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Rotators, it's me, Jaspolyam Karai, and I'm here to tell you that Arc 10 is here on the Patreon. I don't know why I'm whispering it, because it's not a secret, especially for those of you who were on the Patreon already, either as a free or a paid member, because you'd have got a little notification saying, hey, here's the Arc 10 cast announcement. Very excited to say that we have a returning Rotator in Dan Lippert playing an all-time favourite character.
Sago, Gleg, and the one and only Zack Oyama is returning as the Dungeon Master. So if you want to hear yet another arc with Zack Oyama as the DM, if you're like, oh God, I tried to get into it, but this Jasper guy won't shut up and he keeps on DMing and I don't want it. Then your answers have been, your prayers, sorry, have been answered. And, uh, Zack is DMing, uh, arc,
I'm very excited to listen to this one. I hope I'm sure that you will be too. If you want to go ahead and check that out, you know where to go. It's the same place as always. Don't forget, leave us a five-star review. You're awesome. Okay, bye. Take a great rest of the day.
Welcome back to the Rotating Heroes podcast. I am the host and DM of it. Of course, Sakoyama, the introduction I always give. I always include myself in the podcast. I am here with the rotators of the fourth arc once again in person for the final campaign episode, that is, of the fourth arc. As I should say, I am joined as always so far for the third time.
I'm joined by three heroes who had a bit of a shopping spree last episode, who all respectively grabbed an item each. I guess first off, we have the talent of Gobville, Marissa Strickland, aka Teets. I hope I get that for the rest of my life.
Be really weird in the real world. Everyone's like, huh? You know, Gobville. From the episode of that podcast behind a paywall. Did you not know the name of your own podcast? I forget. Okay, okay. And then also we have the sneaky, sneaky, you know, lost it. I just lost it. My birthday was yesterday and you can tell how...
Now, post-birthday, we have the silent, you could be kind of a cat burglar, I would say. We have the web-slinging Spider-Man squeegee, aka Justin Michael. Oh, my gosh. How are you? Good. A cat burglar with spiders. Yes. That's pretty fun. I guess there is a Spider-Man character, the black cat. Maybe I model this character after that.
And not Spider-Man. Not Spider-Man. I'm going to make a hard pivot for the finale to not do the thing that I've been doing the entire time. I'm going to cut this part out so no one understands. Yeah, and that is, you know, your prerogative. Cool. A swarm of cats covers me.
And finally, we have the champion of the chorner, the person who bested Drash. We have the half-elf paladin, Freya, aka Victoria. Victoria, from everyone, how are you doing? Oh, thank you so much. I'm doing really well. Thank you so much for asking. I am.
I really love doing this and I really love Freya, so I'm doing great, everyone. - So Freya makes it out of this. - Wow. - It feels like you know something. - Okay, I'm down my stomach is. - Speaking of which, you take 400--
Oh, damn. Never had a chance. I can calculate dice so fast. So fast. Also, really great audio on that dice. I really hope it picked it up. It was like, conk, conk, conk, conk. I mean, that's what you, when you have a wormwood tray, that wood clacking off of leather, clacking off of dicex.
Well, why don't we get into a little recap and then get into the finale of this. Oh, my God. Of this cabled arc. Marissa is vibrating. I know. I'm like, on the edge of my seat, what's going to happen? For our listeners, Marissa is floating in the sky. She has left Instagram. Closer to the mic, Marissa.
Yeah, her voice changed when she floated. Sort of a spirit. Yeah. Hello. Kind of a Mrs. Doubtfire, honestly. Kind of a Mrs. Doubtfire ghost, yeah. She's floating with sort of a pie on her face. Honestly, she's an actor. Gobville, you know, has a lot of clowning, I imagine. And her greatest act yet. Well, last time on the Rotating Heroes podcast, our rotators went shopping. Yeah.
Their new ally, Aggie, had big plans for an escape to the surface, but only with the help of our heroes. They had to sprint all around Empty Nest collecting items for their journey. First stop was Godville, where Teeths led our team in an incredible vaudeville performance that the students there will surely be talking about for ages to procure the crystal jars. Next up was Razik's Scrapyard, where they found the adhesive gunk tape they needed thanks to Squeegee's stealthy maneuvers.
As well as a horrifying hot dog, aka hellhound. Victoria is taking pictures of everyone right now. We gotta remember it. This is the finale, Zach. Listen, we gotta post them.
To contextualize this moment. Yeah, yeah. I mean, as well as the horrifying hot dog, aka Hellhound. And lastly, Freya battled in the fighting pit, Sans armor, and one-on-one with an extremely tough goblin champion. The fight was harrowing, and Freya squeaked out the victory, gaining the respect of the goblin audience and the basilisk skin from the champion's chorner. Yeah.
Just a note for when you see these pictures, I'm smiling because I'm saying chorner. After that, our heroes sprinted to Aggie, and after a gut-wrenching slash very real death from Daddy Longlegs, our heroes rocketed off to the gate inside a steampunk beetle, where they, with the other beetle cattle, were sucked into the maw of the frighteningly massive worm behind the gate, and that's where we are today. Wow. So...
you three and aggie are still in this beetle pod uh the flying through the air it feels like you're in sort of like a hurricane car wash from hell as as like spit you know like you see stuff hitting the the windshield so to speak of this vessel as it flies through the air slamming into walls um
As you are flying through the air, Aggie is pressing buttons on his machine, trying to figure out how to keep its integrity intact. He's flipping switches and doing stuff with it. We're going to do a series of skill checks to see how we can help. Aggie pipes up and is like, if anyone can do anything, please just, whatever you think you can do, do it now. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Is the tap dancing helping, Aggie? Not at all. He's screaming as something fizzles out of the dashboard and smoke rises from it. So how this will work is looking at the skills you have on your character sheet. We are...
We're going to just look at what we have on our character sheets and see if there's anything that you think could possibly help in this scenario. There's no real like wrong answer here, but yeah, pitch me on what you think could work. And also it's going to be a couple of rounds. You can only use each skill once. So yeah, the first twist you feel the ship spinning around, smashing as like these, like everything is being,
eat. So it's like, you're seeing like bits of chewed up stuff flying around everywhere. Uh, you can see like, as you are floating through the, the, the mob, this creature, like the walls of it are, are kind of glowing with this bioluminescence that is like, like kind of purple tinted. Uh, so you're still, you're kind of able to see like what's ahead of you. Uh, and you see this sort of like tract of its throat ahead as it's like banking around the corner. Uh,
Any skills coming to mind as this ship is being torn asunder? So you tell me if this works. Okay, please. But I have a plus six to athletics. So I kind of want to run around the ship and try to ride it so it doesn't get so ding-donged by the debris that is coming at it. I know that sounds crazy, but I want enough force of me running inside to adjust the way. Like a counterbalance? Yes, yes, yes. That's what I want.
Now, I also have a plus six athletics. Does it get any better if two people are running or no? I mean, yeah, I guess if the two of you want to spin around like a counterweight, like it's like the fucking space station. Yeah, both of you give me an athletics check and this will be both of your things to start with.
20 not natural. Oh, no, excuse me. No, no, because it's six. 22. 22. Wow. And Aya's 16. Okay, Squeegee, you're looking around as you see both Freya and Teets. Teets, this is a crazy idea. Yeah.
Aggie looks up, like, sees it, and he's like, oh, my God. That should work. And you feel the ship, like, turning, like, slightly less, like, veering slightly less off control. Squeegee, what are you doing? Okay, so I see them doing this. And, like, I imagine things are probably flying in the air because they're, like, spinning around. Sorry, Squeegee. It's okay. Okay.
I'm Spider-Man, actually. And so I kind of, what I've learned about Daddy Longlegs since the last time we played, not the character, the spiders. Yes. Oh, whoa, okay.
What I've learned is that he's dead. But not really. But Squeech thinks so. What I've learned about actual daddy long legs is that they don't use all of their legs to walk. And they have just extra appendages to kind of grab onto things while they're doing things.
So in the spirit of my fallen father, I want to kind of like use like this force and like the things that are flying around to like grab pieces and kind of like put them up and around like, you know, use acrobatics basically. Oh yeah, great. And so kind of form like
daddy long legs out of spiders. Tiny spiders creating legs. So I look like a giant spider dad. Incredible. So yes, Aggie looks through his rear view mirror, sees them spinning around, running around. But there is still debris and nuts and bolts are flying up. Things are detaching as Squeegee is trying to grab them out of the air. Yeah, roll and let's see what we do. Okay. Okay.
Tiny numbers, beautiful dice, tiny, horrible numbers. Okay, 24. Wow! Pretty good, pretty good, pretty good. It was a good roll. You see full panels coming off and then Squeegee's what feels like multiple arms, snatching them out and screwing them back into place real fast. It's just a blur of arms and then two full people running. That's...
As the ship's entire integrity maintains because of the efforts you're putting in, Aggie's looking up at the three of you like, holy sh... He looks like just really dumbfounded, and you can tell he's like a really intelligent person who thinks in maybe a different way than the three of you. He's like, I can't believe that worked.
Are we embarrassing you, Aggie? There's no one around to be embarrassed, so I should say I'm not embarrassed because why would I be embarrassed right now? That doesn't make sense intellectually. But yes, I'm a little embarrassed. Aggie, as the ship banks to the...
to the left as this tract of throat kind of is like, kind of, it's not completely straight. It's like, it's like zigzagging back and forth. You flip around another corner as you are sucked through the air and you see just like
flying piles of dirt and rock. As the ship continues to bank around this way, you feel your bodies get smashed to the ground as you're turning the other way. Time for another skill check. You can't use the ability you just used. Okay. Okay.
I guess because I have a plus four to investigation, I would like to use investigation to kind of like look out our beautiful steampunk windows and go, what's going on out there? What do I know about being in a space like this? And how can I like counter act? You know what I mean? The damage that we're about to. Yeah, cool. So, uh,
you pop up like in the, you know, the cockpit part of it, like angle up next to Aggie to like get a better look. He's like, I'm sorry, I'm trying to drive here. Sometimes you need a co-director. Incredible. I'll roll and let's see how we do.
17. Okay, cool. So like, as he's like a little confused as to why you popped up, but like you're able to point out like bits of debris and like on your investigation checks, you see like certain things that are about to fall and just are able to give, give Aggie a better lay of the land. Cause it is like impossible to pay attention to everything. And you're actually able to point out some things that he can, to help him avoid that. So that, that it passes. Who's next? I'll go.
so this is kind of a weird one. You tell me. Great. Uh, but I'm like immediately like, Oh no, our leader, he's embarrassed. Oh no. Oh, his morale is low. He's got a co-director now and he thought he was directing the mission. And you know, the three of us are doing better work than Aggie's doing. So I, I kind of want to like somehow, well, am I able to slip out of this or, um, yeah, I mean like, uh, it, it feels like it could be,
If you slip out, there are dangers to slipping out. You feel kind of protected by the cockpit, so there might be a check to make that maybe you get disconnected from the ship. So that's a risk, but yeah, let me know what you want to do. Well, I basically want to try to stealthily help. Oh.
I was like, maybe I go ahead and I kind of scout things out so I can run back. Or I could just kind of stealthily push buttons when he's overwhelmed. Yeah. Just try to be helping. It's like, you're doing a great job, Aggie. Yeah, give me a stealth check.
27. Yeah, you notice a little panel below as Aggie is sort of giving Teeths a hard time for being up in his space. You see this other little panel fizzling to his left, and you're able to sneak behind him and address that without him knowing. It may be a situation where that could possibly make things worse, but here it actually helped. Yeah.
With great leadership comes great humilis-squeech. What are you talking about? Nothing. You're doing a great job, Aggie. Just you. I mean, and also, you know, teeth. Thank you. And also Freya. But, you know, you're the leader. Do you like my bray? Oh, wow. I put it on to be a director. You have a bray on your crystal jar helmet.
- Yeah, you just put that on in the middle of like the horror show that's going on. The hurricane car wash from hell with a beret. - Freya, what are you doing? - Okay, interesting. 'Cause what are we trying to gain right now? What am I fighting against right at the moment? Just this crazy flight?
Yeah? I mean, yeah. You can pitch me on whatever makes sense to you. If you want to use your nature in some way, if you want to use whatever makes sense as long as you have a pitch for it. Yeah, what I'd like to do. What I'd kind of like to do. So I have a pretty high intimidation. I don't know.
I guess what I want to know is like, can I like, can I intimidate this, this, what are we in a worm, a little caterpillar? Can I send out intimidating vibes and just like make this thing uneasy in any way? You know what I mean? I'm a powerful,
Yes. Emotion. You know, like, I think I could give out that energy. I will say, if it's directed at the worm, it truly has no idea that you are alive. But it won't just make it feel bad? I may not ever notice that you were inside of it. All right. Fine. What could I intimidate? Aggie into doing a better job. Guess what I'm going to do is I'm going to intimidate you. Okay. Okay.
into, you know, like really stepping into his command position. I think it's going to bring out another level of like expertise in him. Do you hate this pitch? No, no, no. Okay. I think at this point, like Aggie is so thrown off by squeegee and teats, but he does need to be locked in a little bit more. So roll an intimidation check and tell me what you get. Oh God, please be good. Okay. 18. Okay. So he's like, he's frazzled.
Two little goblins floating around him. He doesn't know what to do a little bit. He's not paying attention to what's in front of him. - Great. - And Freya, what do you do? - I grab him, which like Freya's never done to another person. But she grabs Aggie and she goes, "Aggie!" - "Aggie." - Yes, what? - "You are the only elf I know, and therefore the greatest of our kind. Please be with us, feel strong and brave.
And these goblins are just helping. He feels like grounded by your intimidating presence somehow, like kind of like a mean life coach. He like snaps back, grabs the controls and steers the ship onward. It's not even a spaceship or anything. He's steering like the little robotic legs that are just flailing in the air.
But they're also like kicking off the rocks and stuff in the air, very whimsically somehow staying on track because of your advice. As the ship banks around the second corner, you feel this like brief weightlessness as the worm continues to suck everything in and then slams you into the wall and you drag along the side, spinning further and further and further. And then as your ship shoots forward, approaching the end of this sort of like
breathy cavern, make one last skill check, if you will. Okay. So I've run out of the good skills. Yeah. What if I used animal handling? Yeah. It could work. Because we're in a fake cow, right? Yeah. I don't know if it would work on that. What do you count as an animal? What do you count as an animal? Okay. I'm going to let someone else go first. I guess, you know, growing up,
on stage. I've seen a lot. So I can understand what an audience needs, what an audience wants. You know what I mean? The vibe of what's playing, what's not. So I want to use my perception to be like, what does this room need right now? And by room, I mean inside of this
and outside? Like, is there something, some magic zhuzh we could be adding that would make our lives easier in this breathy cavern? Yes. Yeah. Just perception. Perception check, great. Let's see.
- This is a natural one. - So your beret falls off over Aggie's eyes. - Oh my god, this is humiliating. - Oh no. - And you all take one point of damage as Aggie slams into a rock flying ahead of him. Basically,
The damage roll was in your favor on that one, despite the nat one. But beyond that, what are the two other skills that play? You see Aggie pull it off of his helmet, like, Deeth, stop it! You can't please every audience. It's been a long time since you've been on the stage, Deeth. Actually, no, it hasn't, technically. Never mind. Incredible. Any other skills coming to mind?
Yeah, and you might have to delve into the skills that you're not necessarily good at, but you have a good pitch for. You know what I mean? Oh, that's true. I could do it. So inspired by Teeth's. Teeth's may have failed horribly. Had no perception of the room. Couldn't read the room. But maybe what they need is the performance of us doing well.
And so I want to pretend that it's like, wow, we're already getting through it to inspire people. Sort of help the morale of your membership. So I guess a performance check. Great. And I will say that I have a negative one to performance. I didn't choose the best one, but Squeegee's an idiot. Squeegee's pretty unintelligent. So I think we'd be like, yeah, I'll do whatever.
The person who has always known how to read the room and understood if people knew if he was Spider-Man or not. Yeah. Oh, I know. Yeah, definitely. Nobody knows my secret identity and my dad is definitely dead is what I say to myself.
as I roll. 15. Okay, minus one? No, that's 16 minus one. Okay, 15. Great, that actually passes. Squeegee is able to invoke the hero-like presence of Spidersman and ground...
Aggie, clearly flustered, looks over and sees the heroic presence of Spider-Man. And he's like, you know what? Yeah. Like, kind of focuses back in and is able to take the reins a little better. And that check passes. Maybe I'm an actor now! That was me as Tobey Maguire holding back the strain in Spider-Man 2. You're holding...
Yes, for our listeners. Justin is holding the train at the end of Spider-Man 2 before Tobey Maguire reveals himself to all of New York and everyone decides to keep a secret. Yeah, wow. What a twist.
Preya. Okay. I think I'm going to go ahead because I want to be precious with my spells. I think I'm going to go ahead and do another skill. And I think I'm going to go for my religion skill. I'm thinking what if I could just think of a nice little prayer or story or write to make us all feel a little more blessed and safe and courageous moving forward. I love it. Perfect. Let me know what you get. An 18. Ooh.
Much like the heroic presence of Squeege, I'm sorry, Spider-Man, Freya, you flank the other side of Aggie, and there's sort of like almost like a kind of a green glow in your prayer beads as you... What does Freya say as she prays or, you know, seeks some sort of religious comfort in this moment? Yes, uh...
Freya says, blessed are friends who strike out together, who navigate these dark halls together, and blessed are we.
who are choosing to be brave together. And I wouldn't wish to be here with anyone else. Amen. Where did you learn that dramatic monologue?
Aggie says, "Amen." And turns the other way, also counterbalancing sort of like, kind of like in echoes of the first round is able to like stabilize the ship. As you move around this last corner, you see like bugs splatter against this sort of bank as that happens. And you and the ship are able to avoid that as the ship
flies past this kind of disaster area of stuff being swallowed and everyone make a dexterity saving throw. Is it against something we can see? Yes. 12. 10. And that's with advantage. 10. And that was with a pretty high plus seven. Oh, heck yeah.
Okay. Everyone takes three points of damage as the ship slams into the ground, ending this sort of skill check challenge. But in sort of an unavoidable circumstance, hits the ground at the end of this sort of like breathy, like suction in. As you hit this ground that is almost like in the ship, you kind of can't feel it all the way as you hit. You don't roll as much as you could. Like it feels like the ship is,
was kind of deadened on its impact. Like something kind of absorbed the shock. It was almost like you fell 10 stories off of a building onto a Tempur-Pedic mattress. As it crashes to the ground, Aggie looks around at the control panels and it's just not working at all. And he's like, we have to move now. And pops the hatch off and looks around. Everybody make a perception check. 10, 8, 7. Whoa, pretty bad. Let's see what Aggie gets.
Okay, from Aggie, you hear him say, like, I hear voices. I didn't hear anything, Aggie. No, I think you're thinking about our beautiful monologues that you just heard inside. I have to agree with the Magma. Shut up. Shut up, Earl. He looks around. Per him relaying this, you hear that there are voices out there. And.
And they match the voices of the protectors of the nest you heard at the gate itself. In this chamber, you also see sort of, while there is this sort of purple bioluminescence kind of giving the whole chamber this sort of like ambient glow, there also is a little bit of a torchlight. Everyone, Aggie's like, Aggie pipes up and is like,
Stay quietly. Let's get out of the ship now. And he's going to make a stealth check. And everybody, if you don't mind, makes stealth check. Oh, no. Natural 20. Ooh. 19. Okay. So this was a group stealth check. Oh, God. So with those two passes, y'all are able to sneak out of this ship. The clank queen herself. Yeah. Send some spiders over to kind of like soften the clank.
Yeah, like absorb the shocks of the clanking. Yeah, you are able to break out of this busted hatch of the ship. You feel the entire room. It feels like it's just slowly moving. In this chamber, you notice a couple of things. You already notice that there is this sort of ambient light and then torchlight as well. But it feels like you're moving uphill. Yeah.
It doesn't feel hard to move uphill, though. It feels like there's just kind of natural suction backwards as everything is being sort of digested by this monster. It's almost like an escalator going up. Yeah, like a conveyor belt a little bit. Yes, yes. It just is this sort of natural wave of motion that is pushing things backwards. It's very gross. Can I investigate it? Can I go down and poke at the ground? Yeah, you can touch the ground.
It's a natural 20. Okay. Wow. Two nat 20s in a row? This is insane. Yeah. Well, I want to know, is this intestines? So what you would know on a nat 20 is that this is not intestines. Yeah.
This is, you are in what is called the crop of a worm. And that's where the food is sort of collected in the creature prior to being digested on a more... So, like, maybe more of the mechanical stuff has already happened. Like, it doesn't... Worms don't really chew, but, like, things are being broken down more. You see this, that, like, on a Nat 20 investigation, at the end of the cavern, it's not, you know, it's a...
It's a cavern in a body, not a cave cavern like the caverns you're so used to. You see that there are two soldiers guarding the end of it. And there is this sort of like flapping doorway that is the epiglottis of the creature. And it's acting as like a door. You see...
uh also in a nat 20 you would know see that there are a few like little iron huts on stilts in this chamber somehow and in spots that are sort of avoiding the undulation whoa i relay that to everybody so like pointing out what what i saw you see these these there are some soldiers also just like with big axes like hacking things up to help aid in the digestion as they're like scooting things off into this uh next chamber and i'm like
This worm has too many personal assistants. I don't understand why this worm can't eat by itself. Oh, and I should say, also on this Nat 20, you would notice that looking closely at these guys who are armored, you also see hints of an underlayer that is similar to the basilisk skin you had. Aggie pipes up and says, be careful with your suits, Aggie.
If they take, make sure that you don't, whatever happens, be careful with what happens to you because they're not going to survive anything. And if they're compromised, you might be compromised. And you see these creatures starting to get digested and you feel that that is a possible factor here.
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-We might need to play this a little stealthier. -Justin just looked around with like, "Side eye." -Just saying. Based on that information. -Yes, I'm open. -I feel the need to check in on our plan here inside this worm or the caterpillar. What are we calling it? A worm. -I think it's a worm. -I don't know. -Stinks like a worm. -What's our end game?
Yeah, Aggie, you got us into this mess. Aggie, we're inside it. What the hell is going on? We're in a worm, Aggie. We moved fast. Sorry, I didn't have a chance to explain. My dad just died, Aggie. I know. Yeah. It wasn't an invitation to attack, Aggie. Look, um...
This creature itself was blocking the only entrance up to the surface is what I was able to glean from one of the dumber soldiers outside. We have to continue on all the way through it and out the back of it. Like we need to be digested. We have to be digested without being digested. Yeah. We have to stay alive, but also ride the wave out the back of the worm. Yeah.
It's disgusting. We can say it. It's gross. That's what I always call it. Riding the wave out the back of the worm. That's what you've called going to the bathroom? Shitting. Aggie just sort of scares at the ground. Teeps looks up at Aggie and just smiles. Aren't you happy we're here? He covers his mouth and he's like, I don't see it.
Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I brought it up. I just wanted to make sure we were all in the same place with what our aim was here. I mean, to Squeegee's point, or I'm sorry, Spider-Man. I know it's confusing. Squeegee is very cool and could be a hero in his own right, but I am Spider-Man. Of course. Anyways, I think we might need, it could behoove us to...
try to stealth to the rear. I don't know if we can stealth past these two guys who are guarding the exit, but we have to stealth past these huts. -Coppers. -Yes.
Sorry, just the choppers. Yeah. I just imagine like, you don't have to necessarily like it's not like a 2D Mario level. You can go around it. But like there, there are there kind of two pockets where there are soldiers that you can possibly stealth past.
Okay. And I am curious about these huts though. Like I really want to go up one, but I know that might not be that helpful. I'll say on your Nat 20 investigation check, it just seems like that's where they live in here. Oh, that's where they live. Inside this worm. These people live in this worm.
This is their life. Their real estate market is crazy in an empty nest. People are living inside worms. Now, how much do you think this even costs? It's probably too much. I mean, 1.2 million. Gobblers? Yeah, goblers. That's the currency I love. He looks up, 1.2 million goblers. I'd say 995 goblers. I saw a sell for 1.5 and it was listed at 850. Wow.
Gobblers, that is. A gobfin? Yeah, a gobfin. Or gobble. Oh, don't get me started on gobble. Well, I'm not going to go up to the huts because I don't think I'd like them. Um...
Yeah, I understand. But, you know, I'm really fighting not doing a performance for these soldiers, which I know is not right. But in my heart, please know that I know they need entertainment. I really appreciate your sacrifice, Teeths, but these are not our friends. I mean, isn't a stranger a friend that just hasn't seen you perform?
Not necessarily. I would argue maybe not. It's possible. We won't know until we try, but maybe not worth trying. So do we sneak? I think stealthy. How do we get you to sneak? We got to get you stealthy, Clank Queen. Is that what you call the Clank Queen? Sometimes. I'm just picking up on. Sometimes, but often people don't remember. Yeah, Aggie was like, if there's any... Yeah, like if we had some kind of way to like...
Gosh, if we had any tools, I don't have my tools. Got a loud crowbar, a louder hammer. Loud rope. It's weird. I bought loud rope. I've got holy water.
-Got a pet tarantula, which is funny because I have so many spiders. -Just separately you have a tarantula you haven't brought up. -Separately I have a pet, yes. -I do have this tool, but I don't know that I know a ton about it or how it works or how we could use it. -Is it magical? -Yes, is it magical? -Yes. -Are you showing-- What are you--
I don't know. I'm sorry. I feel like I don't really remember a lot about that tool, so I'm not actually sure how I should bring it up with them. -Yes. Freya, do you show them this thing? -Yes, I will. I'll pull out this tool and be like, "This is a tool I acquired in the forest." -Okay. You see, as you pull that tool out, Aggie goes, "
And he's like, where did you get that? In the forest. I think it was in a chest. I don't know. Why? What is it? Well, it's... I don't know that...
It's kind of hard to describe. He's like, kind of, it's like, it's, it's many things. It's like, you know, he's basically describing the pitch for an iPhone. Like, you know, it's like, it makes your home simpler. It's, uh, uh, it, you know, it does kind of multi, many, it's a sort of a multi-tool that, um,
It starts things from far away and he's like, "It could be kind of a weapon. You can do multiple things with it. It's hard to describe." -Okay. -People call it different things, but some people I knew called it just a helper. -A helper. -Well, we need help. You know what I mean? -We do need help.
-Wow. -Can we roll an arcana check on it just to try to see how it works if it is magical? -Yes. -Yes, I will also roll. Six. -Yes, eight. -I only got 13. -Aggie is like, "I know exactly how to use this." -You do? -If it's yours, I don't want to take it from you. -No, I give it to you freely. -Okay. He takes it and he's like, "Wow, this is cool."
I haven't seen one of these in a while. I've been stuck in the cave for a long time. I've just been carrying this around. He's going to use it and he got a nat 20. So I say on that nat 20, he's able to like fasten the back of your armor. It does something to the like kind of bolts of your armor and you feel it just sort of like tighten up in a way that's not uncomfortable, but keeps the clanks from happening.
Wow. The no-clank queen. See, it sort of helps. Wow. I see. Wow. I was thinking too deeply about it. Aggie, thank you. Thank you.
I've never been this inconspicuous before with my armor on. You look great. Oh, wow. Yeah. There's just a lightness about you. Like, I don't know. Like, you look the same, but different. What I feel is I feel like locked and loaded, but silent. You know what I mean? Silent. Silent. Silent, but locked and loaded. Silent, but locked and loaded. Silent, but locked and loaded. And he gets and cocks the little. Okay. That was a little loud, Aggie. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. It's just cool. Yeah.
After that, what do you guys decide to do? I'll say that that is temporary. You would have to make checks with disadvantage eventually, but for now, you don't have to. Really quickly, Zach, what does it look like? There's two groups of people. It's one group closer to you. It's a zigzagging pattern. One farther to the left and then one
The last one is dead ahead at the actual epiglottis. -I love learning these terms. -We stealth, so we stealth. -I know we stealth. -Now that I can be stealthy, let's stealth. I'm very excited. -Cool. We'll just do a series of stealth checks. To get past the first crew, let's make a stealth check. -14.
Also 14. Six. Okay, Aggie got a 19. So it's going to go up, but the first one was 13. Okay. Okay, so the next one is a little harder because you're more central to several people. Yes. So you have successfully snuck under this first crew of goblins who are slamming down on these bugs going, for the mother world!
and slashing into the stuff to help aid in the digestion. Can I just sidebar? Aggie, Freya, Teeths, anybody just using the word mother kind of weirds me out when they're an adult a little bit. Really? Not like saying for mother. Like, hello, mother. Mother's going to love eating this stuff. See that? That's what I'm talking about. I've never been... You know who's cool? Mother. Mother.
I will say I called the Abbas where I'm from Mother Willow, but that's a little different. That makes sense. That's her title. The context makes sense. Yeah. Thank you for coming clean.
-I'm not going to lie, I think these guys are little freaks. -Yes, they seem like it. Here's something, what if I sent some spiders over to distract them? Is there a way to-- -I think if you do that for the next set of people, that'll keep the DC the same for this one. -Okay. -Yes. Is that a spell or anything or is it a feature? -I guess I have a bunch of spiders, so no, it's just--
Just me saying I'm covering spiders and then I would sense them over. I don't know, they're all over me. I have a gathered swarm, but then no, it's not like an actual. Let's see, maybe there is a spell. I feel like, yeah, maybe if there was some kind of role involved. I guess if you make an animal handling check or something like that, that could lower the DC. I feel like I have to make you roll. Yes, absolutely. I'll roll an animal handling check. Cool.
18. Cool. Yeah, I think that these guys are chopping up stuff like kind of in your way. And they notice like that spiders and they're like, you know who also is cool? I forget if I said this mother. And then they're like, hey, what's this? And like, they're like, little ones are getting up here. How did the little ones get in here? And they're like, they were kind of freaking out at that. And yeah, everyone make another stealth check. Hurry like a cat burglar.
-11, 18. -19. Three passes. Aggie got another 19. -I want to say y'all are really carrying me through this. -You're just not used to having no clank. You know what I mean? You're walking with clank. -Your gait is lower. You know what I mean? You're used to the heavy clank. -Yes, unlock the gates as Gop Merritt would say.
I love a gobcast. I hate that podcast. I love how long he talks. Look, I don't want to get into it. Um, I,
uh so you have successfully passed this second sort of uh sentry tower it feels like uh and you're you see this last section with um the gate this sort of like epiglottis itself and there's not really a clear way to sneak by them on your investigation check though i think you would have noticed that there is this sort of like raised weird like fleshy part that like
they had hit to open the epiglottis to let stuff through. There's not necessarily a clear way. To sneak past them would take 30s across the board or something like that. Really quickly, when the chopped up bugs or whatever they're eating gets to them, it's pretty small by the time it gets there. We couldn't just put ourselves on a conveyor belt and be like, we're food.
I mean, you could, but there is an element to that that feels maybe slightly treacherous in terms of the integrity of your suits. But yes, you could give that a shot, I think. Yes. I don't know if it's the best thing, but I was just trying to think about it. Sure. If there's a way that we can bang the fleshy spot and jump in the hole, that's not- Bang the fleshy spot.
Jump in the hole. Look, you said it on microphone, not us. We did repeat it, but we didn't say it. Shoot. But anyways, if there's a way to make a distraction one way, kind of hit it, and then us kind of go around or something, I don't know.
-Do we? -Yes. -You guys, I'll say, are about like-- The sneak that you have done, I think represents a greater distance. You're now probably 70 feet from the closest patrol besides the two guys there and not patrol, they're in one location. -Should I just attack them? -I guess my preference would be to try to do something where it won't alert them and then we'll wail on them if we have to.
-Aggie's looking at it and he's like, "It feels like maybe we have to just get rid of them quick or I'm open to other ideas." -Do you think we just stealthily go up and then murder them? -Yes, maybe try to-- -He's like, "I mean--" -I don't relish murdering, but I can do it. -I'm honestly psyched to murder someone. -Oh my God.
-I don't know, just sometimes you just want to let off a little steam. -Yes. -It's not your production of Gobcogo. They had it coming. The goblins had it coming. -Wow, now I need to know what the plot of Chicago is.
Aggie looks up and he's like, I mean, look, why don't we just real quick surprise murder them? And then, I don't know. And there's two guards or how many? There's two guards. And they're wearing plate, but they're unaware. How far away are they? I would say that you are close enough to get a melee attack surprise murder. Really? Okay.
Okay. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I'm really scared. Cool. So let's all get a surprise round and then we can roll initiative after. Okay, cool. But let me know what you would do for your surprise round. Okay, well, I think I would just, with my armor clip on, kind of like low to the ground, fast trot up behind one of them. Okay. Okay.
And do an attack with my greatsword. Cool. And it's like a full turn, I think, on this. So yeah, you can take two attacks with advantage because they are being surprised. Holy shit. Okay. Here we go. Okay, great. So a 23 and a 25. Both hit. Oh, really? Okay. Damage is 17. 17. Okay. So you slash into this guy who is like, you know, I think like...
I don't care if it's uncool. Mother's awesome. And it's slashed in the back with this sword. He's wearing thick armor, and as the sword hits him, it definitely hurts him, but he is not down by any means. And yes, what are your two attacks? Does it have to be melee? No, it doesn't, but that's more the distance, I would say. Yeah.
That y'all are close enough to melee. Oh, okay. But I can still do range without disadvantage? Yes. Yeah. Cool. Then Darwin Spark Spider, do your thing. You can chew webs the farthest. So jump on an arrow. What are the mechanics of this character? Okay.
So I fire two attacks. And you can do these with advantage because this person's... Oh, and that was helpful. Sorry. So the first is 28. Okay. 24. Okay, so both of those hit as well. 17 damage. Okay. So this guy has been hit for 17 twice. He gets two arrows to the chest as Freya slices in the back. He is not down yet. He's like...
Teeths. What's going on with you? Since we get advantage, I'm not going to attack recklessly, which I was going to do. But if we get advantage anyways, I'm not going to do it. Cool. I'm not going to rage because it's too unpredictable in this moment. Like, I want to try to be stealthy. So, like, you know what I mean? Yeah. If they turn on us, I'm raging immediately. But right now, I'm not. So, I'm just going to attack with my great axe. But you still have advantage. Oh, I have advantage. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Much better.
24. Okay. And yeah, if you don't mind rolling the other one. Yeah. So the second will be not great. 12. Okay. So the first one hits, the second one does not. Great. Just six slashing damage. Six slashing damage. Teeths.
on your attack, you're able to slash into this goblin, beheading him and slashing it into the other person for one point of damage. - Wow. - Great, and as I do it, I smile with my big white teeth and blood splatters across them as that head's fucking rolling. - The contrast.
Great. And Aggie's going to go and he's going to take, he's going to use the helper and try to use it to help him cast something. Wow. So that hits, he's going to, he hits him with a cantrip, a firebolt, and it will be, he hits him for six damage.
This one's been hurt a little bit. His thing shoots a fireball out at the guy for six damage. Everybody, you see this one last one. The other ones are farther away and will eventually notice this, but for now, it's just you guys and this one dude. Let's roll initiative. -Okay.
"Ooh, I can't believe I've just been carrying that thing around with me this whole time." And it could do that. -I think it's based off of like-- You had to make intelligence checks for it, so it's definitely harder for your character. -Yes. -Let me know what you got on your initiative score. -I got a 20, not natural. -22. -I got a 14. What's happening?
Okay, great. So, Squeege, you're first with a 22. Even though, yeah, like, so it's like a surprise round that you got. So now you rolled initiative and you rolled, you all rolled incredibly. So, yeah, Squeege, it's your turn. I think it's gross that you call you love mother.
I love my daddy, my dead daddy. I'm like, "All right, Darwin's Bark, you're the one." Fire off two more arrow attacks. 19 and-- Oh, higher than that, 26. Insane, both hit. Okay, great. I'm going to remember the spider damage I keep forgetting. First, 22 damage. -Wow. -Holy shit. Okay.
-That's a lot of damage. -I'll say this, if you guys can kill him before he has his turn, he will not alert people. -Wow. -Oh my God. Pressure is on. -Teeths, it is your turn. -Great. Teeths looks at this new guy, still smiling, blood splattered, licks her soft pillowy teeth and then spits directly in his face, like the bloody spit from her mouth. -Oh my God. -She smiles.
And she picks up her gray bag. Victoria looks disgusted. Freya's just like, in her mind, it's just like, Teeths? It's so cute, but a little disturbing. And I look back at Freya and I'm like, I'm a goblin. And Freya's like, did she read my mind?
But anyways, I still have my greataxe and I'm going to recklessly attack this guy so I get advantage. Okay, cool. So the first one I will definitely take. Sorry, what am I looking for? 19 is the higher of the two. Hits?
So then it's 20 not natural for the second. So I think we'll hit. Great. I also, okay. So I guess I'll roll damage. So first one is eight slashing damage. And the second one is 13 slashing damage. And how's he looking? Well, he's hurting. He's fucking dead.
Yes! And I... The fucking quietest as possible. I'm assuming he slumps over. I'm guessing that's how physics work. Yeah, yeah. He slumps over. And then I get up on him and start tap dancing. Can you roll...
I don't know. It's soft. I'll definitely roll. Can you roll just sort of an intimidation check for the rest of your group? Let me see. Ten. I think it should be scarier than it is considering the content of it, but everyone looks up to see Teeth's tap dancing on a dead body.
That's what I call a final curtain call. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know what I'd call it, but, um, nice job. Teets. Thank you. This guy's never going home to mother. He's already home. Uh, all the world's a stage, including a dead body. I just kind of looks at Aggie. Aggie just is like, let's just keep going. Uh, uh,
- Yeah, so you know how this area was. That was fucked up. I wish we had time to unpack this moment, but let's keep going. - Do we have to hit the fleshy thing?
Oh yeah. There's a way to get through. He hasn't inspected it as closely as you have. Yeah. But, um, so yeah, do you, do you hit the thing or is, I don't know. Does somebody want to do it? I mean, you want me to throw a javelin? Yeah. Would you throw a javelin? A javelin? Do you have any javelins? I renamed my javelin, javelin after killing Drash. There we go. It's canon. Uh,
Yeah, you're like right next to it. You can press it if you want, but yeah, if it feels safer to hit with a javelin, go for it. Great. I'll go ahead and do a hit. Oh, before you do that, everyone make a stealth check just to make sure that... 21. 23. 23.
That evens out. You pass the group stealth check, luckily, and the other groups did not notice. Once a Clank Queen, always a Clank Queen. It's just like, no helper. You look so light. That's what's confusing. I appreciate you saying that. It's incredible the way, yeah, your performance is really good.
So you press it with your dravelin? Yeah. Your dravelin? My dravelin. As you press it with your dravelin, the epiglottis kind of like, you know, flaps out of the way and y'all are able to enter this cavern with more, like you feel this sort of like ankle deep sludge moving in with you as you go into this cavern. That is now a little darker than the last cavern you were in.
-Don't worry, Spider's Man has dark vision. -So do I.
Brad, maybe you have dark vision as well. I might have dark vision as well. I would think as an elf or a half-elf, you probably would. So now you are in the next chamber of the worm. Without getting overly gross here, this is where later stages of digestion happen. That chopped up bits of stuff that came in. It smells different in here, a little more acidic. Acidic.
You see large bits of bugs and other organic matter tossed in here just begins to be digested more thoroughly. In front of you, on this sort of acidic river, you see there's little bumps in the ground where it provides almost like a stepping stone path, but more of a leaping stone path.
In this chamber, it's also, like I said, a lot darker. There's still kind of like a periodic glow of purple, but it kind of runs through like a pulse a little more. So the first mound is like 10 feet in front of you as you survey this area.
I do just want to confirm with everyone that I do have dark vision. Oh, great. Oh, good. What do you think of the place? It's frightening. I don't care for it. But the smell? Do you smell how acidic it is? I can smell. Does it make your suit kind of twingle? My suit is twinkling. Yes, teeth. Nice. Is your dravel twinkling? Yes.
My Dravalin is immune. Can you pop that first stone with your Dravalin? I just want to see if it really is solid. Do I need to make anything for that? It's 10 feet away. Give me a DC 10 attack roll. Or AC. Four. Your Dravalin should just...
into the water no it's gone it's gone um i have a javelin and i give mine immediately to fran i'm like it's no traveling but maybe it'll be okay sorry to make you lose your javelin okay it's okay why'd you throw it hi i did it's a reflex it's a reflex that's how you use a javelin it was my reflex yeah
You can truly have mine. No. No, I don't need it. I don't need it. I love my great axe. Please take. Oh, I love my curvy great axe. It is curvy.
Classic great axe guy. Can I cast basically Mage Hand, but it's a bunch of spiders to crawl onto the rock just to see if it's an actual rock, I think. Yes, I'll say you can do that. It's definitely, since Mage Hand is so much lighter, you're not going to be able to get a sense of like,
the weight bearing capacity from it, but they're on there just like safely. -Okay, cool. -It doesn't seem like anything has happened to the little spiders that are crawling around there. They're just like, "What's up over here?" -That rock is friendly to spiders, so maybe to us too. -Yes. My brain is wanting us to like--
have the big guys hold the little guys and jump, but I don't know if that makes the most sense, if that'll be more cumbersome for them to do a roll or not. I think that would affect their athletics check. Great. Then I think we'll just do it. Because it's an athletics check to jump across. I have done a thing before on a bridge where we sort of like tied onto each other with a rope. I don't know if this seems helpful at all.
uh like if the first person were to leap tied and i don't know if we all if like the next jumper ties and you can pull them in i don't know if that would work i will say freya you would remember that that was more of like a rushing river it was this is like you're going the same direction that these kind of pops of stone not stone but like you know fleshy bits that are outside of it um
are going the same direction as the stream itself. While that could help in some ways, it's maybe not as helpful in a rushing riffer that people could be sucked away in the current. -Got you. Yes. I don't know. -I don't know either. I think it might just be a straight athletics check. -Maybe we just jump. -We're all bipping and bopping over the stones. -Yes, I'm good. -I'm okay. -Acrobatics? -Yes. -I don't know. It depends on what we have to do. -Yes.
Cool. I think you do have to do athletics for this long. Okay, cool. I'll do it. Yeah. Let's do it. I think we just go for it. I'll go first. Okay. Stand back. Okay. 17. Oh, yeah. You see Freya leap with confidence over this chasm and land firmly onto the first mound. Safe. Incredible. Thank you so much. I'll be here. This room is going like...
Like it's like, you're very inside of a monster right now. Yeah. Can I ask how big are the mounds? Can two people stand on a mound? All four people can fit on a mound. Jump to me. They're pretty wide. I would say they have like a, the length of one is like 10 feet as well. Okay, great. Okay, great. I'll try. Yeah? Go for it. I'll be here. Okay. I'm here, Teeths. Okay, athletics. Athletics.
-11. -11 teeths, you fly at it and you clip onto the side and you feel your legs land in the acidic waters below you. Your suit though is protecting you from the brunt of it. Your suit takes, which I have been tracking by the way, a D6 of acidic damage.
I'm making note of it over here. Thank you. Make another strength check to hold on to the edge. Freya, you can help her. I can help, right? 14. You're able to hang on to the edge with that. Freya, you can help her up if you would like. Do I need to do a strength check? Make a strength check and also...
Also, Freya, make a strength check. Teets, make a perception check. Okay. 16 for my strength check. 21. Cool. As Freya pulls you out of the water or the acid, your suit is held together, but you feel like it wasn't good for it. As Freya pulls you out, you feel like you hit something with your legs that is not dead.
On a 21, you feel like there is more movement than that around here as this chamber continues to warble. -Okay.
-Guys. -Teeths. Unsurprisingly, we shouldn't fall in the acid. My suit took damage. Surprisingly, sorry. -Oh, I was just going to say it's got a cool distressed look now. -Oh, thank you. -Yes.
Really important, I have to say it. Some people buy suits to look like this. That's what I'm saying. Sorry, spider's back. Aggie pipes in and is like, I don't get it. When I made acidic suits in the past, you'd wore them new and then you'd eventually make them like that. Why would you pay extra for that? All right, old elf. Aggie's going to take a jump.
-Oh, he makes it and lands on that. -While he's doing that, I just communicate that I do think that either these mounds are alive or something down below is lurking and is alive. Extra dangerous, let's be mindful. -All right. -It's on my mind. -Well, just good old spiders man. I'm really good at jumping and stuff, so I'm sure this will be a cinch.
-17. -Okay, great. -It was, yes. -Spider-Man flies across easy. -Nice job. -I land in a classic Spider-Man pose like this or I don't know. -Doing the classic Spider-Man's hand. -What are Spider-Man's hands? -They're almost like I love you. -Only pinky. -Very cool. As the last person lands on the platform,
you see two sort of slug-like creatures with tentacles sort of like out on the edges of the platform and getting to climb up towards you guys. Everyone make a nature check. 20, not natural. Four. 17. Okay, on a 20 and a 17, I'm sorry, not a four. My four's not good for anything? You would see that these are the,
for lack of a better term, like kind of like the microorganisms of this thing that are aiding in the digestion. They're like sucking on like bug parts, like liquefying them. Like the acid is coming out of their mouth, their mouth. Um, they're going to, um, uh, start climbing at you. And as you, as you see these two come out, you have the sense that there are a bunch, this chamber is essentially filled with these Aggie is like, we have to hurry. Uh, let's get out of here. Um,
And these things are going to take attacks. - No! - You can fight them. This is gonna be kind of like a, I think, yeah, let's just roll initiative. Let me know what you get.
Well, I hope that you enjoyed that episode of Rotating Heroes Arc 4. Your rotators for this arc were, of course, Victoria Longwell as Freya Black, Justin Michael as Squeege, and Marisha Strickland as Teeths. If you want to hear more Rotating Heroes in your life, then you can get more than you can probably handle over at
Rotating Heroes, Patreon, you can find the links in the description below. We have got a bunch of really exciting things coming, like potentially merchandise. If you want to be a part of that and help us get there, you can either join the Patreon or just drop us a little five-star review in whatever podcasting app you're using and help new people find the show. That's it. Bye!
