyway so uh

39:03

we'll go with you and help you help you reach your destination safely and uh you can keep

39:09

your money that's not what we're here for

39:14

good samaritans then all right um if you want to follow us we'll

39:19

start heading up uh it's just up the mountain a little bit not too far um

39:25

could could i just just for one moment sure certainly i need sort of steps

39:32

and uh he extends his hand to shake your hand so they wanted to say thank you

39:38

[Music] my my pleasure uh my name's kellick i didn't catch

39:45

yours my name is orac all right well uh glad to meet you and uh

39:51

we'll door down just to keep you safe that's a vow and as soon as you clasp his hand to

39:58

shake he jerks and pulls you in close and wraps his hand around the back of your neck and pulls your head to the

40:04

side of his and whispers in your ear and if you do anything to hurt my family i

40:10

swear by the gods i will gut you all and then he lets you go

40:16

starts walking back over towards his family boy just you know spreading kindness

40:22

just just warms the heart it seemed like it went well as i'm pulling the horse back yeah oh yeah we're the best of friends now me

40:29

and eric well maybe you can move in with him um side note um what are we gonna do with

40:35

our horses does it look does it look like we can take them through are we gonna have to leave them too

40:40

you guys are probably gonna have to leave your horses as well i mean if you want to take them through the cave

40:46

you're more than welcome we're leaving our horse [Music] oh so now we're gonna lose our horses as

40:52

well this just seems like a great idea

40:59

you're doing it [Music]

41:04

i go up to one of the horses and like nuzzle against one of its legs

41:11

um if you look further you can see me paws up on the horse whispering

41:16

something in its ear [Music]

41:23

is he speaking to it or is he just murmuring dog words in its ear can i

41:29

understand make a uh just

41:39

um just dog grunts into a horse's ear yep

41:46

i just expressed rage silently i just

41:51

uh i don't want to what do you want to do caleb you're the one who wants to do this

41:59

bloody hell uh i'll go i'll meet you there um why don't you take the horses through the

42:05

checkpoint you already told them that i'm your man you're my mentor how am i supposed to go

42:11

by that's a myself point alma

42:18

i i don't want to leave the horses right well this is your choice now you've made

42:24

it so what do you want to do since you're in charge of everything apparently we can try and take them in the cave and

42:29

see what happens and if they don't fit we send them back that's we already said where we already

42:34

said we're gonna help them and if we can't take the horses we get rid of them

42:40

we'll buy new horses yeah yeah all right yeah they're they're strong horses

42:47

we'll do our best we gave them our word we're going to help them so now we have to help them yeah that's true let's see if we can

42:53

take them through and if we can we'll decide then let's get going

42:58

the storm's getting closer all right um and as you guys start to collect yourselves to uh to join with

43:04

this family and go towards the cave um the father walks back over to the cart where the mother and the daughter are

43:10

and you guys can see the mother looking at the father and she moves her hands

43:15

around almost like almost like she's casting a spell or

43:20

something but she's like moving her hands moving her fingers around and in response the father looks back in and

43:26

does some similar hand motions um flynn

43:33

yes you would be able to see that the

43:38

mother asks are they coming with us and the father responds yes they're gonna be coming with us

43:46

okay all right as you guys

43:51

gather all of your supplies you guys head up into the mountains and it's

43:56

probably not 10 minutes into your journey that some of the trees clear away and

44:02

the mountain which is filled with grass and plants gives way to a bit of uh more

44:10

rocky terrain um and you can see this sheer cliff face in front of you and at

44:16

the very base of it is a cave entrance um you can see just around the edges of

44:21

it some wood beams that have sort of decayed from what looks like years of

44:26

neglect but uh is is pretty recognizable as the entrance to a mine

44:33

and as you guys approach you look into the mine and it seems to be pitch black

44:40

that's uh eric do you know uh do you know

44:46

what stage this mine is in i have no idea and at this point he's already sifting through all of his stuff

44:52

in the cart and he pulls out a torch what what what led you to this

44:58

how did you even know what was here we saw it on our way all right

45:04

fair enough i'm sort of just like scoping it out um again really quick what time of day

45:10

was it before we started getting into the spine before the storm started coming it's early day or it's um just

45:16

approaching late afternoon well i guess we start our way in and

45:23

settle up the night yeah uh

45:32

yeah we'll probably have to rest inside of mine pull a torch out

45:38

um light it yeah i'll stand in the beast i'll light up my arm

45:43

all right show off just more conservative it's pretty cool it preserves resources i'll be able

45:49

to do it eventually i think all right i mean you could get your own thing fun look at my tattoos

45:56

fair enough let's go come on try try try

46:03

listen you can see he's getting more visibly agitated as we approach the entrance to the cave like

46:10

yes let's go try it we're going to need you on on your on your game right boy

46:16

like walk up to him and give him a little little scrunches give him little scrunches on them it'll be all right buddy we're counting on you

46:23

oh that's right brave face eyes forward

46:28

i mean they're kind of on either side of your head so i guess that's hard to do but

46:33

you know uh well no i guess they're not never mind brave face kelly keep doing okay

46:39

i'm stressed i can tell it'll be all right i'm suffering hey it'll work be fine

46:45

okay i also begrudgingly light a torch and run my hands over it doubling the size of it okay um

46:53

uh alma i tank

46:59

no let's stay here what's the right call me and alma will hold up the back right alma you're in front of me i'll say

47:06

farthest back uh try and flynn you take the lead try it

47:11

we're gonna need your nose because flint's not himself right so you you stay on it

47:17

and uh and just be be watching for trouble sniff it i take my place in the front of the pack

47:24

um we are on our horse's riding does it seem like we can continue like that or is it already impeding us from moving

47:30

forward um the it's it's not impeding you at all um and you would definitely be able to fit your horses into the cave

47:36

yeah so i'll stay on my horse for now i'm gonna dismount for mine and have it walk in front of me and uh yeah

47:42

i'm super tired so i'm gonna stay on mine and just like having like my elbow kind of on it holding the torch up because i can't even like hold my hand

47:49

out in the air so tired it's like all right let's go

47:55

okay all right um as you guys walk into the cave um you

48:00

guys look around and the walls of the cave although

48:07

sculpted into what looks like a mine this is definitely um was was made by

48:13

someone this is not a naturally occurring cave um flynn

48:19

looking around every once in a while as the torches flicker and the lights are dancing off of the cave walls

48:25

you see a scrape along the rock i pull out my

48:32

little book my east area and i start flipping through looking at my notes seeing this um

48:38

could be anything that i've seen before and as you're doing that you come across

48:43

a page of the notes that you took on your day with

48:48

bailin [Music] and it's like showing you my breathing

48:53

crap [Music] um schreier's next to me and then kelly i'll just kind of like yell back uh

49:00

caleb we got problems shocking

49:06

all right you said i got to say i told you so so i'm going to say it as many times as i want to i told you so i said when we

49:13

were blading on the ground all right so wait till then otherwise i don't want to hear a word of

49:19

it come up here i'll show you what i'm looking at yeah uh uh hold yourselves eric uh just uh we're just checking out

49:26

there might be uh trouble ahead all right uh

49:32

part of a lion [Music] what could be expected i'll show i'll

49:38

like lean the book towards him as he uh approaches i'll point out this so i'll

49:44

point at the scratches so you see those yeah point to the book

49:50

it's the thing that i fought that's in my bag i don't want to pull it out right now because that's uh

49:56

they're probably in here those uh uh they have claws like that yeah that

50:02

would do that kind of marking i have beaks too i think i flipped through my notes what uh what kind of size are we

50:08

talking about ain't big but everything's big to me

50:13

colonel affirmative grunt um

50:19

i mean i don't remember them doing anything too crazy other than just being kind of relentless um

50:24

so maybe just keep an eye out yeah pretty sure they can see in the dark

50:30

that's what makes sense um yeah

50:36

as uh dm do i do i know what this what these things are from many of i've i've

50:42

really come across anything like this you saw the head so i i i know what it is yeah what the face of it looks like

50:48

but um i wouldn't know him you have not come across any of these things before the the face in the bag is

50:54

the only thing that you've seen of it do i remember if casting protection from evil good helped with this

51:01

is it um or is this just considered a beast um in your notes you would know

51:09

that casting protection from evil and good would not have any effect on that all right well i mean

51:15

i guess we just keep our eyes out yeah ah good good luck in there good luck finding that

51:20

yeah uh all right just so you're aware there's a decent chance that uh uh there's

51:26

monsters of some size uh around here so we're just gonna be as

51:32

quiet as possible and hope not to disturb them and uh and just tread carefully

51:38

okay we will if anything comes you as i'm sure you're

51:44

already inclined to do just take care of your family and stay in one place so that we can watch over

51:50

all of you at the same time keep them together okay if you need to you could all hold on to a rope

51:57

yes i go to my back and i pull out a rope and i hand it to

52:02

them so they can tie each other together this will keep you safe i'll look down to the little one just hold on to it

52:09

you don't have anything to worry about here and she kind of takes it and starts

52:14

playing within her hands and she just sort of loosely wraps it around her wrist um and then uh

52:20

it seemed like she recognized me speaking yes okay um i'll turn to the

52:26

mother um and i will seeing what they did before i will kind of do this similar thing with

52:32

hand motions finger positioning and i will try

52:38

like i've done this in a while i will try to sign um we're gonna keep you safe

52:44

i'll try and do that and she just nods back at you and signs back thank you

52:51

and i'll head back to the front right everyone keep quiet

52:58

walk softly all right i'm gonna have everyone make a stealth check as you guys are moving

53:04

forward at disadvantage at disadvantage for flynn

53:09

[Music] i wrote a natural 20 and i can't use it oh no okay misery alma what was your

53:17

check 10 kellogg uh 15. try niner

53:22

um i still got a 16 16. okay um so you guys are moving along

53:28

and it's a little bit more quiet than usual um not not uh anything like completely

53:36

silent but you guys continue walking down through this cave and this long narrow hallway

53:42

just in front of you splits off into two different directions

53:47

over one of the tunnels you see a little banner hanging there

53:53

with in black paint and anvil and over the other one in black paint

54:01

you see outline of two crowns just overlapping each other um

54:06

have i seen that in a cave before this is exactly the same symbol that you saw before yes awesome

54:13

guys i'm just guessing i think we may want to go to the anvil way does the anvil seem something that i've seen before in relation to kaldor at all make

54:20

a history check for me it's advantage

54:26

i mean it looks like an anvil you can't really place it anything guys those crowns i've seen them

54:32

um when i fought those things and i'll point to my book um

54:38

they seem to be dwelling down here so maybe this path will just take us deeper into the cave and i don't think we want

54:44

that that would uh make sense do you know what to make of this anvil

54:50

i'm not really sure i mean i'm just guessing anvil maybe it's related to dwarves maybe it's related to caldor

54:56

but that's that's my guess i've seen those crowns before and i know it led deeper into

55:02

the cave from what you saw before it was leading deeper into the ground it went deeper and i don't think that's what we

55:07

want so the crowns might be some kind of demarcation of of a society exploration of

55:14

i don't know or a society that lives down here i don't know right and what kind of society like keeps i

55:22

don't know i mean monsters when bailey and i approached they kind of ran

55:27

and we didn't really get too much of a look at them they kind of looked like you

55:32

a little bit actually distinguished um

55:41

yeah like distinguished um so i don't know

55:46

but i think the anvil might be the right choice but again it's up to you alma sharaya what do you think

55:53

i didn't want to be here in the first place so you guys do whatever you want to do i'm gonna go to each entry or each uh

56:01

way down and just like put my nose in the air and i'm gonna sniff each path nice okay thanks uh make a perception

56:07

check and i believe as a wolf you have advantage on nice nice pretty cool

56:13

ah oh bummer yeah but i do get to keep all

56:19

of my yeah so that's 11. and 11. um

56:24

from the path on the left that's marked with the anvil

56:29

your nose is immediately filled with the smell of ash

56:35

and it's it's really hard to get past that um and from the path on the right with

56:42

the two crowns overlapping um it's more of like a like almost a damp um

56:48

it's sort of like musty sort of smell in the air it's almost like a this

56:55

this lingering dampness in the air [Music]

57:01

how do you really go back from the two paths and i

57:06

and i paw at the ashy one and go

57:12

[Music] i i don't i don't know is that good

57:18

should we go that way it seems like that's where he wants to go okay all right well

57:24

let's go and i'll once again lead my horse down the uh anvil path

57:30

i'll return to my place at the back of the lineup and then the justice of verified the family is like right behind us they're uh yeah i'm imagining they're

57:37

in between okay this cluster okay so we're at the front families in the middle with my horse

57:42

uh and yeah me and alma in the back cool yeah okay um

57:47

so it's try and flynn at the front yes pullman caleb in the back with the family and the horse in the middle that's right correct and i'm on my horse

57:53

at the front perfect why are you uh asking her yeah why do you need that information is that why that's not

57:59

really that important right now is it it's not okay um as you guys continue on down the

58:05

path um you guys chose the left side and it seems like a

58:11

a pretty well-constructed mining tunnel it opens up a little bit more um and you can see big chunks of the walls that

58:18

have been carved out um presumably where some sort of natural resource once was

58:24

um but wherever those were carved out you can see a well-placed structure of these wood and

58:32

every once in a while these metal beams that are being used to hold up this cave

58:38

as you're walking through seems to be very well constructed down here

58:43

but as you guys continue moving along everyone else begins to start getting a

58:48

little bit of ash in in their breath and you can start to to feel it in your

58:55

lungs and eventually this hallway opens up into a much larger

59:02

room and although the room extends even further the floor does not the path

59:08

stays about 15 feet wide in front of you and goes across this cavern this cavern

59:14

that drops down and flynn very familiar to you drops down and a couple hundred feet

59:19

below you can see the glow of lava and magma beneath you guys hold up

59:25

um again this seems very familiar to what i did with palin um keep an eye out for

59:32

these things i kind of like look back towards cowlick all right try it i'll look down let's let's try a

59:40

look i'll be okay buddy try just for reference how long does

59:46

wild shape last uh it is a third of my levels so at this point two hours two hours perfect yeah

59:52

so you are just so you're aware um we're approaching

59:57

we just hit about an hour great um since you cast it you said two hours after you went okay cool

1:00:04

i don't want to scare the kids so um as you guys are

1:00:10

um making your way sort of through this cave what do you want to what do you want to do

1:00:17

do we just go for it it's cross does it look like the again sorry

1:00:22

it's an opening and then on the other side so it's like a sturdy rock that goes all the way down it's not like a bridge right there's it's just

1:00:30

sturdy that we can walk across would you like to peer over the side and check sure

1:00:35

okay um in your condition yeah i'm gonna have you make oh no

1:00:41

an acrobatic just a straight just a straight acrobatic [ __ ] god damn it come on come on come on come on

1:00:48

oh here we go

1:00:54

okay roll to one but i so i roll this i take the one do i re-roll the one you

1:01:01

re-roll the one and then i would take if it's higher then i would take the other nice yes it's higher so total with this dice

1:01:08

which is still pretty low is a 12. at 12 you manage to keep your

1:01:13

balance yeah um you can feel your your center of gravity sort of shift and you

1:01:19

catch yourself but you're able to stay planted on this on this thing

1:01:25

all right and i will peer over okay um yeah so you can see that this is

1:01:30

a like a steady column of rock that extends all the way down um to the the

1:01:36

lava bed floor um no back up uh guys it seems

1:01:42

seems like it'll be safe to walk across it's not like a bridge it goes all the way down so it should be okay

1:01:50

watch your step all right i i don't have any

1:01:56

spells i can cast right now that would be of any help to us i wasn't really anticipating a cave so

1:02:04

almighty have anything like that no do i have any spells that will help

1:02:11

us cross no just safeguards you know why would i have i don't know maybe but

1:02:19

i've never used it before right yeah sorry silly question well maybe if we could save xavier i'd

1:02:25

be able to know more of what i can do we are on our way to do that presently oma on a faster route than before

1:02:32

yeah faster and look at the lava below us

1:02:38

agreed at least let's try on here huh all right look to the family

1:02:45

you ready um and the father looks to the mother the mother looks to you and

1:02:50

she nods and she looks down at the daughter and the daughter looks back up at her and they all sort of

1:02:56

look to each other and they'll nod affirmatively okay let's go

1:03:02

and i'll start going with the horse the porch

1:03:07

try it come on it'll be fine

1:03:13

all right specifically crossing this bridge i'm going to have everyone make a stealth check

1:03:19

oh oh still

1:03:27

we're only good so my stealth at disadvantage was a 17. tria

1:03:33

16 homa come back to me 17.

1:03:42

14. 14. you all did very well oh i am going to in the middle of the table so

1:03:47

everyone can see i'm going to roll a d20 for each member of the family oh no christmas

1:03:55

for the father year old of four

1:04:01

for the mother [Music] she wrote in 11 and for the daughter

1:04:10

okay she rolled 17 that's a quiet kid

1:04:17

she's got the rope and we rolled we rolled okay too so you guys crossing this bridge

1:04:23

um taking each step one by one you guys are able to to sort of

1:04:30

take one step forward feel the rock beneath you feel that it's safe and sturdy

1:04:35

and you're able to move your weight onto that foot and then plant the other foot in front of you and you can see that

1:04:41

behind you the family is doing the same thing as you guys actually make your way into

1:04:46

the cavern with the lava hundreds of feet down on either side of you you guys

1:04:52

are trying to be hyper aware of everything that's that's around you and

1:04:58

as you guys look around you look up to the ceiling and hanging there like bats

1:05:06

sleeping are four hook horrors [Music] these terrifying creatures with beaks

1:05:13

made of bone almost like birds their eyes closed as they're currently

1:05:19

sleeping you can see that their legs are sort of tucked up under them into their torso and they're hanging upside down by

1:05:25

these long hooks that come out of their arms these bones that protrude that they've driven

1:05:31

into the rock and they're hanging there you guys move past

1:05:37

silently as the hook horrors do not wake oh my god

1:05:43

i was terrified um so after we get up over this um does it lead into another like where we

1:05:49

safe so as you guys move on in towards the next uh

1:05:54

the next tunnel yeah it seems to be a singular tunnel you guys can see directly in front of you okay man that

1:06:02

dad must have some kind of buff on stealth he rolled pretty low yeah well we rolled wrong

1:06:09

i think helped just turn around and give kellika kind of a nod

1:06:14

just keep on going you know i am going to keep my eyes peeled at the

1:06:19

ceiling from here how do these hook orders smell

1:06:25

oh you might be able to smell them um they smell gross okay um they

1:06:31

they smell um like like you smelled you've gotten the the

1:06:37

scent of wild animals before they smell like that of just like wild but times ten oh

1:06:44

it's a gross gross smell crinkle up my eyes keep my head down as i keep walking past

1:06:51

and they actually um flynn you remember this um they they almost smell like rotting flesh okay

1:06:58

got it in the you if you're close to me you might hear

1:07:05

every now and then i'm not really sure if it's the ash or the smell of the running flash but

1:07:10

i'll note it as i keep pushing through all right um and

1:07:17

as you guys continue walking this long corridor

1:07:22

continues to extend in front of you um at this point you guys look around and while the the structural bearings are

1:07:29

still there um you don't see as many areas that have been carved out by the uh carved out in the rock um this

1:07:36

seems to be more of uh just a transportation tunnel not really an active mining area um but you guys

1:07:45

can see this tunnel opens up in a very similar fashion to

1:07:50

the room that you guys were just in you guys cannot tell how big the room is and you guys cannot tell exactly what's in the room yet as it's still a little ways

1:07:57

away and it's dark but you guys can see that it opens up this tunnel does end

1:08:03

i mean i'll just keep going forward it doesn't seem and yeah i'll head into the opening and

1:08:10

light the way we only have we only have forward yeah you guys step forward and look into this

1:08:17

room and you can see it's in fact not a room this is a

1:08:23

massive cavern that is opened up in the the middle of the mountain um you

1:08:29

can see just from looking at the the walls that are just adjacent to you you can see that this is also carved this is

1:08:36

not a natural structure and you can see that this thing probably

1:08:41

extends for a mile in front of you it extends up

1:08:47

on top of you for about a quarter mile and there's a staircase in front of you that descends

1:08:53

into this multi-layered cavern that extends down probably another

1:09:00

quarter mile and looking around you see bigger than anything that any

1:09:09

man-made thing that you've seen before these giant forges these massive metal structures

1:09:16

that have all of these intricate parts all stationary and none of them lit at

1:09:21

the moment as you can can't see anyone operating these at all can you go

1:09:27

straight across or do you have to go down the stairs um the only path forward is down the stairs and there is what seems to be um

1:09:34

like five layers almost like these consecutive rings as they go down down

1:09:40

and down i'm guessing we can we see all the way across the other side or is it dark and

1:09:46

it like kind of goes into darkness it goes into darkness you can just barely

1:09:51

make out the opposite wall you can't make out any features of it you can't see if there's an exit on the other side

1:09:56

but you can just barely see that there's a layer of rock there

1:10:02

maybe it's on the other side how often does going well i don't know

1:10:10

was there any um is there any kind of were we going up at any point in this

1:10:16

journey through the cavern or have we been consistently going down you guys have consistently been going it's just

1:10:22

been a very low grade down it's it's almost been completely horizontal um just with a

1:10:30

very slight decline i mean we don't know where the other mouth of this place is

1:10:36

it could be below yeah i guess it's either

1:10:41

we go back past the try the two crown route that seems

1:10:47

insane i think it's gonna be better yeah i'll look out and you said i couldn't see anyone i'll actually

1:10:52

actively kind of like scan and see if i can notice any movement okay make a perception check for me at disadvantage

1:10:59

yeah can i assist on that you can assist would i choose a re-roll and do regular roll since you already rolled i'm going

1:11:05

to have you roll a separate roll okay all right that makes sense

1:11:10

my perception be good um 11

1:11:16

15. okay 15. um flynn you don't notice anything

1:11:22

okay looking around seems dark holding that torch out um kellik

1:11:28

being underground right now your eyes are starting to just open up a little bit

1:11:34

more um you can sort of like feel almost as if a fog is being cleared from in front

1:11:40

of them very very slowly but you're over the time that you've been down here you've just been able to see a little

1:11:46

bit more a little bit more a little bit more and within these you can see these five

1:11:53

massive forges in front of you in this room and

1:11:59

tubes connecting to them conveyor belts connecting to and from them and within each of the five forges

1:12:06

you can pick out just the smallest bit of light

1:12:12

smallest bit of what seems to be fire maybe even embers

1:12:18

expand contract expand contract

1:12:26

would i understand that to be a part of the machine or

1:12:31

does it seem super natural in nature

1:12:36

that's the right way to phrase that yeah if you're going for like you can make an arcana check if you if that's is that

1:12:42

what you're going for i like checking if it's arcana or checking if this is something that the forges would do

1:12:49

i guess i would be checking is if this is something that the forges

1:12:54

would do but uh but arcana works i don't whatever you want me to do okay i'm

1:12:59

gonna have you roll our car okay 19. 19 you're rolling well today i'm

1:13:06

actually rolling out of my mind um as you're looking into these things

1:13:13

the um the forges look dormant

1:13:18

whatever is inside is not being powered by

1:13:24

anything um and it seems a little bit more consistent than just regular fire

1:13:30

is the the expansion the contraction seems a little bit more um

1:13:36

more rhythmic does it seem like a continual flame spell because i know

1:13:41

that spell would i be able to tell if it was uh like that

1:13:47

which spell specifically are you looking for i think it's called continual flame it's a uh flame that does not require

1:13:52

upkeep it's like you light it and it just lasts forever what is like how big is that fire

1:14:02

um equivalent in brightness to a torch no okay much more much more

1:14:08

much more fire than that okay okay um not necessarily in brightness but in density reach um yeah exactly

1:14:16

okay okay uh i will just point to it

1:14:23

um and shrug my shoulders at the group um

1:14:31

real quick you walked through the previous room with the hook horrors and you saw the

1:14:37

lava down below and you got a little bit of of an ashy smell um but that ashy

1:14:43

smell is nothing compared to what you are currently smelling this this is seems to

1:14:48

be this room seems to be the source of what that ashy smell was hmm

1:14:54

noting this uh i put my nose in the air and quick

1:15:00

callback question of proximity would i have heard flynn and kellick discussing

1:15:06

like potential ways and paths forward or back

1:15:11

would i have been in an enough proximity to hear them deliberating um i'm gonna say no okay i'm gonna i'm

1:15:18

gonna call noah on that right so i just stick my nose in the air sniff around and then

1:15:25

uh look forward and go toward the stairs um i see the

1:15:31

two can i see that now that kelly has pointed out now the camera just pointed out you can just like if you if you

1:15:37

stare at that spot for 10 seconds without looking at anything else you can just barely see okay um

1:15:42

i'll turn to does that mean there's people down here i i don't i don't know i i don't know

1:15:50

what matter of flame that is uh it could be um

1:15:55

you know i have no experience with minds it's not a

1:16:03

i guess it might indicate people we could ask that yes maybe he would know

1:16:09

shrug

1:16:16

does anything look like people live here is there the signs of like chairs or

1:16:21

like some kind of like upkeep to these machines um to the machines

1:16:27

no definitely not um this it just seems like

1:16:32

these things have been left stationary for years okay does flynn have thaddeus

1:16:39

i would guess oh yeah um but as i'm just watching uh

1:16:44

caleb kind of like staring out trying to decide um i see

1:16:49

shraya head to the stairs yeah um let's get off my horse

1:16:56

let's look at sometimes just kind of make a decision and go with it

1:17:01

and i'll start heading towards the stairs with the horse okay will it fit

1:17:07

yes but now that you know that this is opened up you the horse fits better than ever

1:17:13

great um now let's give him a nod we can sit here forever trying to figure this out or we can just go check it out

1:17:20

and it seems like yep let's go see what it is all right maybe they have they know the

1:17:26

way out it's good to be positive

1:17:32

give that out a touchdown head down the stairs

1:17:37

leading the way with try go back to the back of the line and shore up the rear um as you guys are

1:17:42

walking down these stairs you guys come to the first concentric circle the the

1:17:48

highest level and you look off to either side and you

1:17:53

can see it like just as a circle it's it's a platform that wraps around the entirety of this cavern

1:17:59

and you look off to your right and you can see like a crude

1:18:05

metal horse but it's the size of an actual horse maybe even a little bit bigger

1:18:13

and you guys look off to the left and you guys can see what looks to be

1:18:19

a giant game piece almost like like a a piece

1:18:26

that you would put down on a board like it's got a it's got a flat surface and then it comes up almost like a pillar with a with a ball on the top

1:18:35

and you guys see just beyond that a metal

1:18:41

cart looks like it's got wheels very crudely constructed but

1:18:48

it seems to be just a metal cart wheels main base of the cart

1:18:56

and you guys continue on down and as you guys move to the second level

1:19:03

you guys see on the second level these giant

1:19:08

metal pots and pans on either side okay

1:19:13

hold [Laughter] [Applause] these all look like modern things you

1:19:19

would see in a house except massive right yes great great yeah great yeah

1:19:27

[Music] and as you guys move down to the third

1:19:33

level you look off to your right and you see what you may have thought was maybe like

1:19:41

a huge mine cart to transport items and transport goods

1:19:48

seems to be like a massive metal babies cradle

1:19:55

okay and as you guys move down to the next level this is where these massive

1:20:00

forages are these they look like huge metal cylinders and you can see that there are

1:20:07

these these windows that just peer into it and now at this point you can see just a

1:20:13

little bit of the glow from the inside and from these windows

1:20:19

you can see you know like when there is heat and it sort of distorts

1:20:24

the air you can just barely see that coming out of those windows so there's like a house in the cave i'm

1:20:30

confused where are the windows these giant forges but there are it's not like traditionally it's more like like these

1:20:37

um just like big square vents into the forge and we're on the second

1:20:43

level of this thing you guys are currently on the third level the third level there are five levels

1:20:49

and as of yet we've seen no way that looks like a way out that looks

1:20:54

like a way forward where our only possible direction is down at this point

1:21:00

you are moving forward into the cavern at this point just kalec would

1:21:06

just barely be able to see another exit on the other side on the other side of the third level on

1:21:11

the other side of yes this this massive cavern um it's actually the stairs go down into it and then on the other side

1:21:18

you can see stairs that go back up and once again on the top level just like when you guys came in there is an egg

1:21:24

but you can't go like around in any way on the same level you have to keep going down or is there a way to go

1:21:30

yeah i was thinking that too we might be just going around keep going down to the bottom level and then back up or you would be able to go all the way around

1:21:36

around might be good um on the level above us

1:21:43

er we saw pots and pans and things yes you did not forges

1:21:50

so can we go back up a level and go around sure did the up there the upper level

1:21:58

look more traversable or they all look pretty traversable yeah the ground isn't

1:22:04

falling out on any of them like uh i guess just like obstacles um is i guess a better way of

1:22:10

like it like besides these massive metal things it might be hard to walk around the forges it might be easier to walk

1:22:15

around bands i don't know um maybe go up a level yeah yeah let's uh

1:22:21

let's uh reverse what quiet

1:22:26

i i just gesture back toward the stairs and then i do like a little like swirly motion with my

1:22:34

finger and then indicate that we'll go down and up um i will

1:22:40

torch i'll look at my torch i'll look back at the group like point at it

1:22:47

should we put these out [Music] uh

1:22:52

i kind of needed to see but [Music]

1:22:58

yeah you both do yeah i need it um i

1:23:05

put it out now ah just uh extinguish my my arm do you want to lead the way then yeah okay i'll

1:23:12

i'll head to the back of the group with well we're yeah i mean we can literally just switch since you're already in the

1:23:17

front yeah yeah just have um alma and i in the back then no you two are i mean if we're just pivoting then i'm in the

1:23:23

front because i can see erno can try a scene yeah i can see that it might be good to have a werewolf both of them up front no

1:23:29

not dire wolf dog let me check dogs yeah check if just a standard wolf can see in the dark yeah oh that's a good idea

1:23:35

yeah oreck uh does have dark vision though the entire family does nice they're they're all they're all half

1:23:41

orcs right they're all half work yes um and you can see oreck um he's a little bit you can tell there's

1:23:48

probably a little bit more orc in his lineage he's a little bit bigger

1:23:53

um a little bit more sort of hunched over in a more traditional orc fashion um

1:23:58

where the mother while still being half work um seems to have a little bit more of like a traditional human

1:24:05

posture and and stance to her try just rely on your nose all right

1:24:12

i just stay where i am then i'll just follow along i'll just follow click i will take the lead and we'll head up

1:24:19

and try and try and go around okay you guys head up to

1:24:25

the level with all these various kitchen equipments um and you guys begin walking around the platform

1:24:32

you guys get about a quarter of the way um before you

1:24:38

begin to hear something you guys just hear sort of echoing off of the the sides of the cavern a little

1:24:44

bit of a sniffling try it

1:24:49

don't rely so much on your nose all right do we all hear that

1:24:54

yes and then from that you hear a

1:25:00

and after that you begin to hear the beginnings of a crying baby

1:25:07

you begin to hear these yells and these gasps from what seems to

1:25:13

be a baby echoing off of every corner of this cavern do we hire do we run do we hardly run

1:25:21

run okay i will turn to the mom and the kid and and help them get on my horse okay and

1:25:27

i'll give them my horse and i will i guess help them untie it but i'm giving them the horse so they can go fast okay

1:25:33

and you guys begin sprinting towards the exit um and as you guys all standing obese i'll

1:25:40

light my arm up again so we can see in front of us sure um i'm also at half speed so

1:25:45

exhaustion um but since you're on the horse that would not i'm getting off the horse oh you're getting a kid sorry

1:25:50

could i jump on trial i'm a small being and he's a he's a wolf here try it i'm going to have you

1:25:57

i'm going to have you make a strength check right athletics almost

1:26:03

with you on your horse with the words i'm not on my own

1:26:13

flynn a top calyx horse yeah um you guys all begin sprinting towards the exit as

1:26:19

this baby begins crying you guys look over to one of the forges and the

1:26:25

light from within grows and grows and grows and then you can hear from one of the

1:26:31

other forges another baby beginning to cry what as all of the

1:26:36

forges babies to light up this is weird fire baby yeah

1:26:42

we're getting the hell out of there oh maybe like fire giant run run as fast

1:26:50

these babies are crying and crying crying and you guys are sprinting and you guys can see the exit and you guys

1:26:55

are almost there and you guys here we keep running we don't stop to hear

1:27:00

things i look around do i see where it's coming

1:27:06

from you hear where it's coming from it's coming from directly in front of you in the cavern directly in front of you

1:27:12

which now you see is much bigger than the one that you guys just came from a massive fire giant begins to walk into

1:27:20

the room and you can see in their right hand they hold a huge

1:27:26

goblet that is filled to the brim as they're walking sort of sloshing back and forth

1:27:31

filled to the brim with lava and magma as she brings it up to her mouth and takes a sip and walks into the room

1:27:39

and you guys are sprinting directly towards can we hide along the wall between the two

1:27:44

caverns i'm gonna have you guys make a stealth check everyone at disadvantage because you guys are we were sprinting

1:27:52

yeah and then i'm gonna do the same thing for the family as well i'm assuming that i got two 20s baby

1:28:07

[Music]

1:28:13

unlucky is it even out plus six but my natural 20 counts for everybody right i think so i mean i have a 10.

1:28:20

uh 18. oh sorry 18 10 10 20 for 22 total 20 for 22. um

1:28:27

unfortunately two of the family members got natural ones ah come on work so

1:28:33

uh so walking into this room um

1:28:38

she so we're still in the room with pots and pans you guys are still on the level with the pots and the pans as this um

1:28:44

this fire giant is one level above you guys um walking into the room um and

1:28:50

immediately you guys all come to a halt um oma and try a little bit slower than everyone

1:28:56

else but the mother and the daughter on the horse

1:29:01

dura and val on the horse don't slow down quite as quick

1:29:07

and the horse continues running and you can tell dura doesn't have much experience with horses and she tries to

1:29:13

pull back on the reins but just isn't pulling back in the right way and continues the horse continues running

1:29:18

towards the fire giant i'm gonna have everyone roll initiative man

1:29:25

fire giant are you kidding me dude do i roll initiative at disadvantage yes you do okay

1:29:33

what is a disadvantage these days i mean i'm like what how many three three yeah

1:29:43

setting the stage a little bit um the fire giant has walked into the room they are one level

1:29:49

um ahead of you guys as you guys are running towards the exit um and uh dura

1:29:57

and val on horseback are just a little bit ahead of you guys so i'm gonna be taking initiative flynn

1:30:03

17.

1:30:09

[Music] 20 30 20. nice

1:30:15

kellogg 19. 19 and then

1:30:22

gosh have you had a bad roll yet no i'm crushing it um and then i'm going to roll for the family i think i had a

1:30:29

natural one on one of my advantage checks what it's worth oma

1:30:35

first up on the initiative what would you like to do you see this fire giant walking into the room does it

1:30:40

see us it does it very clearly looks right it doesn't

1:30:45

look at to you guys directly but it looks directly down to um val and dura on the horse pretty much

1:30:53

directly in front okay and the cauldrons or the the forges with the crying the crying forges are below us yes they are

1:31:00

there are a couple levels below you um and it seems like the fire giant is

1:31:05

trying to get to them not to us before it saw us

1:31:10

yes it seemed like the the fire giant was coming in to tend to whatever was crying

1:31:18

how many forges are there there are five is there anything around me

1:31:24

on this level other than pots and pans like do i see anything um yes so um on this level you can see

1:31:31

um pretty much right next to where you guys are there is a huge metal table

1:31:36

and then um directly under that there seems to be some sort of metal bucket cup just some some sort of shape

1:31:44

like that that's directly what's in your vicinity um

1:31:49

the thing is very scary how big is it it is

1:31:56

[Music] about 20 feet tall i'm

1:32:02

gonna move um and put myself under the table

1:32:09

okay and then i'm

1:32:15

gonna uh throw a level one chaos bolt at one

1:32:21

of the forges oh

1:32:28

sure um is that that's an attack rule right [Music]

1:32:35

yeah okay make an attack rule 17 yeah a 17 hits what's the range on that

1:32:41

120 feet yeah okay you would you would just be able to to get one of these things um they are about 100 feet away

1:32:47

from where you guys are um or your damage is that a spell

1:32:52

yes that is that is a really terrible role seven points of

1:32:59

acid damage okay all right um

1:33:06

you shoot off this spell at one of the forges at the closest one and you hit

1:33:13

sort of like the top dome part of it and you can see as it hits the acid immediately burns through as this is

1:33:21

metal that has not been treated in years and has been just subject to the elements um and as it melts through you

1:33:28

can see the acid continuing to drip inside the forage as one of the um

1:33:34

the uh the glowing gets even hotter and even brighter within the forge

1:33:40

and the crying continues great and then wild magic yep

1:33:45

eleven okay i will set that wild magic now too

1:33:53

great okay is that your turn um i'm under the table but i want to be closer to the exit under the table

1:34:00

okay so as close as you can get right there that's good okay next up in

1:34:06

the initiative kellic man heck do we do

1:34:12

what do we do how big is the goblet of this creatures

1:34:20

there's a lava that those creatures holding this thing

1:34:25

probably be about three feet three and a half feet tall a flint

1:34:31

sliced goblet yeah could i tell how many

1:34:36

gallons of lava you're gonna help me do math he's

1:34:42

drinking it um oh

1:34:57

if i were to attempt to create water 10 gallons of water over this cup would

1:35:03

it have any effect [Music] it might briefly cool the top like the

1:35:08

first but it wouldn't impede his vision or their vision

1:35:14

i don't know that's a good idea i don't know it could be like a like low-key fog spell is the giant is the

1:35:20

fire giant do they consist of fire or are they flesh and bone can i understand

1:35:28

yes so fire giants um they are you can see that they are mostly

1:35:34

flesh um you can see steam um coming off it is a female from what you can tell um

1:35:41

steam coming off just from the contact with the air from her skin um and you

1:35:46

can see her entire head um her hair is all active flame

1:35:54

[Music] cool very cool

1:35:59

very cool love this i like what you do i like the idea to see if it like causes some kind of

1:36:05

distraction i like it all right uh i'm so far away from it

1:36:11

uh i i want to that's uh val and

1:36:16

so val and dora are right in front of it basically okay well then i'm gonna go as

1:36:22

far i'm gonna run toward them uh and then i'm going to try and like go

1:36:28

to the opposite as far as i can to the opposite side of them if can i move any further than that i don't know how much

1:36:34

more movement i have yeah 30 feet would get you right next to it um can i go let me go

1:36:40

like 10 feet back from them and uh and maybe five feet to the to the

1:36:47

side toward the giant okay i wanna for sure i wanna try and just get its attention away from

1:36:52

valindora um and i'm uh

1:36:59

so stupid i'm the dumbest person alive i'm going to try to convey to it

1:37:06

that we mean no harm after alma has attacked its baby do it

1:37:12

okay i'm going to just like hold my hands up and surrender and i'm

1:37:17

i'm gonna just say uh an orc which i doubt it speaks but it's the

1:37:23

closest thing i have to to a giant language just gonna say peace this we don't mean any harm well i'll

1:37:31

i'll try and say that and work okay um as these words are coming out of your mouth and you're trying to persuade

1:37:37

it um you notice the the the sort of

1:37:42

silver potion that was coating your tongue earlier it's no longer there yeah um and you

1:37:48

look at the fire giant and she looks directly back at you yelling in front of her and she looks over towards the acid that

1:37:55

is currently dripping into her baby's crib and doesn't seem to take much no

1:38:01

all right that's that's what i'm that's what i'm going to do with my turn

1:38:07

man i'm i'm i'm holding i would like to hold

1:38:14

i'm going to hold a uh healing word uh level one healing word

1:38:20

for if anybody gets injured in the next round gotcha okay next up on the initiative flynn

1:38:27

um i'm gonna yell at the family to get under the table guys go under the table now go go go and i'll turn to aura and

1:38:33

be like same get under there and uh i don't know uh [Music]

1:38:39

can i glean what it seems its intention is on focused on is it focused on the table that the chaos bull came from does

1:38:46

it seem focused on calic make an inside check at disadvantage

1:38:53

um [Music] that is a nine nine yeah um

1:38:59

focus seems to be on the baby and on the person who

1:39:06

cast the thing that injured the baby but he can't see me because i'm under a table

1:39:14

just for your reference it is a very large table so yeah the top of the table is probably still i mean the horses can

1:39:19

probably get it over here i'm assuming um but i cast it after i was under the

1:39:24

table you did okay i'll take that into account so like

1:39:30

who knows where it came who knows that table is throwing acid bolts i'm gonna do something weird stupid

1:39:37

good do it that's in keeping with the days of it um as i noticed that it's looking like it's gonna go towards the table and

1:39:43

towards where everyone's at i'm gonna try and distract it um

1:39:49

guys just go to the exit and i'll turn towards the acid forge and i'll summon my sword and i'll um

1:39:57

swipe my fingers across it light up with flame and charge the forge to see if it's gonna try and

1:40:02

go for me instead because now i'm a threat that's gonna attack its forge baby okay um are you taking your

1:40:08

full 60 feet i think a horse has um okay

1:40:13

i think um yeah you guys all see flynn charge over towards the stairs and head down towards

1:40:19

the level with the uh and if i could i'll use my action to dash

1:40:25

okay you were even further towards the right to the one that they attacked okay you are now right up against it and as

1:40:32

i'm like waving my sword like ah comment i get it okay um as you get up towards

1:40:38

the forge um the heat now begins radiating out from it and it almost begins to like um

1:40:46

pinch your skin like you don't take any damage from it but you can start to feel that

1:40:51

like on just on a really hot day that sort of same thing and as you were looking in you can see in one of these

1:40:58

little windows to peer inside the forge you can see um in a little metal

1:41:05

bed a baby fire giant with just the the beginnings of the flames coming up on

1:41:11

the top of its head um just sort of cradled up there on this massive bed and on the inside of the forge on the like

1:41:19

the dome um on the top of it you can see hanging this massive like metal mobile

1:41:25

mobile what do you say mobile mobile mobile mobile this rotating thing with uh these these

1:41:32

circular metal orbs on all of them horrifically horrifically adorable okay

1:41:38

okay next up hopefully i distract him try to attract them

1:41:44

quick question call back to the rope where's the rope at this point that's what we need the rope is

1:41:50

currently tied around both um val and dura they tied it to themselves

1:41:57

it seems to be a loose tie a loose tie it seems to be more of a wrap than i'm gonna take my chances so i

1:42:03

completely like i see what flynn has done i don't know if i have enough movement to do this but uh i'm going to

1:42:11

yes roll i i'm gonna jump up i'm gonna charge toward the rope where

1:42:16

it's currently resting it's a pretty long rope right like there's a part of it that i could scoop up into my mouth

1:42:22

yeah it's it's a 50-foot room okay so i'm gonna scoop up part of that rope into my mouth uh now quick question on

1:42:29

the stairs do they have like do these stairs have banisters

1:42:35

yes they do okay so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna grab the rope

1:42:41

and i if it's 50 feet of rope i am going to jump over one of the banisters

1:42:48

thread it around then run over to the other banister jump over

1:42:53

that banister and thread it around and then run to the other side seeing if

1:43:00

i can i know it's still attached to the other uh kid you know family but i am attempting

1:43:07

to hope that the fire giant does not notice as they're walking down the stairs i'm

1:43:12

going to try to trip this person up that's okay swinging my sword your eyes now seem to be fixed on flynn yeah

1:43:18

um and you have enough movement to do it i'm going to say that's going to be your

1:43:24

entire turn your action your bonus actually nice um nice okay

1:43:31

oh my god okay um it's gonna

1:43:36

fling the family into this seal we're still lava

1:43:42

okay next up well maybe they will untie it for themselves since it's a loose tie and they see what he's doing the family

1:43:49

oh yeah the family is up immediately during the game from herself

1:43:57

no intelligence check there huh there's like oh geez huh no that's a friendship bro and as soon as that happens um

1:44:05

all three of them taking flynn's um instructions go and hide underneath the

1:44:10

table right next to alma and they're just gonna hunker down and

1:44:15

try and hide um next up is the fire giant so

1:44:21

she is going to see everything that's happening be very not happy about what flynn is

1:44:27

doing she is going to what's her passive perception

1:44:38

did you have to roll to set it up or anything i don't think i had to roll to set up that right it's just it's just if you

1:44:44

if you wrapped it back and forth more than twice yeah it's it's pretty sturdy there um

1:44:52

all right i'll just i'll just roll table roll she does not notice the rope as she

1:44:57

walks down these stairs but she walks forward begins walking down

1:45:03

the stairs make a dexterity check

1:45:10

oh not good [Laughter] her foot immediately catches on the rope

1:45:16

yes and um as her foot moves through it um it like

1:45:21

it snaps the rope just from the force of her foot moving and the it begins to actually burn as as it

1:45:29

singes back but it's enough to make her trip and fall and face plant right in front

1:45:35

of kelly i'm gonna have you roll a dexterity saving throw yeah as this goblin filled

1:45:41

with lava begins to fall and hit the ground right in front of you okay okay you know that way too fast man it's

1:45:46

scary but she's falling down stairs so she's just gonna oh it's just the

1:45:52

goblet that stops not her she she trips let me see if i can mine

1:45:58

this out she trips and oh no

1:46:03

but she might continue to fall yeah she might continue to fall down the stairs like roly poly style

1:46:09

got it or slinky style that's a 13. deck save a 13 okay you are taking half of oh

1:46:16

okay i held healing words so i think i would be able to use it on myself after that

1:46:23

yeah you did say anyone who kill you half of

1:46:28

nine points so that is four points okay of fire damage as um it's not the main

1:46:35

um portion of the lava that falls on the ground but once it splashes up you're sort of hit with a couple of pieces good

1:46:40

it didn't hit you straight on it did not no ah damn

1:46:47

all right and as the fire giant is laying there on the ground her goblet spilled kalec you are

1:46:55

standing there right in front of her as her eyes look up from the ground

1:47:00

and meet yours she is fully face planted onto the ground but her eye line is pretty much directly on yours as you're

1:47:07

standing there and with that we're going to end this session

1:47:14

yeah a little bit you spilled her drink she's pissed

1:47:21

but uh yeah with that we're going to end it right there thank you all so much for listening and we can't wait to see all

1:47:26

again next week bye nerds hey nerds it's shane uh if you could not

1:47:33

tell that was our very first episode of venture fourth that we have recorded in person so uh thanks so much for joining

1:47:39

us for this momentous occasion uh we are so happy to have you here uh we are actually uh trying to release more cool

1:47:47

content on patreon so if you are on there in whatever tier or even if you're not uh please shoot us a

1:47:53

message about stuff you would like to see you know uh behind the scenes stuff or uh maybe uh some of the music stuff

1:47:59

what what you'd like to hear more of or get more uh samples of uh let us know

1:48:04

because we want to create an experience that uh suits you the listener uh and we really appreciate you listening so uh

1:48:11

check that out let us know what you think we look forward to hearing from you

1:48:19

[Music]

1:48:31

you

Venture Forth is a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. We play 5th edition (5e) Dungeons and Dragons in a home-brew D&D actual play setting. Our campaign takes place in the high fantasy realm of Elbor. A world of monsters, heroes and epic tales to be told. D&D is a TTRPG, a tabletop roleplaying game, also known as an RPG. Our gameplay is perfect for beginners to Dungeons and Dragons from episode 1.Olma, Flynn, March, Ceallach, Shraya

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Venture Forth, Dungeons and Dragons podcast, 5e, actual play, actual play podcast, d&d, d&d 5e, d&d actual play, d&d campaign, d&d episode 1, d&d for beginners, d&d game, d&d gameplay, d&d podcast, d&d podcast for beginners, d&d podcasts for beginners, dnd, dnd 5e, dnd campaign, dnd podcast, dnd podcast ep 1, dungeons and dragons, dungeons and dragons 5e, dungeons and dragons campaign, rpg, ttrpg

Venture Forth, Dungeons and Dragons podcast, 5e, actual play podcast, d&d, d&d 5e, d&d actual play, d&d campaign, d&d gameplay, d&d podcast, dnd, dnd 5e, dnd campaign, dnd podcast, dungeons and dragons, dungeons and dragons campaign, rpg, ttrpg

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