Vagabond's Heart: A Dimwood Tale | Ep. 2 | Mines of Madness
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This is Mikey Gilder, and you're listening to Vagabond's Heart, a Dimwood tale. Here's what happened last time. The Dimwood is populated by a huge variety of woodland creatures, and four of these creatures sit around a campfire. But let me tell you a story.

of when I was Deputy Brumley. When I was just a young little raccoon back in the Muckabed Creek. There's a lot that I haven't seen and there's a lot of people I haven't met and there's a lot of persons that need to be liked. I wish you hadn't said pie. That's all I can think about. Every pie I ever ate. Yeah, I don't think I'd tell you my story. There's not really much to tell you. I've got a brilliant name.

Watch out what you've all seen. Got a lot of things I gotta collect. I've got an entire booklet here of all the things that I want to find. I am running from the eerie. I, ah, they, they won't be here soon. They, they are coming. They are after me. Five. They seem to be eerie soldiers flying through the woods in your direction. Have you been traveling with an owl? I ain't seen no owl and frog eating me.

Uh, I think he's getting away, sir. I don't think this frog has anything for us. You four strangers, I will tell you where the ruins are. And you arrive to Reckonwader Ridge? Well, well, well, this is quite the sight to behold. Yeah, this is a lot bigger than anywhere I've moved in. Why, you...

Poking your nose in the business of the Smiles of Mighty Company. I think there's a 100% chance you killed him, man. Fuck battle, they beat the shit out of you. The stinker, Tennessee Life. Hello? You know, I got kind of like, it's up in the bay. That you're involved in this whole revolt thing that they were referring to in that back alley. I hear your man has been messing with my business.

Crossbows hit the side of the end of the balcony and the party went out and they saw Levi Smiles himself, the cat, standing with flanked by Skinkerton, all armed with crossbows.

And so, you all stand there after the larger gray cat wearing the nice brown coat and slacks with his leather hat, stand there looking smugly up as he's flanked by his bodyguards. As he says, "I hear that your man has been interfering with my interests." What do you do?

"Who is that?!" And you see Seljin looks over the railing as he stares down, and he's like, "That's fucking Smiles!" "Um, um, are you gonna say anything?" He looks down and says, "Maybe I should, if I saved the wrong thing to that motherfucker."

Well, I don't want to press anything, but maybe it's best we just, uh, let this one be. I don't really know this guy, and it seems like you guys are quite, uh, have quite the contention. I certainly don't want to cause any stirring of the pot.

and you see Selgen walk over to the balcony and he says, what the fuck do you want, Smiles? And the cat smugly looks up as all of the skinks in their dark clothes are all looking up with their crossbows aimed and they all have these sly smiles on their faces as Levi looks up and he lets out a chuckle and says,

Well, I hear that the person trying to organize the workers in my mines and start confusion and chaos and disrupt my business was actually in your employ and an informant for you.

And I hear that the work of my skinkertons has been interrupted. I would hope that you would return him to me and there does not need to be any blood shed. And, uh... Yeah, but you know, that would imply the blood hadn't already been shed. And I gotta tell you what you've been doing, skinks.

You see Levi blink a little bit as he looks up at you and he says, are you supposed to be? I'm a frog. You know, you can just look at me and say it.

Frog and you ain't no skink. Are you supposed to be the analog to my skinkertons? I don't think you're quite up to the task. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're just passing through, friend. We don't know anybody in this town. We just happen to be in here. You're assuming a whole lot that we were some sort of, I don't know what they are, but we're not here to fight anybody. We're just passing through. We're looking for a good drink. Does Marquis know that you're doing this?

Doing what? They endorse my operation, son. They do? Yeah, but you know, they may endorse your operation, but do they endorse you beating people up because you think they're doing bad things? Because you know I don't think it's fair if he's not getting the trial. You can't just go around punching people in the face is all I'm saying. Any means necessary in a lawless, wild place like this on the edge of the dim wood...

There must be precautions taken. You must use unorthodox tactics. But I did not come here to talk philosophy with vagabonds, as I can see that you now are. You know, I prefer to be called a frogabond, but you know, we're talking semantics. Schemantics? Yeah, she's a frogabond. Are you a frogabond? No, I just made that up in the moment. She's a... she's not a frogabond. Wait, are you...

It's gonna be okay, grandma. I think you're a little bit nervous about the whole connection with the marquis. I think you just gotta chill out. I don't know what to do. I feel very conflicted about it. Yeah, you know, I think if you just rub your butt on the ground a little bit, you'll feel a lot better. I don't know if I'd go that far, but perhaps I would. Yeah, you just get down and you just scooch. All right, I'm not going to.

As that is happening, Seljin looks forward and he's glowering at this cat. It's just smiling smugly at him. And he is gripping the ring. You see his large badger claws almost digging into the wood of the railing as he says, so what the fuck are you going to do, Smiles? We both know you're not burning down this joint yet.

And he said, "Are you here to parlay? How about you come inside and have a fucking drink? And maybe we can talk about how we can resolve this without you murdering my man." - Oh, that sounds like a fantastic idea as that is why we are here as well. And we heard that this place has the greatest drinks in all of Reconnoiter Ridge. - That's right. - Yes.

Why don't whoever would like to make a char- you're trying to persuade an NPC. Yeah, happy to do it. Do we have the Chi- Chi? Oh, is this it? No, that's weapon move. Character move. Character creation, okay? I just- is it- if you can tell me- I'm assuming it's charm, right? It's charm. You're on with it, Jim. Okay.

I got a nine. If anyone would like to assist me for one exhaustion or is it one? One exhaustion. If you'd like to assist me for one exhaustion, that'll put us at ten.

So we can get into this a little bit again, is that there is a set success and miss. One to six is a miss. Seven to nine is a partial success. Ten and up is a success. So I will say, Mr. Smiles, you seem like a very reasonable, powerful man. And as I said, we're simply passing through for drinks. Why don't you come in and do the same? And he looks, and I believe with persuading, and da-da-da.

A strong motive and a reasonable bribe. Yep, you absolutely got it. He thinks for a moment, and you see kind of the graying of his whiskers as his nose ruffles as he nods and says, well, I am a civilized man, and I do not wish to burn down this entire camp, so I will hear what you all have to say. I will allow you to...

Bring your four vagabonds and I will bring four of my skinkertons. Do you find this amenable? And you see Seljin as he's gritting his teeth, almost foaming at the mouth as he nods and says, Yeah, give me a second. I'll get the place nice for you.

And he begins to turn away and he looks at all of you in waves and says, well, come on, hurry the fuck up. And what are you guys going to do? You know, you're really rude to somebody who, you know, we've been nothing but nice to is all I'm going to say about it. You keep cursing at us and I don't think we deserve it.

And I've given you a lot of gold. Yeah, because we're going to do something for you. Don't try and make it out like you did it to be nice. Mr. Alabaster, I got to say, you know, this smiles guy, he's treating us like we're some kind of...

you know personal thugs or something and i'm i gotta let you know i i didn't really sign up for this i'm willing to help you but we got to do a little bit more uh covert uh behind the shadows thing which by the way i'm i'm worried he already might be be uh be catching on to you know my whole idea of trying to devalue the mind it sounds like uh he's already caught wind of that well i think he already knows what all what we all look like he already has all of our identities is that going to be an issue

Is he gonna try to murder us too, like he wants to do with that cat? I think if we can convince him, figure out a way to get him something he wants, maybe he'll... he'll... let us go without any bloodshed today and we can figure the fuck out what we're going to do. Alright, well playing ball sounds good. We don't want any fighting. For now. Especially in your establishment. It's a very nice place.

Thank you. I'm going to have the girls fix up the place. I'm going to collect my thoughts. You guys figure out what you're going to do. You're vagabonds, and he's not going to fuck with that. Burn it.

Yes. For everyone. Well, you know, the parties included. Not your free patrons. You're running a business here. Trust me, I understand. Is that included in our wages for what we're asking, what you're asking us to do? I think it should be. Wrongly, that's a fantastic point. What do you think, Mr. Alabaster? For this situation, yes, but no other free drinks. Fair enough. I will have a drink. Well, at the very least, we'll convince you that we've earned them. And I didn't want to. Gather yourselves. Get down here in five minutes. Done.

And he walks off. What are you guys doing before you go down? You know, I don't like either one of them, to be honest with you. I don't like this weird... I guess he's not a baboon. What is he? A possum? He's a badger. Yeah, sure. I don't like badgers. I don't like this one, specifically. And I don't like that weird guy out there hanging out with all those skinks. What's wrong with badgers? Well, nothing. I just don't like this one. He keeps cussing at us. He's like, really mean...

I kind of like his style. He's talking to his gibberish. I mean, he paid us a lot of money. Because we're going to do something for him. Of course. Of course we are. We're going to earn the money we got. We're going to...

passing through. And yes, again, besides the foul tongue, he seems like a relatively stand-up guy. Now that smiles individual, one of his, what do they call them, skinkertons, he almost shot me in the chest. He didn't even fire his thing. It was close. You see him point it at me? It was unbelievable. I think they mean to kill. I don't

obviously they meant to kill him we lit i mean we saw him fighting you know like i had to pull him away and by pulling away i mean i shot him with some weird that i got off of a spider and i don't know what's gonna happen

of the guy let's reserve judgment until we understand a little bit more about these two individuals and then we get the hell out of this place well i just think that you know it might be a good idea if we just be honest about things in so much as basically saying like look you know we don't really care who you are how many stinks you've got in your arm boy you're not gonna kill this fox hey kind of bottom line you know just made me think of something

That guy may be dead. Oh no, come here. Can you come here real quick? Alright. I'm gonna fold up his little pug nose fold and I'm gonna clean it. You got some prompter from breakfast. I hate it, but you gotta let me do this. Get away from me. Come on, you gotta let me. I'm gonna clean it out. It was just hanging there. It was weird. Well, thank you. I guess. I just don't want to be in a fight with this guy. I gotta be honest, I'm not real fond of him. Look, he's pissed.

- He can fight with us regardless of whether we want one or not. - Let's just-- - You don't show up. - Why don't we just see what he wants? - You know what he wants. He wants the fox guy so we can kill him. Let's not play like we're stupid. None of us are stupid. - I'm not gonna give up that fox guy. I'll kill the cat if I have to. - You heard what Alabaster said. We might be able to sate his need for bloodlust in the short term. - Okay, but I'm just telling you that I'm not playing this game of doing nice things for evil people just because it's what he wants.

If he's a bad dude and he's gonna try and kill us, I'm not gonna give him extra things just so he won't kill a fox. We're not gonna let you compromise your morals. I'm just gonna, and I flex and I have absolutely no muscles. I have tiny little frog arms. You know, I'm really strong. Up here. Wait, we're gonna see, let's just see what he wants. I'm really strong.

But not so much up there, just, you know, strong regular ways. I'll never understand how he saw through that con. Anyway, should we head downstairs? Oh, yeah, I'll follow you. Oh, I'd be happy to, and I'll make my way back downstairs. We've already been. Yep. We've had a drink. Yep. And I'll position myself at the bar waiting for Seljan Alabaster. Oh.

So you look and you see that there is the tavern, the Pearl Saloon has been rearranged and there have been two long tables pushed together in a long row and there are five chairs on one side and five chairs on another side.

as you're all making your way down, you see that Levi Smiles steps into the saloon and looks around, followed by his four Skinkertons, and he makes his way and sits down in the center chair on one side as the Skinkertons fill the other seats. And you...

You see that the young bartender that Hazel had tricked the previous night is passing out glasses and pouring bourbon as the table is set. And Alabaster calls you over and says, "Well, have a seat. You're my muscle now."

Oh, that is not what I wanted to hear, Mr. Sark. I quite literally just finished telling him I ain't got any muscles. I do. Well, we should sit down and let's see what happens. Keep an open mind, Peggy, all right? Yeah, I'm just going to work on one of my toys. Miss Alabaster, we're just talking tonight. Nobody's throwing down or roughing anybody else out. That's fine. And our guest, well, I'm sure will be more than fucking reasonable.

And he steps over and he sits in the center chair as you all flank him. And as both the badger and the cat settle in, they stare daggers at each other. Is the tension uncomfortable? The tension is very uncomfortable. I'm going to lean forward and look up and down the table and say, you wouldn't happen to have any beaches, would you? And you see smiles as he looks at you and says,

And then, just for a moment, he looks back at Seljan and a large cat smile appears on his face. Now that sounds delightful. I love peaches. My favorite dessert is a peach cobbler. And you must have some canned peaches somewhere, Seljan. Please, we are your honored guests, are we not? Oh, I don't mean to put anybody out. It was just a suggestion to help lighten the mood a little bit. Well, I suppose if you have some, I wouldn't say no.

Selgen looks at you and glares and looks at you and glares and just, "Dolly, fucking canned peaches!" And you see one of the fox girls shuffle off and comes back with these canned peaches that she's opened

and pours into bowls and spreads out on the table along amidst the bourbon. You see that there's four bottles out on the table for anyone to refill. - Well, this is lovely, Mr. Alabaster. I appreciate you having us for the evening as we are just passing through Reconnoiter Ridge. - And while they're doing this, I'm just pulling some bits of bamboo and some string out of my pack and I'm just crafting. - Okay, so-- - Like completely not even making eye contact, I'm just digging.

You're tinkering and you see that all of the skinks, of the skinkertons, not the pinkertons, are all eyeing you. Yeah, and I'm like, I'll occasionally look up and make eye contact with each one of them. And then I continue to tinker. And then you hear, like, you see them and two of them that are on the far side of Levi, kind of one nodges and he points at you, like, very subtly and he whispers, but it's pretty easy for you all to hear. He says...

that's the one that took out Phil. As, uh, as, and his eyes kind of widened and like, uh, he, he, he narrows his eyes. It was a little bit of hesitation. I look between them and I go, and I continue to tinker. Uh, okay. You do that as, as, uh, as the peaches are served and, uh, and alabaster, uh,

looks at him and says, "Now, you and I both know you're not gonna burn down this place. And you and I both know that you are not going to get, uh, Basel. So, if there's anything else you want, if you want us to promise to be very nice, or, I don't know, what, to bend the knee and kiss your ring,

I don't fucking know. But you're not getting Basil. You've already killed enough of my guys. And your disgusting lizard friends. This stinks, actually. You know. Disgusting lizard friends. All right, everyone, let's just take a deep breath here. I think that what Mr. Alabaster is saying is that we don't need any more bloodshed, which is very, very true. Isn't that right, Mr. Smiles? I agree with what he said.

- I do. - Smiles leans back in his chair as he takes a spoon and as he eats it, a huge mouthful of peaches. As he leans back, he looks at all of you and says,

Well, no, I don't believe there's any need for bloodshed at this very present moment, but I think you greatly underestimate my unwillingness to burn down this place and the entire camp, should it serve the need of my interests and the interests of the Marquis Zate. I have the full backing of the Marquis Zate.

and her forces. I remind you that I'm from very far away. I have a great nose, a great eye, and a great heart for the iron. The earth speaks to me.

And you are very upset that you have lost your stranglehold. Now I understand, a bunch of badgers digging around in the dirt. But civilization is coming to Reckonoita Ridge. It is here, and you can't stop it. You know, I would beg to differ, I'm just still tinkering. Civilized people don't kill each other, so I don't think civilization arrived with you, sir.

He looks at you and says, "Sometimes you must make difficult choices in order to bring progress. I would assume a tinker, it seems, such as yourself, would know that."

Yeah, you know, I make difficult choices all the time. You know, do I want to use this moss or do I want to use that rock? You know, it's always hard to do, but I don't kill anyone in the process. Do you want to use yarn or not? Okay, you know, that's a really tough subject for me because every time I think about yarn, somebody...

- Claims they have some and they don't. - I'm saying it's a difficult choice whether or not you have yarn. - I look over. - Yum. - And I just continue to tinker. - And he says, and as it is confirmed, as I'm sure that you know, and so now your vagabonds know,

And let me just, as an aside, say, Selgen, I did not think you a man to sink low enough to employ vagabonds. And Selgen says, well, at least I'm not fucking low enough to employ skankertons. And Levi just ignores them and says, unfortunately, your man has done unbelievable damage. He has helped spread the word of...

the danger in the minds that we have uncovered and we have still not been able to figure out i have my top geologist on the situation and i cannot figure it out but in the interim my workers are very nervous it's dangerous enough as it is and your man basil

is the one that is causing the most discord. You understand? - What's so wrong with telling them about if there's danger, why not warn them? - 'Cause we have to continue operation. I am running an operation here, son. - But innocent people may die. These people are just miners. They don't have money to drain. And you're gonna force them to work and maybe die? - That is what they signed up for. They came to our recruitment tents.

They picked up their mining picks. Alright. But at the time, did you tell them there was a chance that death could be involved? Anyone who steps into a mine understands that there are risks, but until I can figure out what has happened in these strange ramblings of the miners that go too deep, as if we've uncovered a chamber and we can't go further...

Until I figure that out, I cannot afford any other disruptions. That sounds like a personal business problem and not like anybody else's problem. Sounds like when you start a business, you're taking on those kind of risks. Don't you think? Same way the miners are taking on risks when they step into a mine? Seems smart to me. There are business risks, but I could never have...

accounted for strained, almost supernatural witchcraft. And I don't think the miners could either when they decided to step into those mines, so it sounds like, you know, one for one. So we'll look, why don't we go take a look then? How does that sound? Whoa, whoa, whoa, no problem. Let's all just take a peggy, please. Let's just take one little step. We're gonna take a peggy? Please don't mean... Let's all just take one step back, sir. Mr. Smiles, you said something about...

babbling and rambling on, and then you said witchcraft. Those are things that I don't know anything about and concern me just a little bit. Do you mind expanding upon that just a little? Well, because I know that your employer knows and you will know in due time, I'll put my cards on the table. About a week and a half ago,

We bored through a wall searching for a great note of iron and uncovered a large cavernous chamber. All the miners that went in to investigate either didn't come out or came out rambling, muttering. They are still in our medical tents. There's no cure? Not that we know of.

There is a... some sort of bewitchment almost. Now, I don't believe in folklore, but it seems like nothing that our doctors can explain. Well, I gotta be honest, just by hearing the things that you're saying, it sounds like this mummy might not be of any use to you in the endgame anyway. Well, that may be so, but I know for a fact that there are great iron deposits in that same chamber. The biggest of all of Reconnoiter Ridge.

And I intend fully to mine that and ship that iron back to the Marquis Aiden. I will not let this, if this camp falls to the Erie's hands, I will not let them get that mine.

and exploit that for their own weapons and armor. That's a fair point. I agree. So how about this? We're going to go, we'll make the mine safe, and then you don't have to kill Basil, and then the rest of the miners can also be safe. How are we going to do that, Grumly? I don't know. We haven't seen it yet. We don't know. It might be something we can handle. We're vagabonds.

You're a little hardier than the regular minor folk, don't you think? I am at least. I'm just literally staring at him wide-eyed with my, like, raccoon mask. For the first time, I kind of look up from what I'm doing and stare directly at you. My lazy eye goes off and calculates what one person's doing, then it's back to you.

- Isn't that wrong? Can I read him? Can I read-- - Yeah, this is a tense situation. We have not done that yet, so you can roll with cunning. You can read a tense situation and you can get some answers.

Oh, basic moves. Oh, sorry, I meant to figure someone out. Oh, you can do that. Okay. Yeah, because I want to figure him out. You can figure him out. So we have rolled that. That is a move. So there are moves in this game. One of them is figure out. So roll with charm. I got a seven, so I barely succeeded. Okay.

So I get to hold one. Yes. Yeah, which means you get to basically just ask one question. So I will ask, what does Smiles wish that I would do? Yeah. After you say that, you read him as he's staring at you, you see his cat ears perk out, the gray fur is kind of bristling, and you get the sense that he is intrigued.

And you would probably get the sense that vagabonds are a thing in this world. That's just the context. And they delve into unknown places. You get the sense that he's curious about your offer. And if you can help him get to those iron nodes, that seems like something that he might be interested in. What do you do?

Well, let me ask the rest of my vagabond friends. How do you feel about doing that? Perhaps if you also promised payment as well, because surely that iron deposit is worth a pretty penny. Well, we don't do anything for free, do we? Look, so this is what I'll say. We'll go in and do this for you, but you got to do a couple of things. You don't kill Basil.

You stop killing anyone for anything. If they're not doing a good enough job, you don't pay them anymore and they don't work for you and you let them go do whatever the hell they want to, but you stop killing people. Because that's not cool. That's not how civilization works, okay? You got it? On top of that, when we get in there, we make sure you get the iron, but anything else that's in there is ours. Maybe it doesn't mess around here. No. There are probably some cool things in there I could make like, oh, I've always wanted a hammock. And Selgen even kind of looks impressed like,

That is amenable to me. And make a Persuaded NPC check. I am ready to help if you don't hit this. Where's the thing so I can see what happens? And Twisted Fate in this game works like a 3-assist. 8. 8? I'm gonna assist. How are you gonna assist?

I will also assist. Basically, what I'll do is, you know, try to bolster up her argument and say, you know, give rational points as to, you know, these are very reasonable things that she's suggesting. I mean, it sounds like there isn't anybody in this camp that's able to go in there unscathed, and we're offering to lay down our lives.

as I girt my teeth a little and roll my eyes to see what's down there for you and the betterment of this camp. So I suggest you take the offer that Peggy's laying down. It's very reasonable. We don't do anything for free, and I know a man like you understands where I'm coming from.

Grumly, how are you helping? Well, I guess I would like most of the help to be the original offer that I gave. Yeah. But I'll also say, and I think if we could at least save the lives of your monitors, then you won't have to find new ones and that should save you some money as well.

You all make interesting arguments. Now, I think I could give you a week to figure out this situation. Every day that goes by, however, is a day where I am losing money. But if you can allow us passage into this treasure trove...

this bonanza, I can indeed provide some payment from the Smiles Mining Company. And I will let Basil hang on until I have proof that it is safe. Yeah, that's like not at all what I asked you to do.

No killing people. No killing Basil. Let me get whatever else is in that cave that's not iron. Should you complete your quest? Absolutely. Okay, well then we're good. That sounds fine to me. Selgen, you can tell that he would talk more, but he's just so overcome with rage that he just can't even bring himself to honor smiles with a word as he looks at this. Look at this.

Reckon what a ridge is coming together, at least for a tidy fucking bill. And he reaches out his paw and it clasps with Levi's and they shake. And with that, as soon as he finishes the shake, Levi scoots back and he stands up and he pats his stomach and...

He points down at the table. I think I'll take one of these bowls to go. And he leans down and picks up a bowl of peaches and he tips his his hat to the group. And he says, meet my meet my associates down at the Comstock claim. Dawn tomorrow. We'll have it ready for you.

As he steps out and you see all of the Skinkertons, their eyes linger, especially on you, Peggy. Oh God, Phil, I hope he's okay. As they all make their way. I don't think he's okay.

They all make their way, and then the saloon doors clatter shut. Secretly, I want to try to whip my tongue out and eat all the peaches without him noticing. So when he gets outside, the bowl of peaches is completely empty. That would be a 10 for Ogish Beats. Here we go. Roll with finesse.

Seven! Seven. So you need to pick two of these options here. You don't have a clear path of escape, that doesn't really make sense. So you'd be the latter two. I'll mark a decay, I have to pick two of them. So mark a decay, yep. Yes, I mark a decay. Oh, and I definitely leave evidence of my roguery behind. There's like tons of slime. There's tons of slime all over the bowl.

And as he walks forward-- We just don't want him to notice until he's outside. And he does not notice at all. As you manage to snap them all up, there's a ton of slime. And as you're leaning forward, in order to make sure you get it just right, you

take out your pocket and really kind of give your tongue a little bit of actually sticky. Use some sticky grease. Use some gripper grab. Some good old gripper grab. It's the pink stuff in that little container. If anyone's worked with paper in a print shop, and you slather that all on, it's consuming a resource, and you manage to get it as he walks out and then the saloon doors clatter. And then as I'm sure he's gone, I will like...

You know, he didn't pay for that, so I didn't think it'd be okay if he took it. I don't know if you want to do anything with it. I'm not a fan of peaches. That was a pretty sheisty move on his part. I don't really know where this guy's endgame is. I gotta be honest, Mr. Alabaster, I really, really was thinking we might be able to steal that mine off from underneath of him, but it seems like he was already on to whatever your man was trying to do and devalue the mines. I think he was saying it was a very valuable mine.

Yeah, I was just hoping maybe we could turn the tides and hit him where it really hurt, in his pocket. It seemed like everybody was already aware of what was your man doing for you? Enough to piss these guys off, to rough them up? Meow it. He was talking to the miners, telling them about the danger, telling them not to go in, telling them not to go to work, telling them to fucking leave Reckonoy to Rich.

And then when they don't have bodies to mine the iron, every single day he's losing money, that son of a bitch. And then all the days where he's losing money is the angrier and angrier that the Marquise gets with him. Well, it sounds like you're already way ahead of me when I came in here. I'm sorry I wasn't more help sooner.

Wait, so are you saying, is there a way we could turn the Marquis against him somehow? Well, if you figure out a way to get all of these hoopoe heads to fucking strike and walk out. They can't kill all of them. There's another way. I prefer you don't burn down the place. This is still my home.

There's a lot of different ways, but I haven't been able to figure it out. At the end of the day, though, we still have to judge whether or not Mr. Smiles was serious about burning this whole place down like you're worried about. Because if he is, then there's nothing we can really do. If he really does mean business and he wants to set this whole place ablaze, I don't know if we'll be able to stop him.

I think that greedy son of a bitch cares about GoldenEye more than anything else. And I think that he would only do it as a last resort. I think he's bluffing. I don't think he's going to

risk his whole operation. Do you think that the Marquis would be pleased to hear that he, in a bout of rage, burned down the entire fucking clearing? I can't imagine they would want anything less than his head. That's true. Well, I think whatever we do, as long as we're protecting these miners, it's the right thing to do. And we might get paid.

We better get there. We can find a lot of really cool things in that mine that could be really good for my tinkering. And that might be the ruin that our bird is. Yeah, obviously it is. You know, you gotta get just a step further along. Was that obvious to everybody else? Yeah, that's why I said we're gonna take everything else that was in that room. Oh, because we wouldn't take all the ruin-y stuff. Yeah, because we don't want to let him

in there get him in there safely and then he goes oh i'm gonna take everything that's in here we want to make sure the only thing you get to feel here what i am concerned about is the uh condition of these miners that mr smiles has been talking about this is my next point is i think that we're gonna need i'm gonna need your help we've got to we've gotta go on we gotta collect some things i'm gonna try and make us some masks

I think that's a fantastic idea, because I'm not... I think it's probably something we breathe in. That's my guess. Well, at the very least, what I was going to say is that...

I'm not so sure about this whole magic thing, but it very well could be some kind of airborne disease. Yeah, and so, well, that's the only thing I can really protect against. So if it's anything other than that, then we're screwed. But I'm going to at least try and make some masks we can put over our faces, and then we can go in there and hopefully we'll be able to breathe and we can look around and we can do what we need to do. Is there a bug you're trying to smash? No. Because you really shouldn't kill bugs. Nope. Peggy, I was going to say that's a fantastic idea. Oh, no, that was a gnat.

I'm so sorry, my friend. Well, what do you do? Offer you eatnats. At the end of the day, my point is, I don't want to put any stock in this whole magic business, because if you're willing to just put your faith in magic, then I've got some waterfront land I'd like to sell you in the middle of the grizzlepole mountains. Wait, is it affordable? Is it a timeshare, or is it like legit? Dremely, you and I can talk later, because I do have some waterfront property in the grizzlepole mountains I would like to sell you.

I'm glad that I brought it up. Well, we can talk later. We can talk later. But wait, so...

So then what's the plan? We're just going to hope that we don't breathe this stuff in and then just hopefully not go crazy? If anybody can solve it, it's fine. So we're going to need to get some sinew. So we're probably going to have to kill something to get some sinew. A sinew or whatever you're going to call it. It doesn't really matter. And then we're going to have to get some leather, God rest his souls. And then I'm going to put together masks and probably a piece of glass because I think we should cover our eyes. So we're going to have to get some glass so we can make some glasses into it. And we're going to look like...

A hog that's traveled the road. A road hog. If anybody can solve this problem, it's Peggy. Yeah. If anyone can screw up this whole thing, it's Peggy, so... Either way, you tell me what to do and I'll do it. If you need me to lift heavy things or smash something or slash something with my sword, Mr. Alabaster may be able to get us some of these materials as well. Yeah. You got any of those? Consider it a keeping the peace fee.

I can get you glass and leather, but I don't even know what the fuck that is. Yeah, it's like that stuff that's in people and things. You know what I'm talking about? And it's like a really, really, really good thread. String-tended, if you will. Yeah, like dried-out tendon. Can you get that from bugs? Or should we kill somebody? You know, spider silk might actually work pretty well. Are there any big spiders around here we could get some spider silk from?

I mean, I have a little bit in my pack, but I really want to use that. I got plans. Some loggers went missing, I think. They got wrapped up by the giant spiders in the forest outside, but that's really fucking dangerous. Yeah, I mean, we don't actually want to get anywhere near the spiders. We just want to go to where the webs are and just take some of that. I think just...

East? East of the camp? There could be some... I could cut your leg open and take some of yours if you want. No, I'd rather. That's what I thought. How about this? Like you said, you get what you can, and we'll go after the wedding. Yeah. Deal? Meet back here at sundown.

Meet back here at sundown. All right. All right. I think it's amenable. Drink your hand. How much time do we have? A little bit of beverage. You have enough time. A beverage waiting for us. Perhaps. And a hot meal, because that was really, really frustrating that all you gave us was peaches. Yeah, and to be fair, it was Peggy that convinced him to, you know, not kill anybody. You didn't even have any cinnamon. Why do I look like I have fucking cinnamon? I don't know. You look like you know what you're doing around here. Oh, if anyone had asked me, I've got some cinnamon.

Damn it, I didn't think about it at the time. Like a little peppercorn. You see Seljin slide over a can of peaches and fucking take one to go. That son of a bitch sure tried to. Peaches and cinnamon. I authorize that. Dually noted.

Shall we get moving? All right, let's go. Yeah. Pick the way. So, you all leave and you make your way out through the town. You see that the presence of the cat soldiers is...

The presence of the cat soldiers is still about as loose as it was, but you do notice that there are more skinkertons looking around. And they're all starting to kind of slither around corners and keep an eye out. You see some walking along the tops of roofs in some of these buildings. And as you make your way through, you actually get closer to some of these mines off to the sides of the clearing. And you see that there are one miner is walking back

hobbling back on Crush's. His whole leg seemingly crushed. You see another one with bandages over the head, covering his eye. There's dirt and soot all over his face. Both of them foxes. As

As you pass all of these haggard individuals, you eventually make your way to the clearing, toward the edge of the clearing, and you begin to step through the treeline, through the trees. And you make your way through, and you are walking for about an hour until you start to see off in the distance the stringy, webbed strands.

off to the side, and you see that this isn't just like a little spiderweb in the corner of a window. These are massive strands, seemingly very thick and sturdy and sinewy as you look up ahead and then some trees, but as you look closer, you see movement, and you see that there are no fewer than three

massive limbs, moving shapes, eight limbs, rows of ruby red eyes, cheering fangs dripping with venom as they seem to be going around as they seem to have a large cocooned figure all wrapped up.

not large, but basically a humanoid or critter size, that seems to be struggling. You know we're going to have to save that guy. Oh, what? What do you mean? I mean, it's wiggling like that. You know there's someone in there. He's trying to get out. Well, we can save him. We're going to have to try. All right, I want to. And I just, I want to bash through everything. No! No! No!

- I'm sorry, I should have started with, but hold on first, but I didn't. - And so you just charge through the woods and you see that two of these spiders

these massive spiders have skittered away, but there is one directly in front of you in this strange, eerie den as these massive strands, spider webs, are all around connecting through the trees. You see there are some cocoons that are not moving, some are partially open, and you see bones, skulls, rib cages peering through, some that still have flesh but totally drained.

of all of their vitality, with massive puncture wounds from these fangs. Grumly, you just charge in, and I'll say, you just immediately barrel through. What are you doing? You see this one spider that has attached to its rear end, connected to a strand, a large, a struggling cocoon.

So there's one guy struggling? Yes, there's one. You see other cocoons, but they're moving. But we saw three moving masses of darkness and spider people. So the one that's closer to you, there's a large spider that has its one, but you see them other movements through the trees. You're not sure if they've noticed you yet, but this one certainly has heard you coming as you barrel through. I would like to...

That's not gonna be too good. I think I'm just gonna come in and I'm going to just hack at him in the abdomen

hopefully where, sort of where near the webbing is, but not like at the webbing I wanna like try to damage the spider. - Okay, so do, what is it, clash weapons? I don't have the weapon moves in front of me. - Engage sword to sword. - Engage sword to sword, oh yeah, that'd be great if you don't mind. - Yeah, we've got a couple copies. - Oh, perfect, thank you, yeah. - You're gonna engage sword to sword, now why don't you roll an attack roll? - I am going to arc a decay on my greatsword

to inflict terrible harm, even on the miss. - Got it. - And that's my intention of at least like in the slash, if I can either cut him free or like make him drop it or something like that. - Yeah. - 10. - 10, that's a success. - So I get to pick. - How does that work?

I can take three. So I want to inflict serious harm. I want to suffer a little harm. So I did one and then I did inflict serious harm, which is two injury. And then my great sword is the third injury. So I've got three injury in a slice. And then I saw whatever he does back to me, I will hopefully reduce that by one. And then I'm,

I am going to try to frighten my, or dismay my foe. I guess what would make more sense for, I'll leave it up to you, frighten or dismay, depending on what makes sense in the narrative for what I'm doing. I would say frighten because it's an animal. Okay. As you rush in and tear through, you smash through the chitinous armor as it slices in and as,

as this ichor spills out everywhere, as this chittering, his eyes are wide, it is however frightened of you, this sudden pug with an armor clangs forward and wrecks it. Are you a war friend? However, it is then going to sink its fangs into you and it pierces through your armor, which would normally do two injury and one exhaustion.

And so you can reduce that if you would like to. I guess you do reduce that. Can I reduce the exhaustion? Is that how that works? I don't know. Yes, it's injury. Oh, no, it's harm, right? Yeah. So it sounds like the exhaustion would stay, but it reduces the use. You can choose either exhaustion or injury. I would like to reduce the exhaustion because I'm pretty tired. But you're going to take two injuries instead? And then the injury, I will take one.

one injury and I'll move one injury to my plate armor. Oh, okay. Having seen this spider bite Grumly after his massive attack, I'm going to look for a rock to throw at the spider and yell, hey, hey, come on, pick on somebody your own size. Well, I mean, it's Grumly, but I'm coming, Grumly. Make an improvised weapon.

Is that a weapon thing? It is a weapon thing. You just roll two. It's cunning. It's cunning. Oh, dear God. I got a five. A six. Oh, boy. So what happens...

So basically you don't make a weapon with your rock. Basically I can't find one. You can't find a rock. You look around and there's no rock big enough where you think you can do that. Oh, damn it, Grumly, I'm trying. I'm trying. Peggy, what do you do? I think he should have died. We should save him. I'm going to run up and I...

Yeah, fuck it, I'm grappling the spider again. And I'm gonna attach onto his, I'm just gonna climb up this spider and I'm gonna grapple him. Okay, man, grapple attack. Get this guy out of here. I'm gonna use my leather armor to do it. So I'm marching in exhaustion on my leather, or decay on my leather armor. When I grapple with someone, I mark exhaustion.

Well, you gotta see the hits first, so you don't have to do that. I think you mark the exhaustion on the armor itself. Oh, no, I thought that was a decoy. Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's a special ability of a leather armor. Yes, it is. So then a grapple attack. So what you do is you roll the might. Oh. Yeah, we just gotta share those, because I gave the extra on the might. So you roll the might. Four. Four. So, um, Ez...

As you lash out your tongue and you try to grapple, you see that you just barely miss. The spider, even though it's afraid, slams down with two of its legs on top of you and you take one injury. Well, no, because with my leather armor, I ignore the first choice they make.

No, that's ignoring the first choice. You basically go back and forth. If you succeed on the grapple, that's when that comes into play. All it just says is when you grapple with someone. So you attempted to grapple. So you attempted to grapple. And that's just ignoring the back-to-back choices of the grapple mechanic.

Gotcha. So, and then two, and then it slams down on you. So wait, what do I do then? You just mark a one injury. So having not been able to find a rock and seeing my teammates rush into the fray, I'm going to run to this wriggling mass of splatter webbing. Okay. And I guess attempt to...

try, start pulling it away. Okay. Because I'm, I'm useless otherwise. I couldn't find a weapon and my, my friends are laying their lives on the line. So, so Booker is going to see this, this object of Brumley's

you know, uh, persistence and, and go after it. So yeah, I'll say that with, uh, with Peggy and Grumly distracting it, you rush forward and you, uh, tear, start tearing open. And as you rip, you see a bit of yellow feathers, uh, pop out as you start to pull and you start to, uh, uh,

start unraveling as a wing pops out. As you pull it down, you see that there is a brown coat as you're managing to almost get this bird free. Hang on, friend, I'm gonna get you out of there. What are you doing? I am going to...

Ooh, actually, hold on. Hold on. Where are weapon moves? You had... Oh, no. We've only got one copy of everything, so we gotta share. No, there should be one right here. I gave Mike the extra copy of weapon moves.

Oh, I don't want to do that, actually, because that would be... No, I'm not going to do that. So, yeah, I'm just going to basically swing in again. So I'm going to go sword to sword, and I'm going to give the old slicey dicey here. Oh, what you got? Oh, boy. Oh, boy, he says. So,

- So I barely make a seven, which is still fine. - Yeah, okay. - Still fine. And so what I will do is instead of... I am going to suffer little harm. So it's only gonna do one damage. Okay, so one harm, right? One harm. So yeah, so as it sinks in, once again, it is two injury.

and one exhaustion. - I'm gonna block the exhaustion. - Okay, as it once again pierces in. And you feel this venom exhausting you as it's seeping in. Peggy, what are you doing? - I'm gonna try and grapple it again. - Okay. - No.

Okay, so as you try to leap up and grapple it, you see that it starts to, once again, it manages to dodge out of the way. It's so focused on Grumly as it, wait, how much harm did it do, by the way? One? One. It's looking rough as it's slicing, and there's Acre covering Grumly as he has two puncture wounds, and you, once again, leap forward and...

As that happens, once again, another two legs slam down, one injury on you. Or one harm. Or injury. Injury's correct. Booker, what are you doing? Am I... I'm closer. You're closer. And you rip out and you finally...

pull apart, you see this bird head and these yellow feathers and you're like, what the fuck? Am I alive? Am I dead? While I, once I've recognized that they're speaking, I say, I can't stay, but you're going to be alright. I'll be right back. And I'll run towards the fray and see if I can get in front of the spider to throw dirt in his eyes. And pocket sand the spider. You do that. You attempt to do that. Oh, fuck.

I definitely don't fucking hit. Uh...

- Yeah, it's just a fail. It's just a fail. - Just a fail? - Yeah, I miss. 'Cause only anything happens if I get at least a seven. - Right. - So I just don't hit with the pocket sand, I suck. - So as it's engaged, you throw up and the pocket sand fails and it then notices you and two more massive legs slam down on you. You take one injury. - I made a grievous mistake. - Peggy Grumman. - Oh, no, no, no, no, no, hold on, hold on.

I'm going to mark one exhaustion and take a blow meant for them. Don't! Why? Oh my lord. So I don't take any damage? You don't take any damage. That is the dumbest thing you've ever done as a roll. So you roll over as he's grappling and growing. You let me take two injuries. It's because of our connection.

Because of that, you run in the way and the spider like slams down. You absolute arcing fool. No! He's got no weapons at all! Holy stomach! And you go in, so now that I did that, I have plus one ongoing weapon for me for the rest of the scene. So now I am up to it. So I'm gonna fucking go in and hopefully finish this guy. Dreamlessly wounded this bastard.

- And then we have two more to deal with. - He's looking rough, I think I'm good, I think I'm good. - Oh, big hit. - Oh, big hit. - Big hit. - 13. - Okay, yeah, how does that, what are you choosing? - So I am choosing, I take a little damage, or take a little injury, and just in case I'm gonna inflict serious harm, and I am going to shift my range to far,

if I can sort of maybe dodge his last, assuming it killed, basically no matter what I do, because I'm kind of weak, I'm going to go in and then use my, basically shift my range to far to back out. Okay. So you slice your sword and it lets it, it's like, ah!

as it chitters, as this massive death throw, and it tries to lunge forward for one last hit, and because you're able to back out of the way, it slams down forward as this green venom that seems to be similar to the one you harvest previously, but far more almost irradiated and goopy is spreading out,

And with that, the forest seems to settle as the two larger shapes in the back seem to have been skittering away towards something else. You see moving off to the back, but it's too far for you to really notice what it is. And they seem to be drawn in that direction. - I am going to immediately start collecting some of that disgusting stuff off you. - Okay.

- Okay. - Out of its fangs. - So Peggy immediately goes to work and this massive spider is, there is a ton. As Peggy, you're able to, even using a little knife that you have, kind of carve in and find its venom sac. And you use, it's pretty hefty. I'll say that you get probably

five full jars of this spider's venom. Oh, shit. Five full jars of this spider's venom. So what happened to those two forms? So you saw them, but there seemed to be movement off in the forest, rustling in the trees, and they started skittering away on their webbing up towards the trees. I'm going to run back to the cocoon that I broke free to see if this gentleman... I'm sorry, friend. I didn't catch your name. I was trying to make sure my friends were all right. My name is Booker. Are you all right?

I'm... I'm fine. Get away from me. Why are there two raccoons in the forest? Two? There's just one. I mean, I'm sure there are more raccoons in this forest, but it's just me, Booker, as the one raccoon standing before you. You got any fucking bourbon? Uh, on me? Uh, well, I...

No, I have none of that. No, absolutely not. I can't believe you even suggest something like that. I don't think he does. He's always asking everybody for bourbon, so I think he's just, he's always out of it. So unfortunately, he doesn't have any. Thank you, Brumley. I don't think I do either. But are you all right? You look half dead. Well, I mean, part of that is the whiskey, but the other part is the spider.

And you see this yellow feathered bird, it seemed to be a canary, steps out of the webbing and kicks it off. And it seems to be a female, as there's a large brown coat. And she's like, I was just hanging out by the creek, drinking, and then suddenly I got covered in webs. I thought I was a goner, but...

- You all are something else. I can't believe, am I actually dead? - I'm just gonna run up to her and pull out 10 of her feathers really quickly and then run back to the spider. - I will say that you don't even need to roll Rogas Feats because she is drunk and you just sprint over. - And just run up behind, pull out 10 and then run back over. - Not the funeral there, do you live in Reckon Order Ridge?

Yeah, well, live, wander. I lay my head down in the trees with all the other bird folk. Wait, so you don't work for the Eyrie, do you? Well, I don't work for anybody but myself.

What's your name? My name's Grumley. Mary. Mary Glittergultz. Mary Glittergultz. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mary. Um, can we... Do you have any companions that were killed? Are you... Are you alright? Well, I don't make friends very fucking easily. On account that I'm probably fucking drunk. Touché, my friend.

But I appreciate you. Sometimes the cat bastard puts me to work in the mines, but finding new tunnels and stuff, but...

I figured I... Mary Canary works for no man. Or cat. Run, then. If you would, please. I don't mean to command you, but maybe see if Peggy needs help harvesting this spiderweb material. At this point, you see that I'm already... I'm just kidding. Peggy's the fastest hands in the West. Or the East, considering we're on Reckonoyer Ridge. That's right. We're on the east side of the Dimwood. That's... Are you from the Dimwood?

Yeah, I'm from here. I've lived here my whole life. I'm gonna get to the bottom of things. We're heading back to Reconoy the Ridge. You're welcome to come with us if you want, but we're not gonna take you anywhere you don't wanna go. Well, I guess I could come back and join you, get myself a drink. They broke my bottle of whiskey once I got... when I got snuck up on. It's not fair. For shame. Those spiders need to learn proper rules of engagement as far as I'm fucking concerned.

Peggy, do you have everything you need? I would like to take both of the spider's fangs. Got it. Yeah. So you managed to yoink those out. The fangs are there. They're these large, shiny black fangs of a similar chitinous material to its hide beneath all of the shaggy fur.

I'm gonna turn around holding both of the things. I think that we're good. Whatever you say, Peggy. I believe you. You're the brains of the operation. Yes. I have an idea of what I can do with these. You're holding them kind of like daggers, like knives. I knew you were smarter than you looked, Grumly. Is that what you mean? Are you gonna kill somebody with it? No. But if we do need to...

Don't let anyone think that Peggy's not ready to deal the final blow. Whoa, whoa, how about this?

Hold on, hold on. How about next time we encounter a spider or some other kind of danger, you take one of those, and you take the other one, and then you can both help me next time instead of me just killing it. What do you mean? Didn't you see me looking for a rock and then I threw some sand in the beast's face? Okay, I want to show you something, okay? Alright. Do you see this? That's a spider bite, okay? It hurts a lot.

I got one of them too. He came down and offed them. Offed two of them. Okay. And look at this one. That's the second one that I took. Trying to help you out. I don't think you got bit. I think you just got leg attacked. This isn't a contest, ladies and gentlemen. We're working together. On top of that, look at what I'm doing. Do you want a mask tomorrow?

Do you want to go into that mine and breathe in all the stuff that's going to make you go crazy? I do. Okay, then why don't you not pick on the frog, okay? I'm not trying to pick. I'm just trying to help you with some advice, with maybe an idea or two. I don't know. Who's going to clean out your nose the next time you get stuff stuck under that weird little fold? I'm fine. I don't need to clean it out. You think Booker's going to do it? Because I promise you Booker's not going to do it. There's not enough gold in the world. I don't need him to do nothing for me. Who's going to expel your anal gland? I don't know.

That's disgusting. I've never even heard of an anal gland before. What is that? Like the wrong thing? Instant death. No, but in all seriousness, Grumly has a point. Do you think you can turn those things into weapons? That's exactly what I'm going to try and do. I was thinking more like knuckle weapons or fist weapons where you slide your hand through and go...

And what would be really cool if they've got this little cabin in them, right? So if I could put something over the back, I might be able to put some poison in it, and then it would be poisonous weapons too, which could be pretty cool.

So I'm going to try. I'm certainly not the expert, but if there's anything I can do to help you... You just want one of them. That's the only reason I want to help. And that's okay, because one of them has got your name on it. I'm going to carve your name and I'm going to carve Grumly's name. Wow, I don't need that. No, I don't need that at all. I wasn't saying I was going to give it to you. I was going to use it on you if you ever mean to me again. I'm not being mean. I would never do that to you. And I look at him like I totally would. But never. Can I, uh...

Can I figure her out?

Yeah, you can figure it out. Roll with, what are you rolling with, Rich? Charm. Charm. Roll with charm. Figure someone out. And charm is my second best stat. Oh, you crushed it. So that's 11. So you get to do... So I get to ask you three questions. Okay. And the player has to answer. Truthfully. Or you can just say, like, no, I won't. Yeah. Anyway, but... It's almost like a zone of truth. Yeah, it might be like, there's nothing that I wouldn't do. So, like, for instance...

What does your character wish I'd do? What does my character wish you'd do? I don't know.

I don't think my character wishes you would do anything. That's a good, great answer. Yeah, that's perfectly valid. Okay. What is your character really feeling? Frustration that she's gotta make these gas masks and do all this stuff when all she wants to do is continue to chase down spiders and gain more of this poison stuff, but she also knows she would die.

She did it on her own? Is your character really telling the truth that she would stab Grumly with a poison spider thing? She's lying. Completely. My character would never hurt Grumly. There you go. Perfect. So those are the three. You can just figure someone out. Oh, well, all right. Well, I'll...

Thank you for making us those masks, I just wanted to say. I think we'll be fine going into those caves even if there is some danger. And let's hope to the heavens above that there is no such thing as actual magic. I've never seen magic. I just think it's got to be some kind of like mind gas or like oomph gas.

I mean, if that's what Peggy thinks, then I'm all on board. Again, she's the brains of this operation. I don't know what I think. I don't have enough information to make a calculated decision one way or the other. But you're looking forward to exploring. I can tell. Yes, I am. I cannot wait. Let's go to bed.

Let's get back. Let's get back and see if there's anything else Alabasta needs from us. If not, I'll see if there's anything I can do to help expedite the process for tomorrow. Booker, is that your service? Oh, good, because I'm going to put you both to work. All right. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. And I'd prefer not to die, so if there's anything I can do to help prevent that, I'm in.

Cool. All right, well, let's get back. We head back to- So as you're all talking, you hear Mary exclaim, Oh, hey, I found some fucking whiskey. Oh, it looks like they got old soapy. Rest in peace. And she stumbles over and you see that there's like a half webbed, like gritty looking fox. It looks like a fresh kill. It's still been drained. And you see a crate-

a crate spilled off to the side with a bunch of soap and it's on, on the crate. It says soap with the prize inside. Soap. On one side. And then the other side, there's another crate and it has these, a large green bottles with, um,

a logo with a snake on it. You know, I would just say maybe don't drink that just yet, because what if it's poison? Wait, this is stuff. We can take this stuff because we killed a spider, right? No, yeah, of course you can take this stuff. While they're arguing, I want to walk over to the crate of soap with fries inside and, like, see how much I can stuff in my sack. I...

I would say, to fit comfortably, you could probably take half of the silk. I want as much as I can possibly carry. Now, to just put it in perspective, Mighty Kay is sitting at three right now. Do I see him doing this? I'm not trying to hide it at all. I'm going to come over to the crate, and I'm going to use spider silk.

to kind of bind the crate back together and then make him a makeshift backpack to carry the entire crate of soap with the prize inside. Or at the very least allow me to drag it. That would be awesome. Or just let me carry on with it. No, no, no, no, please, please. Peggy has done enough. This is my burden to bear.

if you will. I do want to say that right now I am sitting at minus my bag of coins with two decay which I haven't used at all. I'm sitting at three decay. I have three X's out of my four. Yeah. I don't know if this counts as grabbing something. You can say no. I would say mark a box of soap.

- Box of soapy soap. - Soapy eyes inside. - Box of soapy soap. - All right, under my items I will make-- - Yeah, market equipment, this box of soapy soap. - Soapy's soap. - Soap. - And why don't we do a three decay on that? - Done.

I think that's great. And so, Peggy, you're easily able to fashion a makeshift backpack. It's a little heavy, and the strands get stuck to you, Booker, but it actually feels like you can make the trek in this. All right, and I'm going to drag, basically, carry this shit back. Hold on, let me help, because I don't want Grumly helping you. Why did you jump in front of me when the spider went, Grumly, you're as thick-headed as he is your armor. I mean, what are you going to do?

Spiders don't tell me. I'm a bit all right, all right? Look, we made it this far. Just do me a favor. I appreciate you looking out for me, but you gotta look out for yourself once in a while. I'm fine. I'm all right. That's like the book is number one rule. Look out for yourself every once in a while. I'll just need a good night's sleep. That's all. That's all. So speaking of that,

So my defender thing, I clear my exhaustion track when I defend someone who cannot defend themselves from a dire threat. Would my charging in, could I clear my exhaustion? Yeah, yeah. I would say that would be, that would definitely do that. Awesome. And you see that there's actually four bottles of, there's four of these green bottles that have survived. A lot of it has shattered across the forest floor.

- Can I sniff it? Can I just get a sense of what it might smell like or remind me of? - Yeah, smell it and I would say, I would say read a 10 situation. - Yeah, I think that that would be, you know, it's a 10 situation 'cause you're trying to detect if it's deadly or not. - 10. - You're rolling with cunning.

10, so you can ask three questions. What is... Most of them don't make sense, but what should I be on the lookout for?

- You only have to ask those three questions or you can ask any three questions. - I'll say for this situation, 'cause like, you know, I would say you smell it. - I roll a 10, you give me whatever information you feel. - You smell this and you look up and you see the bottle and it says, "Sopi's almost in quotes, magical, also in quotes, elixir of the serpent." And you smell it and it smells like a,

almost like mouthwash or something like, not like there's mouthwash here. - So it's not fermented like booze. - No, it's not fermented like booze, but there's some kind of strange, like, it smells like some kind of tonic. - In a septum. - And some kind of medicinal thing, but it does not smell poison. You can get the scent that is not poisoned at all. - Peggy, could you use these? - I don't know, but I can put them in my pack and see you later.

I mean, might as well. You're sitting here and he's dead. Back to Booker's number one rule about sometimes looking out for yourself. Peggy, you might be able to make use of this. Yeah, I'll take him. It's, you know, I have it good on Mary Canary's word that Sophie ain't going to be using this anytime soon. May heavens rest in peace and all that goodness.

I'm shocked he didn't get killed by the townsfolk, or what he was calling them. And so you get, we'll just say, Mark IV elixirs down as your equipment. Mary Kenray, I'm sorry, what was Sophie up to that would cause people problems? Oh yeah, he was scamming them with all of his tricks and trying to get them to swindle them out of coin.

Interesting. All of these goopal heads are really easy to fucking part with or go without. Interesting, you say. I say interesting. My friend, Mary Canary, I think you need to lead us back to... Good, or I am A. Canary.

I thought you said your name was Mary Canary. Mary the Canary. Well, I'm Mary the Canary. That is an accurate statement. Is that not the official title? Is it rude of me to call you Mary the Canary? No, Mary Glittergold. Did I ever say Mary the Canary? No, I think you introduce yourself as Mary Glittergold. I have.

I heard Mary the Canary want... A lot of people make this as fucking rhymes. I get it. I apologize, Mary, my friend. We will lead you back to camp. Thank you for all that you've done for us. I haven't done shit. You guys did all the work, but I appreciate it. And she flaps up into the air and is like, whoa!

okay, I should probably, she almost lands into a tree until she lands. I think I'm gonna hoof it for a little bit. Out of character, you 110% said Mary the Canary. Oh, did I? Yeah, you said Mary the Canary. Oh, sorry. Swear to God. Sorry, sorry. No, it's fine. I just didn't want to lie. I want to make sure I'm not imagining shit. No, I heard you. I mean,

- I may have said it, so Mary Lithergulch, she is a canary. And then with that, you all meet. - No, I sit down at the base of the tree and I take one of the little spider's legs and I just start carving into the tree. - Okay, what are you carving? - Schematics.

Okay. And I just do this, and I keep doing it, and they're all just standing there watching me. And I'm going to attempt to clear my exhaustion track when I sacrifice others' interest to complete a project or craft. ♪

Peggy, come on, what are you doing? Yeah, I'm just, I'm busy. I'm just gonna, because I am actually making schematics on the tree for something. Mary, I apologize. For maybe the mask? For the masks and for something else. For something else? But I haven't decided how I'm gonna do it yet. Mary, I apologize. Sometimes our good friend Peggy here does this and we just have to kind of suck it up because she's the brains of the operations, I've said more than once. Well, I guess I'll have a seat and sit on next to old Soapy, share a drink. You want some, Soapy?

Well, Sophie can't oblige, but I'd like to. Here you go. Thank you. Don't use a cup. Good. And then I'm going to finish it up. What are y'all waiting for? Come on, we've got things to do. And I'm going to just start walking out of the pool. Just like Peggy. Follow her lead. And you all make your way through. Let me go first.

Grumbly, we wouldn't have it any other way. And I just lead us back, probably slower than we need to go, but I just want to sniff around. I might go over to a tree and sniff there for a while. And I might go back. In this time, however, you would have been able to find out, I'll just say the properties of the elixir. If you drink it, it restores two exhaustion levels.

Holy shit. So, uh, she's, she's got all of them. She's got all of them for now, but you guys can distribute. That's fine. Potentially one for each or whatever. And so I will say, because you guys moved into the forest and out, uh, this should, we'll just do a roll now for forest rebels.

to see what happens. Okay. So, uh... We choose someone. So you can choose to... Anyone can do it, and you need to mark exhaustion on what resources are going to go in and out. I've been rolling like garbage, but I will tell you from... Are we allowed to talk meta? Yeah.

- Yeah. - I have plenty of exhaustion to spare, so I can spare at least-- - Decay. - Oh. - Is it more decay? - I only have one decay to spare, because I'm assuming I can't decay from my items for this. My decay, I've already offered up multiple levels of decay for travel. I'm at three out of my four decay. - I only have one decay left.

Right. Because I don't know how to play around with them. That's where I'm at. So I'm going to try to basically... My plan is, in Game Master, please tell me if I'm wrong, I'm basically going to try to shyster people with soapy soap to clear my decay and trade basically this garbage soap for gold and try to clear my decay. Well, if we can't get... Especially with our gold, we only need a Mach 3, but...

I only have two left, so why don't we just risk it? Let's just use as few supplies as we can. I agree grumbly. We're a bit out of supplies here.

Let's figuratively roll the dice. You rolled the first one. And I will say that I've been rolling like garbage all night. I feel like Peggy's got the magic touch. Yeah, I've been rolling like garbage too, so yeah, that's a seven. No, that's not a fair. It's not a fair. What do we got, DM? Do you have advice? I might be able to bump that up. I just want to know what the rules. Character creation is not following. You cannot assess because it's just a group roll. We know all we

Oh, we have to choose to offer it before the roll? Before the roll. Yeah. Well then, Peggy, it couldn't have been as bad as my roll. I'll drink to that. So, we run afoul of one of the myriad dangers of the forest, and we must deal with it before we can continue. That's gonna be a yikes from me, Grumly. Here we go. So, um, as you continue to make your way, uh, through the forest, uh, you, uh,

You realize that you're not quite in the... You're not quite in the area where you thought that you were. It's not the same path way back. As... As you make your way and you realize that as you...

As you approach this one part of the forest, you see that you are suddenly... You get closer and closer, and the only way back that you can see are these massive mushrooms. They're all surrounding you. And they are these huge toadstools that are spotted, and they're green and purple. And occasionally they...

and they puff out spores and it's clearing, it's covering the entire pathway that you know to lead directly back to. - Grumly, I don't mean to be offensive here, but we didn't see this on the way out, so why are we seeing this on the way back? - I mean, we're in the middle of the woods, there's trees every two feet. It's not like we're taking the exact path back. - Grumly, my question stands, where have you led us?

I don't know where we are. I think we're getting close. We just gotta keep going. So there's mushrooms, massive mushrooms, seems to be like a field almost kind of ensconcing you, but you know directly ahead is this field of these kind of floating spores and these large mushrooms, and you know that if you try to go around them, it'll take you well past sunset when you're supposed to meet Selja.

All right, Gromley, I'm trusting you, my friend. They look toxic. I'm not so worried about where we are as where we're going. We've got to get back in time. Mr. Alabaster's waiting for us. I would like to sniff.

Eh, there's definitely none. I guess, what do I, so they feel very poisonous. They feel very poisonous. And remember, trust fate is a role for anything that you, you know, we think that there isn't something that matches, but we think that we need a role for it. Um, I am going to, uh...

Well, I guess I'll just lead us through and stay behind me and I'll just smash us a path through the woods.

Just stay behind me. So have these mushrooms you're describing, have we, any of us have, better question, have I seen anything like this before? I would say no. You've heard of the, you know, you've heard beware the forest mushrooms. So I would understand that this is a dangerous situation. Yes. Having never seen these before. And could be quite poisonous. Brumley, I may have,

Excuse my raccoon ears, but you said something about smash? Well, I can just cut through. Let me hold you. Stop right there. All right. I don't know anything about this other than what I've heard and that there's some danger afoot, my friend. And maybe we don't want to just go cutting and swinging and smashing. Is there any way we can get through...

Easily. Be careful about where we step. Well, being careful is not my specialty, so that's up to one of you two. Or one of you three. Well, it's interesting because... I'm most careful! She stumbles and almost, like, steps into a cloud of spores before she commits back. We're so wrong about

mushrooms and I'm gonna like move away from everybody. I almost want to chop just like a machete style, right? But I have my great sword. Oh my god, Bromley has his bestest. I just want to test it, right? Like, what's wrong about cutting some mushrooms down? So you cut into a mushroom. It bursts a cloud of spores in your face. You start coughing and it feels terrible. You take two exhaustion. Booker chooses the camera and says, if you or a loved one has mesothelioma...

Are you alright, my friend? It's not gonna work. Please, no. We can't do that. We can't. We can't do what? Go around hacking things like I told you not to? No, we can't. I just needed to make sure. We would have saved so much time if we could. Let us all take off.

If only we had the mass. It seems like a perfect time. Yeah, but we don't, so... We're gonna have to take our time and go slow. Understood? You understood? Sure, why not? I guess we'll try to slowly, at a disgustingly slow pace... Just the highest lock.

When I leveled up, I took plus one in luck, so mine is currently plus one. I didn't take anything when I leveled up. Oh, pick either a move down here, a weapon move, or a stat. I don't know what to do. I took a stat improvement in luck, so mine is currently plus one. I don't know what else he says. What's yours? Playing like she's not here. In luck, plus zero. Why don't you lead the way? Okay.

All right, Grumly. I got to be honest with you. I'm a little concerned about this carrying all this soap. It's probably poison now. You should definitely not show that to anyone when we get back. Says you. And then I proceed to walk into the market place. Okay, I trust fate. And that is just a luck roll? Yeah.

Oh, holy fucking shit. I got two. So it's three. What? You rolled three guys? I rolled three guys. I choose to die. Okay, good. Here we go. I can't wait. Yeah.

As, uh, as Booker, uh, tries to lead you, you all are, are occasionally knocking and stumbling into these mushrooms. I've been going so bad. I don't understand this. These, uh, these horrible, um, these horrible, uh, uh,

clouds of spores all fill your lungs and you all take two exhaustion. Why are we taking exhaustion for him? We're all doing it. Oh, I didn't know we were all doing it. It's two? Yep. Well, um, so what are the rules when you take one when you don't have any left for exhaustion?

What are the rules? You take injury? No, you don't take injury. I think basically what happens is... Oh, you die. Okay, Grumly's out of the game. I don't... Nicky and I are going to keep playing. No, basically what happens, I believe, is that I'm so exhausted that... I'll look it up. I'll look it up. So Grumly will say for this, Grumly passes out.

in the middle as he's coughing, and you have to drag him through the rest of this field of mushrooms as you spill out on the other side, and you manage to smack him awake once you get to the other side of these mushrooms, and you spill out onto the edge of the clearing as the sun is setting in the sky. You're at Reckonoita Ridge. - Oh my goodness gracious! Everyone, I'm sorry. I did what I could, but I've never seen anything like that before.

Well, they say that a forest isn't a good place to hang out, but it's where I can get away from all these simple-minded cretins. Is there any way we can just get Grumly back to... The Pearl? Yeah. The Pearl! I think that Mr. Alabaster might have a place for us to stay. Well, I've given them enough gold. I'm sure you can spare some accommodations.

And Grumman, you're able to wake up, but you're very, very, very tired. So let me just read what happens. Yeah, I want to know. So you don't immediately pass out, but you could if it works for the fiction. I think that's funny. I think that's great. They are too exhausted to be affected at anything. If they're over-exhausted, every move they make is treated as it misses. So I would fail everything I do. But we were dragging them anyway. Yeah. And so, one, basically I clear one exhaustion a day.

You knew you sleep?

So you sleep, you would clear on exhaustion. Oh. I'm going to walk over to him once we're out and I'm gonna pour one of these spider elixirs at his throat. You pour it out, you pour it in his mouth as he suddenly, you sputter, you feel actually a lot more revitalized. Holy hell! Grumly, are you all right? What was that? That actually worked! That's not snake oil! Even though there's a snake on it! It restores to exhaustion. Oh my god, I can't believe that actually did something!

Thank you, Peggy. I don't know why you're thanking me. I found it in the forest with you guys. Well, Sophie's just doing good from the grave. And you all continue. You eventually make your way back by sunset to the Pearl. As you make your way back and you all...

you all settle in. The bartender tells you that Seljin is actually out on business, but there is a large crate of supplies filled with leather and glass and additional scraps of metal. What do you do?

we're gonna take it up to the room and start making maps okay well if there's anything i do to help you please let me know otherwise i'm gonna get some shot but but don't hesitate to wake me up

Booker is in your employ. Yeah, you're not going to sleep actually. Come over here. I start teaching him how to like punch the holes for the sewing. And I'm going to need you to cut all these pieces out. So I'm going to give him my big shears and have him cut the leather. And you're going to punch the holes and I'm going to put everything together. It's up to you. Do we get any sleep that night?

Oh, yeah. It's early. I don't know if you were straight up Peggy working through the night. No, no. Okay. All right. And as that happens, I go, what are these? And you see that Mary has kind of wandered up to the room as you're working on them. What are these? Are these masks? Is this like a costume party? Not another. Don't even take another step and touch that. What you could do is get us some more bourbon, though.

Okay, that's... Just make sure it's on the house, because we're being so very helpful. I mean, Mr. Alabaster already said that it was, so if Basil might be down there alive and well... Well, no, he said that last drink was the last one, but this time... Except for when we came back, when I said we... When Peggy said we wanted warm food, and I said we would like some nice bourbon. Just go ahead and get it. It'll be fine.

I was reading exhaustion rules at the time. It's all right. It's all right. Mary, please. Yeah, just bring up our rounds. We're working hard. Mr. Albester will understand. You all, and so, Sir Merman, you all eventually have a set of four masks.

as you use your tinkering abilities in order to do that. Uh, and they look like, uh, they, when you all put them on, they're all specially made for each of the type of animal you are. As the, the, the, uh, the one for Booker is to go out quite far, and the one for Peggy is, uh, is very, uh,

Flat. Flat, bespoke. It's totally... So is Grumly's. Yeah, Grumly is a lot... Just a little bit. A little bit. Same with Hazel. Well, Peggy, these look absolutely fantastic. And I know, I know they're going to work. Yeah, we'll see. I don't know. I got a lot of faith in it. I've seen the things you can do. I got a lot of faith. I spent a lot of time weaving together this spider silk, so...

I think when it's all said and done, we should go back to the workshop and maybe you could give me an old tune-up. Yeah, no, when all is said and done, I think that's 100% what we should be doing because I'm really tired and all of my things are really tired. At the end of the day, we got one week. That was a weird turn of phrase, but you know what I'm trying to say?

Mr. Smiles gave us one. You mean at the end of the week we've lived through another week? No, I think that's one of those idioms he always used. Nobody calls you an idiom, Brumley. No, no, that's idiot. I would never say that to you. I've been tapping into the bourbon a little too much. My point is... Did you say bourbon because that's a little

bit different. Bourbon. Bourbon. Like the fermented alcohol. Wait, is tapping into a bourbon a euphemism? It's nothing like a burdon. Don't even start going there. We covered it. We've gone. We've moved on. The point is we have one week. Mr. Smiles said we have one week. We don't want to let Mr. Alabaster down. If we can solve this in one week, we can write back to Penny's workshop. Agreed? Yes, you are.

It's been too long since you've been. Let's do it. Let's get some sleep. Good night. So, you all do that, and Peggy, actually, after that you're done, you realize that there's enough extra supplies in here for everyone to enjoy plus one decay. Okay.

as that you're able to... So, yeah, whatever it is. Don't mark it. So basically you have an empty... You remove one to remove one. Yes, because I was at three of four, I'll go to two of four. So...

The morning, the morning comes. Gross. And, uh... Thanks, Danny. You all enjoy a long rest, so you mark one exhaustion, or remove an exhaustion. I enjoy a long rest. No, you know what I mean. There's no long rest. You sleep, so you mark, you remove one exhaustion.

As did we agree to be anywhere in the morning? Yeah, we've got to go meet up with what's his fucking... Alabaster at the rendezvous point, which is... Okay, that's what I want to make sure. Fuck. Fine. Done. I continue on with the agreed upon adventure.

- You just wanted to sell soap. - Yes, I have some, are you kidding me? - Well, you know it's late morning. - We've got so much to do. - So I will say that you have the morning to resupply. And so when you resupply, you can basically take your gold from your pack and add decay and then remove decay from your overall.

Does that make sense? So, because we have two coins... Yes. But then if I do that, the only thing I want to do then is...

Basically, if I sell soap, I want to get more coins. You know what I'm saying? - Yes. - It's my thought process. - So you don't have to remove that then if you're trying to like con people. - So the idea is that, my understanding, right, is that you're basically transforming the soap bars into gold. - Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. - So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna remove two decay, which puts me at zero decay, and I'm gonna mark my bag of coins with two decay.

And then, if there's time, I would like to get up early and go out to the third player. If there's time. If we don't have time today, I can wait.

I would say that you could probably wake up at the crack of dawn. Yeah. When people are looking to bait themselves. Yes, that's exactly what I would like to do. All the filthy miners. Yeah. So you make your way down quickly to the bathhouse as this shaggy... Can I help him on these things? You're more than welcome to join if that's what you want to do. Up to you.

I don't want to help you. Alright. So I'm thinking, because he gave us extra metal, I want to try and craft a metal shower head with a wire hose and take a bucket and demonstrate showers to these people.

Okay. But I'm not actually going to give people showers, but I'll basically be under them like washing myself as a way to like promote his product. Okay. So what do you intend to do? So what I'd like to do is drag this box of soapy soap basically out in the thoroughfare. And we don't really have like a setup or anything other than what

Peggy has brought down to help promote and I'm going to basically stand upon the box of box of Sophie's soap and stand and say ladies and gentlemen people of the thoroughfare welcome welcome welcome my name is Booker and I have a deal for you anyone who is oh by the bright dawn

of day looking to get a fresh clean start make sure you stop right here by one and only Booker's prize in a soap. That's right, Booker's. You may have heard of soapies of the past but he's long gone skip town gone on to Cheyenne. The point is that Booker is here to stay. There's a soap hole that needs to be filled. That's the road.

But Booker's here to fill it. If you want to be a looker, buy your soap from Booker. If you want to be a looker, buy your soap from Booker. And I will spend a decay to give her a go-to.

110%! I am not going to advertise for free! My friends, if you wanna be a looka, buy ya soap from Booka! Yes, I will take a decay to take one away from her. Yeah, I'm on my back, on the floor, I have my eyes. I'll take one of my decay away. That's pretty good! I'll put another coin up on the floor. That is so fucking brilliant!

I can't even begin to talk. So, with this stage prop of a shower... So, basically, I have a circular piece that I've punched rudimentary holes into and kind of fashioned it. And basically, towards the back, I just have a little bag of water that I just keep squeezing so, like...

some water pumps out of it. It's like very rudimentary shower, like the easiest shower anyone could make. - Yeah, okay, so it's very rudimentary and like all of these unwashed miners show up and they're like, "Huh."

And it's easy. They immediately see it. And then all of a sudden, Booker starts shouting. And you have a crowd of a good number of... Ladies and gentlemen, the bottom line is that you need soap. Everyone needs soap. And you may be asking yourselves, why is Booker's soap so expensive? And the answer is, the answer is, my friend, you may triple, no, quadruple your money by buying one of my soaps. Yeah.

And at the end of the day, you'll smell better than any miner has ever smelled in his or her entire life. Not to be confused with smelting, but, uh, sorry. Thank you, no, my lovely, lovely business partner, Peggy. Peggy, you came up with a brilliant, brilliant phrase. That is one gold piece. One gold piece. No, no, please, sir, do not scoff at the price. Because again, you may quadruple your money.

your money and do tricking NPC. So that's a charm roll. It's a cunning roll. Please, I just, I need to roll higher than a seven one time. Could that be persuade? Oh, actually, no. Well, I would say it is a very blatant trick.

Okay. I am blatantly lying, and I know for a fact that this is bullshit. I don't care what's in there. I'm lying. I am very much lying. I want to do the thing and help him. I got a nine, so if you want to help me, I'll make it an ten. So I just mark an exhaustion to help him? Mark an exhaustion, and with that, your slogan. They take the bait and do what we want. The crowd immediately starts screaming, oh, give me a SOA!

I want a sober. This is pretty fucking, I'm going to be, I'm going to be so clean. I'm going to be a looker. Are you going to be a looker? Looker, looker. And they all start chattering and they buy, fucking man, they buy all, give me it on top. They buy all of the soap and you can transfer all of those, all three soaps to three,

I'm gonna put two in my coin bag. Okay. And one, I will remove the decay that I paid for paying. Sounds good. So basically, I am...

I'm back to clean. Got it. Got it. So you do that, and they all walk away, and someone's like, oh, this is so good. I'll skip a bath today. So I'll be basically like thumbing through all the gold we made and giving Peggy her share, and basically as you walk back to the inn, I'll say, wow.

Unbelievable. That poor, poor Sophie died, but not in vain. Not in vain, my friends, because we've made some gold on his name that sounded wrong. Let's head back to the pearl. Yeah, you know. Job well done, Peggy. Thank you for your help. His name will live on forever in your comms. So let's go.

Unbelievable. Absolutely fantastic. I get better at those every single day. You know, couldn't have done it without you, my friend. It's great. It's always an opportunity for me to try out some of my new toys. What is your decay at? My decay was at four out of technically six because I can't take one away. I have five normally because I have big pockets. And Mikey gave us a decay. So what do you have?

- Well, all I did was add a bag of coins 'cause I didn't think I understood what you were doing. So I'm assuming you took away one of my decays. - Yeah, so basically what I did was that I basically took on a decay to give you a coin to basically heal you of one of your decays. - Okay, perfect. Then I have three decays instead of two left. - Okay, all right, cool.

Got it. Well, so you want to lower your decay. So I think just as we think about this, as you're filling it up, they determine this injury, exhaustion, and decay as the things you don't want. Right? So you are taking a decay to remove your decay. Right. So you want to lower it because when you're at zero is when you're at full. So I was essentially paying her gold coin. Right. And then I made three. Right. So you net two and you net one. Correct. Got it. Okay.

Take one away. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Take one. Yes, you removed one decay. Yes, I did. I have three. She did. I have my five. And so if you would like to take the time to resupply with the coins that you have, you can just basically swap decay up to from the coin pampers. Because now I have coins in my bag that I can spend on whatever I need.

So I'm good. I'm like back to doing Booker things. - We can do this for, can I, I just want to swing by a blacksmith shop if possible. So I'm assuming that there may be some blacksmiths. - Yeah, there's blacksmiths. Yeah, you see a fox swinging a hammer at the blacksmith. - If I can use my coin purse to remove one decay, and then how much would it call? Would it be one decay per box of repair?

Yes. Okay, so I just want to repair one of them on my plate armor. Okay. So you pay a blacksmith. The fox, oh, you can't afford to get a four pair, but he manages to hammer out a good amount of repair. So I spend my advance entirely. There were two, right? Yeah. So basically having a tinker is like insanely good.

Because it's like really... Just if you're interested in playing this, I recommend having a tinker, because I think eventually... There's a lot of sweet combos. Clearing damage on your weapons is very, very good and important. And expensive. So, uh... Okay, cool. So I bought a whetstone, was the first decay, and then I, um, maybe they just patched up a strap or something. Yeah.

So you pay whatever coin you have, you're tapped out, you all eventually meet, and you're ready to head to the mine. The Comstock Clan. Yes, yes. Okay. All right. Are you guys ready to go? Well, as ready as I can be. Why were you guys up so early? May so be rest in peace, is all I can say. Yeah. No, I made a makeshift, like, portable washing thing, and I helped Booker sell a bunch of...

Just horrible soap. No, my dear, you are way too modest. Peggy is the greatest marketer known to this planet. Wait, you guys sold that soap? Oh, yeah. That con man soap. You ran a con? Oh, yeah, we sold the entire thing. We sold every, I think every last, I think we sold out, right? All right. But you know the good thing is, is I think I've learned how to make it. So I was hoping maybe we could make some more soaps in the future. And my accent completely changed. Peggy, my dear. Yeah? Yeah?

That sounds like a lovely, lovely, lovely idea. Yeah, I licked one of the bars before I gave it to the guy. I think I have an idea of what was in it. It's not good stuff, is all I'm going to say. I promise you that I have no idea. I'm not even sure it was actually soap. This sounds like an opportunity to improve upon a product that has already breached the market. Yeah. Yeah. Are we going into business? Oh, my friend. Oh, my friend.

Wash a hookah soaked from Booker. And then we can sell it to What's-His-Fuck downstairs. That is a lovely idea. I will definitely run that by management, which is me, and we will work on it. Cool. I'm just trying to think of all the words to rhyme with Booker. You are way, way ahead of me on this. And again, as always, you are the brains. You are the brains.

Shall we head downstairs? - But we took out soap from Booker, no? - No, let's not do that one. No, no, that is not really on the-- - All right, well, I'll stretch it out. - As they say in the business, it doesn't really sound on brand.

- But we'll work on it. We're not marrying the idea. That's all I'm saying. Grumly, my friend, do you wanna leave us downstairs? - I would, if you let me go. - Now that I've distracted you from the idea of soap. - I don't know, anyway, let's go. - Like totally, yeah, and I'll just, I'll make it upstairs. - You make your way downstairs. You see that Mary is passed out on, slumped up against the table and Seljin is waiting for you.

and down at the ground floor. And he looks like, well, did the supplies work out? It's all my guys could find. Oh no, it was great. We're all going to look like a bunch of road hogs.

I don't know what that is, but... It's a hog on the road. It's nothing special. Have you ever seen a hog on the road? Nope, just making it up. I drew one once in my notebook, though. That sounds dangerous if we were to run into a hog on the road. Yeah, because they've got those tusks. They could kill you, like, really fast. Yeah, and they do business. They're one of the deadliest animals. They do business? I didn't

business you might want to consider that going into business with some hogs one of the deadliest animals in the dimwood haven't you seen the statistics if there's money to be made then absolutely i'm willing to work with whoever can provide me with the best coin yeah you were saying if be careful around you were gonna say be whatever i knew a guy named yancey once that's a yikes from me don't

This is like if Nikki honestly thought Mikey was gonna say "Be Yancy." Always be Yancy. Watch any pooplehead that he may try to send with you as a guide down there. Oh no. Don't trust them. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You mean to say that Mr. Smiles is gonna send some of those... skinkatons with us? Well, you don't know the mines at all, you're gonna need a guide, so he's probably gonna supply one for you. And what you're saying is it won't look great if we come back and all the skinkatons are dead.

I'm saying that they may try to get the jump on you. Just keep... Wait, wait. We know somebody that knows the mines? What if we bring a guard and they have their guard and then we at least have two guards? Who the hell is going to be our guide, Grumly? Maybe the canary. We freed that miner that knew the mines. Oh, dear Lord. You mean the drunk? Yeah. Haven't you ever heard of a canary mine or something? There's nobody you can trust more than a drunk.

I think I heard that somewhere. Peggy, I've never heard you say that once. At least you always know what they're fucking motivated by. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Isn't the opposite of what you just said true? Oh. Was it supposed to be, like, ironic?

No, I just mean because you know exactly what they want. She wants nothing to do with whatever's in that mine. Well, as long as she knows she's going to get some of her drink when she gets back. Then time out. We're going to need Mr. Alabaster's help here. You might need to promise the drunk some of the old elixir, if you know what I'm saying. Perhaps Elenari is your fucking guy. Yeah, you know. Do you know Matt?

Oh, I guess she was in here earlier. That can't be a good sign. We cut her out of the spider set. That cannot be a good sign. Every fucking saloon in this place knows Mary. So is she full of shit or is she going to lead us into this mine? She was a scout and she knows the mines better than any other bird. She's the only bird that I've seen go into those fucking mines.

Well, what do you think? I mean, obviously we've got to deal with this geologist, but in case he's up to no good and wants to lead us down the wrong way, we'll have our own guy to verify at least what he's saying. Oh dear God, we're going to be killed by the Skeetons. All right. Mary, Mary, are you down here? Mary, where are you? Mary?

She's right behind you, like, "Hey, I'm, um, I'm up!" And you see her kind of feathers, there's like a little bit of down, kind of falling down, and she says, "Where are you going? Where are you going? I haven't, nope, I haven't soiled myself. I'm fine, I'm fine." "Mary! I have a very important question to ask you." "Yes?" "Would you like to be enlisted in this here group of vagabonds as our guide and our scout?"

It's a very honorable role and you will be paid handsomely in whiskey.

provided by this fair badger. I wasn't, I honestly, I honestly wasn't, I generally don't trust dogs or cats, no offense, but I was not sold until you said whiskey, and then now I am, I am currently presently fucking sold. Oh, right, what do you need me to do? We need you to lead us into one of these dangerous mines. I mean, surely you've heard of the mines returning, and they've got all sorts of crazy things going on in their head, and

You know what's going on? Oh, yeah. I mean, they're trying to keep it on the down low, but the people in the know, they know, and it's everywhere. Old Charlie will just... Great! Then that means that you can lead us there. Regardless of what's going on, risk life and limb for the drink! The big iron bonanza? Yeah.

The big iron bonanza, I like the ring of it! That's deep, that's deep into the fucking hills! Yes, my friend, and we need you to lead us there. Again, risking life and limb for the drink! Oh? Well, I've risked life and limb for less. And I've risked more for the drink! Cheers! Cheers, and so, uh, welcome aboard. Is it too early?

Never, I said. Cheers. Never for me. And she drinks it. And with that, Selvage says, what the fuck did I get myself into? Well, I guess this is better than nothing. Figure out what the fuck he's doing down there. One week. You've got a week. Well, hopefully you don't die. Well, we'll see you soon. Thank you, Mary. Please lead the way to the Mars.

Well, I guess I will, and you all make your way through the town. Right as we leave, I lean over to Peggy, and I'll say, Hey, Peggy, you're the smart one. Do they really grow bananas in mines? You know, Grumly, yeah. Yeah, they do. And you should keep an eye out, because you never know where the bananas are going to come from, okay? I haven't had a banana since...

I was at home, like very far away home in the Empire. So you know if you want a banana, you just better watch where you're going, watch where your feet are going, watch above your head, watch to the side. I gotta do all that knock and maybe eat a banana or two? Yeah, and when you hear loud noises, really low noises, like stop doing that thing when you turn your head from side to side. Oh, oh, um, Hazel, maybe if we get enough bananas, you can make a banana cream pie. Have you ever made one of those? Yes.

Maybe she has. She's probably stolen a banana. Yeah, maybe we'll get a banana. But anyway, you keep an eye out for him, okay? I'll do what you think you said. I promise. Okay. So are we making our way? Yep, you're making your way. While we are, I just want to basically just ask Peggy, like, oh, you didn't...

I know we were very, very hard at work on the masks, and again, expertly fine craftsmanship. Did you have any chance to, you know, with the fangs? Oh, no, I didn't work on those. All right. I mean, we... Mary, I know you're not there, but how far are we from the mine, per se? Oh, we're almost up there. Just whenever you guys are done, please enjoy. No, I mean roughly how many days trek to the mine?

Um, just, we'll get there in an hour. Oh, well, hell. Um, okay. Well, that's fine. That's fine. You know what I've realized, though? I only made one extra mask, so they can send a spankerton with us if they want, but he's not getting one of these masks.

I got enough for the four of us and for Mary the canary. Good call. If this, if this, uh, I want to call him Hush, but his name is Smiles. If this Smiles fella wants to send any of those skinkertons in with us, they're on their own. Yeah, it's not my problem. I never promised. I mean, we never promised them masks. Now, now, I know that generally I make do with what we can find around us, and I'm not much of a fighter, but if you get the opportunity, Peggy, you know, to do the thing, I...

You know what's a great way to terrify somebody? You bite your own tongue off. You let your mouth fill with blood, and then you just open your lips and let it run all over yourself while you growl. Peggy, my tongue is almost my only asset here. You know, I'm a talker. I can't go without my tongue. It doesn't really... Who would ever do that? It sounds horrible. I mean, maybe in a life-threatening situation, but then I've lost my best feature. I was just making notes on ways to scare people.

I am horrified. If it's any consolation. If I bit my tongue off, I wouldn't be able to pant and I would overheat very easily and die. That sounds like a pug problem more than it sounds like an everybody else kind of problem. Oh, well. I'm not telling you to do it. I was just giving you an idea. I'm very menacing of a voice, as you can see. Right. I mean, Gremlin's got the muscles, you've got the brain, but if I can't talk.

What does Booker got? Your soap? No, I saw the soap! The soap is gone! The soap is done, Payne! The soap is ridden off into the sunset! Yeah, I don't know. What's your thing? My what thing? Oh, so you're clear on exhaustion.

No, no, I'm keeping track of it on my phone. I'd be happy to tell you where I'm standing. What's your hustler feature? My hustler feature is clear your exhaustion track when you spring a complicated con, which is what I was trying to fucking do, or a dangerous mark.

I would say a complicated con was the song. Oh, yeah. You think? Yeah. See, I thought a complicated con. Well, okay. A con would be like, one that's not complicated is like, oh, you want to buy this rock? Right. So my conflict, and please, this is a learning experience, everyone. My thought of the complicated con was going to be rolled in town being like, oh, let's steal a fucking mine from George Bush. No. That's complex as shit. Well, that's very, that's very, that's hectic. I was going long con, baby. Yeah, I know that.

that would count as well. But I would say complicated comma, if it's not like, Oh, there's like a drunk and you're like, Hey, you want to give me a goal? Okay. Well, in that case, my friends, I have never felt better in my entire life.

You had props and a slogan. I mean, that's pretty complicated. That was literally entirely Peggy. I showed up and I handed the soap out. I didn't do any work, just like Booker intended. That's why you have friends, so they can do all the work for you. I can drink to that. To be fair, I did ask if I could come. You gave me permission. You technically hired me. Well, then I paid you. So, you know, you did all the hard

- One for you and three for me, as even as it can be. - You know, that's how Hazelwood wanted to be. - Cheers. So eventually you all arrive. As you wind through, the buildings get larger and larger, and you see the huge sign that says, "Smiles Mining Company," and the concentration of the Skinkertons and the Cat Soldiers gets more and more intense,

you see large offices and and these strange uh large machines that are boring into the earth that are just absurdly loud uh these these machinations that are uh powered by uh by kinetics as you see uh haggard uh foxes and other woodland creatures uh push uh spinning these wheels as these machines are are

boring into the earth and it's horribly loud. However, you see at the very top, almost towards the edge of the forest, this large hill and a bent sign that says the Comstock claim. And at the entrance, you see a row of skinkertons and they are flanking the

a creature that has a long snout and a long tail. It seems to be a weasel. As the weasel is standing very, very prim and proper and neatly as you all approach. And you see that there is a large wooden building, an office it seems to be, but with a large balcony up ahead. And it's far off, but it's far enough where you...

It's not directly where you could potentially call out to, but you see the cat with the large leather hat as Smiles looks down at you. And as you kind of look at him, he smiles and just waves his hand. I'm going to customarily just like tip my hat and, you know, give him a...

Recognition from Hookah. I'm gonna bite my tongue off and let blood drain all over myself. But it's actually just a berry that I picked that kind of looks like blood. And then I'm gonna slowly put my mask on while I'm keeping full eye contact with him. He's like...

And he goes back and you see that there is, he's eating the bowl of peaches that he got from himself. Obviously very hungry from the ones that you had snatched. Yeah, I don't think it had the, I don't have it. I thought you were going to say you bite your thumb at him. Do you bite your thumb at him? No. He's just like, as you approach. You're in the end.

I would like to become a titan. Okay. Make a trust fate roll. It fits. Eight. That's a ten. I guess I don't become a titan. Actually, with some assistance, you succeed and the entire campaign is a massive fraud.

- Oh, the frog time. - Just smashes. - One of my favorite YouTube videos is the original Japanese voice acting cast singing along to the song without knowing that it's fantastic.

You arrive and you see this very well-dressed weasel and he looks around and says,

I was told by Mr. Smiles that there would only be four of you. You don't get to bring friends. You know, he never said that, so we bring in someone. To be fair, Peggy is 110% right. We weren't given any restrictions, and Mary here is our guide into the mine. Yeah. We gotta have someone we trust, we know. Not a weasel kineasel. Uh, my name is Mr. Y. Okay, kineasel, it's fine.

- Mr. Why, how do you spell that? Like the letter Y? Or perhaps like-- - You can call me Mr. Why. No more information is necessary for that. - I'm gonna call him Ken Eazle 'cause I think it's a little more fun to say. - And I am Mr. Smiles' geologist. I know these mines and you need a guide. - Yeah, that's why we brought a merry canary.

And do you believe this alleged guy who is smelling of whiskey? Oh, yeah, she's a total drunk. Is going to be efficient for your operations? Yeah, for sure. She says she's been doing lots of work around here, so we trust her. Yeah, absolutely. She's the most knowledgeable miner person

in the whole clearing, is what we heard. - The only mining bird in the entire clearing. - So we figured if Mr. Smiles has his guard, we will have ours and you two can work together and figure out where we're going in these mines. - Yeah. - And I will still accompany you. I would assume so. Would Mr. Smiles have it any other way? I suppose not.

as he thinks for a moment. And you see that he's a little, there's a little bit of trepidation as he says, well, we should get a move on then. I am not entirely sure what this is.

Why you would need to bring your own guide if I am going to be joining you. Well, one for you, one for us. It's about the whole integrity of the situation. No conflict of interest, my friend. We are all on the same side. No. Can I figure this guy out? Yeah. As our grumble starts. Booker begins to clench up.

No, uh, snake eyes, no. Snake eyes. I fail horribly. As, uh, you can't discern, as fine as an iron trap, as he looks forward and he stares at you, Gromley, as he sees that his eyes are on, that your eyes are on him, as he says, "Do you doubt my ability to guide this operation?"

No, of course not. No, no, not at all. You're the chief geologist, of course, and you're in the employ of Mr. Smiles, and essentially so are we. So we're all...

Colleagues? Is that the word? You told me that yesterday or something, two days ago. Yeah, sure. Anything you want to say, Grumley, there's nothing you can say is going to be wrong. We share the same employer and we wouldn't want to upset him, would we? Yeah. I think we should just do as he says and we should figure out what's going on with this mob. Would you like to stay here? We could go in on our own if you like.

It is true, my friend. Mr. Why, you said. It's been told to us that it's very dangerous down in the mines. People have walked in promptly, expired. Ah, yes, I have seen the effects on the miners. And you're willing to risk your own life for Mr. Smiles. Mr. Smiles pays me very well, but you seem to have your own guide make a persuadement to be safe.

You're good. What do you mean I'm good? Your charm's plus three, right? It's plus two. I didn't think I could get to plus three. You can if you bump it. I bumped my fucking luck to one. You can get to plus three with the level up, so do you want to say that you moved your charm? No, fuck no. I need the luck for my desperate smile. I picked luck on purpose, my friend. The bottom line is I got a six. I...

Are you gonna help him? No. I probably won't get this guy to come with us, so if he doesn't wanna go, then I'm fine with it. Well, I was kind of talking earlier, so we'll say that that was the help. I won't bark at exhaustion. So it becomes a seven for what? It's persuade an NPC? Yeah. No!

Well, I'm persuading him to necessarily not step down and die. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm just saying. I'm just reiterating that. Oh, no, on a seven to nine, they aren't sure. The gene will tell you what I need to persuade them. He looks at you and he seems to be...

uh i will say that he seems to be a little bit nervous as you're trying to persuade him he is very much wanting to uh execute the orders of mr smiles but uh if you basically hype up the horrible dangers in the mind it seems like you might be able to persuade him to not join you and let you take barry mr why if i if i will please with all due respect again if if i haven't had the pleasure my name is booka um

Yes, I know your name. I'm headed down into this horrible, horrible death trap of a mind against...

basically against my will here, and they're talking about magic? Magic? Do you believe in magic? All I know is several dozen, dozen poor souls have ventured down into the cave, if you will, and come up absolutely babbling nonsense. Oh, no, let me rephrase. Half of that dozen came up dead.

That is true. Are you worried for my safety? I'm worried for my own safety! Screw your safety! It will be very dangerous off into that- Perhaps it is then- Yeah, do you have a mask? Because we all made masks so that we could go in there and not die immediately. If it wasn't for Penny here, I wouldn't be seen with a hundred feet of this- Do you have a mask for me? No, I didn't know you were gonna be here, so I didn't think you would. That's a good joke, my friend!

"I have a mask for you, please! No! No, sir!" With that, he seems to kind of breathe. The nervousness overcomes him and he kind of shakes a little bit, twitches, and he says, "Perhaps you are right. Well, I will not waste my time. You have your own guide who is far more disposable than my brain and genius." - Yeah, you know, that makes me wonder.

Why would they send you in there without any mask or any protection? Do you think you did something that made him mad? Do you think he was trying to kill you? Wow. I'm trying to sow some... Discord. Yeah, basically, I'm trying to make him wonder. You're trying to trick an NPC. Peggy, my friend, that is a great point. I mean, only an employer who simply did not care about their employees would send someone to their death like this. We just met this drunk and I made a romance.

And he kind of like steps back and he looks around and then he looks to side to side and the skinkertons are looking and they're like, as Mr. Smiles does care for the, excuse me,

genius of my geological wonders and my ability to find him, he would never throw my life away so easily or the lives of these... Unless he thought that you had used up all of your knowledge in this one particular moment. And while she's saying that, I will snicker in the background very loudly. Make a...

Uh, trick an NPC? She's rolling and I'm assisting it. No! What'd you get? What's the trick? Oh, that is coming. It doesn't help. Eight. Eight? They hesitate, so you can choose one of these options. Oh.

So if you look at the first one, that was pretty good. They hesitate. You shake their confidence or weaken them around. That's what I want to do. He hesitates and he looks drained. Not just him, all of the Sphinxertons that are with him, which is a total of eight. As they all look around and they all kind of keep their eye up at Smiles.

who is just looking he's too far away to hear any of this he's like way up and he's just looking as he's eating his breakfast he's drinking a cup of coffee what a bastard as he's smiling down he waves again as you all look up I'm just gonna casually say but you know I'm probably wrong right like if this is the biggest mine in the entire in the entire dim there's no way he'd be trying to get rid of anyone that could profit off of it right but anyway we gotta get in there and we gotta find out if that's really what's in there you know what I mean

Of course. We will be waiting. Don't delay. You are employees now of Mr. Smiles. And he kind of stumbles a little bit. Excuse me. And he reaches into his coat and pulls out a kerchief and dabs some sweat away. I'm going to look really sad at him. Take care of yourself, okay? I hope I see you again. At ease, weasel.

And as you were. Eddie's a weasel. Eddie's a weasel. And he's a, of course.

And as he steps away, uh, he, he pulled, puts the, the, the, the kerchief back into his, his, his coat. Uh, he steps away and, uh, you then start to see that as the skinkertons all part, the entrance of this mine, it's a very dark, uh, inside and it's, it sounds empty. You hear the whispers of the skinkertons as, uh, uh, Mr. Y walks over to them and they all start to kind of, uh,

talk a little bit and they're all keeping looking back up from each other up to smiles as they seem to have something to be distrustful and their morale is very shaken. Good. I'm going to turn to Mary and I'm going to say loudly, all right, drunk who I just met but whose life I value a lot, here is a mask for you. I'm going to give her a mask and pass out everybody's masks.

We better put these on now, because you don't know where this danger starts. It honestly could be leaking out here in very small batches, even at the entrance. And long exposure could cause it, so... Uh, you know, Peggy, I don't doubt your ability for one second. You've done nothing but protect my hide from day one.

I'm a little concerned how I suddenly got roped into potentially laying down my life for people I don't even know. Yeah, I questioned that when I woke up this morning, but then we sold a lot of really poor quality soap to a bunch of really dirty old men. These are poor... And so now I just... They're poor, helpless miners.

What else are they gonna do? They need somebody to look after them. You know, they mined to make that gold we took from them and it's been a real moral question for the last four hours. Wait, you took gold from miners? Yeah, I don't want to talk about it. Let's go in. At the end of the day, Grumly, my friend, we can't help anyone if we're dead.

Yeah. I agree. I think we definitely shouldn't die, but at the very least, we could... Maybe we kill three birds with one stone? Well, you know, Mary's a bird. We all need to understand that we step in the threshold here, we may instantly die.

We all are accepting that. Oh, no, no, that's ridiculous. I'll fit well. I think we'll be fine. Then don't put that mask on when you walk right in. Well, no, I'm going to put this mask on. I trust you. If Peggy has anything to do with this, she'll protect us because I believe in her. I believe in her and her abilities. But if this is beyond her, this is beyond any of us, is this...

which one's mine you know the one that shaped like your face darling i'm gonna give it to him basically look like yourself but like you're wearing somebody else's skin over your face

It's kind of like something straight out of a horror movie. At least it's gonna work, I'll say. And as you make your way to one last look towards the group, and as they're fanning out, they kind of post a watch at the entrance of this mine. You actually notice that there are slight bulges in the breast pockets of...

of Mr. Wisecoats in about the shape of blades as you get the sense of perhaps what his intentions may have been as he watches you all... - But he's not proceeding with us. - He's standing back and he's looking like his morale has been shaken quite a bit as they start to whisper amongst each other as you all enter into the mines.

and you begin to descend deeper and deeper. As the eerie quiet, you know what mines are like, you're used to the loud clanging and echoing through these tunnels, as the occasional bit of dust and soot falls down, dirt from the top of these tunnels falls down a little bit, as all of the mine support seem to be

somewhat precariously placed, and you see that there are tracks for mine carts going off down into this mine. You get further and further, and Mary, you arrive at a fork, and Mary knows exactly the way to go, which would have potentially been a dilemma. You manage to avoid entirely, as you... Yes! You...

And then arrive at another fort. Both carts go and die. No, all the amateurs would tell us to go left. The real secret is, are you paying attention? Is to go right. And then she starts walking left. I mean, and she starts walking in the appropriate direction. Oh dear, heavens above, we're going to die. You know, I really like her. I'm just going to say she's my kind of people. You lead the way, Mary. You're the expert.

And you get deeper and deeper, and the tunnel gets narrower and narrower as the tunnel continues. And then finally, you see it's dark. There are a few lanterns kind of hung up along the side here, because you do need lighting, as Canary, Mary the Canary, goddammit, guides you. You said it first, man.

And eventually, you arrive at this chamber. You see a minecart that is spilled over with iron ore. Abandoned mining picks, as you see that all of the walls of this have seemed to have been systematically bored out and dug. However, you see rough...

rubble and stone and dirt that seems to give way into a cavern up ahead. And Mary looks at you with her mask and says, Well, I can't see shit with this fucking thing on, but that's the bonanza. So, my friend, I know that you've been predisposed for a while, but has anyone...

Breached the uh, precipice and returned alive. The ones that came back alive were screaming their guts out and they're tied down to the cots in the- the frickin' doc's tent. Fantastic. Well in that case, then I will be the one- very first one

To volunteer Grumley to step first and go forward. No, I'm going to do it. I'm going to walk up and then I'm going to scream and run back and then just start laughing. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Oh my God, Peggy. So you're in agreement that Grumley should go first? I'm not afraid of a few bananas. That's not what he said. I'm talking. You walk, you walk around and you're like, well, I guess...

If we all die, then at least I can, I'll take off my mask and finally enjoy a drink. And she puts it back. And it's like, I can't believe I can't. Well, I value my life a little bit. And she follows you. You can't drink when you're dead. That's the best fucking point I ever heard. And she like tightens her mask. As she joins you and walks forward and you step into this cavern.

And as you walk forward, the space begins to open up. You see scrapes along the wall. You then see a dropped mining pick, abandoned. A few pieces of coin. I'm gonna pick that up and put it in my pack. You manage to do that. You find some coin scattered. You...

You then see these rocks that seem to litter the floor of this cavern as the ceiling gets wider and wider as you all look around and you step forward and nothing seems to be...

affecting you. You don't feel crazy. You haven't died yet. And then as you're going forward, and then you have a lantern. Mary's providing a lantern because why not? And she's holding the lantern and you see a rock with something slumped up against it. And you approach it and it is a dead decomposing light.

A fox that its eyes are wide with horror. And its tongue is rolling off to the side. You know, I think that it saw something and not smelled something, but it could have been hallucinations from inhaling something. So, that could be an ordeal. There could be grumbling. There's something behind you! I'm kidding. Grrrr.

Do you smell anything weird? Can I sniff around? You can't smell anything because you got a mask on. You've welcomed us to... Yeah, you try, right? I would say you don't need a roll for it, but you smell and it smells nothing. It smells like the same scent that you've been getting through the filtered mask.

Well, we're not dead yet, which means it looks like Peggy's done what she needs to do. Yet again, I cannot stress this enough when I turn to Mary. You do not know her ingenuity.

She's done fantastically well. Well, I'm not dead yet. And look, you can see around and she, uh, cast the lantern around. And as you, uh, you look around, the light catches on these massive veins and nodes of iron ore everywhere you can see. And you realize that a lot of these rocks are just these massive, uh, nodes of iron. As, uh, you are in the, it is very clear that this is an absurdly, uh,

bountiful find as you arrive and however you get closer and closer and your vision starts to get a little bit clouded as you step more and more forward and as it's clouded, it's difficult to see, there's a strange color and through the lantern light you can see that almost there's a strange, there's particles, there's mist, there's some sort of, is it ash? But it's the color of like of orange and red.

almost like embers floating through. As you step forward into this orange cloud, as you step forward further and further, nothing happens. It seems that all of these particles that should be, if he had breathed it in, might have an effect, are being filtered by this mask. Holy shit! As...

you make your way and eventually it gets thicker and thicker and Mary looks around and well, do any of you know what the fuck this is?

Would you describe it as a maizena? Yeah, a little bit. It is just this thick, dense... It's not unlike almost the spores that you see. It's similar. It's almost like a rhyming challenge as you are in this thick, dense cloud of particles, of mist, of cloud of something.

As you step forward, you get closer and closer towards the back of this cave or further into the cave. And then you start to see through this orangey, reddish cloud, stone pillars rising up. And behind the pillars, great walls build a block stone rising up higher and higher, disappearing into the cloud.

As you... So it's so thick we can't even see the roof of the cave. Exactly right. It's so thick you can only see probably about 20 feet in front of you. As you see that there's the iron nodes and there's rubble.

along the structure and you approach closer and closer and you start to see. - I wanna take one of the big iron nodes and put it in my pack. - Oh, the nodes are like these big rocks. - So there aren't any like big pieces 'cause what I wanna do is I wanna take a big piece of like pure iron back just to hand it to Smiles and be like, we made it out. This is what you can look forward to in there.

It's kind of like proof that we made it all the way. - I would say you see a little bit of this rock formation. - And I do have a pick. - Oh yeah, so you have a pick. I would say that is easy. You're able to easily shave off this incredibly thick piece about yay big.

And, uh... I put it in one of the pockets of my tool belt so I can keep... Yeah, you do that. And so you, uh, place it in there. Just know that you have an iron. I know that you do. Yeah. And... I made a little... Yes, it is very similar to the upside down. Thank you. That's an... I had not... I was trying to think. There's something that I'm thinking of where this is similar to, and the upside down is similar to that. And... You approach, and suddenly, uh...

these stone walls rising up like a massive fortress. You've seen fortresses built by the Eyrie and by the Marquis VIII, but this is of an architecture that you have never seen before. And it's old and worn and crumbling. And then suddenly Mary's lantern light shines across a large symbol above an empty stone door.

And you see a heart, the symbol of a heart, that seems to be on fire, blazing. And at the center is the head of a stag, with a crown on top of its head. Wow. Where are we? Have you seen anything like this?

I've heard of fucking deer. Is this... Are we about to get, like, sacrificed to horrible dark gods? All right, now, now. You know it's definitely possible, but I sure hope not. No matter what happens, Mary, we need your absolute secrecy. You cannot tell anyone outside of this cave anything that you've seen today. Do you understand? We're willing to pay you liquidly.

What does that mean? With booze. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know what I'm talking about. Oh, like liquid assets. Like booze. Like the fermented kind that'll get you all sorts of messed up. The point is you can't tell anyone about this. Yeah, yeah, all we can talk about is the iron. You can't tell them about this weird... You gotta understand, we sent Mr. Y away for a reason. We couldn't risk him finding this. Well, Irene... Who's Irene? Irene.

I knew an Irene once. Oh, anyway, I mean, I had to tell you, I had to tell you, uh, Cooker, is that your name? You're like a chef? No, Booker. Booker, Booker, got it, got it. Like, like, like the book, but, but I don't read. I've never read a fucking book. Do I look like I read books? That is insulting my intelligence. Me and you both, my friend. But I'm going to be honest with you. I'll take extra booze, but anything I say...

I'm a drunk and they ain't gonna believe me no matter what I say. That's fine. The less likely to believe you, the better. We just need your word that you're gonna be honest here and do what you can to not spread this around. It's important. I can't stress that enough. I can occasionally be honest. Been kind of a good day. I'm not risking my life for nothing here, all right?

I don't wanna fucking die. No, I don't. No, I don't.

Well, I'm just saying, that's why you should just never mention this. Pretend that you aren't even here. You got us through. You just keep an eye out, but just after this is all over, you didn't see nothing. It's for your own safety and for ours as well. Understood? I guess I fucking understand. Fair enough.

As she continues forward, you see the large stone door. And there's darkness inside. The lantern light is being blocked by these orange-reddish particles that almost look like burning embers. But it's so dark in this cavern, you can't see into it. What do you do? I guess there's no such thing as darkvision in this game. I will...

Uh, look at my good friend Gromley. Gromley, my friend, do you have any kind of a torch? I mean, uh... Well, you have a lantern already going. Well, shit. You know what? I will say that because you're a raccoon, that you'd be able to see... Can raccoons not see well? I don't know. I just don't like where this is going, my friend.

My point is, I guess if the... Well, no, I'm gonna leave it up to the GM here. I apologize. I'll take a step back. He is technically nocturnal. I would say a raccoon would have a superior dark vision. And so you can see further than anyone else, as even though it's through the fog, you see that there is a faint, faint glow

A tiny point of almost looks like a tiny little fire deep into the structure. Well, my friends, um... Provided Mr. Y is not a Hothak, which would be the case... I'm gonna lead the way.

Are you alright with that? Grab a wee paint. You alright with that? Yeah. I can't see nothing, so I'll just keep my nose out. Do you trust me? Of course I do. Yeah, of course. We've survived this long. We've been vagabonding around for like a year now. I think... As far as I know, I'm not dead yet. Now you just got to be careful. He's going to lead us through. That means a lot to me. All I ask...

is that whoever's behind me grab my hand, whoever's behind them grab their hand, so on and so forth until we form a safety chain. - All right, I'll be right behind you, all right? - Fair enough. - So I'll grab your hand and then I'll reach my hand back out. - So it'll be me then Grumly, then whoever wants to grab Grumly's hand.

I'm already old, Nick. And then perhaps Hazel, and then bringing up the rear will be Mary. Are you all right with that? Is that amenable? I'm fine with whatever you say. I'm here to serve as long as I get some booze. I would like to head towards the light. Okay. And you didn't mention the light. I did not. I'm just going. Correct.

So you all enter this structure and this building seems to be the remains of some sort of, is it a fortress? Is it a temple?

as these huge stone walls all around you, it seems to be this large entrance hall. You see where doors would have been, are all collapsed in with rubble. As you step forward, you see a arched door at the very back as you get closer and closer. And at this point, when you're into this room, as you see that there are any kind of wood or you see tiny fragments of wood

of cloth, of metal scattered about, but it's all so decayed and ruined. You can't make sense of what it was. Whatever this is feels impossibly old. As you continue, you then see an arched doorway up ahead, and that's when you all see that faint glowing light into a chamber directly ahead. There it is, friends. There it is. That's what I saw, and that's where we're headed. ♪

How would there be a fire in here? Let's just reserve judgment until we get closer. Is that alright, Grungy? Grr. That means there's people here. Not necessarily. You

You know, volcanoes have molten lava, magma, depending on where it is on the outside or the inside. And not a single person has to be there to make flames. There could be gases coming out of the rock beds that could have somehow ignited based on heat, et cetera. And not a single Maya has made it this deep. Yeah. Or maybe some did, and they've been surviving on the other side of this cavern. And if that's the case, we'll get them out safely. But everyone be on your guard. By the way...

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You... You were talking to each other, though, weren't you? Oh, yes, you were talking. We were saying... What were we saying? I was saying... No, no, I was telling Grumly that... Well, no, we were all telling Grumly. You and I were convincing Grumly that there may be people, there may not be people. Either way, if they need saving, we will. Regardless, we don't know if it's people, and be on your guard, and he drew the sword, and we proceeded. That's right. I drew my sword, though. I got it holding on to it.

Okay, and it's ready to go. You step forward as you get closer and closer to this arched doorway. And you can see now there's a flickering flame clearly as you approach further and further. And this little light is glinting around metal now, you can see.

but no more than that. And suddenly, as you step in, you're fully submerged as the thickness of this strange particles gets more and more intense. As the light casts all around you through the particles, you then start to see a massive looming shape directly in front of you. And you almost rear back and you see that it is a statue.

As you see directly ahead of you, the flame, you see the locus of the flame. It is a tiny little flame flickering. It looks to be a large amulet. It's in the shape of a heart. And it is around, it's a large golden chain. It is extending up, hanging around the neck of a stone statue.

what seems to be a stack of huge antlers in heavy armor. With this large amulet around his neck, you see a crown in the statue standing tall.

A stoic-looking stag, extending an arm, holding a sword that seems to be almost alight with the flames rising up in the statue. How many of us, or better question is, have I seen a deer or a stag before?

None of you have seen a deer. Okay, that's what I was kind of letting the impression. So you, none of you had seen a deer. You know what the descriptions would be. You know the lore. You know that they are antlers. You know that they're antlers and they're allowing stuff. This is the first time that you've seen anything like this. And then you see on one hand and the other is holding a large banner that has the same symbol carved into it.

as you see at the center of this, it's all statue except for this flaming medallion. And you see that as you get closer, in this amulet in the heart, there seems to be a little, almost like a little cap of where the center of this hole is, where you may be able to close it. And as you get closer, you see that there are

The light flickers through as you enter, and you start to see that there are murals on the wall. But at the center of the room, as you're standing before this huge statue, it's hard to tell in this large circular chamber. What do you do? This is it. This is one of those relics that the animal god was talking about. I don't like where this is going at all. Yeah, I think I'm going to just go close that thing because it's letting out some vapors, and I'm just going to go close it.

you walk up, and as it... Hey, no! It is... No, it's okay, I got this. So it is hanging up, but you'd easily be able to jump or, like, have your tongue do it. Yeah, I'll jump up and do it. Because I don't know what it's made of. It might poison me. And...

And you, uh, you leap up and you, uh, with your tongue, it shoots out. Well, no, because I've got my mask on. Oh, that's right. I'm just leaping up. Yeah, leap up and you're smacking it. And...

this thing closing, this incredible heat as you smack it shut. And suddenly, an incredible burst of heat bursts out of almost shattering the silence of the room. And it's so hot. Peggy, you take one exhaustion. As this blast of heat and light illuminates the room. As it blasts through all of these embers. And then...

an immediate silence. And then, suddenly, you start to feel a rush behind you as you see all of these orange, embery particles rush past you all into this heart-shaped medallion. As it all rushes in, flying in, even though this thing is closed, it's glowing with this orange, embery light as...

as it only takes ten seconds, as the room fills with orange, you can barely see as all this mist and these particles all coalesce and shoot into this medallion and it rattles. And suddenly, this fog, this mist, these vapors that have been around you, the tomb, it's all clear. However, the heart itself now is glowing. It's not just the little cap.

The whole heart is glowing red and orange. So that's the fire we were seeing was... Was the flame inside the animal. But now the miasma has been essentially removed. From what we understand. You know, that hurt a lot, a little bit. Are you alright? I'm just...

I feel really tight. That was a long jump, you know? My little legs are feeling sore. You got to be careful when we're dealing with things like this. And I don't know what the hell that was. Was that magic? I've never seen anything like that. I don't know how to explain it. I couldn't find any, like, I couldn't find a battery or anything on there. I found no wires. It didn't look at all like there was anything that might be causing the problem. So the real question is, when do we convince Hazel to go out there and grab this thing?

I don't know, probably sometime next week. Fuck! You keep saying we're going to figure it out in the week, so... Touché, my friend, touché. Does it sound like we can remove it? I don't think so. I don't know. You can check it out. Does it look like, with how it's built, like we can take it off? With how it's built, it looks like you would... There are...

It looks like the antlers go up, you're not really sure how-- the chain is pretty long though, it's hanging low. As you see this stag wearing armor, holding a banner and a sword, standing there. And you can-- the chain is long and wide, you're not sure if it's gonna get over the antlers. Alright, Grandoy, you're pretty tall. Do you want me to see if there's any kind of clasp on the back?

If you could come up there and take a look. I mean, I don't want to do it, but I want to get out of here as quickly as possible. Well, hopefully you don't get tired like she does, so don't hook yourself climbing up there. I'll do what I can. Grumbly, give me a boost. And I'd like to be boosted up the back of the stash to see if I can find a clasp on the necklace. So you are easily able to boost with your raccoon abilities. You're able to skitter up there.

And you are, you find that there is a small clasp, but it is fastened securely.

Fast and secure? Can you describe a little bit more how it's fast and secure? So you see a clasp and there is a, uh, it seems like there's one end is like a ring and the other is seems like a two-pronged hook and it's, uh, it's, it's basically, uh, one has like two little prongs and the other has a little hook. So there's, it's not locked, it's not, there's no lever. Yeah, it's, it's, and it looks like there might be some kind of hinge to open it.

but it looks like it might be a little tough. You can get it down! Uh, uh, Gromley, I'm gonna be honest with you, my friend. It appears like there might be a place where we could, uh,

take this apart, but this is certainly not my expertise. Well, what do you know, Peggy? Here she comes! We need your expertise! Oh, no, what do you mean? And standing atop Brony's shoulders, I yell down to her what I'm looking at, and do you think maybe we might boost you up? You need to take a look at it yourself. Can I boost you up, girl? This is not my area of expertise. Yeah, sure, and I'm just gonna jump.

Okay, you leap up and you're easily able to join him. You're on the shoulders of this large staff. So just tell her what I saw because I was describing it. Yeah, there's a large, a clasp around this medallion and it seems to be securely fastened. It doesn't appear to be locked. It's just stuck and I don't want to mess with it.

Okay, so what do you want me to do with it? Get the, uh, the old necklace off the old, uh, neck here, if you know what I'm saying. We gotta take this thing with us. So you want me to break this clasp? No, don't break it. It could be a very powerful thing. I was hoping that maybe you could use a little finesse like you do with your big brain and, uh, figure it out. Or you could, maybe, do you have any grease on you to, like, grease it up? Bromley, that's a fantastic idea.

You have whatever you need if you're willing to take a decay. I think I have some cooking fat that I used earlier, if you want to try that. And I would like to take some, like, taps, I don't know, some kind of, like, cooking fat, butter, whatever, like, fat, like animal fat, and I want to pass it up to Peggy. And I'll mark a decay for that. Okay.

All this is gonna make- all this is gonna do is make my hands all slippery. Just try to grease it up so it comes apart easy without breaking it. So you want me to try and take the necklace off of this thing?

Well, I think if what we said- Does it look like the necklace is like formed into the statue? Does it look like it could be removed? It could be removed. It is hanging, but there is kind of this strange glow. I just didn't- I don't want to break the clasp. Is what- I didn't want to just try to smash it, which is why I was, you know, describing the whole thing to you, I guess. And remember what Jericho said, is that there were four very powerful artifacts, and I think this is probably the one in this here ruin. Okay, then I'll try.

I'm gonna try to tinker with the mechanism and see if I can remove it from... I'm gonna use my... You have a move for that. Oh, you do? I'm gonna use my eccentric tool belt and my tinker's tools to attempt to... I guess I attempt roguish feats. Yep. And I don't have nimble mind, so I would roll with finesse.

Oh, you didn't level up last time, right? I mean, all it does is it lets me use cunning instead of finesse, but I'm plus two on both of them, so it doesn't matter. Oh, shit. You can attempt roguish feats. Oh, shit. Does anybody want to help me at all? I got a seven. I guess that's better. Yeah, because even with both help, he doesn't get to attack. No, I got a seven, so I attempt the roguish feats. I mean, that's a partial fatigue for sure.

So I'm going to leave evidence of my roguery behind so it'll be easy to see that my tools have took something from this, if someone were to look. And I'm going to mark a decay. Okay. Okay.

So, as you do this, you take out one of your tools as you're attempting to do this. One of your little tool businesses, I don't know what the name. Kind of like screwdrivers. A screw, yeah. Spanner. Dang it, I was trying to think of Spanner. Spanner zaps.

And it breaks. And you know, you have plenty of those, but it does... Is it like a wrench or something? No, seriously, yeah. What is that? I've never heard that before. It's like kind of a wrench business. I don't know. It's in World War Warcraft all the time. No, I love that. And it's one that breaks and causing you the... From my froggish army knife? Yeah, your froggish army knife. Exactly right. As soon as the clasp...

is undone. It's seemingly unfastened and it's open despite that. And you do manage to spill out a, it's very clear, there's a lot of echoing as you undo this clasp. Okay? It's unclasped, it's still around the neck.

And I'm gonna just pull it off from the neck. If I have to climb up on it and scramble up over him and do whatever I have to do. We don't pull it off anymore now because it's unclasped, right? So we can get it around his neck. Yeah. That's why I just want to get it off of its neck. Okay. So you manage to do that and you let it down and Grumling's able to grab it. And Grumling

As you grab it, Grumly, there's a heat coming from this amulet as it drops down. It's not hot enough to cause injury or to burn, but it is absolutely radiating with this strange fire. And the amulet is this, you actually get a better look at it. It's gold and this strange red gem.

As it forms a heart, and the center is that fiery core of the center of this thing, that's glowing orange, and it seems to also have kind of a strange flame design on top of it. And it lands in your hands, you hear the jingling and quiet. Gosh, I think magic is real!

No, you've been drinking. You've been drinking, though. No, look at this! This shouldn't be a real thing. And I hand it up. I, like, hold the amulet up. It's, like, huge. Is it huge? It's, like, it's yay big to, like, up. Oh, yeah. So it would be, like, this big. I'm not going to put it on, but it would be, like, that big. Yeah. Um...

This is got like a glowing flame in it. And I kind of like grab the amulet itself to see if it's hot. You grab it and it is very, very warm. It is hot enough where it was a little bit hotter. It might burn your paws. But it is like, it's one of those things where like it's on a really hot day and you're like pressing your hand against like a metal bench or something. It's not like touching a hot stove. Exactly right. Exactly right. Um...

So what do we... So hold on. So can you reset the scene of exactly where we are and what the whole surrounding area looks like? Okay. So you are in a circular chamber. Stone of this... Almost looks like a temple, if you even know what a temple is. As at the center is this large statue of the Stoic Deer King. And you remember Jericho mentioning the Blazing Heart. Right. The King of the Blazing Heart. As...

as now Booker and Peggy are on top of this statue on either shoulder after dropping down the amulet to you. And you have Mary and

Hazel next to you. As you look around, you start to see that there are murals. There are finally flicks of color through the... Now that the mist is gone. Right, because we can now see up to the roof. We can now see up to the roof, and there's a domed ceiling with a flame pattern on the top. And you just see that there is a mosaic, a mural pattern all the way across. But it's difficult to make out exactly what it is. And, yeah, that's the scene. But we...

Either you're boosting both of us, or you're boosting me and I'm boosting her. Well, so you're a frog and a raccoon, so I think the idea is that you just jumped up on there. And then I boosted you up, but then you could skitter all the way up. I don't need to be holding you down. It's like when you were in Mayo's roof and destroying and shitting all over the place. It's kind of like that. Sorry.

She's not here anymore. I guess tell you that? Or wouldn't Maya see her if she can tell you that story? Um... So... What do we do with this? Do we put it on? No, no, no.

Are you crazy? Well, I don't know. It looks really powerful. Well, all we need to do is make sure that it's safe. Maybe wrap it up in some cloth. I'm willing to volunteer what I've got and keep it safe and tell no one. Correct? Understood. Nobody can know, but... Understood. Man, of course understood. Do we want to take a look at those things up there?

On those mural things? I suppose one of us might be able to get a closer look. Again, we might need to use your, uh, expertly tall shoulders. But sure. Well, I guess as far as, like, what would make the most sense of between the four of us, like, getting up there? I mean, I can't imagine being able to climb straight up a wall, right? If it's, like, stone. Well, yeah. Yeah.

You might be able to, like, I think that once you just go to the sides of the room, you can hold the lantern and look up, but you're just at the center of the room and it's still high up. I don't know how tall it is. It's pretty high up, but you'd be able to see. I'm going to take some ore and spider silk, which are super sticky, and create, like, a climbing wall so we can climb up and check it. Yeah. Yeah, you do that.

And so you manage to have a climbing wall and you look up and you start to see, and you take some time to do this, and Mary's helping you. - He's just like, "Oh, no, no, no." - Yeah, just putting something. - He's pulling off some soap. - And you see an initial mural. You see a woodland, huge trees, and through the trees, you see shapes, massive spiders, centipedes, beetles, worms,

pure savagery. You see creatures with vicious evil faces, but seemingly made out of trees themselves. You see, um, and you see creatures made entirely of just bone, but walking the earth. Groaning faces. And then in the next scene, you see a blazing path of fire.

through this forest, scorching all of these creatures now, cowering. And the source of this: a proud, regal-looking stag, holding a flaming sword, crown atop the head, and with an amulet around the neck, and holding a banner. And then in the next scene,

you see, and this is, so that was on one side, and then in the center, this is the third final scene, is rows of structures, stone buildings all throughout the forest, and rows and rows and rows of deer, stags and does, and at the very center, you see this

holding the sword up and the banner. And you realize that as you get to the center, you notice that there is an extra bit of care put onto four of these objects. The medallion around the neck, the crown atop his head, the sword in one hand, and then the banner in the other. As a...

You see that there are now, within this forest, there are... This forest seems to have been populated by deer, and they all seem to be raising up their hands as a strange... Looks like a fire, but is it a glow? I mean, you don't even know what magic is. As they're all raising their hooves.

And, uh, you see all of the creatures and the beasts of the forest all on the outskirts, pushed away. That's what you say. Well, this is certainly nothing like anything I've ever seen in my entire life. What's all this saying, then? Did he, like, own a bunch of beasties in the woods until this guy came along? He appears to be some kind of savior, or at least some sort of hero.

Maybe he is what made the Dimwood safe to populate, to live in? I was under the impression of the Eredirs many, many years ago. But I suppose that's just what we've heard from word of mouth. I've heard that as well. Huh. Well, maybe... I've never seen a deer before. I mean, I've only ever thought that they were just, you know, tales of yore. Legend. Well...

Either way, it looks like we've got one of the four things that Jericho was talking about. Should we just wrap it up? We absolutely, we hide it and we tell no one. Well, shouldn't one of us try to put it on?

Absolutely not. See if we get great strength? Are you kidding me? You must be kidding. I'm just saying it could be very useful. Why did you not even begin to witness the things that we walked through that presumably might outright kill us and then this amulet contained it? No, no thank you, my friend. That's a good point. Who is Shakerian?

I think so. You know, you've already got it in your hand. You wrap it up. You keep it very, very close to your chest. Because no one's got a bigger heart than Grumly. Figuratively and literally. And you tell no one. You understand? We do not speak of this again. No, I definitely won't mention this at all. All ruins to anybody. With just a little bit of luck. Yeah.

That amulet is just a piece of jewelry and will be all right. And all of this won't be anything other than nothing. All right. But if, God forbid, this thing is something greater, we all might be in a little bit of trouble here. I think you're right.

Well, I'll wrap it up and I'll put it sort of like in my armor, basically in the front pouch of my... Well, I guess it's huge though, right? It's like this big. Yeah.

So I'm gonna wrap it up, and I'm going to put it at the very bottom of my main pack. Got it. So that it's very safe and secure. Basically the safest part of all of my bags and stuff. Sounds good. And I turn around to Marion, I say, "Hey, I think that's what we needed."

Should we just take a look around, make sure we didn't miss anything and head out?

Agreed. Let's get out of here immediately. Understood? Alright, let's go. And you all leave. And as you begin to make your way, leaving this essential chamber behind, as soon as you grumbly step across the threshold out of this chamber into the larger building,

you hear the loud rumbling and grinding of stone. As you look behind you for just a moment, and you start to see this head of the statue move.

as it looks in your direction and the sword, the arm starts to move and then all of a sudden it crumbles and falls and then you feel it rumbling all around you as dust and silt starts to fall as a stone slams down and it feels like the structural integrity of this building is starting to collapse. We've got to go right now! Mary, take us out of here immediately! I want to...

Just remember the way back. I want to use Crash and Smash. Okay. Where when you smash your way through scenery to meet someone or something, roll with might. Um...

And so the idea is I just want to basically smash through everything so there's a clear path behind me so that we aren't slowed down by like big rocks or iron or whatever. Is that a roll? Yeah, so I need a roll and basically see what happens to do that. Pretty fucking good. That's a 13. A 13? Okay. So I have to choose one on a 10 plus. Yes. Okay.

So I can either hurt myself, I can break an important part of the structures around me, or I can damage or leave a piece of gear behind. I think I'm just going to break important parts of the mine. As you do this, you're all running out as you're sprinting, following Grumly as... Pardon me.

As these massive stone bricks are collapsing in front of you, but Grumly just bashes them out of the way and smashes them as you get a direct path to the entrance. As you manage to all bury, thanks to Grumly's help, all the obstacles have been cleared, and you hear the loud rumbling as there's three massive blocks and collapsed

through the door and almost looks like you're totally trapped in. This pile of stones has emerged and Grumbly just smashes through, sending stones flying everywhere. And then with one final rumbling, a second after you stumble out, this structure collapses into itself and then it starts to kind of shake and start dissolving.

almost into just light gravel. - So we're out of the mine. - You're out of the building. - Well, I'm back into the big room with all the iron. - And you look around. - Yeah, okay. - And you see all of the iron all over you. The orange fog is gone.

as you look around and you start to see all of just this massive cavern full of iron ore. Well, uh, you know, Levi Smiles is going to be very happy about this, but I can't help thinking, while we've achieved our secret goal, that he's just going to walk away living large. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. Well, at least he won't kill the miners and we...

Saved him from being killed or gone crazy? Well, he agreed, I suppose. But let me ask Peggy. I mean, you don't think he's going to be honest to his word, do you? You know, all I can do is hope. Touché. Touché. Well, I think no matter what we do, we did a good thing here today. And hopefully we saved some lives. And he said he would pay us for clearing out the mine and now he can mine it.

If he keeps his word, I suppose it'll be all right. All right, well, Mary, would you like to lead us? I want to look behind and all the rubble and just see if I can get any sense of what...

the intention of this might have been, or, like, the stone, or whatever. You get the sense that this may have been some kind of, like, massive church. Like, you've seen churches made out of, like, wood and the like, and maybe the occasional, like, a large stone church back in the large cities, probably, cathedrals and the like. You get the sense that this would be what you would imagine an ancient, ancient, ancient folk to worship at. Got it. Um, well, uh, lead the way, and do we, do we think we should

I don't know. Should we... What do we do with all these bodies? Nothing. It's unfortunately not our responsibility. Alright. We get out of here with our lives, we report back to Mr. Alabaster, and we hopefully move on from here without any... being in too much bloodshed. Agreed. Well, let's go. And as you all make your way,

Mary guides you effortlessly through this mine. And as you arrive out, you've spent a long time navigating as the sun is setting.

And you, as you're making your way, you see the whole clearing ahead of you, the whole town, as a number of Skinkertons are on either side of this mine entrance. And you look up ahead and you see that... Is there any chance we see Skeevle, the Weevle?

Anywhere around. Mr. Y. Yeah. I will say that Steve will be- Because I would like to try to find him before we find anybody else. I will say that you don't see him around immediately. As soon as you leave. As you- As the sinkertons look at you and immediately flank you and start walking you towards-

the large central building where you can first see and smile. And this is in the comp sub. Yeah, this is right outside. And you don't see Mr. Y anywhere. And you, as you're being guided by them, they're kind of looking around like, almost like with some trepidation. And you see up ahead that...

that the large gray cat, Levi Smiles, is standing there with a large glass of maybe four fingers of whiskey poured, and he is beaming down at you. And you get about in earshot as he looks down at you, and he says,

Well, you're out alive. I hope you have made my mind finally usable to advance my interest. As you see a flash of fur. As you see Mr. Y behind him with a knife in his back.

And you see Smiles spits up blood and tumbles forward off of the railing, landing hard onto the ground in front of you. And that's rolling the session. What?! Holy shit! Let's see...

Oh my god. That's why we used Sam. You subverted my expectations, Mike. You are a true Ryan Johnson. Holy shit! Alright, well, fuck. I got nothing to say, I guess.

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