C03 - Ep. 11 - Mission Through Middrus - As Good as Mines

Hey there, critters!

This year marks our 10-year anniversary of Critical Roll and we are partnering with Fathom Entertainment to bring our 2025 tour to movie theaters across the U.S.

and Canada.

Head to theater to see the wedding of the year coming to theaters on October 15th with an iconic Jester and Ford wedding at our New York City live show.

Visit fathomentertainment.com slash critical role to find tickets in theaters near you.

That's fathomentertainment.com slash critical role.

Felicitations, all you female steaters.

Skitter on into the stinky dragon and sip on our latest libation, libation, itsy bitsy cider.

It's a mixture of tarantularic tea leaves, a grapple of apple slices, cinnamon stickiness, climbing cloves, eight legs of nutmeg, and a water spout.

One wash of this whistle wetter is enough to clear the cobwebs and avoid the rain.

Previously, our adventurers fell from a foresting facade facility into a fortress of fiends and firewood.

The four of them fought a ferocious baron, flying infernal foes, and fake foliage foot soldiers, but were found flat-footed.

Finally, the baron fared thee well through a fissured floor, but not before fetching a friend of theirs.

Private parts.

Cobble a caffeinated cup, and let's continue with this Kermurmerine chronicle.

I like that you put a pronunciation guide for Kermurine.

Yeah,

I don't know what wrote it.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to Tales of the Stinky Dragon.

I'm your dungeon master Gustavo Sorola.

I'm going to hit our four players with an arrow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the first

of 2025.

2025.

2025.

We're in the future.

The first full year of Stinky Dragon as a company.

That's how that works.

That's how time works.

That'll be in June.

Well, I'm saying the first full calendar year.

Calendar year.

Starting now.

Calendar year.

Thank you guys.

And go.

The company.

Make a company.

Yeah.

Go, go, go, go.

Make do it.

Make it work.

You're giving me anxiety, Gus.

I'm also blowing out my mic.

I'm getting a little too enthusiastic here about running the company, adjusting my level.

All right, everyone.

Your arrow question this week.

It's a role-playing warm-up question.

Your question is, what is your character's most recent or frequent nightmare?

And that was sent by Jamara Hearts.

Jamara Hearts.

Are we rolling a D20 to answer?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was going to grab my dice.

Schwing.

It's been so long.

I got to dust everything off.

Oh, my dice, I missed you.

I rolled day 17, 13, uh, 19.

Whoa,

14.

Do I have an initiative modifier?

Yeah, 21.

I don't know.

I think we're just 20.

Yeah.

Now you said roll for initiative.

John.

We'll do G20.

We'll do John.

Is it John, Barbara, Blaine, Chris?

I think.

Chris Blaine.

Chris Blaine.

Okay.

I'm like last place.

All right, Natty.

Hit us up with your your with your nightmares.

Hi, I'm John Reisinger, and I'm playing Natty Wonder, the Warlock Drow,

or Drow, Warlock, whichever you want to do with in English or Spanish.

You know, because the adjectives are different places.

Now, guys, they're both adjectives.

But they're both nouns, though.

Yeah, I guess I don't know how, but what would it go first?

The Drow or the Warlock?

Anyways,

I think it's Drow It's normally character racing character.

And then class.

What was my latest

nightmare?

Or most frequent.

Or most frequent.

Well, most frequent is a better way of describing this because

I have this dream all the time where

it's beautiful.

I'm at my wedding.

Oh.

Oh.

So it's a nightmare.

Yeah, I know.

And

I'm there and I'm at the altar and

I'm there with my wife.

And well,

what alto are we talking about?

Like

death altar.

Well, you know, like, I'm sure it's like the same altar like y'all have whenever y'all.

Stay to the clothing brand.

Do y'all know what an altar at a wedding is?

Do you know what that is?

Do you guys not have weddings in your culture?

Daddy, knowing you, I was thinking like a sacrificial alto kind of thing, you know?

Okay, okay, okay.

Just making sure you guys have, I don't know what sort of

traditions y'all have with like bugbears and croak folk and ocean people.

Ocean people, cool.

Anyways, I'm there at my wedding and it's it's the most important day of my life and I'm looking obviously gorgeous.

And I turn around and I look out and it's a big wedding.

I got lots of people, like like a stadium of people, honestly.

Just a crowd of crowds.

And the thing is, is that as I turn around, I'm looking at all the faces and everyone is sad everyone's got like a look of like morose and and and and worry and everything like that and and i can even hear some like uh some whimpers out in the crowd and and as i turn and i ask people like hey what's going on what's wrong with everybody everyone just stares at me and this kind of growing feeling of dread grows in me and and then all of a sudden i wake up and i don't know what's going on wow your wife not show were those words did your wife not show Okay, there you go.

Maybe, maybe they found out there was not like an open bar or like, you know, it was like a buffet style serving system.

Yeah, if you find out

what went wrong in your wedding, please let me know all the details of what would possibly go wrong in a wedding when you're planning a wedding.

Yeah, Doug is like doing research for some reason.

Found out Tov doesn't like buffets at weddings for some reason.

Listen, we're in a post-pandemic world.

I think we all know what's the deal.

No, I'm just kidding.

If you have a buffet, it's fine.

It's fine.

Now, we did have a buffet because I prefer to let just people go up and get food when they want.

I hate when people have to wait for everyone.

Yeah, when you have to just sit there and wait for everybody to get food, it's terrible.

Totally fair.

However, Tov, no matter what people's traditions are, I know that it's a major faux pas to have a cash bar.

So I would never do that.

Oh, okay.

That's the wheel nightmare.

That's the real nightmare.

So, yeah, there.

You know,

I'm sure it's nothing.

I'm sure it's just a whatever kind of thing.

But yeah, that's my sharing.

Cool nightmare.

Thanks for asking.

Yeah.

I think that's a, that's a, that's a disturbing dream, Natty.

I think it maybe says it's weird because normally I feel like you don't mind being the center of attention, but I feel like this is a stress dream about being the center of attention.

It's a little weird.

We got a little duality of natty going on there.

I think you're telling on yourself when you interpret it that way, but honestly, it's not about.

I'm definitely bombing okay.

I don't know.

It's some judgment from Nanny here.

I'm trying to figure you out.

It's more so, I'm just sad everyone's sad.

I want people to be happy at my wedding.

That's all I want.

You know, you want to be a good host.

You want to be a good host.

Oh, yeah.

Cool in the gang.

Celebrate good times.

Come on.

And then you'll do the cha sha slide, maybe a little later.

You left.

I think we covered that at some point in a past campaign.

We did.

We did.

Just bringing up memories.

No, we talked about the

other song that we thought Blaine was making up.

Oh.

The one that's like, to the right, to the right, to the right, to the right.

I don't remember it.

Yeah.

What's that one call?

I still think he's making it up.

Anyway, Doug, I believe you are up.

Yeah, so Doug, unfortunately, does have a lot of nightmares.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Doug.

Please introduce yourself first.

Oh, gosh.

I'm so rusty.

My name is Barbara Dunkelman, and I am playing Doug Boone, the level three artificer bug bear,

battlesmith artificer, to be more specific.

Cool.

And yeah, so as I was saying before, I was woozly interrupted by gosh.

Whoa, just trying to help Doug.

He said it so politely, too.

He said it so gingerly.

Doug is testing out this thing by being less more passive-aggressive,

or just aggressive-aggressive, I guess.

Is that a skill you need to work on?

Maybe a little bit.

Doug has had a lot of nightmares, unfortunately.

But the most recent one

actually was, you know, being on the battlefield with his team, with the Bootella team.

And everyone was down.

They were injured.

And then Doug was the only one left.

And it was actually the magistrate that he saw.

And he was holding all these weapons.

And Doug didn't have any of his armor or his spells or his books or his tools or anything like that.

And then he woke up.

So I don't know what that means, but I think he doesn't want to be the last one standing, I guess.

It's a little intimidating.

Maybe a feeling of helplessness.

A little bit.

I think that that was like episode one or three or something.

Episode when we talk about

sorry, never mind.

Told you, breaking the menu.

It's my turn.

I'm Chris Damaris.

Hi.

And I'm a Croke folk fighter.

I'm a frog.

Let's be clear.

So hold on.

Now, actually, I want to address that.

Thank you.

You go first, John.

I think we might be about to say the same thing.

I'm curious if we are.

And it's not.

Who's John?

I don't know what you're talking about.

No, sorry, Daddy.

Sorry, Daddy.

It's very scary.

Now,

you said you're a croak folk, which is your accurate race name, but then you constantly call yourself just a flat-out frog.

Now, I'm going to disagree with that because you are frog-like, but you are not a frog as far as like the actual frogs that we see down in the creek.

And to expand on that, specifically, Gunther, you walk on two, like you're bipedal, right?

You're not hopping around on fours like a frog?

Yeah, I can be on a frog.

Are you ashamed of your, of what you are?

No, I can just be what I want to be.

Why are you

a frog?

You'll be a frog, okay, my boy.

Yes.

I come in in a...

This is my nightmare.

This is your nightmare.

It's the nightmare in the room with us.

Of course, I was just curious, like, where that comes from.

Why you like to say that instead of like, you know,

Doug says he's a bug bear, and I say I'm a drow and all that kind of stuff.

I was just curious.

The...

No answer.

Yeah, I figured.

Okay, what's your name?

The nightmare that I have.

Well, it begins where my tongue is wrapped around a stick and it will not come off.

It is very embarrassing.

Is it cold?

Yes.

Then I see my family dying.

While my tongue is wrapped around, and I cannot move because my family is dying.

Because it's wrapped around the stick.

That's really intense.

Then I'm naked in front of the entire

everyone.

Gunther, aren't you kind of always naked?

I wear clothes.

Not a lot, but I wear this armor.

Is he like Donald Duck where he wears just something on this top half, but when he gets out of the shower, he puts a towel around his bottom half?

Yeah, yeah.

So So is that your most frequent nightmare, Gunther, or is it your most recent nightmare?

I don't think we got clarification on it.

It is both.

It is both.

Yeah, sometimes you have the same dream over and over and it's slightly different, but sometimes it always is the same.

It is like that.

Sure.

Okay.

It's both embarrassing and sad and then embarrassing again.

I may have missed this detail, but I'm just curious.

When you have this nightmare, you talked about your tongue being wrapped around a stick.

Do you recognize the location where you are?

Yeah, it is where it is like it changes.

Sometimes it is at a stick that is at home.

Sometimes it is a stick in army.

Sometimes it is a stick here.

Is it like the same stick, though?

Like it's

a stick.

I don't know why.

All right, well, thanks for sharing, Gunther.

I think you opened up to us.

I think you were very vulnerable there.

So I appreciate that.

I took my armor off.

Yeah.

Gunther, you know, if you see any sticks in the future that you're a little intimidated by and need us to chop them down for for you before you get close, let us know.

I should stop trying to put my tongue on them.

Good advice.

That's probably a good course of action, yeah.

Good advice.

All right, uh, Tolv, get in here.

You're up.

Okay.

You who?

It's me, Tolv.

I'm a male orc barbarian, level three.

Good day to you.

How are you, interviewer?

Oh, I'm good.

I just got over a cold, but I'm feeling better now.

Oh, that's good.

That's good.

Not to throw you an arrow, maybe like a dart.

No, it's a little bit bit small, manageable.

What does dart stand for?

D dare?

Let's just move on.

What was the question?

You know, my most frequent nightmare.

Yeah.

Or most recent.

No, this is my most frequent.

It happens all the time.

And I have to preface, you know, sometimes there's like a nice beginning and middle and end.

No, straight up skellingtons everywhere surrounding me.

Yeah, lots of them.

Big style.

And they're they're all just like pulling at me.

Yeah, and they're like grabbing my arms and my clothes and my beard and things.

Oh, that's scary.

And they're just, and it's no sound, no sound, just pulling and grabbing at me.

And then I like want to pull back and be like, hey, guys, skellingtons one at a time, please, let's form a line, perhaps.

Every single one of your characters calls them skellingtons.

Like, that's just it.

It's just.

That's just how you say that word.

So anyways,

Skellingtons, I'm like, let's get in a line.

Like, let's get a ticket number.

Okay.

And then no voice.

There's nothing.

Just like bubbles.

And it's hard to move and hard to walk.

And it's also very dark.

And yeah, that's that one.

And then also, you know, like sometimes I have a dream where I like poop my pants.

But sometimes that's real and that's not a dream.

I was about to say, if my nose ain't lying, that ain't a dream sometimes.

In the barracks when you all declared you're sleeping, who slept under Toll?

Gunther.

Was it Gunther, I think?

I'm sorry, Gunther.

I thought Gunther was like under, under.

Yeah, I think Toll had the bottom bunk.

No, Toll was by himself.

That's what it was.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I think it was Gunther Doug Natty.

Yeah,

because he wanted to, he wanted, he made a comment about like getting to watch his friends.

Ah, you know, just watch them, make sure that things sleep okay, that everyone's okay.

If someone needs a glass of water, I can't can look at that.

How now, retroactively, we're saying Tov was alone in his own bed because he poops his pants.

Nobody wants to care.

That's not the case.

That is, this is my third most frequent nightmare.

Confirmed Tov poops his pants, writing that in my donor.

Where's the Baron?

Okay, let's talk about things that are real.

The Baron says, Enough.

I will get my answers.

And she very quickly flies over and grabs private parts, who's been kind of left alone at this point.

And she flies down into one of the holes that was there at the southern end of the room.

With private parts?

With private parts in tow.

Imagine she picks him up from like the scruff of his neck.

Yeah.

Yeah, he goes limp.

He can't move.

And as she does so, you all start to hear a noise from above, almost like a cacophony of voices yelling.

Like, are they applauding?

No, they seem angry.

I told you they were lying.

They're down there.

Oh, the loggers.

Or wait, not the loggers, the people of the

regime.

The rules of

why are they here?

We're going to get those more Italian people, and they're going to pay for what they did.

Well, team, well, I'm...

Oh, I'm a leader still.

I'm the leader.

You're like the president right now.

What do we do?

I think it's more military, so it might be like a general or something.

Commanding chief.

Commanding officer.

That's the word.

There we go.

There it is.

Thank you.

Nobody in my family was military.

so all this jargon,

it's piglatin to me.

Okay.

Well, I, for one, don't really want to deal with an angry mob who doesn't like the military.

Also,

I think it might reflect poorly upon us, to Sergeant Steely,

if and we come back to the base sands a private.

So, um, maybe we should blue skidoo and get down in that hole.

Let us go, hurry.

Can I just just throw like one quick word to the villagers to just like potentially calm them?

And then I'll follow me.

If you want to do that on your own, I'm not going to yuck your yum, okay?

And Natty grabs Giggy

and just whispers in his ear, bet, and grabs him and wants to float down the hole.

Roll to see if he does it.

Ah, criminy.

Welcome to the new year, idiot.

Giggy, mama really needs this.

New year, same Giggy.

It's an 18.

He's a bit.

Do it for 2025.

Yeah.

All right.

So Naddy and Giggy disappear down the hole.

Gunther follows.

Gunther follows.

Tolv is going to talk to the word to the townspeople.

Doug?

I'm going to stay behind and wait for Tolv to finish up so that he's not left alone.

That is like so kind of fun.

But he's doing the thing where he's like looking back at the hole and going like, come on, come on.

Naddy yells back, I will tell your story.

As Natty and Gunther disappear down the hole, a rope gets dropped in from above.

And you see Cobb climbing down and pointing and saying, hey, you two, there they are.

Metawise, our most charismatic person, just jumped into a hole, just letting you guys know.

I'm in the hole already.

No, I'm right here.

What are you talking about?

Cobb begins climbing down the rope into the hole, and it appears like a rather large vulture is perched on Cobb's shoulder.

What race is Cobb again?

So how's the scale?

Cobb is a gnome.

So it's a big bird on a little dude.

They're about the same size.

They're very close to the same size.

He didn't have that on his shoulder before when we encountered him, right?

You do not recall that.

You know how birds love holes?

No.

There was just like

silence and quizzical looks.

Chris, I don't think you can make jokes like that that because we don't know if you're being serious.

I know.

Do you know everything we don't know?

Cobb hops off the rope and walks up over to Toll

and says, Why did you lie to us?

Cobb, so good to see you.

Hello, bird friend.

Also nice to meet you.

Cam.

You might.

What?

Cam.

Cam.

Cam is the bird.

Cam is the bird.

Cobb and Cam.

Your bird is named after your voice actor.

That's kind of funny.

Barb, that's great.

I don't know what any of that means.

A lot of meta.

So, like, you know, so good to meet you, Kim.

Hello, Cobb.

So good to see you, people of Raisine.

Whoop whoop.

Do they return the whoop whoop?

No.

More people are starting to click on it.

Gus, I need you to roll a persuasion check for Blaine to see if he persuades them to whoop whoop.

Don't just know his name.

Make me a persuasion check at disadvantage.

This is like a 12.

That is like a zero.

Oh, wait, no, no, no, that's a two.

That's a two.

It's a one.

They are not into it.

There is no returned whoop whoop.

Okay.

So sorry.

We are giving chase.

There are bad people.

And, you know, you guys seem very bad people here.

Oh, points at you.

Touche, calm.

That was good.

So like, you guys need lumber.

Look to the south.

Lumber.

We've gotten you the lumber.

Okay, and then if you look to the north, silver.

You guys are like in dire straits, right?

You know, over at Raisine.

So here are the things that you need.

I need to go because we are giving chase.

I am so sorry that we fooled you.

No, we actually intentionally led you to this spot exactly to provide you with everything that you need, like Tov said, right?

That's yeah,

totally.

If you guys turn and look in the hole, you can see Naddy and she's holding those like opera glasses and just kind of watching.

Make uh I'll tell you what, make me a...

Let's Let's call it a persuasion check with advantage on this one Tolf

persuasion the DM giveth that is a 12 That's a nine

Nice

If anybody has like a charis or hero inspiration or

Doug does he just Barb just said she's

a wonder for this moment exactly it's okay let's hear it down let's hear it out let's see what happens

What's your name again?

You tolf pointing at me.

Oh, oh, it's me Tolf.

What would you do if you were in my position, Tolf?

I would probably be pretty upset, but trust me.

And I-I- Can I reach for Cobb?

Sure.

In what way?

Like, in a friendly kind of way, I'm going to grab his hand with both of mine, and I'm going to say, Trust me, Cob, I mean you no harm, nor do I want any of the people of Raisine any harm, okay?

We are really trying to make good in in this land.

I believe me when I say this.

Please, Calm.

So we can take the lumber and the silver.

I'm gonna put it.

I'm gonna put an asterisk and say ya.

Oh no.

Oh, no.

But we are not responsible for the outcome and the consequences of that.

What that means.

Like, these belong to the people of Thee, but like, dude, I gotta get going.

So I'm gonna go.

Best of luck.

Enjoy the lumber.

Enjoy rebuilding.

Peace out.

And then then I'm going to.

I'm going to just...

Without even saying anything, I'm just going to fall into the hole.

With deuces up, I'm just going to fall back.

Doug, what do you do about this?

What does Doug do?

Doug realizes that Tov just abandoned him when he was waiting for him to go to the hole.

Blake took a big drink.

That's why you heard that old lady laugh in the background.

Doug does that thing that cats do when they're scared of something.

And he just slowly backs up.

Oh, he like curls his back and all of his hair is up and he just kind of makes himself look bigger.

Taking one step back with each foot slowly and then comically like a cartoon skitters away and into the hole.

I love it.

I forgot something in my car.

Oh,

I thought Barbara was telling us that you had to go get something in your car right now.

Man, that's a really interesting scenario you set up there, Blaine.

I was trying to think how this would play out, and for some reason, I didn't think of this possibility.

I think that's a really interesting scenario you set up, which you cannot see how it plays out.

This sounds like someone who just went and saw someone's community theater performance and doesn't know how to review it in a nice way.

That would be a very interesting performance.

Unique.

The costumes were there.

You did something, yeah.

I had not seen anything like that cool yeah i i don't know i'm sure that that's gonna make a war happen between raisin and tee

but i hope that tol was i was being he was being genuine so i hope that they came through for cobb we're just gonna get blamed for this whatever uh spurs from this war potentially well those guys said we could take it I mean, do we need to roll it back?

I don't know.

It's too late.

You're not there.

You're in a hole.

You are.

You got it.

You're in the hole.

Okay.

You got to be confident with the choices you made.

First things first, Tov, make me a dexterity check.

Okay.

Easy.

You're not just going to get a free trust fall.

For the fall.

For the fall.

That is

10.

What's Tov's Dex modifier?

Plus three.

Oh, okay.

So that was a bad roll.

However,

I have that thing that is called danger since you have advantage on dexterity saving throws against effects that you see while not bright and deaf and or incapacitated.

Weren't you falling backwards?

He also wasn't a saving throw.

Yeah, it's a check, not a saving throw.

What did I do?

We did a check.

No, no, like danger sense works on dexterity saving throws, not dexterity checks.

Okay.

The council of barbarians wait in.

Yeah.

Council of barbarians.

You guys have left me or you've abandoned me.

Both me and Chris were just here shaking our heads as Blaine was explaining it.

We're like, it's not going to work.

You know, Gus, I have a package of uncrustables I could bring to you

and perhaps an inspiration die.

Yeah, but you've got the grape ones, which are objectively the worst ones.

What?

Biting words.

It's so interesting to me that people are so vehemently against grape jelly because it seems like such a fine flavor.

Don't care for it.

It's just that the strawberries burn.

But you have strawberry, yeah.

My kids are the same way, but I've never been like, I just like jelly.

Like, if there's jelly on the table, I will eat it.

I'm not a big jelly person in general.

We used to go to Knott's Berry Farm in California, and they had a restaurant outside of it that was Mrs.

Knott's, and so it was like home-style food, and they always had these, like, just a jar or like a tray filled with all these little jellies, and that was like the best part.

So I would take those all.

I feel like we should have a this is just an idea.

I'm not saying we're gonna do it in an upcoming second wind, we should have like a ranking of all the different encrustables and rank them from S tier all the way down to F.

Could we just do it?

Could we do the thing where we like try them all?

Are there that many?

We gotta.

Yeah, we should absolutely do that.

I like this.

And uh, of course, Second Wind is our uh Patreon-exclusive post-show, which you can listen to at stingydragonpot.com, or you can actually also listen to it on Beacon if you're a member there at beacon.ton.

We need a P.O.

box so people can send us Disconcrustables.

Oh my god, I think we could buy our own Crustables, Disconcrustables homey.

But but what if people have like weird ones in different places around the country that we don't have access to?

It's not like pop-tarts.

Are there weird pop-tarts?

I don't know.

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Chime, checking account required.

People used to send us Pop-Tarts way back in the day, so I'm just making an equivalent.

Miracle confidence dropped so much.

There's totally weird types of...

They did grilled cheese.

Okay, there you go.

There you go.

There you go.

Okay, we're in the hole.

Yeah, no, we're in the weeds is where we're at.

Yes, but that's where we go all the time.

We live there.

All right, so you all hop down the hole.

All four of you are there now.

And it's very dark with dusty air.

And you all hear echoes of tinkering metal and fluttering of wings.

Interesting.

Where you are, where you all come down, the air is, like I said, is very dusty and the cave walls themselves are shiny.

And you find yourselves at...

kind of like a T intersection and there's an unlit torch.

Which orientation is the T?

T is standing upright or T is on its side?

Standing upright.

So like there's a path to the west, a path to the east, and a path to the south.

And are we, where are we?

And you're right at the intersection.

You said it's dusty, right?

Can we look at the ground and see where the dust has been unsettled for footprints or anything like that?

Like, or even where the air is like pulling the dust, because if you ran, it would like.

Yeah.

Why don't you make me a survival check for that?

I'm going to read a few more descriptors and then we'll deal with the results of that roll.

Like I said, the air is thick with a silvery dust and the cave walls are are shiny and lustrous with veins of silver.

From where you are, the west path smells of fresh air and the east path is blocked by a cave-in.

The south path seems to kind of like get smaller and lead down to a narrow crawl space.

And what's the results of your survival check there, Gunther?

Oh, I rolled a six.

You don't see any tracks or anything that would indicate someone came through.

However, while you're looking on the ground, you do find an unlit torch lying on the ground near that east rubble.

Should we light the torch so we can see a little bit better?

You can light the torch.

Could I also...

What's my dancing lights?

My dancing lights.

They're called dancing lights.

Can't trip.

I can do it as much as I want.

I can't.

Dancing lights.

So you're all doing dancing lights and the torch or just dancing lights.

This one creates four torch-sized lights, so I feel like that's probably...

I don't know.

You guys can do what you want.

I think Doug will pick up the torch and take it with them, though.

Yeah, I think not torches is good because so many of them like fire.

Oh, it's true, yeah.

And maybe the fire would draw more attention to us somehow than just regular light.

I don't know.

Naddy could like extinguish the dancing lights, make them sitting lights, you know, if need be.

Yeah.

Which way was the fresh air?

Was it east or west?

West.

West.

West.

West is fresh air.

East is like a caved in rocks.

And then to the south, it narrows down to a crawl space.

Do y'all know what I've always wanted to see once I heard this was a thing?

Go on.

Hey, Doug, could you check the crawl space?

You know, I didn't want to to reveal this to the team, but yeah, I could check the crawl space.

Guys, listen, I know I'm big, but as a bug bear, I actually have a very special ability to go into very small spaces.

Me too.

What?

So, like, how does that go?

I do want to see this.

Doug, are you like a cat where like if your head can fit in, then the rest of your whole body can fit in?

Is that what this is?

Yeah, they can get into like tiny spaces.

Are you like totally like Mel Gibson in Lethal Lethal Weapon and you can dislocate your shoulder and then like pop through things?

Like super like riggs style?

I'm getting too old for this.

It's under features and traits.

It's near the bottom.

It's called sneaky.

As a bug bearer, you are proficient in the stealth skill.

In addition, without squeezing, you could move through and stop in a space large enough for a small creature.

Whoa.

So even smaller than Gunther.

No, I'm are you small?

I'm same size, yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, absolutely.

I want to see you do that, Doug.

But before you do that, I just want to read something to clarify dancing lights, just so everyone knows what it is, because I get to spell, and I know you can see it, John, but not everyone can see it.

So, Natty's able to create up to four torch-sized lights within range, making them appear as torches, lanterns, or glowing orbs that hover in the air for the duration.

Natty can also combine the four lights into one glowing, vaguely humanoid form of medium size.

Whichever form you choose, each light sheds dim light in a 10-foot radius.

And as a bonus action, on your turn, you can move the lights up to 60 60 feet to a new spot within range.

A light must be within 20 feet of another light created by the spell, and the light winks out if it exceeds the spell's range.

So basically, it's like four dim torches that Natty can move around at will and combine them if she wants.

Yeah, and since we're not in combat, I can just keep moving them.

Okay, got it.

That's cool.

Good thing to have.

Yeah, it's fine.

Everyone's whipping out their Nito powers, so I'm like, hey, look at me, I can do this.

And then I like touch the silver wall, and then I go, oh, and then I draw a smiley face.

Do you really touch the wall?

Yes, he did.

He said,

He said it.

Yeah, I totally did.

If Blaine's gonna say things happen, we have to have consequences.

Also, I totally dropped in here and did the deuces, and they said dexterity check.

And I was like, okay, and then nothing happened.

So I guess it landed perfectly.

You're a dummy.

The check was fine.

The check was fine.

It's probably like if it was maybe below a 10, you might have hurt yourself or something.

Yeah.

So, Doug, you squeeze down.

It's not like super tight.

You think normally someone of your size, Doug, might have trouble getting through here, but you're able to get down without any trouble thanks to your sneaky trait.

You know what I picture with a bug bear and like why they're like able to do this?

You know, when you have like a really fluffy dog and it gets wet and it's like all of a sudden like looks like a little rat?

Yeah.

That's what I'm imagining.

Ghost has one of those.

Yeah, a gallery cow.

He's in the other room right now, sleeping.

Yeah.

Red dog.

As he does this, I say, wow, crawl all into the sneaky dragon.

That's good.

That's our old shoot show.

show i like it not good enough for an inspiration dive but it was good god dang it you know what i want now is i want a doug squishmallow oh that would be great yeah hug a dug hug a dug

all right get in the hole

naddy uh naddie kicks doug in the butt and shoves him into the hole i'm going geez no i don't do that i didn't do that i just you shouted get in the hole with commanding officer gravitas yeah it's like in forest gump when they give him the gun and tell him to get in the hole and you like in Vietnam and he like dives in.

So yeah, you crawl in and much like that intersection where you were before and Doug you're the only one who sees this because you're the only one who's gone in.

The air is still very dusty and the walls are shiny.

As you look around you see that there is a large curtain on the south wall and rubble everywhere covering the floor.

And there appear to be two exits from this room.

The one to the north, which you just crawl through, and one to the east.

Okay.

So the crawl space went into a room.

Yes.

And there's there's a curtain in the room?

Yeah there's a large curtain on the south wall.

On the south wall.

Could I go check out the curtain?

Yeah.

You take a closer look and you see it's a lustrous curtain that spans the entire south wall floor to ceiling.

An inexplicable breeze seems to ruffle the curtain every now and then.

I want to go open it up.

This is how dog dies.

You open up the curtains and it exposes a large mural painted on the wall.

The mural depicts a halfling sailor drowning in a sea, reaching up to a chalice in the sky that appears to be overflowing with water.

Half-ling sailor drowning, reaching up for a chalice.

That's overflowing.

Chalice in the sky.

Overflowing with water.

That's weird to have in a silver mine.

Could I look at the mural with my

spyglass of Zodia?

Yeah, absolutely.

You'd look at it and you realize you're too close.

So then you take a few steps back to the northern portion of the room and take a look at it.

This is like when you get to like the looking glass in Ocarine of Time and you just use it on everything and

there's nothing most of the time.

Yeah.

Yeah, you look at it and you can see that the mural is indeed of fine quality, but it's not like the other one where you saw stars and things.

It doesn't seem to reveal any further hidden information.

Could I tell by me going through this little crawl space if the other members of my team would fit through?

Like, am I able to judge that size?

Okay.

You think Gunther, definitely, and you think Toll and Natty would be able to get through.

Okay.

Okay.

Doug crawls back out the way he came.

So, like, butt first towards.

What's up, Pac-Man?

How was it?

That's how, like, copy bearers do it.

Exactly.

So, uh, we'll all fit through the crawl space if we want to come take a look, but I found this like weird intersection where there was this curtain, and it was covering this mural.

I don't know if you guys want to come take a look, and then there was also another exit to the east, but I don't know if we should go that way.

So, I don't know if anyone else wants to come take a look and maybe see something that I was missing, or if we all just want to take a little field trip down this way, okay.

Yeah, let's do it.

All right, yeah, everyone proceeds into the southern room.

What's the order you all go in?

I'll go last this time.

I'll go first.

Yeah, have Gunther go first and me go second.

I'm not going after Toll when he gets stuck.

Okay, Gunther, Natty, Toll, Doug.

Stop hitting me with your tail.

Why do you even have this thing?

Aren't you like a drow?

What is this?

Ow!

Drow?

I I can't spell drow without ow.

It's special.

Quit your grappling.

Oh, okay.

Just the people want to know that, you know, they've been

tapping.

You're referencing something that's outside of our world.

And I don't understand this whole fourth wall conversation you're having.

No, there are only two.

Is Toll the Deadpool of our group?

Do not put that on me.

Speaking of fourth wall, check out store.stinkydragonpod.com for all the stinky dragon merch needs.

What a shill.

Hey, I gotta buy my Incrustables.

Incrustible, dude.

Buy insurance.

Go to Patreon.

I thought you were going to say something important like health insurance make you went with uncrustable.

They're 250 at living spaces.

He needs health insurance because he's eaten too many unhealthy.

Not enough nutrition and vitamins and things.

Okay, yeah, so you all enter the southern room.

And just a quick recap, I can expand on anything y'all want.

Air is dusty, seems to be thick.

There's shiny cave walls.

The curtain, which Doug has pulled back, exposing the big mural.

There's piles of rubble in the room, and there is a door to the east in addition to the crawl space that came in from the north.

Okay.

I think Natty would be very curious about this mural, and I want to look more closely at the halfling.

Is there anything noteworthy about the appearance of the halfling or anything, any context clues for what they might be?

Like, are they wearing a uniform of some kind?

Do they have a scar?

Or are they just generic default player in a video game?

Not to like double up, but you know, having a background in nautical stuff.

Tolv wants to look and see the same things as well.

As well.

Yeah, both of you go up there and take a look, and it appears to be a sailor.

It's definitely a sailor of some kind.

So it's not like default adventurer with like a long sword and a pack.

It is someone who's definitely a sailor.

What hair color do they have?

Brown.

Okay.

Yoohoo Sailor.

That's all colored, huh?

Yeah.

And what's the chalice?

Is there anything to describe the chalice?

Like, is it anything we would have seen before?

Or is there anything like, is it encrusted in jewels?

Or is it just like, again, generic gold chalice?

We've seen a chalice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you mean?

Wasn't a chalice one of the items, like the artifacts?

Was it something that was in our trunks that they found?

Yeah, or like one of the things that the

judge stole?

Magistrate.

Magistrate stole.

So, like, full disclosure, you know, no secrets with Tov, except for some.

But like, I got a, I recognize this chalice symbol.

Yeah, I got a message from the beyond and they're like, dude, you totally know what this is?

Dude, you totally know.

That is full honesty, because Blaine could have just taken credit for knowing what this was, but Blaine did not.

No, no, someone's like, wow, this is like the symbol of your deity.

And I'm like, oh my god, you're totally right.

It is.

Okay.

Yeah, it's a it's a holy symbol for a deity called the sea drinker.

Oh.

Is this what your deity does?

They just drown people in the ocean?

Amongst other things, you know.

Yeah.

He's just like a big water guy.

I don't know much about him.

I'm not very religious, I'm so sorry to say, but you know.

Like, that's like that guy.

I can totally relate.

Look at him.

You know?

Okay.

He's like, ah, water everywhere.

What do I do?

Drink it, of course.

Yeah,

salty you.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Could I try and remove the mural?

Is it like something that like is hanging on the wall or is it painted on the wall?

It's painted on the wall.

Okay.

You said the curtain was moving.

Yeah, it seemed like every now and then it was

ruffling.

Can I like lick my finger and see if I can follow where this wind is coming from?

Yeah, make a

investigation check.

What's the check for licking your finger?

Investigation, I'm going to go with.

Ooh, that's a critical fail.

You lick your finger and then you remember that you changed Giggy's diaper a little while ago.

You start spitting.

I've tasted that before, unfortunately.

I told you to be careful of licking sticks.

Licking sticks?

No.

Not the sticks.

Hey, y'all, could you help me figure out where

the curtain was moving?

Could y'all help me find where this curtain was moving?

Why?

We're in a cave.

There's no wind.

Doug comes over to help look.

Yeah, could come through a look as well?

Yeah, I want to look at this curtain.

Is it like a fine quality?

Could I like sew this into like a cool cape or something?

I'll answer that in a second.

Tov, let me deal with the air investigation first.

Oh, sure, sure, sure.

Tov 100% does like sewing and like knitting work.

He's that kind of a guy.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah, Doug and Gunther, each of you make investigation checks.

I'm on the case.

15.

16.

Nice.

15 and 16.

Good investigation, Guntov.

I got lucky.

Yeah, both of you seem to think that the breeze and the wind is occasionally coming from behind the mural.

But it's painted.

Yeah.

Like through the cracks of it, kind of thing?

Or like...

Maybe?

Does this is this the door?

Yeah, is this like Mario 64 if we jump into the painting?

Does it like go like that?

Yeah, I know, but yeah.

Doug, wait.

Tov, I fully support this.

You should take a running start.

Okay.

Let me sideball here with Natty for a second.

Go short.

Natty.

May I call it Natalie?

Is that your full government?

I don't know.

It is not.

That is my full government name.

It's your full government.

It's actually not.

It's my made-up name.

Here's the thing.

Tov is Tov's big boy.

He's kind of like a golden retweeval.

Well, he doesn't know his own strengths, you know, but thinks he's a puppy.

And if she comes full speed running into this wall, it's true.

It's true.

Either he's going to break or it's going to break.

You know what would be even worse is if he does it and then Giggy sees and he just wants to mimic it.

I don't want want to see my little baby do that.

So what's Told done while they've been sidebar?

Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to ask.

We're facing away from the mural and then the camera just sees a large orc just run across the scene.

Brushka, do here weekend.

You just hear this Doppler effect sound of...

I'm very inclined to go along with that, but I would say in this case, Toll would probably be looking at the curtains because he did ask about the quality of the curtains.

Okay, it's true.

So he would be investigating that.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm like putting them up to me, like trying them on.

Like, ooh, how does this look at my skin color?

It's like the Grinch trying on clothes before he heads out to see the

sorry.

I just watched that movie last month.

Yeah, it seems to be very fine quality.

It seems out of place here in a cave system, a mine.

Okay, I'm going to look to the left, look to the right, give a cough, and then when I cough, I rip the curtain off of the thing and stuff it into my bag.

Okay, yeah, you look left and right and make a very loud cough.

Make a performance check to see how that cough goes.

I like how he's essentially performing for us.

15.

As far as you know, there's no enough down here.

It's a good cough.

Oh, yeah.

You all think Tov might be sick.

He sounds like he's coughing up a lung, and at the same time, he yanks on the curtain and pulls it down.

Tov, did you get what Gush had?

Yeah, I hope not.

It was terrible.

Can we look for like any openings in this mural?

Like, in the wall or anything?

I actually, yeah, I support that, but I also, like, jokes aside, Natty would actually put her hand against the mural.

No one's touched it yet.

Yeah, so Gunther, you begin inspecting the wall with the mural painted on it, looking real close, trying to find cracks.

And while you're doing that, Natty puts her hand up to the wall and touches it.

And Natty, your hand goes through.

It was Mario.

Oh, yahoo!

Wait, really?

Okay.

Natty would stick her head through.

Yeah, you stick your head through.

Doug, hold my tail.

Okay, I got it.

Okay, and then Natty sticks her head through.

Yeah, you stick your head through while Doug is holding onto your tail, and you...

I'm just trying to think, like, how to say, because it's always weird when one person goes through and gets information that everyone else doesn't have.

So it's just like...

internal DM dialogue.

We can leave.

We can turn off our headphones.

No, no, you're good.

You stick your head in, and this seems like a very windy room it seems like there's a a tornado swirling around uh in this silvery chamber and there's in the center of the room there's a blue halfling lying on a pile of silver pieces oh wait blue halfling as in blue skinned or blue garbed or blue statue yeah blue

skin like pale blue oh is he like sad this isn't the same person who was on the mural right well blue is usually what someone turns when they uh they drown in in the water.

I wouldn't be able to answer that question for Doug, but I could answer that question for Natty.

And I will say, Natty, you recognize it looks like this halfling is the same halfling who was on the

in the mural.

And so it's a large chamber, and the only thing I see is the sailor on the floor.

looking blue and pale.

Plus silver pieces.

No, it's windy and you see a tornado swirling around the chamber as well.

Oh, there's literally like a tornado.

Yes.

Okay.

Interesting.

I think Doug would follow through the mural after seeing Natty go through it.

Well,

let me pull my head back.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, because Doug, you're holding on to the tail.

The tail, right.

That would be very disconcerting if Natty's got her head through, and then Doug puts his head through.

He's like, who's holding my tail?

Still holding my tail.

That is not how an anchor works.

You should have had the sailor help if you wanted an anchor.

I know.

Okay, Natty comes through and tells them what Natty sees.

As you try to, you know, remove your head from the room, why don't you make me, um, let's call it a dexterity saving throw.

Uh-oh.

Okie-dokie.

And, uh, Doug, as in, like, an assist of some kind, why don't you make me a strength check?

That's a 17 for deck save.

Grand old two.

Oh.

Your anchor isn't very effective, Natty, but luckily you're able to.

It feels like the wind and the tornado is like pulling you towards it, and it's very difficult to, you know, extract your head, but you're able to pull yourself back out yeah nanny would push hands like out uh and like try to like just kind of push against the wall with naddy's hands you try to push against the wall but there's no wall there your uh your hands just fly right through it oh it's that big of a mural right yeah it's the whole wall oh

okay so this is like really just a false wall i think the whole curtain was covering the entirety okay right okay correct so like illusion you know or like like portal what are we thinking here like is that room on the other side or are we like being teleported?

It's hard to say.

I think more illusionary.

Okay.

Because the wind.

Okay, listen, team, gather around.

Team meeting.

Team meeting.

Okay.

Gunther, you still here?

Yes.

Okay.

He's right below you.

I know he's small, but I'm here.

Okay, just hadn't heard him in a while.

Just want to make sure we haven't lost our frog.

Okay.

There is a tornado in there.

And I want to know what's going on with there's a halfling on the floor and it's the same guy guy.

And since it is your deity

Tov and you're a big old drink of water.

Yeah, I'm thinking we might create some sort of anchor system in here with the rest of us.

Okay.

And we send you in to check out what's going on in there.

Cool.

Yeah.

I will be the sacrifice.

That's cool with me.

I do want to suggest though the ankle is usually the strongest and heaviest part and if the ankle is the one at the font

Yeah, but I but I also think we learned about this this uh this folktale of this name this guy named Mario and He would sometimes turn into a heavier steel-like version of himself, and that would allow him to traverse windy areas more.

Yeah, that sounds cool.

That's a goal.

He was a very important drow

from our folktales.

In some areas, they call him Mario.

Yeah, Mario.

Hey, that feels like a cheap shot at me, Gut.

That is what I used to call it in Canada.

I was thinking more Michael Jones.

He says it like that, Mario.

I feel like it's a North thing.

Yeah.

So, can you review the plan for me just to make sure I'm up to date on it?

Okay, I hear you, Doug.

But you, you also are a big old so-and-so.

And so, I feel like if we just kind of really, if you kind of are the center of the anchor, and then me, Gunther, and Giggy just kind of help also, we can be a good source of

collective strength.

I'll do my best.

Hold on to the curtain.

Maybe have like peatens or whatever climbing pitons or whatever they are.

Well, why don't we just use, yeah, as you said, the curtain that Toll took down.

That's like, uh, you know, but I'll hold on to that.

What are you using the curtain for?

I'm confused.

Like, is the anchor like the rope thing around me?

We can use rope.

Let's use rope.

I have rope.

We do have rope.

I forgot about that.

John, I was with you.

I was very confused about where this curtain is.

I was like, well, the curtain's probably the worst thing in the world to use in this windy place, so I don't know what you're thinking to use that for.

It'll be like a sail.

That's what I was questioning about.

But yeah, I'm with Gunther on this.

Is there like a stalag mite?

Or tight?

Well, mite would be off of the floor, so that we could like wrap a rope around it.

Well, there's rubble and the door and not much else.

The door.

Yeah, there's a door to the east.

Let's not overthink this.

Let's do some action, and we can all hold the rope.

We'll kind of,

let's actually tie the rope around Doug and we'll all hold on to Doug and Tov will tie it around you and you go in.

Cool.

I'm so down for this.

Okay, let's do it.

And break.

Break.

You all tie the rope around yourselves to give Tov a very secure anchor.

Wrap the rope around Tov as well.

Who's tying all these knots, by the way?

Yeah, I think Toll's doing it.

We can tie around Tov and Tov doing it.

Yeah, he's a sailor.

Sailor knots.

They're what?

Oh, sailor knots.

Well, they know they're knots.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's true.

That's true.

It's true.

I don't know knots.

I not know knots.

You know nothing.

I did not.

I thought a funny visual is just we're all tied to Doug.

So it's just a big, like, we're just all like turned into one giant person tied onto him, like almost like holding onto Totoro.

And so we're just trying to anchor him as best we can.

Doug secretly loves us because he's getting a bunch of hugs from everybody.

He's starved for intimacy.

I just love what Gunther contributes to this whole thing because he's just like, his legs are probably not even touching the ground anymore.

that's why i imagine like him and giggy are just like like magnets on a fridge yeah

toll how are you gonna go through the mural like what's your plan are you gonna run and dive through are you just gonna walk through like paint me a picture haha about uh what it what it looks like about you going through this mural yeah so like i've been on board a ship you know when the high winds and like hurricaned you know type things so i know that it's like a low center of gravity and a wide base you know will keep you stable on your feet so i'm gonna have a hand on the rope, and then I'm going to have the other hand protecting my face, and I'm going to just slowly work my way in.

Okay.

Also, I'm going to leave my shield outside because, like, that would be like a sail made of wood, and you would, like, drag me around, and I don't want that.

Drag me around.

I do.

I like this little gruffness that's coming out of Tolv's talking about it.

It's very fun.

It's very fun.

You lower your center of gravity, you know, square yourself off with your feet under you, put your hand out in front of you, your left hand, I assume, as you kind of like lead the way through the mural, and you walk up to it and your hand touches the wall.

Oh no!

Oh no.

You knew this was coming, Gus.

Oh yeah.

That's why I wanted to hear in extreme detail how this was going.

Because if he was running through, I would have had a lot of fun.

Yeah.

Wait, why didn't he go through?

Can Gunther try and touch, just put this

poke a finger through?

Gunther detaches himself.

I think that we would all test the wall if we saw that happening, right?

Okay, so Doug stands up with us all attached to him and then walks towards the wall.

I just wanted to put a finger with Gunther.

So, like, okay, then I'll roll reversal.

I will be your anchor, and then you guys test if you can go in, and I will make sure you do nothing.

I'm not even going in, I'm just poking a finger.

Yeah.

Doug's like a mama possum with all the baby possums attached and they're all falling off and detaching and going off and doing their things.

I do love that visual.

Yeah, you all, I guess there's only two of you left, Doug and Gunther, walk up to the wall and, you know, try to stick a finger through.

Doug, your hand is able to go through, but Gunther, no, you, uh, your finger touches the wall.

What?

Oh, Gunther, you and me are not allowed into the club, I guess.

What does Doug and Nanny have that you guys don't?

Other than a feminine charm.

Doug does exude a lot of femininity.

What is happening here?

Well, then I think we should just change our tactic and either me or Doug should go through.

We can figure figure out the why later, but I want to know what's with this halfling.

Yeah, for sure.

They're blue.

Fairly curious as to why only you and I could go through Natty.

So now are we doing like a Toll and Gunther anchor with Natty and no, I don't want I don't want to send well.

Do you want to go through together?

Maybe we should have help.

Maybe there's a buddy system.

I did say buddy system at the top of our little travel.

I'll be a buddy.

And we are buddies.

We were buddies from the top of it.

All right, we're going to go in, and I need our barbarian and our fighter to help us out.

Yeah, you totally got us.

Also, like, we are the best anchors because we cannot even go in.

So, like, if you guys, like, get sucked in, like,

get pulled against the wall.

Is Gambot around, or like, do you have to, like, summon him?

Gambot's resting right now.

You know, he's

got to get his strength back for the next battle.

Shoshoshi.

He's on his wireless charging dock.

Okay, when, uh, whenever Toll and Gunther anchor themselves, like, steady themselves, Gigi also joins them and holds, like, uh, if he could, like, try to grab both of them with one arm, and one arm each, and like, he also is like, he's he's bracing.

Or it's like Giggy one leg, Gunther, the other leg.

I, that's what I'm saying.

I have to roll weight, I have to roll something.

Okay, he does do that.

Oh, okay.

The opposite would have been Giggy's pushing you guys and trying to undo the rolling

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Okay, I grab Doug's hand.

Okay, you two

film and Louise it into the mural,

disappearing from sight.

And, you know, you walk in, and there's just violet winds swirling all around in this silvery chamber.

Doug, you see now what Natty was talking about.

There's a

pale blue-skinned halfling in the center lying on a pile of silver pieces.

Oh, I didn't get this pile of silver pieces.

Yeah.

And, and you know, he's laying there and uh, he looks happy.

Oh, you know, uh, like how uh Scrooge Maduck goes swimming through coins and like throws them around.

It's kind of like that, you know, he's like reveling in the pile of silver coins.

Wait, is he moving?

Is he like dreaming?

You don't know if he's dreaming, but he is moving.

Oh, oh, like, does it is it are his eyes closed?

Currently, yes.

Okay, we go in and Natty yells out, Sir, we're here to rescue you if you need that.

What's your name?

My name's Natty.

The halfling's eyes open and his head, you know, whips around and looks at the two of you.

And you see that he has silver coins for eyes.

Whoa.

Oh.

This is the coraline stuff.

Silver eyes.

He says, Ah, welcome, Natty.

I am the wind trader.

Hey, Doug, I don't think we have to save this guy.

I don't know if we do, but also, did you ever tell him your name?

How do you know your name?

I just said it.

I just said it.

Sorry, I can't hear you.

It's very windy.

It's very good.

It's very good.

The wind Twader,

what do you trade for wind?

And why would people want wind for trading?

Ooh, wind can be very helpful on the seas.

Naddy smells the wind because wind trading kind of instills a different kind of thought in Natty's head.

Could Tollb and Gunther hear us through the wall?

Yeah, good question.

I was about to say, if you want to experience our version of this part of the podcast, like cover your ears under your microphones and

the air smells clean, by the way.

Thank you.

You all, I guess, Toll and Gunther, you don't hear it clearly, but you can hear like muffled talking.

Yeah, like kind of how you described it, Blaine, you know, covering your ears and trying to hear it.

Gunther, I think there's like another dude in there.

I think another person.

The hobby.

I think Doug would run up to the wall and be like, Toll, do you have any need for wind?

This guy's trading wind.

Oh, wind is like super helpful for sailors.

So like, yeah, totally.

Do you want some?

Give me like a few winds, please.

One wind, please.

Is that a wind trader in there?

Is there a wind trader?

I had a question that came to my head.

Yes?

Oh, okay.

You're so...

You seem happy with your life.

I have a pile of money.

Yeah, I mean if that brings up happiness.

Are you by any chance the one in the picture that we just saw when we came through the wall?

Ooh,

yeah.

Horrifying.

I'm getting like, any questions?

I'm waiting for the riddles.

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting.

Thank you, Chris.

This says, like, Scoville written all over it.

No riddles.

I have a question.

Are you a reanimated reanimated corpse?

It's a good question.

Like, are you dead?

I am not undead.

Okay.

Anywho.

Someone like you might call me a demigod.

Oh.

Oh.

Hey, Tao.

Ya?

In your religion that you are not knowledgeable about, are there any demigods that look like this dude?

Hold.

Let me look at my version of the Bible and see if I have anything on this.

You can make a religion check, I guess.

Okay, that would be great.

Yeah, I had the patron of the seas, sailors, and sea merchants.

So I don't know if.

Yeah, this is.

Oh, it's the sea drinker.

Pronouns are she, her, symbol, chalice overflowing with water.

Patron of the seas, sailors, and sea merchants.

That's the deity.

Yeah, this is a demigod.

Your deity is a demigod?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is different.

This is different.

God, God.

I rolled a six.

Stop telling me the meta.

i don't know what rolling a six means okay here's the thing i'm going to say this like 12 and it may or may not be meta speech but like by the way he's saying all this out loud to gunther

i remember as we started this campaign that like part of this whole thing was that there was like gods and then like demigods that like lived amongst us so this kind of tracks right there's just like a just like a person Gunther, do you have anything to say about that?

I think that he sounds scary.

Okay.

Yeah, he's kind of scary.

Now he's happy.

Yeah, a little too happy if you ask me for being in this situation.

How much is the wind?

That's a good question.

Sir,

how much is a quart of wind?

Hmm, well, depends on the purpose.

What do you wish to trade exactly?

Wait, the purpose or the trade material?

I guess from a meta perspective, it's like what do you want accomplished?

I don't know.

So, like, he like charges based on the use?

Hmm, I can offer safe passage to where?

Wherever may be needed.

I think we're in a like a warp pipe.

Again,

my friend Mario, he also would get to these places where wind would be able to travel him to other places expeditiously.

Ask them why we can't come in.

It sounded like no.

Ask them why we can't come in.

There you go.

Is there a reason, uh, Mr.

Win Twedo, why me and my friend Nanny were able to come in here, but uh, we have some friends outside that were not able to get through.

I only allow those in who have enough currency to make a deal with me.

Okay, we're talking about Meda, like this is totally that, because he does not want us to haggle Gunther.

How much money you got on you, uh, Doug?

Let me see.

Enough, I would say.

Okay.

I don't know if I should say it out loud because I don't want him to take all of it, you know.

I yell back to Gunther.

He don't like poor folk.

Oh, man, that's good.

That's good.

That's the one we get from Chris today.

Take an inspiration, Doug.

Yeah, that's really good.

Okay, safe passage.

I like that.

Those are two words I like.

Where can you send us safe passage a two?

Back to your friends.

Well, that now just got ominous.

Well, yeah, are we not able to go back through the wall?

Could Doug try to stick his arm back through the other side?

Make a

dexterity saving throw.

Uh-oh.

That's no good for me.

Five.

You try, but the tornado gets in the way.

It starts blowing you around and redirects you away from the wall and you're not able to approach it.

Okay, so it's more about the wind keeping us from making our passage back.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Versus like not actually being able to go through.

Am I going to have to tug of war against a tornado?

What happens if he tugs on the rope?

Do you want him to?

Yeah.

Well, I don't know.

Give me like a symbol.

Give me like a like an ink ink ink.

Okay, I'll tug.

I'll tug on the rope.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, before he does that, I just wanted to see what else was in this room.

Like, could I do a quick perception check or something like that?

See what else there might be in here?

Sure.

I'll just tell you.

If there's something specifically you want to know more about, tell me and then maybe we can make a check on that.

So the tornadoes, is, it's a rushing tornado swirling with silvery coins inside of it.

And the halfling himself is pale blue, almost like, you would say the skin color is almost like someone who drowned.

And he's wearing, his sailor uniform is drenched, wet.

Like I mentioned earlier, he has silver coins for eyes and his fingers are long and pointed and he's carrying a rather large coin purse that seems to jingle as he moves.

You know what, Doug?

It just struck me that this is an opportunity to talk to one of these individuals who's connected to our deities who have not been around on our plane very much.

I'm a little scared of him.

Maybe we could barter with him for even more than just safe passes.

You know, they love games, right?

Don't like these kinds of things.

They love to just mess around.

Maybe.

I don't know what this guy's cup of tea is, you know?

Is there any other, like, doors or anything like that in this room, or is it just...

You look around and the halfling is sipping from a teacup and the silver coins are pouring out of it all around his face and his mouth.

Whoa, he just made that appeal.

Maybe he could make anything appeal.

What do we want?

Want borgo or something like that?

I'm kind of hungry.

So, Mr.

Wind Trader.

Yes?

On top of safe passage,

what else might

you?

Sorry, just like you derailed my brain.

Oh, we can make all kinds of deals.

It depends on what you're looking for.

Wind, of course, is my specialty.

Okay, Natty yells back to Tolf and Gunther for one more ask for help.

Guys, can you think of anything that we could use wind for involving our adventures?

I mean, do they have any sort of like, could they channel the wind into like some sort of a weapon, you know, like, you know, like not curse an item, but like instill it with the powers of the wind and the sea?

That would be cool.

Hmm, well, the sea is not my domain.

I was merely given the wind from the sea drinker.

One more time, but louder.

I cannot hear you very well, wind trader.

I was not given the sea.

The sea drinker merely gave me the wind.

Pay the fee.

What?

I don't want to pay for them to come in here.

Oh,

I got a good way of asking this.

Could you use the wind to bring someone to us that we're looking for?

Intriguing.

We are, after all, in an underground area in which wind would be quite advantageous in kind of creating a vacuum to pull people towards us.

We're looking for a baron.

Huh.

Yeah, you know, like when you go to the bank and they have the pneumatic tube system that like sucks things, you know?

Wind may not be able to bring them here, but perhaps the wind could guide you there oh now we're talking something that i could i could pay for so safe passage plus a little help to find our baron dude

what's that gonna put me back it's going to be like your soul what are the colors of the wind in this situation

make an offer silver and gold are always welcome oh he likes silver we should offer silver if i only have gold i know like technically like one gold is X amount of silver and blah blah blah blah.

But if I only have gold pieces and he wants silver, does that work for a exchange?

Yeah,

are we bound to the specificity that we all just have gold coins?

Yeah, normally, you know, that's like the exchange rate is dealt with like in trade like kind of conversion.

However, you are dealing with a demigod, so he will probably accept it.

Okay.

Why don't you try and see?

He did say gold and silver were welcome.

Where should we start, Doug?

One gold piece.

Okay, that's going to be insulting.

And then he adjusts his little collar on his shirt.

I thought Doug was going to snap his suspenders.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, he doesn't have any of those.

Not yet.

How about 200?

Oh, that got.

Oh, that got.

Gunther heard that.

Don't have that.

What about.

I think he might have said 100 accidentally.

What about two?

Two hundred is no

What if

what if

Turn to Gunther and say I don't think negotiations are going very well.

It never does

maybe try to get them to yank us out of here or but I think this is worth doing.

I think he wants real bartering is what he wants.

I think you might be going a little bit too low for him to actually find a middle ground for us, you know?

Okay.

You gotta meet them where they're they're playing.

So, how about 50?

Yes.

Oh?

50 whole gold pieces.

That's hundreds.

That's a lot.

Which is...

Quick, Doug, do the math.

How many silver is that?

Well, by my calculations, one gold piece is equal to 10 silver pieces.

And so that would be 500 silver pieces.

500 silver pieces?

How about

600 silver pieces?

I think think we should take this.

You know, I think we could make that work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Total, right?

Between the two of us?

Yeah.

Okay, and that's for safe passage and a buddy, a wind buddy.

Wind will guide you there.

Wind will push you along on your journey.

Deal.

I reach out my hand to shake.

Yeah, he reaches out his hand as well.

And his fingers are so long they wrap unnaturally around your head.

Well, Naddy has long finger now, so it's kind of the same thing.

Okay, fair enough.

That bit of half laying with long fingers is weird.

I know

it's a really creepy looking.

As he shakes with his right hand, he reaches out his left hand.

And I shake the left hand as well, and we start dancing.

And did you do that jazz dance move?

He reaches out his left hand, palm up, as if expecting something to be placed in it.

Alright, and Naddy, were you splitting this 50-50, Yumi?

You know what, Doug?

I got you.

We got help out of each other, okay?

Okay, well, Doug will remember this.

Thank you.

And I hand over that 60 gold.

You place 60 gold in his hand, and as the gold touches his hand, it turns into silver.

And it runs through his fingers down onto the ground into the pile that he's rolling around on.

I'm not picking that up.

That's yours.

And he says,

Exquisite.

I hate this.

And with that, the winds of the tornado die down.

Okay, and we go back through the wall.

All right, pleasure meeting you.

Sure.

Okay, I come out of the wall and I just go, woo, do not go in there.

Natty passed him winning now.

Alright, good news.

We're safe and we got some help to find the Baron.

Cool.

We stood out here with rope in our hands and just kind of stared at each other for like 15 minutes.

I think your deity is weird.

Well, he's like, he's like a demigod.

He's like part of my anyways.

What were you saying?

Actually, a good question.

What did you guys do while we were in in there?

Just kind of hung out and tried to listen as best we could.

Held tight.

Yeah.

A T-broke.

We're just out here hugging each other.

I kind of like that.

Next I T-posed, you know.

Wait, do you guys not exist when we're not in the room?

We weren't allowed into the cool kids' club.

We were sitting outside.

The racist demigod.

Well, no, he's classist.

Yeah.

Does not like croak folk.

Poor folk.

Poor ones.

I feel like you guys need something to do.

What do you guys want to do now?

Follow the wind.

How does the wind, um,

how do I perceive the wind?

What does it look like?

What's it?

What form is it in?

Excellent question.

How did you make me a perception check?

Oh, that's a one.

Wow.

Your friends all left you.

Gunther, you make one too.

Okay.

That's a four, big four, big four.

Oh my gosh.

Come on.

Wow.

We are rolling today.

Just stagnant.

You got ripped off.

Doug and Naddy, why don't you two make me one make a check as well?

16 plus.

Where's my perception?

Two.

18.

A 12.

Okay, maybe because you all actually talked with the wind trader, but the two of you are able to see like little eddies and like little dirt devils going over a part of the rubble.

Just like swirling in a circle over a portion of the rubble that's on the ground.

Like directing us there.

Hey guys, I think we should go check this out.

I think the wind is guiding us in a way, I feel.

I feel very inspired by the wind.

I'm going to go ahead and untie all of the knots that I put around us.

Let's wait that out in real time.

One hour of silence now.

Yeah, we point towards the rubble.

Tov, you want to check that out?

Oh, sure.

Yeah, yeah.

You can go over to the rubber.

The rubber.

Well, can we just start moving the rubble out of the way?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Gunther and Tov, you start excavating the rubble and moving it away, and you find the bodies of three of those winged devils uh beneath the rubble does this feel like a recent thing or are these like older bodies that have decomposed i would say it seems fairly recent

were these the winged devils we saw during the cave-in with the baron it was similar it's hard to distinguish one from another

the exact ones but they're the same creatures gotcha right but they look freshly dead correct okay okay well i'll carefully move them to the side as i move boulders yeah uh you move them to the side and uh as you're moving, one of them, 40 silver pieces fall out of its one of its little pouches.

What?

Well, Natty, I think you should maybe take D to start getting your money back.

I mean, I'm going to leave that to the group.

That's fine.

I do not care.

Oh, that's fine.

If you spent money on things for the party, then it seems only fair that you get some money in return.

Natty needs to fill out an expense form and submit that.

This is going to be taxed,

just so you know.

Okay, Natty grabs the silver.

Yeah, FYI, Mike is reminding me, we did establish the name of these kinds of creatures are Grilts.

Grilts?

Grilts?

Yeah.

What part of the room was the rubble?

Just side in lay of the land.

It's all over in the room.

Where these guys were?

Where these guys were, I would say it's like close to the eastern wall where that door is.

Okay.

Can we continue our digging, following where the wind was?

Yeah, the wind seems to have moved and is swirling over the bodies.

Oh.

Oh, should we investigate the bodies further?

Yeah, can we look at the bodies?

Yeah, Blaine, roll me a four-sided die.

Evens and odds are what I'm looking for here.

Four!

Okay, there were three bodies.

You know, the silver fell out as you're removing one of them.

Tolv, you look at one of the other bodies, and Gunther looks at the other one.

Tolv, the body you're looking over, as you're looking, you know, through its belongings, you find an iron key.

Ooh.

And Gunther, as you're looking through the possessions of the other Grip, you find a scorched lantern.

Scorched lantern?

Does it like

look

like just a basic lantern or like magical in any way?

You know what I mean?

Like, it's just like basic.

What does that mean?

How does something look magical?

Oh, I don't know.

You know, like how there's like food and then magic.

Well, like, you know, just like, is there just

a lantern that got burnt or does it look like it's something of importance?

You have to rub it.

You have to rub it, Chris.

This is how magic lanterns work.

Now rub it.

You rub it and you rub some of the soot off of the outside, but it appears to be, nothing seems to happen.

It appears to be, from what you can tell, a mundane lantern.

Well, okay, so like, everyone be on the lookout for like a locked door, because I have an iron key.

There's a door to the east.

Naddy just points to that door.

Well, we don't know if it's locked.

Although that would be very handy-dandy if this key we found opens the door.

Sorry, just looking at the video and just looking at Blaine, process that and then look down at his notes.

Okay, so like, should we double back to the area with the curtain?

You know, go through to the cubby holes and try to unlock the door, or should we follow the wind?

The wind.

After they have pulled the belongings from the grelps, what does the wind do?

Yeah.

Good question.

Everyone make a investigation check.

You've got it.

It's going to be a good one.

17.

7.

18.

Dang.

Gosh, I am rolling very badly today.

I got a 6.

Don't worry, the detective boys are on the case.

We have found it.

I think all the wind that was happening maybe brushed all my hair in front of my eyes.

So there's a lot of hair.

Having trouble seeing.

I'm so caught up on the word grips because it just sounds like an affliction.

Like there's like, I don't know, warts that have grown into your throat.

Oh, I got a case of the grills.

The grills?

Go get some antibiotics for the grilps.

Yeah, grilp is singular and plural, by the way.

Oh.

Oh, it's grilp.

Yeah, we're probably not going to remember that.

Just FYI.

I wrote it down.

Steel trap.

It's in there now.

What's their investigation?

Get them.

You feel like the wind has shifted.

You don't see like little swirling dirt devils or eddies anymore.

Instead, you feel like the wind has shifted and it's coming out of the west, blowing towards the east.

Out of the west, blowing towards the east.

Towards the door.

Yeah, the wind is that way.

Okay.

And then, like, follow it.

Kuntho wants to close his eyes and just feel the wind and walk towards the window.

Okay.

The wind feels nice and cool on your skin.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, where he just feels where the, like, almost like lets the wind move him.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's, it slowly pushes you along towards the east.

Uh, Micah says, use the wind, Luke.

I keep thinking of Pocahontas and that song following the wind.

Do I take the steady path?

Cool.

I'll follow.

Yeah, where does that take us?

Does that head take us to the door?

I just like the idea that Gunther's following the wind, but it's like veering him off.

So Tov just kind of gently pushes him towards the door.

Tov is his rudder.

Yeah.

It seems to guide you towards the iron double door on the eastern portion of the room.

Cool.

I'll take out the iron key.

Do you want to see if it's locked first?

Oh, give the door a little jingle jangle and see if it's unlocked.

The door is locked.

Oh, if only we had a key.

Just kidding, I have one.

Ooh.

I unlock the door.

Bold of you to assume that it's the correct key, but it is.

The key fits in and unlocks the door.

Plane looks very smug.

I say, Yoo-hoo, it's me, Trans coming through.

Baron.

The door is now open.

Gunther, are you still allowing the wind to push you through?

Yes.

Yes.

I like the idea that Tolv opens the double doors and Gunther just like floats in with his arms open.

He just wafts in.

As Gunther wafts in, you all see this, but he doesn't because his eyes are closed.

Oh no.

Gunther walks firmly into the backside of an orc who's standing very upright with good posture, who's wearing clerical vestments that seem to be made of some kind of maybe rat skin.

Oh.

The size, I'm sorry, the size of this means that Gunther went into his butt.

I'm just saying, I said backside, but yeah, that's essentially it.

Face into Dariere.

And it's just like he's taking deep breaths towards the wind.

He's just going,

the source of the wind.

He turns around when Gunther bumps into him, and you see him wearing a glowing silver ring.

And he looks very intensely at the four of you and says, Have you come to help purify this world?

Oh no, this place is just

a barrel of monkeys who just want to fight.

Yes, crazy city.

Do have cups.

Yes.

If someone asks if you're a god, say yes.

Find out if they are indeed here to purify the world on the next episode.

How do you know this person's bad?

He's talking about purifying the world.

That's true.

We don't know.

Purify the world.

That's a good thing.

And well.

Fantasy Mr.

Clean.

Find out what world purification is all about on the next episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon.

Bye.

Bye.

Should I marry Coco One?

I've never seen Pocahontas, so like I I've.

Well, you just got to remember this, Chris.

It's historically accurate.

I'm sure it is.

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In fact, here's a quick peek from the previous episode, Second Wind.

Speaking of the module, any questions?

Yes.

What is the Pathfinder?

can you tell us right now

um

what can i tell you i can tell you that for those that don't remember in the episode that was the baron asking i don't remember who they asked um was it was it toll might have been toler yeah it might have been tol do you know who or where maybe that i can't remember the exact question you know of the pathfinder what do you know of the pathfinder that's what it was okay um we haven't heard that name before in in this campaign what do you guys think what are some guesses of the pathfinder being i have some ideas we've encountered like in that cave we encountered um almost like nautical navigational equipment and stuff like that and and there's like stuff with astronomy and i i feel like that's got to have some connective tissue with whatever the pathfinder is it seems like there's like searching for something what it is i don't know well they're looking we're ultimately looking for the gates the the key to the gates of hydra yeah yeah yeah for sure my brain just went, you remember these things.

That was a good recall.

That was a great recall.

Yeah, you can't tell right now, but I'm so proud of you guys right now.

Yeah.

So I'm just wondering if, like, maybe Pathfinders, like, someone who could show you, essentially show you the way of what you're looking for.

Very interesting.

Again, that's stingydragonpod.com.

We can't thank you enough for your support that lets us make this show.

Listeners who interacted with us on the Stingy Dragon Discord had NPCs named after them in this episode, like Cobb, voiced by Cameron Fletcher, at Cameron.fletcher on socials, The Wind Trader, voiced by Nick Schwartz.

Check him out on Regulation Podcast or 100% Eat Podcast.

And Preacher Reggie, named after Dayden's, voiced by Joe Lee at Low Geez on Instagram and Twitch.

This week's arrow question was submitted by Jamara Hearts.

Jamira Hearts.

Jamira Hearts.

One of those.

This episode of Tales of the Stinky Dragon was produced by Ben Ernst and written, edited, and composed by Micah Reisinger with additional editing work by Catherine Arnold.

Tune in next time for another thrilling episode of Tales of the Stinky Dragon.

Oh, that's a good drawing.

John's drawing of it.

That's pretty accurate.

It's pretty good.

It's colored and everything.

Wow.

No, it's highlighters.

I use highlighters for all my.

You can see like my notes are like this.

That's great.

John.

That's good.

I wish I had handwriting I could read.

Do the different colors mean different things?

It's either just something to highlight, like something that's important, or I use it as connective, like

tissue to like be like this connects to this so look at this can you take a photo of that and select it to Ben yeah like right here on this one you can see this is a map but I ran out of room so pink goes back to this pink

this was our this is our chase for the magistrate

so cool this is my notes I like colors actually I want to get more I want to get more highlighters only got four colors and I want more also while we're sharing look at my mommy gave me for Christmas what is that it's a dice tray That's a little leather kitty.

Oh, my God.

Oh, it's cute.

Take a picture of that too for Patreon.

Okay.

Yeah, I was going to say, we could post that map on Patreon and maybe even the kitty dice tray.

I should just take pictures of all these.

I've taken a lot of extensive notes.

Which, by the way, you could support us on Patreon by going to stinkydragonpod.com.

Dude, you suckers!

Barbara, you took the words right out of my mouth.

Take an inspiration die.

I'm so proud of you.

I already have one.

But yay!

Acknowledgement.