Episode 7 – Bush Craft

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You might want to plan a little bit. These people are no joke. Do they like control the whole town? They control the town. They control a lot of the fleets that go out. They control everything. So you're telling us they're the mayor. I guess. We step aside to Billy. Yeah. So this is like, this is, yeah, I guess they are kind of collectively the mayor, but like they all individually have different captains that are loyal to them.

And when it's necessary, they can kind of call up a fleet that hasn't happened in a long time though. Does Tuck know any famous captains? Tales of the Seas kind of captain move? Yeah. I would like to use my bardic expert on histories or wait, maybe legends of guitar heroes past. Uh, yeah, that would probably be more accurate. Yeah. A famous. You don't have to roll again. Captain right. Yeah. I don't have to roll for this. It's a question you get to ask.

Tell me about a famous captain that might impress these guys if we worked for him or something. A famous captain. Yeah. Um, there is a, she doesn't come around here much cause she's sort of like a, a maverick. She's always at sea. She, she hits a lot of different places, but she's got a very theatrical flair to her. Uh, her name is Victoria LeBlanc. And, uh, she is the captain of a ship called the white night and she likes to hit like military ships.

That's kind of her thing is that she likes to go around and she likes to really spit in the eye of like the authority on the sea. And, uh, the captain's council has been trying to get her to join for years. Oh, but she's like a bit of like an anarchist or something or like I, I, no one, no one owns me. Yeah. The anarchist amongst the pirate anarchist. Yeah. Yeah. She's like, yeah, we're pirates. Why would we, why do we have a council? Why do we have rules? Like we're out here for ourselves.

Yeah. Oh, I have an idea. Yeah. Billy. Vink. Yes. Go on. Ollie. What if we got Corrine to pretend to be Victoria LeBlanc? They know what she looks like. Fucking shit. Ollie, uh, says, why don't you just wait until it's dark and sneak in? I mean, I didn't want to like suggest it because it's like after my bedtime and they don't usually like if I stay up too late. Uh, yeah, you could just wait until it's dark and then slip over the wall or something. But how, like how intense are the defenses?

I, that's a good idea. I think we should like scout it. Yeah. Are we all going? I think we could all go. Yeah. Yeah. We could take like all three sides of the fort. Yeah. We could each do a scout. Yeah. All right. Okay. Okay. So we head to the fort. All right. I like that. This is all we needed the karaoke room for. We paid for an hour. We should probably sing some songs.

So, uh, yeah, the fort is like, you know, up the hill from town sitting on the, uh, the elk on outcropping of rock looking over the ocean high walls. There's a center keep in sort of a McCollin style, uh, that goes up, say four stories with, uh, what looks like a big. Old ceremonial brazier on the top. Okay. Ooh. Hmm. Cool. Is it lit? It's not lit right now. Is there anything higher than the fort on this island? No, there's not. Okay. That makes sense.

And that is all I'm going to tell you without you rolling. Okay. I'll take the east side. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Where'd you learn about the east? Um, just from like, you know, my time on the ships. The good old days. Yeah. It was cut to Billy on a ship being like, no, no, no. The east side of the ship. The east. I also, uh, failed that role. Spectacular. My scout lore, uh, got four and it doesn't matter what my modifier is. It does not. Okay.

So the failure that you're going to get is you're kind of looking at the wall from the east side and you see there are people kind of patrolling the walls here and there, but they all look like pretty normal pirate folk. But there's one figure that stands out to you. They're wrapped against the cold. It looks like they have very like layered baggy robes and then a wrap around the bottom half of their face and a wrap around their head just so their eyes are exposed. Okay.

They're wearing goggles and they have something over their shoulder that looks very unusual. Like a weapon? Yeah. A weapon of some kind, but you can't get a good look at it. It's probably because I'm hiding in this thorny bush. There's a really nice bush beside you. I should have went in the other one. I have so many scratches. Just covered in smashed berries as you try and climb out and cuts. Yeah.

So Billy just learns that there's a unusual looking figure patrolling the wall, but nothing of value besides that. Okay. Uh, I also want to look at the wall. What do I roll? Uh, 2d6 plus wisdom for discern realities. All right. Let's fucking look at this fort. Piece of shit. Give me a break. Give it to me. 12. Okay. Whoa. You got the good bush. I got two sixes. You guys are all in different bushes. Yeah. Like three bushes next to each other. Dude, Tuck always gets the good bush.

Man, we really should have split up. We're all like, all right, let's all take a different side of the fort. You're taking east, you're taking north, and I'm going to take the south side. And we all didn't know what direction was what, so we're all in adjacent bushes. I see a guy. I see a guy with a gun. I see a guy with a staff, too. Imagine if Billy's looking around. He's like, there's a big figure in a bush watching. That's so funny. I'll see. This is going to be tough. This could be anybody.

Yeah. Okay. So you get three questions. All right. What here is useful or valuable to me? Okay. You see that the wall, though tall and foreboding, hasn't been very well. Maintained from like a masonry perspective. So there are a lot of crumbled out chunks and old broken bits that would be decent handholds if you wanted to climb over the wall. Oh, yeah. Just the shittiest stone. Mason's pirates are probably got one of those voluntary masons. Yeah, exactly. Like a free mason.

But there's a ton of them. A secret society of volunteers. A bunch of volunteer stone workers. Just as to give you a sense of how much better Paul is at wordplay than I am. I was going to say, yeah, one of those masonry co-op students. Pretty good. Okay. So that's what here is useful or valuable. What should I be on the lookout for? I would say you spend some time, like a good amount of time throughout the next few hours watching people on the walls. And you…

See that this place definitely has like patrols, but it's nothing so overwhelming that you don't think you would be able to take them at all. Most of them are armed with crossbows and swords at their sides. And they don't look like they're terribly well trained with the exception of that weird wrapped up figure. So that makes you think that that person isn't a part of whatever organization. Like they're not probably friendly. They're not part of the regular guard.

Well, then who's really in control here? You keep watching this robed figure that keeps popping up and they're standing on one of the ramparts watching and they turn as you hear gently somebody call out to them. And the person approaching them is very clearly Urk, the Magi. What? What? Oh, no. Oh, my God. That's… Tuck actually does that. And Billy in the two bushes over is like, that bush is coughing again. I'm watching the bush intently. Like, should I warn the others?

That's what your failure was that you were just watching my bush. That's so funny. I was watching the wall and the bush was moving. I was like, hold on. Movement to my right. Thought you could get away from me. And I know it's not Tuck or Ving because they're taking the other side. Yeah. So that's what you learn is that the Magi are here. And… And Urk is here specifically. Urk is here. But Urk wrote the letter to Billy where he was like, I kept my promise as long as I could.

And Billy hasn't gotten an indication that he broke his promise. So maybe he's just done a really good job of not telling them what he's up to. Oh, my God. We need to approach that Urk. Like, I know whenever I introduce a character like Urk, they're usually bumbling idiots. But like, maybe he's just been able to keep it under wraps. Oh. Impressive. Oh, my God. Cool. Or maybe he found a way around the oath. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very possible.

Is there enough time to spend in this place to get a community of the whispers to tune with the spirits of the land? Oh, probably. Because we were… Like, it was just the morning when we left. Yeah. So it's day. We have to wait for night. Yeah, we were at the Hound for a little bit. And then we're like going out on this spying. Yeah. Yeah. If Ving isn't going to do like a discern realities, like he could spend his time. I feel like… Like, three discern realities is cheap. Sure. Yeah. Commune.

Okay, I'm going to commune. And once we see that Urk's here, then it's like, oh, shit, there's spirit shit going on. Yeah. And I've picked up my bush and walked it over to these guys' bushes. And Billy's like… Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's coming for me. I'm all alone. What do I do? And the thorns, I can't really get out of here. Billy, Billy, it's tough. It's tough. He's just trying to get out like, oh, my God. Look at those thighs. It's tough. Guys. Urk is here. What? Check it out.

Oh, my God. He is. Well, I have something to tell you. Seven. Seven. Okay. So, what's a seven on the community of whispers again? On a seven to nine, the vision is unclear. It's meaning mercury. Murky. Mercury. Mercury. You give me like, basically, astrological advice. Yeah. Okay. So, the spirits that you attempt to contact on this island, you're trying to get an idea of sort of the… The spiritual ecosystem of the Four Frost Islands.

Again, with the ways that spirit stuff has been working with you lately, you feel the presence of spirits much closer than you're used to having felt them. Like, with the veil apparently thinning in some way, they're much closer than you're used to them being. But what you do feel is a spirit much, much older than you would expect from a place like this. Oh. Like, much older. Ancient. Ancient spirit, yeah. Can you tell if it's like, a good spirit?

Yeah, but something so old is not really good or bad. Yeah. It's just ancient. That's cool. Ionic. It does feel familiar, in a way. Yeah, maybe it pushed up against the danger room. Yeah, maybe. Like, that familiar feeling of like, oof, endless depth. Mm-hmm. Weird. Weird. Okay. That didn't really help at all. But, uh, kind of also dead. It does. Meaning murky. Uh, yeah, so that's what you've learned.

Uh, you can see that a good way over might be climbing, uh, the wall, if you're just gonna go full stealth mode. Um, there is a okay, uh, guard force in terms of training and equipment, and there's one person who is apparently working with the Medjay in some fashion who seems to stand out in terms of, uh, ability and armament. And they have, like, something on their back.

Yeah, some sort of weird thing that neither, none of you have been able to get a really good look at, and you just have no fucking idea what it is. Is it long or short? It's boxy. Boxy? Yeah. Got a box on his back. Just like Tuck. Oh my God. Oh no. Is it Phantom? He's back. Is this a good time to, like, use, like, some fairy moves? Hell yeah. Always. I don't know. Like. Yeah, what do you got? I don't know.

Well, I was wondering, like, what if I tried to use Shadow Dance to be able to, like, wander around in the fairy or shadow world. Mm-hmm. And, like, see if I can sense anything. So can you read me Shadow Dance? Yeah. So I would spend a hold of Fairy Child and roll Wisdom to enter the Fey World. Uh, 10 plus, I remain out of body for three holds. Seven to nine, I'm out of body for only one hold. Cool. Then yeah, definitely you can do that. Okay. So. So I got eight. Perfect. Okay.

So you get one hold. So I get one hold. Which means as long as you're just kind of walking around but not trying to do anything super intense, you can hold onto it. Don't run, Billy. Your constitution can't handle it. I hear that as I slip out of my Billy body and into the fairy world. Yeah, just a little reminder. What does it look like when you cross it? Like, what does everything look like now? Everything is a shadow of itself, including me. Mm-hmm. Uh. What do we look like?

You look like shadows. Oh, cool. Yeah. Ooh. Does the, does the coin in my chest look any different? Can you see it in this? Yes. Ooh. Uh, it's, uh, but it's not like a hard, it's not like a hard image. It's a, like a lot of like flitting in and out. Whoa. Like energy almost. Whoa. And TLC, uh, I can see them pretty easily. Whoa. Yeah. What does Ving look like when he's communing? Ving is.

Uh, a lot of like glowing and dark energy, like flowing in and out of your body, like cycling in and out and similar to the coins you've lit a bit. That's fucking rad. Yeah. I like the idea that because, uh, the fairy world is this like backstage kind of between all of the realms, like Billy can see parts of all of them. It's sort of like swimming just along the veil. Mm-hmm. That's great. Pretty cool. Yeah. What's your plan?

Um, I, uh, I'm going to get close and wander the perimeter of the fort to see if I can like see or sense anything like that. That's beyond like the physical. Yeah, definitely. That, you know, sense if there's something like bigger in here. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you start walking around the, the edges of the fort, uh, approaching the shadowy walls of this place's reflection. Mm-hmm. And, um, yeah, you do feel. Yeah. Yeah.

You feel like there's some sort of nagging presence kind of at the back of your mind that is definitely in the vicinity of the fort. Mm-hmm. But there is something here. You might have to roll to get a little more information. I wonder if it's dangerous. Is this the thing that Ving felt in the spirit too? Might be. Wait, what am I rolling? I think discern realities. Oh, discern realities. Yeah, this could be discern realities. Or discern.

Or you were talking about trap expert, like we could use this to kind of talk about the danger. Oh. Yeah, I'll roll trap expert. Okay. Dexterity two is 10. Okay. Sick. Ooh, get to ask all three questions. You do indeed. Um, is there a trap here? And if so, what activates it? There is a trap here, yes, in the broad danger sense.

Uh, and what would activate it is, uh, the, like the energy that you see and feel coming off of Ving when he's communing with the whispers, you can feel an echo of that deep under the fort. Ooh, underground. Yeah. Whoa. So, the way that Ving would activate it is too much of whatever Ving is doing. Oh, shit. So, he's sort of like knocking on a door. Yeah, exactly. Oh, shit. Like when, when What's-His-Nuts picked up that bowling ball and then Sauron saw him. Yeah, exactly.

When What's-His-Nuts picked up the bowling ball and Sauron saw him. Yeah. Oh, are you guys talking about the Woody Harrelson movie Kingpin? No, when, uh. Great movie, by the way. Who, I can't remember if it was Pippin or Merry. Merry. Merry touches the Palantir. It looks exactly like a bowling ball. It does. It does. It looks like a bowling ball. Yeah, so that is what you feel. Oh, wow. So, I'm scared. What does the trap do when activated?

Much like your Ving is knocking on a door thing, it would open him up to something. Oh, yikes. Down there. Okay. So, Billy starts backing up and he's wondering what else is hidden here. I would say that, yeah, you feel like you're in a trap. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Um yeah billy's like he feels afraid and it feels unnatural to feel that feeling in his fairy body so uh he rushes back rushes back to his body yeah just basic it feels like he like in a way like you kind of like let yourself fall off the edge again yeah I snap awake and I'm like thing thing snap out of it hold on I'm doing my thing I'm communing with the whispers no you gotta stop you gotta stop I am the spirit walk I'm serious billy there's something you don't want to wake it up what what is it what did you see I don't know but it just it was big and it's deep under the fort I felt that um I think if you were to wake it up it might do something to you I felt like it knew who I was weird uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh I felt like it knew who I was weird I'm here too guys sorry sorry tuck I don't have much to tell you that's fine you guys can have your conversation about your spirit stuff I'm just gonna go I'm gonna go over here he saunters off inside of a bush and billy picks up his his bush to walk up to tuck and he's like hey I have a secret the bush is shaking like it's crying wait tuck I have a thing to tell you from what I saw yeah yeah so they have a thing to tell you about what I saw yeah yeah so they have a thing to tell you about what I saw yeah yeah so they have a thing to tell you about what I saw probably a magic thing in there I have no details though a magic thing you say billy yeah and then he takes out his nerd glasses and he puts them on but he puts them on outside of the bush oh yeah so the bush is wearing glasses he's stroking the bush's beard like it's his beard we're really running up against how much stealth these bushes can actually give us he's not gonna hold up much longer for sure there's that uh a regular solid sound everywhere.

Blah! Blah! Blah! All these exclamation marks popping up above people's heads. Blah! Must have been the wind. Alright. If I see a magic thing, Billy, I will try and grab it. And you know what? I also do have an ear for magic. So, that is… And you want to read that move out? When you hear an enemy cast a spell… So, no. Wow. We haven't even seen if the enemy cast a spell yet. Just because it might happen. Yeah, I know. It is a handy spell.

The GM will tell you the name of the spell and its effects. Take a plus one forward when acting on the answers. So, hypothetically, if this thing were to activate, could I get information on this thing? This is something that I was… Because we talked about this last session, and it's something I've been thinking about, is we need to decide whether or not whether we want this move to do everything or if we want it to do a specific thing.

Because we've talked about, like, is spirit stuff, demon stuff, and magic stuff, does that all apply? Does it apply to any sort of magical effect or just when you hear people cast spells? I honestly feel pretty restricted in using this move because, like, nobody uses magic. That's what I'm saying. And we've never really had spell casters. So, I think it makes sense in our context to have it be… Maybe the significance of what the information you get is, like, tainted or murky.

That is the thing. It can either do a bunch of stuff, just a little bit less. Because the move, the way it is, is you hear a spell and I tell you what it does. But what if he gave us, like, part of it? Yeah, exactly. Like, if it applies to a lot of unusual things but you get more of a yeah, an infirm idea of what's going on. But you still get some information. I'm fine with that. How about this? I'll roll this dice and if it is odd, we will change it.

And if it is even, we will keep it very restrictive. Do you want to do that? I love to gamble, my friend. That's odd. Change it. Okay. It'll be more flexible in the future. Okay, cool. And I'll come up with a different way to word that. All right, let's do best out of three. Here, give me that dice. And that is what we know. So, yeah, Billy, returning to his body, has learned that there is something deep underneath the fort that is connected to the spiritual presence that Ving felt.

That thing would be set off by Ving contacting the spirits too much or messing with spiritual stuff too much in this place. And that there is some sort of magical something or other being held in the fort as well. That's definitely not Perel. No, it's not Perel. It's definitely like an object of some kind. Cool. And it's not like a super powerful presence. It's more like, you know, an echo in much of the way that magical stuff in this world is not as powerful as it used to be.

Right, because it's run down. Yeah. Okay. Cool. We've never had a magic thing, except for that box that we had for four seasons. Maybe those chamberling rings. Oh, man, and the fanny pack. Right, that was magic too. So we've had a lot of magic items. Yeah, you have actually. But other than those. Yeah, we haven't held on to them. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. So what's the next plan is just, I guess, wait till dark. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We can smash cut too. Smash cut too. Nighttime.

Did you just wait in this bush this whole time? Yeah, I fell asleep. Yeah. In a thorn bush. Yeah. You know, once you get the thorns in the right place, it's pretty comfortable. As long as you don't shift around. Yeah. Billy wouldn't let us pull the thorns out of them. And then so we, we just waited for him to fall asleep and then we slowly picked them out. Do you like these? He likes these things too much. Yeah. So, you know, the time passes until darkness falls. It is winter, so it's overcast.

The night is quite dark. The moon is hidden behind a veil of cloud. Torches and lanterns start getting lit around the perimeter of the fort. So it's lit. But again, this isn't like a military facility. It's not exactly as tightly operated as it could be. Do they light the brazier up top? No, they don't. Whoa. What does that mean? What are they waiting for? Great question. I'd like to roll. What are you waiting for to figure out what they're waiting for? Great answer. Ready to get colder.

Somebody yells from inside the fort. I have a question about ingress for you guys, because I know Shantae, we climb up the side, but you can fly, right? Yeah, kind of. Yeah. You flew. It's just me. Yeah. It would just be me getting there, but I could probably get up there and take out a couple of these dumb guards. Oh, yeah. Like some guys on the wall. So then Billy and I can climb up. Yeah. So it's night. It's nighttime. Is the big time guard up there? The weird box back guy?

You can't see them from here. And are there a couple of guards like on the ground up front? No, they're all the guards that are here on the wall. Okay. What are they doing? Just kind of walking back and forth in their video game style patrol patterns, stopping once in a while to share an offhand voice line with one another. Cool. High five. Then we keep walking. Yeah, exactly. I think I can get up there and beat up those bros. Yeah, do it. Okay. Should I? Are we doing this? Is this happening?

I think so. We storming this fort. We're storming the fort. Guys, put the hands in. We are. Everyone be safe. A fourth hand enters the hole. What? I thought you guys were doing it. Are we storming the fort? Who are you? Just a guy. He's like old. He's got a long gray beard and an eye patch. We doing this? We storming this thing? This is a storm in Norman. Storm in Norman. I've been waiting 40 years for someone to storm this fort. What do you have against the Fort Norman? They took me legs.

Look, he's got two peg legs. He's got two peg legs. Cool. If you see me legs in there, bring them back out for storm in Norman. We will. You know what? You watch all of our stuff. Oh, yeah, I can do that. Give it to Norm. No, I mean our bushes. Oh, okay. I'll watch the bush. Go. God be with you and may the night watch over you. Yeah, that sounds fucking cool. I do like the idea that we were in these woods the whole time and then there was just this wild man.

Yeah, a bit of a feral dude and there's this isn't a huge island. So the woods aren't even that big. No, it's like three bushes. It's like a strip of trees. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. It's like forts wouldn't let trees grow that close by. So he's just been waiting in a bush for this whole time. It's just like taking seeds from other bushes and planting them like one day. Can I ask Norman a question? Yeah, what can I do for you kid? How long have you been staking out the fort?

I've been staking it out on and off weekends. Just part time? Statutory holidays. Weekends and statutory holidays whenever I can get away from the store. Oh, that's nice. From the store. Yeah. What kind of store do you have? I sell bowls. That's cool. Like wooden bowls? Wooden bowls. I carve them by hand. Oh, beautiful. I'll have to visit after. Yeah, it's called Unbowlievable. Nice. And you won't believe the bowls that I have. Hey, Norman. Yeah.

Anything we should watch out for that you've noticed over your weekends of patrolling? Well, that's a great question. And you know what? You're right. You should roll for this. What are you? So what? I guess yeah, you could parlay and he might give you some information. Okay. Yeah, I'll parlay. Okay. Nine. Nine. Okay. So with a nine on a parlay, he requires concrete assurance of your promise right now. If you got some sweet materials on you right now, I can tell you what I know.

Materials like bowl materials? Yeah, like whatever kind of nice building materials you got. I don't know. Like I have this book of sea shanties. Nope. Okay. Oh, I have a bowl of beeswax for finishing your bowls. And he takes a look at the jar. Where'd you get this beeswax from? Fuck if I know. You just had beeswax? Yeah, I got a jar of beeswax. From the alleyway. Yeah, from Chandler's Row when we pretended to be those two kids. Right.

They had really high quality beeswax there and you bought some. Cool. It was in a dumpster. We took some out of a dumpster. It's fire beeswax. Oh, this is fire beeswax. You can use it for braziers. People can light wooden bowls on fire and it doesn't burn the bowl. Yeah. Holy shit. Oh, that's the finest beeswax there is to work with. Actually, I kind of want to maybe. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Wait. Okay, here. All right. It's yours, Norman. Boats. And he puts it. Sorry, Bill.

I totally, that was your, we were looking for barley for the. It's okay. I have a lot of stuff in my bag and none of it is useful. Unless you like rocks. Well, it depends on what kind of rock you're talking about. It's just the ones from the ground. Ah, I've got plenty of those. This whole island's a rock and one day I'll make a giant bowl out of it all. Wait, what? Anyway. Is he going to blow up the island? Is he a skateboarder? No, no, no, no, no, no.

This is a totally normal aspiration for kind of a weird guy. Okay, so what do I know? What do I know about the fort? Have you ever tried to break in? Yes, I have. Oh, how did it go? Oh, not well. They lost me legs. They took me legs, Billy. I'm so sorry. Norman. Nah, that's all right. I didn't need them. Okay. What do you want to know? Let's kind of work this out together. What's a fun tidbit that Norman would know? Where's the entrance inside the fort from the roof? Oh, of the keep? The keep?

Yeah, the center part. Well, I mean, it's a wall, so there's kind of a whole open area around it, but then there's the keep in the middle. Okay. And that has a whole whack of shit. Is there a prison somewhere where they might keep prisoners? Yeah, there's a dungeon. Okay, well, how do we get to the dungeon? The dungeon is accessed through… The keep, I think. Okay. I've never made it as far as the keep. Well, I made it to the door once, and that was when they took me first leg.

You went back after you lost one leg? I had to go get my leg. Oh, Norman, you are the bravest person I've ever met. Wow. That's one word for it, Billy. Yeah. So brave. So, does that make sense that the dungeon would be accessed via the keep? Yeah, for sure. Can you explain to someone who maybe had sex in high school what a keep might be? Yes, of course. You know, I don't know myself because I had plenty of sex in high school.

Okay, so a keep is sort of like, you know when you're looking at a picture of a castle and there's the wall and then there's the building. That's the keep. Can you pull up a picture of a castle? Yeah, man. It's literally just the part of the castle that's the building. So, there's a wall around a castle and that's how all castles are designed? Pretty much. For the most part. Pretty smart. Then people can't get in. Yeah. And that's how forts are designed, too. The wall builds around the house.

You discovered the idea of walls. I can't believe you fucked your way through Castle 101. Like, if you think about it, the Great Wall of China is like the wall to China and China's the keep. China's the castle. Holy fuck, she's right. Wow. Oh my god. Okay, so yeah. And this is a light guard style naval fort which means that they built it kind of they built it with a central, a big central tower in the middle as opposed to like… It's a lighthouse keep. Yeah, exactly.

It's a lighthouse with a wall around it for the most part. Okay. A fortified lighthouse kind of. And we know that the light guards like to put their dungeons deep down. Yeah. Anyways, I'm gonna watch your bush. I'm gonna play with this wax. Okay. Thanks, Norman. Hey. If you see any legs, bring them back. Okay. Will do. I mean, yeah. Tell them Stormin Norman sent ya. Actually, we will tell them that. Yeah, we will. Ha, ha, right. I'll carve your name on the inside of the wall. Oh, that'd be…

Everyone who goes inside will think that you've been in there. Hell yeah. Basically, you have been. Yeah. That'd be great. Alright, I'm gonna just chill here and he screws the top off the jar of beeswax and puts his hand in. I need that jar back. He puts some wax in his mouth. Alright, enjoy. I'm going. I need to. Okay. And he immediately goes to sleep. So. Okay, so. What's the plan? I was gonna get onto that roof. Yes. You're gonna go up the wall and beat up some guards.

I mean, we could all climb up the wall. We could. We want to climb up the wall together. Yeah. But maybe I'll use a top down so that you guys are gonna go up the wall. I'll come from the top down. I think that's the best approach. Yeah, cause then you can kinda like take them out from a direction they're not expecting and then we'll come over the wall. And we'll be back up if shit goes really bad for you. I like this a lot. Yeah. Okay. Okay, good luck, Ving.

I'm gonna use my, um, spirit tongue to distract the guards on the roof. You're gonna make some animal noises? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna make some, um, what's night time with our bats. Ooh, owls. Owls. Yeah, owls are out here too. Would hearing an owl at night be that unusual? Yeah, if the owl was from somewhere else. Or if there's many owls. So we're hoping that there's some amateur ornithologists on top of this wall that'll be like, that owl doesn't live in this range.

There is an ornithology club amongst the guards. Yeah. Birds are very, uh, sacred amongst sailors for sure. Oh, cool. A lot of omens and stuff tied up in that. Sweet. Uh, I'm gonna make the sound of, um, a, um, mast owl. And they, um, have been known to, uh, put nests in the abandoned crow's nests. Cool. And, uh, people say when you see them, it's good luck for a week. So people get really hard on actually seeing these. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Get these guys, um, very hard for seeing this owl.

So are you, you're, you're moving away to draw them away from this spot that Billy and Tucker gonna climb up? Yeah, I'm gonna go on the opposite side. I'll go on the west side. Nice. I'll make some owl sounds. They'll come to that sound and then I'll drop on their faces. So are you flying, you're flying up and doing this? So you're gonna have to roll for something to get your shape shift going. So I jump inside the bush that I like, the thorny bush.

And then he uses the bush as the elemental form to transmute my body into the shape of an owl. Cool. Thornberry owl. Hell yeah. 2d6 plus wisdom. Constitution. Constitution I mean. Sick. Ooh. Whoa. That's two sixes. Yeah, I got box cars. Good God. That's amazing. Fucking sick. So you get three hold. Great. And your body is shrouded in this thorny bush covered in berries as you become an owl made out of vines. And Norman goes, what the fuck? Jesus fucking Christ.

And he salutes him and takes to this, takes to this guy. Amazing. And then when I'm up there, I'll make the owl sounds of the mast owls. So you could spend one of your hold and just do that. Yep. If you want. Great. So you spend one of your hold and you make a sound like an owl. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you see one of the sailors, one of the pirate guards look up and go, well, that's an owl. That's a nice pollution mast owl. Come on, guys. And he sounds super horny.

They say if you see them fucking, it's 12 years. Good luck. And then he does a lady one. Oh, fuck me. Fuck me. Oh, fuck. Oh, God. If you if you spend another hold yeah to do that to do the girl. Yeah, I'll let more guards go from the two holds. Yeah. So there's so worth it. So you see you make the noise of the boy mast owl and you hear the guards go to the guards go. Wow, a mast owl. We gotta go see this one week. Good luck.

And two of the other guards are like, I only look at them if they're fucking because then it's twelve years. Good luck. And then they hear the girl one and they go, oh my God, they run. So the four guards from this side of the wall have been drawn away and they're looking up into the night sky trying to catch a glimpse of this owl. They're all pushing each other and tripping over each other to get to see this owl. I want to see it. Okay, so I circle around them.

Use my last hold to shed the bush and fall from a great height. Silently. Yeah, and I want to roll my fight with honor before I land. Oh shit. Okay. Yeah. And I shoot thorns out and everything. So that's eleven. Good lord. Okay. Yes. How many hold do you get with fail all the time? But now that things get animals back on side, it's really funny. Yeah. So how many hold do you get with fight with honor three? All right. So if this is the fight starting, you got four people here.

Yeah, you got to take him out fast. Okay, because they're going to raise the alarm. If you don't. Okay, so I how many of them can I land on? Uh, allow me to as many as you want to spend hold to deal your damage to. I'll spend to hold. Okay. Take out two of them by landing on them. I retain the thorns on my feet like talents. So I would like to deal my damage to a foe within reach as like a talent kick. Do I get to use nature's fury because I'm using natural elements to deal damage? I'd say so.

Great. I can use a d10. Nice. Eight. Holy shit. I say nighty night bird perverts. You were the one that made the noise. You're the one who came flocking to it. You bird perv. Uh, you so how you rolled eight? Yeah, I rolled an eight. Yeah, that's enough to take out two of them. So the two that eight was to land on the guys. They're out. You take two out right away. And then I kick the other guy six six and that's that is enough to take out one of them completely.

And then there's one left that you hit, but he's not quite out and you can see that he's getting ready to be like and I do that and he stops. I put my my finger against my lips like a librarian go and I slap him in the face. Oh, because you have another hold, don't you? Yeah. That's a ten. This guy's this guy. You goes to hell. He's gone. He slapped the life out of he wakes up the devil's looking a little bird. Yeah, I know you can take about like you don't have to kill these guys.

If you don't want, I do not want to kill all four of them are out of commission. Great. So sick. Wow. Fight with honors fucked up. Wow. Are we like scaling up the wall that come back to us? Yeah. So tall walks rocks are so slimy from the sea water. Billy's on my shoulders as he's saying I don't want to touch these walls. You while tucks like shot a second. Why is my cardio getting worse? Fuck fuck.

Okay, roll it to fight in your strength just to see how climbing gets you how far that gets you thirteen. Yeah, you climb up. No problem. Your cardio is bad, though. I reach over the top of the wall and I flop. I you know that thing where like a like a chubby kid gets out of a pool and then like has to like fluff sideways over the edge.

And I'm like, we're here to save you and being standing in the middle of four people just breathing picking his tooth with one of the oh my gosh being you're so amazing. So powerful. Hey, you guys climbed up a whole wall. That's not easy. Yeah, it was pretty hard. It was pretty like tall wall. Yeah, Billy. That's not nothing. Why are you so out of breath, man? I gotta stop drinking gravy. So there's a there's a few smaller like braziers on the wall to light it up.

They're not like it's not like this place is brightly lit all the time, but there are braziers. You might be spotted if you don't try to make a move somewhere to hide. Can we put these guards clothes on and pretend to be guards? Yeah, there's smart. There's two people. We can make a tuck size outfit out of two of them. You don't have that much time. I'm gonna try and put their clothes on.

Okay, you are able to get one of their pants around your calf and then it rips in half and then I force the rest of it all the rest of my legs and you're holding a ten ten what to strength to pull it all. Now you're holding two halves of a pair of pants. Ties around your head like Rambo. You said you wanted to roll strength to force your leg through a piece of clothing that doesn't fit. This is winter formal all over again. What I will I don't know like it is winter. Keep in mind.

There are people are wearing heavy clothes because it is cold. That's something that I keep thinking about with tuck. Actually is it's really cold here. Tuck's probably going to want to start wearing. I don't know a cloak. At least tuck doesn't really get cold. He has one desert. I mean one armor all the time. I have two armor all the time. That's true. That's true. All right. Yep. You definitely stand out a lot here for sure a lot. Yeah, even more so than normal. What's going on in the keep?

Okay, great question. Bill noculars. Yeah. Do I have to roll for them or discern realities? Yeah. Yeah. If you want to just get like a surface level, you don't have to roll. But if you want to get deets, I want deets. Good enough. Okay. So you get one question. Okay. What here is useful or valuable to me? Okay. So from here, you're kind of doing a quick scan with the bill noculars and now that you're over the wall, you see there are more buildings in this kind of compound.

There's the central tower, which is probably where all the most like important stuff is kept. If there's a council, then that's probably where they meet. Like that's where their chambers are. But you also see there is what looks to be a barracks because there's like guards that move in and out of it and some are just like hanging outside the door smoking and shit like that.

And you kind of you're dragging your bill noculars up to the top of the tower to get a look at the brazier and you see a glint on what you realize is goggles as that like cloth wrapped figure that you saw earlier is at the top of the tower and they seem to be looking around. Oh, doc, everyone hide, hide, hide, hide into what I just lie down so that the wall of the kind of what are those catwalks up there called? I think those are called ramparts. Okay. Yeah.

So the wall of the rampart like hides me. Yeah. Also did not have sex in high school. Yeah, great. Defy danger dexterity to kind of get out of sight and time. Fuck dexterity. Like all of us. I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. I also got a seven. Okay. Yes. So you all got partial successes. Okay. So you all kind of dive behind the rampart and you it's that thing where like, you know, like they go up in little squares and we're like holding our hands. The Aladdin trying to hide behind the bodybuilder. Yeah.

So Billy, you peek over still with your binoculars like from your hiding place and you're like looking up at the tower to see if the person spotted you and you see them kind of move their head a little bit and they pull the thing off their back because they notice something weird. And it unfolds to this like long contraption of some kind with like a long tube on the end and like a really boxy part that they're holding.

They have a gun and they lay it on the the crenellations of the tower and they're looking through something on the top of it to kind of get a better look at the rampart like a rifle. Yeah, it looks like a scope on top. Holy shit. Is this a magical thing spell or about this gun? Okay. Two to six plus intelligence. Oh, yeah, definitely got five. Oh, no. Oh, no, it's a it's a old timey thing. So I get to use my way. It's actually a newer thing. Yeah, so I don't get to use that at all.

Experience you get a point of experience. No idea what this thing is. It looks weird. I've seen it before. It's a big spoon. It's for eating soup. But what you realize the reason that they might be taking a closer look is there aren't guards walking around on this part of the wall anymore. Oh, it goes and gets one of the guards and like starts like putting him up as a puppet behind the rampart.

Okay, being puts on the clothes of one of the guys and stands up as and waves out of everything's fine. Both of you give me a two to six plus charisma and talks like fuck. I should have done that and then he just grabs the unconscious guys are but he's like here. Everything's fine over here. Give me a two to six plus charisma and then text like why can I only do the mrs. Doubtfire boy? Why am I doing a voice at all? I'm waving at him. Oh, holy shit. I got thirteen. I got ten. Jesus Christ.

So they were mimicking the mannerisms of those guards perfectly. High five talking about birds. Did you see that bird? So Billy, you see this. They start doing this pantomime behind you and you're still watching this figure at the top of the tower and they watch for just a few seconds too long. You're like, oh no, and then they stand up and the thing folds back up and they put it over their back and they walk to the other side of the tower. Thank God we did it. We did it. Okay.

I tossed my guy on the ground. He hits with a wet thud. All right. Time to descend into the keep. Okay. Yes. I'm going to keep this costume. I think it's probably a good idea. It looks good. Good on you. Thank you. Really? Yeah. Really shows off your shoulders. Yeah. Oh, nice. What does it look like thing? It's like a Celine Dion style long jacket puffy. Nice with V's and L's all over it. Or Victoria LeBlanc. Victoria LeBlanc. She has got merch.

Maybe this was a former crew member of Victoria LeBlanc. Oh, cool. I like the idea that it was the Victoria LeBlanc merch that this guy's like, I love Victoria LeBlanc. I'm brooding it. Yeah, I love it. All right. Yeah, that's that's canon. Now, Victoria LeBlanc has merchandise that people buy. It's a status symbol and the council kind of hates it when their people when their employees wear Victoria LeBlanc merchandise. It's part of their dress code. No, Victoria LeBlanc.

That's why this person's on the wall. They're like, get out of my sight. Great. So yeah, you're gonna have to how are you gonna sneak into the keep? Ooh, can I try like a sleep like a fairy dust or something? If there's like a group of guards? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's a couple guards on either side of the door to the tower, which is across from you. All right. I'm going to scurry amongst the shadows of the rampart. I'm gonna get close and I will do a very quiet. Okay, perfect.

So I roll a 2d6 plus. What is it charisma for fairy dust? Oh, yeah Dex. You got to sneak across first if you want to get close. Oh, Dexterity five seven seven. Okay. Yep to sneak. So you head down some stairs to kind of the ground level of the fort and there's like, you know, flagstone floor. There's barrels all over the place and you're kind of flitting between these different supplies. You get close to hmm.

Oh, do I as I'm going down the stairs like because you're talking about there's like the flagstone one of them is loose. And it goes. Yeah, you see you get a little close. Yeah, it makes a little rattle sound a little rattle scrape and the guard at the door turns. Uh-huh. So I blow the fairy dust really quick into their direction. Okay, 2d6. Plus charisma for fairy dust. Come on. He ate 10. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So I'll do it from a distance and it affects multiple people. Okay, cool.

So you blow this handful of your fairy dust, which quietly wafts across the courtyard and hits the two guards that are in front of the door and the one that turned to look at you saw you for sure before you knocked him out, but he just goes like and then flops to the ground. Damn you. Okay, and I motion for you guys. All right. Yeah. Thank you. Wait, do you still have fairy dust on your hands? No, I don't. I wiped it off on my pants.

You guys are playing patty cake tuck and Bing both just fall immediately asleep. So you get to the door and this is the door into the key into the central tower. Yeah. Okay, and it is locked. Dang it. Okay tricks of the trade please. 2d6 plus dexterity. 8 8 so on a 7 to 9. I still do it, but the GM will offer two options between suspicion danger or cost.

Yeah, suspicion and danger suspicion will be the way that you're going to have to open this door will kind of wreck the lock in a way that they'll be like, oh somebody definitely broke in here. Okay, and the two guards that you put out will probably know that you were in there or danger is there will be people immediately on the other side of this door that you have to deal with. I think I'm going to take suspicion cool.

So you pop it open and you open the door and you're in what looks to be a like basically a lobby area like a reception. You see stairs that go to like an upper floor and store stairs that go down underneath this floor, but it looks like this is where they welcome people that are here to meet the council would be your guess. Oh interesting a reception hall. Yeah, basically is there tons of people here? There's nobody here. What yeah, there's no one on this level.

I bet this is like the main entrance then. Mm-hmm. Okay. And yeah, there's stairs to your left that go down and then stairs above those that go like up. I guess we'll want to go down. Yeah, I think so. We can we jam the door one jam the door. Yeah, jam the door being a defensive fortification. There is what looks like, you know, like there's a big piece of wood and two hooks on either side of the door that are probably used to bar it in times of danger.

I go ahead and put that wooden those hooks slots boom, but definitely now the second somebody tries to open this door. They're going to be like something's up. So you head down the stairs and immediately the air feels like wetter, you know, like you're getting like underground and the construction of the building changes a little bit the finished stone blocks of the fort giveaway to like rooms that are carved out of the rock of the island old part. Cool.

And you follow some carved stone stairs that go down and like around kind of in a spiral and you hear voices. What are they saying? It's they're speaking very quietly, but you can hear words like soon complete dangerous, etc. Okay, we sneak over there defy danger dexterity to not be heard or seen all of us. Eight by twelve thirteen Billy is at the front creeping ahead with his stealthy, thiefness thing silent as ever. Yeah, light is a feather walking on like the railing.

Oh yeah, walking on the cobwebs that are stuck to the wall, just absolutely silent and tuck is walking behind a little too excitedly. To find out what might be going on in this place. Yeah, and you catch Billy underfoot and you just tip forward, slam down on your chest and roll the rest of the way down the stairs. It's the kind of thing where I'm like you don't.

You didn't see like a cat underneath you and then you're just like whoa, stop suddenly and then the cat also moves in the direction that your foot moves and then you're like so you step on it again and then you just totally lose balance. He goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my foot and you are lying on your back looking up at this stone ceiling of this room that's lit by like guttering torches and moving into frame is a Medi. Oh, and that's where we're gonna end it for this week.

Fucking fuck your game master. Sean O'Hara joining me is always playing Tacoma Dome. The Barbarian Abdul Aziz so long playing being the half elf druid Paul offers take care and playing fat Billy the halfling thief. Jessica tie by everyone. Thank you to Aaron read for our intro and outro music, which we love to hear. You just love to hear it. Thank you to our Patreon supporters around the world for supporting us.

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And so ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can though dumb and scared and lost baby for times of rest in revelry. And though our journey may be like a conclusion, we will. Not leave you without a resolution. Turn next week to hear some more whilst you commute or do your chores. And for you, I gladly spout.