C03 - Ep. 26 - From On Hyra - Up to Shananigans

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One gulp of this gilt-ritten grog, and you'll still remember what they did last summer.

Previously, our adventurers recalled their resurfacing from the Saline Sea thanks to the sea drinker and learned some long-distance Njorda lore.

They flash-forwarded into the fray of today and wayfared their way to the Untamed Flame Forge. But what was a welcome wagon sharp turned to a showdown with Shannon.

Latch on to our libation and let's leap into our lore.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Tales from the Stinky Dragon.
I'm your dungeon master, Gustavo Sorola, and I'm going to hit our four players with an arrow.

There it is. You could just ask us a question.
I think I'm going to be the dungeon master for the day.

I'm going to challenge your authority, Gus. And today, I will be the dungeon master.
Put up for a vote. Everyone, raise your hand if you want Blaine to be dungeon master.
I

upgraded it. Sorry, Blaine, go for it.

Welcome to Tales of the Sneaky Dragon. I'm your dungeon master, Blaine Gibson, and I'm going to hit our four players with an arrow.
Wow, pew, pew, pew.

Banter. Funny banter.
All right, let's roll this stupid dice.

All right, we're going to go ahead and roll. Yeah, roll a d20.
Let's figure it out. Five to eighteen.
Can't wait for Blaine's tavern tale, whenever that is, where he gets to actually be the DM.

Dude, it's coming. I came out.
We're supposed to add our initiative modifiers to this role. Just kidding.
I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

The tradition continues. Natty trips and falls and takes three points of damage.
It's fine. I'll take it.
I rolled it down. No, no.

Micah put in chat BM, Blaine Master, but I thought he put bowel movement. Yeah, that would be.
That would be him.

Looks like we got Gunther with an 18, Doug with a 17, Natty with an 8, and Toll with a 5. Woo! All right.
So, oh, I didn't even ask the question. You distracted me with your BM.

If you won the lottery, what would you do with your money? And that was suggested by... But there's like four names on here.
That's a short question to be submitted by four people.

Lorena Hempel, Werwin, Fred Jordan, and Loose Goose. I think some of those are real names and some of them aren't.
The third. The third.
Loose Goose the third.

If you won the lottery, what would you do with your money? And we're starting off with Gunther. I'm Chris Maris.
I play Gunther the fighter.

If I won the lottery, I would hire so many spies and investigators to find the heathen who attacked my village.

And then I would track him down and take matters into my own hands and hopefully not die. I don't know that that would cost what you would earn from winning the lottery.

I saw a billboard, and I think you could get that pretty affordably done.

There's a lady in Waco, she can do it for a couple thousand, maybe

investigate call 555, 55, 555, 55. I always see your signs like private eyes.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so vengeance, got it. Remind me to never get on Gunther's bad side.
Gunther, you're wonderful. Thank you for answering the question.
And you're definitely honing in.

You have that one true purpose. And I hope we get to go on this journey with you, Gunther.
Next up, we've got Doug with a 17.

Hello, I'm Barbara Dunkleman, and I play Doug Boone, the male bugbear, artificer, level six.

And you know, I've done a long and hard. If I would win the lottery, what I would do, First, I would take a portion of it and put it into my investment account.

Smart. Like an IRA.
Exactly. And I don't know if like the Mortalian has like a 401k or if they do like matching or anything like that.
But I'd probably invest a little bit into that.

And then I think I would spend the rest on my very own bat cave. You know, like

an underground laboratory with all my inventions and,

you know, maybe get a little buttlord myself. Maybe a batler.
Maybe a guy named Quiffley, perhaps. Oh, man, yeah, yeah.
And, you know, just really, you know, build it out.

Make it pretty cool down here. Why underground? Because that's what the bat cave is.
Yeah, but that's because that's Batman's theme. I'm just curious how that pertains to Doug's persona.

Because they're a bug bear. Yeah, it's a cave.
Caves are typically, you know, below surfaces. Okay.
Yeah. I just, then I would say a bear cave, not a bat cave.

I'm a big fan of Batman.

That's all I wanted. i just wanted to know is

is doug a fan of batman and that's why then that works yeah i'm doug boon

where is she

that's what i'll say when we're we're looking for your wife guntho where is she i know where she is she is at my home oh okay easy exactly where you left her yes doug would you evict the bats or would they stay in there with you well i that's i understand the confusion gustavo there's no actual bats in this bat cave.

It's an uninhabited cave. Yeah.
So it's just a cave.

Exactly. And I am the bad bat.

Okay.

Micah suggests maybe you could just line the walls with baseball bats.

Ah, I see. Yeah, self-defense.
You know,

it's like a vintage collection or something. All right.
Doug, thank you for the journey we went on there.

You're very welcome.

The puzzle that we...

I thought it was pretty straightforward, pushed.

it was.

Follow-up questions. Next up, we have Nad, I believe Natty with an eight.
Howdy, y'all.

It's John Reisinger, and I play Natty Wonder, the Drow Warlock, Drag Queen, mother of the Harbinger of the Apocalypse. Nope, just a little demon that wants to end everything.

If I were to get the lottery and become filthy, filthy rich, I would do probably one of two things.

I'd either, one, put it into some sort of trust for Gigi to be able to access when he is older and mature enough to use funds in a responsible way. So it might never be touched.
That's just a joke.

I love my little

while.

Honestly, I probably just donate it all to my mama's temple back in my hometown just because, you know, they could always use more funds to

help the temple or help the community around them or, you know, just do anything like that. I just trust them with the money instead.

So the church thermometer would fill up completely and then explode at the top. No more car washes.

They'd be all good. New rec center.
And new rec center.

Yeah. Somehow that really tracks.
I don't know what I would have expected from you, Natty, but that seems right. That seems to go totally in with what I would expect.
What do I need to be rich for?

Yeah. Well, you know, if you want that cave or something, you know,

cost a lot of money. Well, actually, as a drow, I would lack an underground cave.
So it actually makes sense.

Do a lot of your family play the lottery, Natty? You got a proud lottery playing tradition? No, we don't have the lottery in my community.

I had to quickly look it up on one of Doug's little handheld devices, what the lottery was. Oh, interesting.
Okay, yeah. Yes, I have a handheld device that explains what the lottery is.

And that's the only function of that handheld device.

It's called a wiki-doug. Ah.

Wikiduggia. okay cool thanks and last up with a five we've got toll hey it's blain your dungeon master i also play toll

the male thaumatech barbarian i need to update my character sheet how many weeks is this now i no it's just several i'll do it later

talk to you next

recording problem yeah yeah exactly the blain gibson way and i play toll you hoots me tol into gustavo so many questions that i must ask I mean, no, we're talking scratch-offs or powerball.

What money amount are we talking about? We're talking,

let's put it in the powerball range. Oh, lots of money.
Yeah. Scratchers are a lot of money, but a different tier.
Yeah, not like the same level of life-changing. Okay, several things.

First of all, I would hire a series of private investigators to find the rest of my family. That's like maybe 0.2% of their winnings.
That's really not expensive, so I don't know what Gunther's doing.

And then after that, I think I would take care of my friends. You know, I'd give them a little bit of cash and, you know, make sure that they're well taken care of.

And then I would do that anonymously, though, because you do not want them to come back and say, oh, I spent all of the money. Please give me more.

Yeah.

And then I would get like a personal finance guy to tell me exactly how much I want to keep for having a good, comfy lifestyle.

And then I would donate the rest because there's no good billionaires and no no one person needs all of that money it's stupid i agree

uh you can't spell a greed without greed that seems like it's it's i do find it a little strange that two of our uh party members went the private investigator route so it's it's it's i think it's it tells a lot about uh what we got going on here we're lazy

we don't want to do the adventure ourselves or just so dedicated to the mission at hand that you guys uh you know want to hire out to do other things that you need done You're right.

And as we all know, subcontracting and

hiring advisors or whatever, that's the way to do it.

Be to spread out work so that it is done more efficiently. Yeah.
I love to. I don't know what we're talking about.

I'm making a joke about how,

ah, never mind. What were we about to say?

I just remember we got a lot, a lot of, had a lot of funny money sitting out to contractors for silly things. And that could have gone to like lovely shows like Tales from a Sticky Dragon.

Anyways, that's Corporate America for you, dude.

Never heard of her.

She's a drag queen. Corporate America? That's actually a great drag queen name.
I was going to say, that's a great drag queen name. I hope she's got a monocle.

Before we dive into this episode, let's clarify. I think we had talked a little bit about who team leader was and joked a little bit about it at last episode.

I want to make sure we're all on the same page. So where are we at team leader-wise? It was me and Doug playing hot potato with responsibilities.

But yeah, I mean, go ahead, swap it up as much as you want. I vote for Naddy.
I vote for Nadi. I'm done.
I give my vote to Natty.

Okay. I vote third party.

Okay, Gunther's throwing his away. All right, I guess I'm team leader.
I'm gonna write that in my notes.

All right, this looks like the place. Gunther, are you ready to see your aunt? Yes, I'm very anxious to talk to her.
Hello!

Gunther calls out hello, and the door slowly opens, revealing a thickly built, youthful-looking ode. The smell of smoke comes out from the building and you see some smoke appear behind her.

She is clad in obsidian iron, like a combination of obsidian and iron. She looks at you four and says, I am Shannon Egan's Windbreaker.
Who are you? I am Gunther Bootkiss Windbreaker.

Gunther Bootkess Windbreaker? On guard! And she leaps forward and attacks you. What? Shannon flies through the air with grace towards Gunther.

She unsheaths a thick foil mid-air made of blackened metal like that of her armor. As she descends, her beefy thoed legs and free arms shove your companions aside.

Doug Canadian Tolls make me dexterity saving pros.

I have advantage on this.

11. 12.

Critical fail and a 12, so I'll take that 12. Okay,

those were not great dexterity saves. Thank you.
So

all three of you fall to the ground, knocked prone by Shannon as she shoves you aside, and you get a boo-boo on your bum. You take five points of bludgeoning damage.
Five points? Wow.

This girl hit us hard. Can I use a shield as a reaction for that? Or is it probably not worth it? Sure.
I'll take it. Sure.
Just take it. Was I raging?

No. Okay.
Shannon lands with surprisingly light feet and points her blade at Gunther's leather-clad chest. I said, on guard.
Why do you want to fight?

Rather than answer that question, I'm going to explain the duel mechanic to you. Oh my gosh.

So we're going to have like a duel mini-game between Shannon and Gunther here. And it's kind of like rock, paper, scissors.

So there'll be three rounds and each ron both duelists secretly choose one action to perform.

During the duel, both duelists can move as they wish, apply any magical effects that items may have, but there will be no bonus actions, reactions, or spells.

So the three options you get, much like rock, paper, scissors, you can either push, parry, or faint.

Push and not lay back like that. Push beats faint, parry beats push, and faint beats parry.
And then there's special conditions for ties, which we can go over as we go through.

You sure you want to do this with Chris the first time? Perry the best pussy. I could see his eyes gloss over already as you were describing.

I sent him the things. And so as Shannon, you know, pulls out her weapon and is pointing it at Gunther, Private Parts starts elbowing you in the ribs, Natty.
What? What? What, Private?

Do you want to make a wager on who's going to win? Yeah.

Why not? Let's have some fun. How much do you want to bet? How much money I got.

I haven't looked at my gold in a while. I'm going to bet everything.
I'm going to bet everything.

You're going to bet everything? I'm going to bet everything. 172 gold.
Oh, my God.

On who?

On Gunther. Oh!

Surprising.

All right, Chris. Stakes are high.
Don't mess this up.

Wow, that's a lot of money.

Okay. Private parts scribbles it down on his notepad.
Are you good for that, Private? Wait, Apple Check. Are you good for that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not going to need to send geeky after you if you lose. Oh, no, no.
Okay, you know where I live. Yeah, I do.
Actually, I don't. Where do you live?

We haven't talked at all about your background. Fort Andrew, just like you.
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, let's see how this goes.

Private Parts then walks over to Tov and says, Hey, Tov, you want to get in on this? Me and Naddy are betting on the duel.

I think I will kindly pass. I am not much of a gambler.
Oh, you don't have any money? Okay. I have more money than Naddy and certainly will after Gunther loses.

Hey, you know, go big or go home. You know,

what's the money good for

if I'm not here tomorrow? I don't know. Spending it on armor and equipment.
Naddy learned what the lottery is, and she's all in on gambling now.

Yeah, I mean, I said I didn't know what the lottery was. I didn't say that Natty didn't know what gambling was.

There's a lot of forms of gambling. Yeah, and Naddy had that stint on a riverboat doing entertainment.

That is true.

There's a lot of gambling there. Yep.
Private parts will move on to Doug. Hey, Doug, you want to put some money on this? Is gambling legal here? I know in some places it's not.
In some places it is.

It's kind of a gray area. Oh, it's okay here.
It's just between friends.

Sure, why not? You know, take a chance. Try a little something risky once in a while, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lay your fur down. Okay, okay.
Don't let him hear me say this.

I think I'm gonna bet on Shannon. Ooh, how much? She seems pretty, you know.
She did knock us all down in one fell swoop, so she's pretty powerful. It's very true.
She's beefy. I'm gonna bet one gold.

Whoa.

Penny slots kind of guy. I got you.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I can match that.
Yeah, I got you. Private parts writes that down.
All right.

Getting back to the duel mechanic So I'm gonna give everyone kind of a job here since this is a a duel between Shannon and Gunther Doug I'm gonna ask you to keep score and you're gonna ask for the reveal of the moves each round Okay, so to keep things fair between Gus and Chris the the actual humans here who are who are playing the game what's gonna happen is Chris you're gonna send Blaine your tactic for the round and I'm gonna send John my tactic for the round and when Barbara calls for them those people are gonna reveal what we sent them so we're your managers yeah

okay and remind me what beats what like all the different uh outcomes of the game you got it push beats faint parry beats push and faint beats parry my god i started to write these in my notes and immediately wrote bush beats faint like george w bush yeah

everyone uh good yes chris just sent me a picture of my house and said don't mess this up. I don't know what that means.

Let's do this. Yeah, Shannon points her foil up in front of her face and then brings it down and lunges at you, Gunther.
Send your move to Blaine, and I'll send mine to John.

It has been said, do I not wish to fight you? Okay, I got it. And then, Barbara, it's on Doug to call for the moves.
All right, everyone, let's have a clean match here, all right?

No going below the belt or above the way, above the waist. Wait a minute.

So there's a thin line right at the waist belt.

I like to think Doug brings down one of those like wrestler announcer mics. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're in a clean fight here in one corner.
Guns of

Windbreaker.

Stormbreaker, what is it? Is it Windbreaker? Bootcast Windbreaker. There you go.
And in another corner, Shannon.

Yay, Shannon, go Shannon. Hello, it's a lovely day out here at Megalopolis Stadium.
We got our two big contenders in the green corner and in the green corner.

All right, we're gonna have a clean match of push, faint, parry.

I was just, I literally was watching the Teenage Meeting Strolls movie this morning. Oh, I know you guys are frogs, but still, I watched that last week.
There you go. Nice.
It's good. It holds up.

All right. Are we ready? In three.
I'm ready. Two, one, two.

Push, faint. Push meets faint.
Oh, dang it. I'm on Gus's.

I don't want that. I don't want Gus to win.

Does it help that Chris misspelled faint, like the fainting faint?

So, push beats faint. So, Gunther tries to move his rapier to pretend to attack, but Shannon sees right through it and with her beefy arm, pushes forward and shoves Gunther straight in the chest.

Best two out of three. Gus, I want to bring Gunther back into my corner of the ring, and I'm going to pat him down with some ice, and he'll say, Okay, Gunther, how many fingers am I holding up?

How many? I can see five. No, that's six.
It was one. Yeah, there's six fingers.
You missed the other hand. He had the other one behind his back, to be fair.

Okay, I think on this one, I think you should, I think you should push. Push.
You should push. Oh, head games.
All right, round one of that goes to Shannon. Not looking good for Nanny, no bad.

This fight is brought to you by our sponsor. It's Frog Juice.
Drink your delicious swamp water with the zesty yummy taste of frog juice. All right, back to our fighters in the ring.

All right, so let's move on. Doug, I know you're trying to move it along, but yeah, you are correct.
Let's move on to round two.

Round two.

Is it us two out of three, or how are we playing here? Yeah, we're gonna go three rounds. Yeah, the ring girl is entered in with the billboard that says number two.
It is a mosquito. Carrying a sign.

I'm trying to make this like a boxing package.

I like it. In our DM chat, Ben

was saying that that would be private parts, holding up the round numbers. Oh, yeah, that's better.
I thought you were about to make like a number two joke, like poop. Oh, no, no.
Sounds like nice.

No, we are above that kind of humor here at Stinky Dragon. Yeah, I did just direct a video about Maddie having poop and covering her and

DM. Soon.

I have Shannon's move. I'm good.
I got Chris's. Who's Chris? I got Gunther.
Oh, no, no. I got Gunther's.

All right. Round two.
Shannon could take it all right here, right now. Let's find out what happens.
Duel in three, two, one. Hit it.
Push. Feint.
Yeah.

Oh, no.

No.

Uh-oh. Once again, Shannon, Shannon suspects that Gunther is once again going to try the same maneuver and avoid combat.

So she once again charges headlong in with a mighty push and shoves gunther and let's do the third round anyway why not see how bad he could lose

honest i should have bet a little bit more than one gold now that i'm thinking about it

after pushing you shannon takes a step back looks at you gunther and says show me your skills young croak folk and then charges in again my skills are not to fight you auntie

all right well there's really no point in doing the third round here

seeing a shannon uh completely obliterated gun though, but why not? Because we said we'd do three rounds of this, and we are not liars. All right, I got I have Shannon's move.
Chris's is in.

Alright, the final duel in three, two, one. Hit him.
Faint. Perry.
Yeah!

It worked, Chris. You did it.
Wow. It changed nothing.

Well, it's top of mind. I'm equipping my shield just for future reference.

Okay. You both rush forward, lock weapons, and then Shannon pushes off from you.
She lowers her foil and shakes her head disapprovingly. Oh, Gunther, you have much to learn.

You have many tactical drawbacks and unpolished technique. Yet, I see promise, raw talent.
Come, everyone, inside. Shannon turns around and opens the door.

What about uh, what about the results of our betting? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, Private Parts begins uh walking around, trying to settle the score.
Uh, he walks up to you, Doug, and says, One gold.

Here you go, Doug. Thank you.

Private parts hands you the one gold, Doug. This is about to start my gambling addiction.

Don't spend it all in one place. I'll try.
If you want to be cured of your gambling addiction, come with me. We're gonna go talk to Daddy now.
Natty, I'm so sorry. I have failed you and myself.

Private parts walks over to Natty, references his paper, and says, Okay, 172 gold, Daddy. All right.
Here's all the money that a single mom has. Hands it over to Private Parts.

No, you're not allowed to do that.

You should have thought about your child before you. I hand it over to her.
My inventory says zero. My inventory says zero.
I ain't got no money. Thank you very much.

So, Private, what are you going to do with your new lumped sum of cash?

Hire a private investigator?

Yeah, I don't know. See, Private Parts won the lottery here.
We should have asked him the question during his arrow to figure that out.

If we asked every NPC the arrow questions, we'd never get through the arrows.

That's true. it's already long enough as is okay so i'm gonna re-describe this building because i think i described it last episode but i have not described it this beefy building

i don't get it he kept saying beefy over and over again describing uh shannon and it's funny the adjective in the module is thick with two c's which i said once last episode and i felt weird about repeating it a bunch so i went with i went with beefy Yeah, because when you say thick with two C's, you go thick.

Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, so it's a shack of a mishmash of metallic patchwork and hinges. It's an unusual architectural arrangement of slanted walls and roof.

There's a squeaky hanging sign that reads untamed flamed forge. We've heard that before, have we not? Oh, yeah, this is where I uh have a pickup order for Bjorn.

Yeah, it was in the note, and uh, yeah, you're supposed to come pick up the order from Shannon. You saw, hi, Shannon.

I am Gunther's friend, the guy that you just attacked, and I'm here to pick up an order by the name of Bjorn. Shannon turns around, invites everyone in, and you walk into an oval-shaped room.

It's humid, and the floor is like a pond of water, and there's floating furniture, like lily pad seating, log beds, water lily, and lotus kitchenware. Cute.

Yeah, and there appear to be two doors in this room: the front door to the west, which you walked in, and a back door to the east. And you ask about your delivery, Colt, was that correct? Yeah, yeah.

I have a note here. Here's my receipt.
Colt doesn't know how to receive. He doesn't know how to pronounce receipt.
It's a character thing. Sure.
Thank you.

I see.

You are here for the gavel of Gaelstrom, then. That's the one, yep.
A gavel. It's like a cool big hammer, I think.
Yeah.

And then as you were saying this, you know, you're looking around the room, Tolv, as Shannon is trying to retrieve your item, and a log comes floating by and hits you in the shin.

Ouchies, great place you have here. It hurts.
It really stinks. After a moment, Shannon pulls out a weapon and hands it over to you, Tolv.

the gavel of gaelstrom here very cool i found it do you want me to add it to my inventory and tell about it yeah why don't you tell us about it this heraldic war hammer is furiously forged from the anchor of the infamous ship the gaelstrom with a squally scream of rage you are briefly possessed by the sea drinker and gain plus one to attack rolls and damage rolls until the end of your rage it has something called storm storm strike i get one prolong rest with the strike of your war hammer i.e attack a blustery gale incites a howling rage into all the enemies and allies within a 10 feet radius.

All creatures within range must make a DC-14 charisma saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is knocked prone by the blustery gale and becomes enraged for up to one minute.

On a successful save, the creature is just knocked prone by the blustery regale. The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of its turn.

A creature automatically succeeds if it is immune to being charmed. And then there's another thing called blinded by rage.

Enraged creatures lose the ability to distinguish distinguish friend from foe, regarding all creatures it can see as enemies.

Additionally, a protective gale surrounding the creature, granting them resistance to bludging, piercing, and splashing damage. Ah, huh? Well, you know, hold it.
This weapon sounds pretty cool. Yeah.

It's almost to the point where I don't think you really need the infusion that I gave your axe anymore, right? I told you. I didn't remember what the hammer

infusion was. Axe, hammer, or tomato tomato.
You know what I mean?

What was that infusion? I don't recall. I think just gave you a plus one to your attack.
Yeah. Okay.

I mean, if you need that so that you can free that up for another infusion thing, then by all means. Yeah, because I was working on something over the last couple of days that I actually just wanted.

I want to give Natty.

Ooh. Kissing up to the team leader, huh? Yeah.
And also just because I like Natty. Natty already forgot she was team leader.

No, it's written at the top of my page. So I basically whittled this wooden ring out of some, you know, wood that I found over our journeys.
And

it actually has a special ability that I want to give to you. I love a good ring.
It's got a spell refueling ability. So while you wear it, you could recover one expended spell slot as an action.

I like that. So I know you like your spells.
And so this way, you know, if you use one and you can't use anymore and you really want another one, you got this ring. Very nice.
Well,

I'm going to add that to my glove and my inventory. Okay, upon further reading, it looks like I'm repeating myself, but I want to make sure it's clear.

The Stormstrike thing can affect my friends as well. So I can knock them prone and put them into a rage.
So I just need to make sure that you guys are clear when I do that.

This is an interesting one. It just makes it to where it benefits me to get into the middle of as many people as possible, strike it, and then hopefully they'll fight each other.

Just for clarity, it's strong strike. Strom strike, sorry.
Oh, good. I do it all the time.
Stromboli. Ooh, mamma mee.
Yeah, it sounds like something I might want to eat. Yeah.

New from Spaghetti Warehouse, it's Stromstrike. I was thinking of Fazolis.
No,

it's more Nordic, according to Micah. Strom.

Hello, everybody. John Reising here to talk to you about business.
I'm a business owner. I've started my own business in the last year.
Well, I started my own. I did it with six other people.

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Shannon takes a seat on one of the lily pad seats floating there in the living room and just stares at Euphor. What are you doing here? Why are you here?

Water?

I am here to make a living, to practice my trade. Why did you abandon our village? There is much to see in the world and much to show the world as well.
I felt it was my time to do so.

But you betray your family. You do not care about our family.
I could ask you the same thing, Gunther. Why are you here? I was going to say, did you also abandon your family?

It's like when you try to tattle on someone who's like,

I saw Blaine's eyes were open during prayer. It's like, your eyes had to be open during prayer, too.

That's funny. That's a good one.

Yes, I have abandoned my family, but hopefully, for the good of the village as a whole, though I may have abandoned, I have not abandoned the cause.

Okay.

Your abandonment is worse than my abandonment.

I seek to better the world and enlighten it through our practices. So, tomato tomato.
A second tomato tomato reference of the day.

Then tell me, what do you know?

of the six-toed swordsmen who stole everything from us. Oh, yes, I heard about this.
The wilder shield was stolen from Fly Flats. You seek vengeance on the six-toed heathen?

Yes, and to reclaim what is stolen. I see.
Well, Gunther, I don't think you're ready to take vengeance. You need more training.
I will connect you with those old friends of mine, experts in fighting.

They will help train you and prepare you for your vengeance and for recovering the Wilder Shield. Yes, I know I'm not ready, but do you know where to go once I am? Do you have any information?

When you are ready, you will be divinely guided to your vengeance. I have begun investigating and will let you know when I have found more information.

The thodes I send to help you will seek you out and find you. And if I have more information at the time, they will convey it.
I pray you are correct.

I'm just going to cut in here, relieve the tension, you hoots me toll of. Hey, so these thodes, are they from your like village as well? Did they leave?

Or are these like different thodes from a different place? These toads are from Swang Sands. Swang Sands is the neighboring region to fly flat.
Gunter, are you from Swang Sands?

I am not from Swang Sands. The toads I have not yet dealt with.
We do not interact. Oh, they're like a rival team or something like that? Not so much rival.
We just do not interact. Oh, but why not?

They seem friendly. They're gonna come and train you.
Maybe you could like make peace between your two tribes. Wouldn't that be fun? Huh?

there is no anger we just do not hang out you're just kind of neighbors that don't really talk or anything you also said it so menacingly yeah

it's like you are angry all the time his name is dave we see each other when we take trash out on tuesdays but we do not talk

We do not talk of the swang sand.

I think we can all relate to that neighbor that we don't. You don't hang out with them.
You just happen to live next to each other. You like nod when you see them, you know, walking down the street.

But it's like, I really don't even know that person's name. Are you happy with that, Chris? Is there more you want to discuss? You said you want to share with the world what have you learned?

What have you shared? Perhaps it is best if I show you. You going to fight me again?

Shannon does not reach for her foil, but instead, she does something with her hands you can't quite see, and the room begins transforming before your very eyes into a cone-shaped room.

With a forge crafted of obsidian iron in the center that begins spewing smoke out, that is an anvil strapped atop a stump and a small reservoir of water.

Mossy tools and weapons turn around and become visible mounted on the walls, and the room has four doors, one in each cardinal direction. This is what I share with the world, my craft.

Oh, I seek to restore ancient artifacts. Wait a minute.
I feel like we've had glimpses of ancient artifacts over the course of our journey. Yeah, we broke into a chest full of them.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

It's the corn of Copia.

I've got this shield that might be something.

Captain Grubbles has a shield that makes him curse.

Captain Grubbles, please.

Oh my gosh. I thought this was family friendly.
Not in front of my auntie.

So then you see essentially a forge and an anvil and various tools for smithing and casting in the room. Could I hold up something for my inventory and show it to her? Sure.

I have this pirate hook of pipe dreams. Do you know what this is? Best I can do is $30.

Not gonna lie, I might have just forgotten what it is.

What was it again? The pirate hook? Pirate hook of pipe dreams. I don't remember this item at all.
It's a snake-like pirate hook crafted from an unusual green threading. You know what it is, Shannon?

Shannon, do you remember what episode that Doug got this from?

This is a fine-quality item. The threading is for Tua Twine crafted from the skin of serpent wine.
It's high quality. Hey,

is this the antique Thode show?

That's pretty good. Give yourself an inspiration, Doug.
That's really good.

You can use this to hook into nearby creatures and gain a vision of their latest dream or aspiration. Whoa, that's cool.
Should I quickly take it and hook into Tolv's arm?

Uh, yeah, he will take a little bit of damage. Cool, I can send.
It's fine. All right, roll a D6, Doug.
Piercing your ear. Oh, my goodness.

Three. Okay, yeah.
Tolv, Doug runs at you and pierces you for three points of damage. Towy, pick a little test.
What's your latest dream or aspiration, Tolv?

Probably involved, like, Elva and, like, probably a memory. of Elva and I in the before times working on Ironclad's ship.

and uh and then now it's just like those bad memories and the bad things we did are kind of being like overtaken by like the good that you know our us meeting each other again is bringing.

I don't know. It's like a symbolic dream.
Yeah, it's it's weird because from your perspective Doug, you know, it's all first person.

It's like you are Tolv experiencing these things and you see Elva and you feel a warmness and a connection to her that normally Doug doesn't feel that towards Elva, but you're feeling like Tolv's feelings and sensations.

So it's really disconcerting and really kind of warming to experience. Don't worry, Tolv, we will find Elva soon enough.

But then you look down and all of your fingers are pool noodles and you don't know why.

Hot dogs. As you unhook the hook from Toll and, you know, kind of regain your bearings, Doug, Shannon looks at you and says, Your friend there could probably tell you more about this item.

And she points at Naddy. It was crafted by her kind in the last forest.
So Drow made this? Yes. Oh, okay.
Well, Naddy, I feel like you and I have to have a conversation after about this guy.

I love having a chat.

Should I give a little hook?

What are you doing? Doug walks over and just like slowly puts the hook. Naddy puts up the hand and just pushes the hook back.
He's like, Doug, you can use your words.

I'm an open book if you just want to talk to me, you weirdo.

I'm pretty sure it's like Naddy puts her her hand up and Doug keeps trying to put the hook higher to hook into the hand and Naddy's hand. Dom's weird.

Y'all do so much to avoid talking to each other and just sharing your feelings and thoughts. Okay, well apparently your kind made this hook here according to Shannon over here.
Go into his hand. Moms?

Shannon?

I assume we're talking about drows? Warlocks? I don't know. Yes, this was crafted by the drow of the last forest.
Know anything about that, Naddy?

I mean, it looks like something that might have been sold in our market.

We have like a big old market on the outside of our village, and that's where we sell all of our goods and stuff to anybody who passes by and any visitors.

But I don't know about that one specifically. It just looks like it would belong in that kind of environment, in that kind of place.
Looks like something someone would have at one of their booths.

I wanted to go thrifting at Natty's home. That sounds fun.
Oh, it's wonderful. You know, got like a lot of pirate stuff there? Pirate stuff? I mean, it's a hook.

I mean, pirates sometimes have hooks, but, you know, hooks are for other stuff, too. This one is called the pirate hook of pipe dreams.
Then I guess, yes.

You know, we got all kinds of stuff. We sell everything under the sun.
All right, well, good to know. Thank you very much, and I promise not to hook you.

Not even when you're asleep. Today.
Not even a little bit. Hug, use your words.
We can talk. I have a question for Shudden.
Hmm.

Okay, so you say that you've seen so many, like, mythical, you know, like things and forges and machines and whatnot. What do you know about Thaumatecs?

Thaumatecs are indeed ancient artifacts, probably crafted by the same group of people who crafted most ancient artifacts. Beyond that, I do not know specifically.

I have not seen many Thaumatecs cross my forge. What's like your vibe? Like, say, some Thaumatech robot man walked in through your door.
What would you do? Would you attack?

Would you greet them like they were your nephew? Or would you be like, ooh, look at you, you're fancy, you're cool. I have respect respect for ancient craft work and the ancient craftspeople.

I would treat such technology with reverence. Oh, cool.
Look at this. And I pull off my face.

Gator goes, ha!

It's scary every time. Yeah, my bad, my bad.
I should warn you guys next time. Oh, you're showing everyone now.
Yeah, I think Shannon would lean in a little bit.

Like, do I think it was like kind of, you know, like an ass, she would grab you by the chin and look you all over, like, look, you know, like, kind of like she's gonna kiss your cheeks, but she's not your ass.

She's not gonna actually kiss your cheeks. She's looking at them, looks close.
Oh, yes, the Zodia Mystics, no doubt. Oh, Zodia Mystics, cool.
That's super helpful.

Yeah, I mean, I don't really, you know, I'm still trying to find out about my origins, so like, if you could help me on that quest, that'd be so cool. But yeah, you know, I'm a Thomatec.

Oh, look at me. Feels so good to say it now.
I'm just gonna tell the world. I'm so proud of you.
You know, it's really brave to, you know, speak your truth, Tov. Yeah, I'm doing it.
Look at me.

Have you encountered any other artifacts crafted by the Zodia Mystic? I mean, if of authormatecs. Well, I mean, I have the spyglass of Zodia, if that counts.
Ya, yaw.

He sees that and says, Oh, indeed. That is also crafted by the Zodia Mystics.
Very fine quality. It is also known as the horoscope.
Oh, that's a clever name. I like that.
These are very powerful.

With the mittens of mushrooms and the stockings of spider silk, those are Tharmatech things as well. Sorry, we're just kind of making like show and tell.

Like showing the grown-up all the stuff stuff you found, all your cool things. Yes, very powerful artifacts indeed.
Auntie, this is your brother's blade. Do you have any skills in which to improve it?

For he was slain by that six-toed monster. She takes it from you and inspects it, you know, holds it, examines the balance, and says, Hmm, it looks like this has already been improved on.

If you find more fragments of materials, they can be added, but for now, it is as good as it can be. And she hands it back to you.
Thank you. Auntie, take this Pebbo.
It is from home.

Something to remember it by. She looks at it.
Make a perception check, Gunther.

Text. Okay, yeah, you hand it over to her, and it seems like for a moment her eyes soften a bit, and then once again, you know, kind of return to their state they were before.

And she says, This is very welcome, Gunther. Thank you.
Yes. And FYI, you all also can look around.
There are things in the forge if you want to explore further as well.

What was up with that log that bumped my shin earlier? Any significance to that? Oh, that was in the previous room configuration. Oh, okay.
So it's gone now.

So now you're in like a forge workshop type room. So basically, we're in a dryland toilet, and then that log got flushed, and then it's a different room.

I like how was it John there? Someone said we don't make toilet humor jokes, and yeah, yeah, we have a literal toilet joke. Sorry,

I think we do. I think he was being sarcastic.

No, I think a show that's called Stinky Dragon, whose logo has fart lines coming out of a dragon,

is all about the higher art. They know what they signed up for.
Yes. I want to see if there's any like Thaumatech stuff in there.
Just a quick browse. Yeah.
I guess where would you focus your search?

You can look either through the forge, the anvil, there's a reservoir, the tools, there's some weapons. Tell me where you would start, I guess.
Weapons. Okay.

You wander over towards the rack of weapons and begin looking. You see three weapons hanging up.

What appears to be a broad-headed axe, a pair of sticks with perpendicular handles attached a third of the way down, and a long and slim dagger with a tapering needle point.

None of the three appear to be Thomatec, but they do appear to be ancient weapons. A pair of sticks with perpendicular handles.
They're like

shears or like a, what is that? You look at those a little closer. Make me a perception check, we'll call it toll that is a

14.

yeah it's it's weird you've never seen something like this i guess it's a pair of sticks with perpendicular handles attached a third of the way down and as you begin inspecting them closer you see it's constantly perspiring with sweat shannon sees you admiring them and says yes the tampha of terrors when you hit your enemy with it they scream and are inflicted with fear for one minute i'm having the hardest time visualizing what you're describing oh it's like a like a nightstick that a cop would carry.

Yeah, very similar.

I was trying to figure out the orientation of something with perpendicular handles, but yeah, that tracks.

Yeah, like what you would see them spinning around. So, what are the significance of these weapons? Are they like for sale or are they for other clients?

These are weapons that have been found and I have reforged. This is my work I share with the world.
Do you have any weapons or equipment that could help us on our quest, Auntie? Please?

All weapons can help on a quest, silly boy. I guess specifically armor.
Well, perhaps we can come to an arrangement of some kind and I can trade my skill with these weapons with you.

But as for armor, I have nothing. Metagameworks, why do you need more armor? Your armor costs already 19 cards.

I'm not getting a new sword because it's like his father's sword, so.

Right. I mean, I'm good with weapons.
I just got this cool...

I don't even remember what it's called. Gavel of Gaelstrom.
Gavel of Gaelstrom. So.
Anybody else want to look around? Anything? Nanny's not interested in weapons. We'll look around.

I'll go with Doug to look around. Okay, we'll start with Doug and Gunther.
So, there's two of you. Where do you all want to investigate?

Once again, there's the forge, the anvil, the reservoir, there's tools, and there's weapons, which is where Told is at the moment. I know that Doug would probably want to look at the tools.

Yeah, tools sounds neat. I like Under.

Let's go look at the tools. Hooray! And he starts patting onto his shoulder.
Yeah, Gunther hops. Yeah, a bees.

Doug and Gunther, you walk over to where the tools are, and you see hammers, tongs, charcoal, rags, sweatstones. There's a piece of paper pinned to the wall, and just all kinds of stuff laid out.

What does the piece of paper say? You pick up, well, I guess you lean in and take a look at the piece of paper, and it's scrawled with the following: Anybody who reads this in seven days will die.

Oh, God, oh, God.

It says the end, and you begin floating in the air.

No, no, no, it's scrawled with Speckles

Soulless, Jaeger Yakez, and Mini Hammy11. Are these all members of our Discord?

Eh, maybe.

Wait.

Okay.

Things are getting weird in this world.

If you want to be on a future note, go over to stinkydragonpod.com and uh if you want to have your name on a pointless piece of paper pointless how dare you we got someone in our discord named speckles779 barb just looked him up right now.

I did.

What were the other names? If I'm being honest, these are probably names directly from Patreon, like Patreon usernames, and sometimes people's Discord names are a little different. Gotcha.

Well, shout out to our wonderful Patreon and Discord members, one in the same. Is there anything among these tools that, I don't know, sticks out as unique or special other than regular, you know.

Is there something specific, or are you just trying to look for something that's different?

Like,

what is your thought process in this? I mean, this is just like normal blacksmithing and, and you know weapon stuff, right? Or is there anything specific that's like oh, this is noteworthy.

Why don't you roll me an investigation check? He could investigate really good because he's up on my shoulder. Yeah

So he's further away from the tools, so he's at disadvantage Yeah, maybe I need to get lower to the ground. It's a fort.
All right, I dropped Gunther back down onto the ground.

Ouch

Yeah, you're getting old. It's all out of focus.
You need to increase the size on them to be able to see them better. At first glance, everything seems to be just mundane tools.

Nothing super special stands out.

Could I take a look? I mean, I am an artificer, so I feel like I would recognize if anything's out of the ordinary of like a tool kit or anything like that.

Why don't you make me an investigation check with advantage? I feel like there's a lot of stuff here that Doug might find relevant and interesting. Alright, 14.

You know, you're poking around through the various tools that are laid out, and there there is something that stands out.

There's a good-sized bag, like a medium-sized bag, that when you open it up, it's filled with marbles. Huh.

Well, I know when we had the duel outside, we said it was for all the marbles, but I didn't think it was actually mysterious.

It seems like they're made from semi-precious stones. Hey, Gunther, I have a gift for you.
It's catty. A gift for me.

You know how, like, you're always giving us, like, pebbles and stuff like that, and different types of rocks. Well, I found this, and I think you might like it.

And Doug hands him the the little sack of marbles. Oh, thank you.

I did not know that you owned it.

Find those people and all that stuff.

Shannon sees the exchange and says, Oh, yes. Those were perhaps created long ago to entertain some long-dead child of the aristocracy.
Oh, they'll entertain this kid over here, right, Kanto?

You ain't so fun to play with.

Auntie, can I play?

Yes, have fun. Just don't get dirty.
Don't go too far. Come back before the lights come on.
Okay, do you want them back after I'm done, or can I keep them? Those you can't keep. Oh, score.

What can I have? Me next, me next. It's Christmas.

But yeah, everything else seems to be pretty mundane here.

I think, I mean, have we searched every nook and cranny here? Or is there, you know, further reason for us to stick around and look around this person's shop? I want to do something.

What do you want to do, Natty? This is, Natty's going to take Giggy over and show Giggy the reservoir and just see what's going on with the reservoir.

You know, when you like take your pets around the house and you just show them stuff they've never seen before, it's like this is the inside of the microwave. You've never seen this.

I mean, don't put your pets inside the microwave, but yeah, I see what you're saying. I said show.

You didn't say put inside. You were the verbiage was very vague there, John.
I'm just saying. I don't think it was.

I said you show your pets places they've never seen. The inside of a microwave.
Nobody got that out of it except for Blaine.

Blaine's the only one who went there, which I'm concerned about that kitten on his desk now. Oh, no!

Yeah, you walk, oh, you take Giggy over to the reservoir and take a look at it, and it appears to be a natural reservoir of salt water positioned very close to the foraging anvil.

Hey, Shannon, do you is salt water better for foraging than like regular water? I'm curious. That is what is available here.
It's the natural brine of seawater. It's very useful one way or another.

Man, even your aunt don't answer questions straight up. Y'all are just...

It's pretty clear. It's what's available here.
I don't know what else you want to do. Listen to Natty.
She McDowell's pets.

I was just curious if it's better than regular. I assume you guys have access to regular water for like drinking and surviving.

I am being told by Micah that in real life, brine water is preferable and used for smithing. Cool.
Oh, that's neat. That's what I was.
I figured there was something to do with that.

Giggy, don't drink it. Giggy, stop drinking it.
Giggy, giggy, get your tummy out of there. No drinking.

Make a roll. Make a roll.

14. Giggy stops.
Oh, okay. It's like when your dog is drinking your pool water.
So we've got the weapons rack, the forge, the reservoir. There was one other place, right? Am I crazy? The anvil.

The anvil. I mean, we might as well take a look and finish things up.
I'll go over to the anvil. That's an anvil, yep.

Cool. You walk over and take a look, and you see blazing vines streak across the stump from the roots and the anvil is engraved with two symbols.

A flower of fire and a three-pronged fork tongue with flame above. Is it warm to the touch? Can I kind of see the sense without touching it if it's hot?

You try to sense it and it does not feel like it's especially hot at the moment. Can I lift it up? I want to see if I can lift this heavy, heavy anvil.
Oh, make a strength check. You've got it.

Remember that time we were at someone's house and Tolv got a hernia?

30-20. Let's go.
You know, you brace yourself, try to get under it, and lift it, and it lifts ever so slightly off the ground.

I mean, like, we're talking like maybe a centimeter, but then you have to quickly put it back down. Yep, that's heavy, all right.
You need no help?

No,

what are you guys doing? What are you stop stealing stuff? Stop moving this nice lady stuff around. Y'all never been to someone.
You're the one putting a child in the microwave.

What's a microwave? I don't know what that is. It is a small wave.
Listen, John, I like to lift heavy things.

When I was in college one time, I saw a smart car and I was like, I bet I could lift the front of that. And I just proceeded to tread it on the back.
Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. That's how Blaine developed a hernia.
Yeah. Okay.
Strong as an ox. I mean, I'm good in here.
As Tolf puts the anvil back down and rests it on the ground, a raven flies up to the window.

And hits it. Wham!

And begins cawing at you all. Private Parts walks over to it.
That's so raven.

Don't take away your inspiration.

Get a demotivation die.

Private Parts walks over to it and does something with it and turns around to you all and says, We have new orders. We're to return to Fort Edridge for debrief at our next mission.

Ooh, B team, you're being called to the front line.

Oh.

The front line? Where did that raven go? Didn't private parts microwave it?

It's a useful snack for the road. Well, I guess, as team leader, I will say that yes, we will head to back to our

base. Doug salutes Natty.
Goes, yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Aren't you worthy though?

Swang. Swang.
Swank, sands. Worry not, young Gunther.
They will find you. Are they going to, like, you know, spring some sort of a trap and greet us the same way you greeted Gunther?

You should be on your guard. Fantastic.
They have a very specific set of skills. Should we do maybe like another duel before we go? Or, you know,

let's bet on if we think we're going to make it all there in one piece.

Just a quick little bet.

Doug wants to swing by Vegas on the way home, on the way back to Fort Andrews. You know, even the airport has a couple swap meetings, you know.

Before we go,

I want to thank Shannon for the gavel of Gaelstrom. And I forgot.
Shannon, can you look at my shield? It's it's one last piece of interesting, you know, ancient technology or something.

Then I'm very confused. It's glowed the other day, and I'm wondering if you can make heads or tails of that.
So you hand over the shield for inspection? Yeah. Hmm, yes, I see.

This is connected to Thaumatech Technologies. Oh, so it makes sense that this is in your possession.
Anything beyond that? She examines it a little closer. It is Bluetooth compatible.

Oh,

she says, when in range of other Thama technology, it will let you know you are nearby. Oh, that's cool.
Okay, I had a theory about that because it glowed blue when we were near Elva.

That's very cool. All right, that's super helpful.
So, Bluetooth.

I just found something I remembered I had. This brass jeweler's loop is crafted by Dr.
Akutarius. Do you know of it? She uh looks at the loop and says, Perhaps you are touched, young one.

It does not say that. What? Oh, it disappeared.
This is just a jeweler's loop. Oh, remember, we are crazy, we keep seeing things that other people don't see, and then it disappears.

Remember the ship that was swimming bar to bar to bard? Yes, yes, yes.

Really good diddy, I gotta say. It's not bad.
I bet you could find it on spot to find other music streaming platforms.

I quickly shazammed the music. Let Michael Rise into a quite talented musician.
I didn't know you could cast spells to that.

Yeah, special barbarian skills. Well, I guess she doesn't know about it, but that'll be something maybe we could dig into, Guntho.
Auntie, I hope you are good. Leave us go.

Yes, I am well, and I will continue to do my work and share my skills with the world. Right, well, bye, I'm Shannon.
Good to see you.

Alright, so I guess you all turn around to leave, and then, you know, as you're preparing to depart, she does say one more thing to you, Gunther.

She says, I will send a raven with any new updates about the Wilder Shield. Thank you.
and I shall send raven just to catch up

that would be welcome I'll send raven with flat stanley it's for my book project

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All right, so y'all, I assume y'all walk outside. Yeah, sure.
So judging by the position of the faint starlight seen in the day sky, it appears to be noon.

You know, the red sun always stares down on Midras, unmoving. You know, Fort Endridge is about 12 miles away.
Metagame-wise, that's two hexes away, about two watches.

So, team leader, Natty, you choose where to travel next to go back to Fort Endridge. You can either pass through Sola Sod or Urbahai Road, and I will read brief descriptions of both of those to you.

You know that in Sola Sod. Oh, oh, oh man, this kind of plays into something we've been talking about already.

You know, in Sola Sod, you can win or lose some serious money on those Vermistang races. It's a great place to catch some Z's.
And your other option is UrbaHigh Road.

It's a highway that's overcrowded with your classic three T's. Travelers, traders, and tourists.
Oh, and there's actual tea as well.

Well,

Doug, where do you want to go?

Well, you know, we could put it to a vote, which we may or may not have already done. Or our team leader, Natty, could pick where we want to go.

I was asking you in particular, wondering if anything about those descriptions was of interest to you.

I've taken some internal thinking and realized that it's not healthy to want to, you know, gamble too much. So maybe it's a good test if we go to Sala Sag.

You have to expose yourself to see if

the demon is out of you. Yeah, just in the last few minutes, I read a book on exposure with LP.
Okay. And And counting cards.

You know, it's the Vermistang races, and I got a feeling for some reason that Toll's kind of a horse girl as well. So let's head to Sola Sod.
Yee-ho!

All right.

I'm just assuming that if

it's the kind of place I'm thinking it is, we're going to see a lot of big, beautiful hats. Oh, like the Adobe.

You all set out, and like I said, Fort Enderidge is about two watches away. And just a quick recap of the way traveling works.
Days are divided into six four-hour watches.

Three for day, three for night. So it'll take you about two watches to make the entire trip.

As you begin setting out from Shannon's on your way back to Andrews Bay through Sola Sod, thick storm clouds begin moving in.

You hear the distant rumble of thunder become slowly louder and louder until a thunderstorm is right on top of you. And it begins slowly raining and then it proceeds into a pretty heavy downpour.

And I'm gonna,

put a pause there to plug something. We're using a, what Micah calls a meat grinder table here for a lot of things that you all run into and things that happen in the world.

It's a mechanic from another role-playing game that he's adapted for us here. And I think we'll talk a bit about that in the second one for this episode.

Because I think it's a really interesting mechanic that I think you all, as players, have not been aware of, but it affects a lot of the environment and people that you run into and things that are happening to you.

So it's called a meat grinder? Yeah, so for example, it's now raining, this thunderstorm that you all are traveling through.

It's because of the meat grinder table, which we'll get into on Second Wind, which is a bonus supplementary podcast available for our patrons at all levels who sign up at sinkydragonpod.com.

Good stuff. Yeah, little peek as to how the how the meat is ground.

Okay, so yeah, it's pretty miserable. What's you all's marching order here? I'm in front.
Behind me is Gunther. Behind Gunther is Doug.

And because I can see that there's a storm coming, and I'm assuming there's lightning, I'm asking Toll to like walk at least like 10 feet behind us because I think he might be conductive.

Dani, is this far enough? Yes, that's good. Why am I back here so far away from you? You're scouting the rear.
Oh, okay.

I don't see anything that's a lot of lightning.

Yeah, put your arm up in the sky. Okay.

Now what?

That's a technique we we use in order to keep the rear of our party uh safe.

Isn't Toll some type of lightning guy? Like, isn't your barbarian style like a lightning thing?

Yeah, I mean, I have the Gavilo Gaelstrom, and I also have an ability. No, what's your sub, like, subclass barbarian? It's like a storm herald or something, I think.
There you go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Storm aura.
Gus, can I control the weather? Can I try to control the weather? Yeah. I think I should try to control the weather.

What should Blaine roll to see if he makes us kind of control the the weather, Gus? John, obviously it's a persuasion check. That's what it is.

Hey, clouds. That's what Aurora Monroe from the X-Men does all the time.
All right. Before I do that, I say, oh, mighty storm, it is me, your

leader and god, Tov, and I command you to abide by my commands.

I'm working on it.

Well, what is your command? Give me a sign that I have control over you.

15 on persuasion. A bolt of lightning streaks down from the sky and strikes very near to you between you and the party.
Oh!

Look, Naddy, did you see this?

I heard it. Yeah, guys, it's really loud.
I have a ringing in my ears, but I think I am controlling the weather.

That's nice, Tove. Alright, watch this.
I'm going to do another one. And then I point at a tree that's next to Naddy.
Okay. You point at the tree and nothing seems to happen.

It's just the rain continues to fall. Oh, look, I'm working on it.
Rain on the tree.

I'm the Lord of storms.

Doug, I don't know what is going on. When's the last time you ate? You are starving.
Uh-oh. You could really go for some food.

You're right. And I don't know why, but Naddy kind of looks like a giant hot dog all of a sudden.

And Gunto, he kind of looks like a little gummy bill. Me next.
Tove just looks like a. It looks like Tov.

No.

Tov looks like one of those rollers that the hot dogs sit on at 7-Eleven. You can't not picture the Thaumatech now, so it's like, you know, I know you're a robot.
I can't eat a robot.

Maybe I'm like a horn. I'm going to get a skin off of him.

Yeah, he's just crackling.

Should we maybe find some food or something? Did you not pack any rations?

I might have already eaten those.

You know how that thing is where it's like, you've got plenty of food in your fridge and plenty of food in your pantry, but it's like, you don't want any of that?

You want something, but you're not sure what. And it's just not satisfying.
All right. Well, should we look for some grub? Yeah.

Gunther has the wanderer feature, which means I can find food and fresh water for myself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.

I don't know if this land will have that stuff. Well, I think water's not a problem at the moment.
Thank you, Tove.

Yeah, do you have to roll anything for that or you just find it automatically? Yeah, it's just like a feature. Okay.
What kind of things do you assume you go out and try to find things?

What kind of things do you want to try to find? What kind of things do you offer to Doug? I want to find berries. I want to find maybe a baby

mongoose. A baby mongoose? No, just a mongoose.
Berries and mongoose and roots and make a mongoose stew. I don't know, it sounds delicious to me, I'm not gonna lie.

You return with a little bit of this and that, some various edible plants and berries and small game, and offer it up to Doug.

Ooh, it sounds like you said that it all sounds good to him, who begins like scarfing it down. In one bite, by the way.
Just because Doug has such a big mouth, but

yeah, it's like a lot of food for Gunther. He's holding it, but then Doug picks it up and it's like a tiny little morsel.

Colv is doing that thing that you do when you're at a stoplight, and then you go, now, green, now, but he's doing it with the lightning, and he's pointing at various places going, now.

Is it working? I mean,

I am resistant to lightning damage, so no, it doesn't matter. I'm totally fine.
You keep doing it, and it's not quite lining up.

Every now and then, it's just before you point or just after you point, but it's not quite right on the moment. I like the dance that you're doing there, Tov.
Yeah. It's fun.

It's called the electric boogaloo.

You know, as you are progressing,

after several hours, you tell me, how are you approaching this? Are you going to continue all the way to Sola Sod in one go, or do you want to stop and take a break along the way?

I guess you stop for a little while to forage and get some food for Doug, but what are your plans here, Natty? How are you going to approach this?

Well, you said it only took two watches, which is about a third of a day, so we could get it there in a day.

Yeah, I mean, it was about midday when you departed Shannon, so you get there by the evening if you push on. Yeah, if we don't stop too many times for potty.
Okay.

After a while, the thunderstorms die down and the weather becomes more what you're accustomed to here. And the ground begins turning into thick grains of sand.

And on the horizon, you start to see what appears to be a cactus-shaped boulder. What? That slowly begins to get bigger and bigger as you approach it.

And as you're walking towards it, you realize that this is a cactus-shaped boulder that's about the size of a castle. Oh, wow.
And it appears to be made out of stained glass.

Do you know this to be the cragtus? Cragtus? There's a bunch of children all climbing to the top of it, competing while cameras film them.

There is not, however, you do see an aqueduct running from the direction of Andridge Bay towards the cragtus, towards what appears to be maybe an underground cavern.

And there's a racetrack that surrounds cragtus.

So cragtus is a structure made of stained glass. Is it like a art structure, like a statue, or is it a building? It's the size of a castle.
Yeah, does it have an entrance, windows, dressings?

It is all a window. Yeah, it appears to be.

You might have to get closer to take a look, but from a distance, it appears to be huge and appears to be maybe made of some kind of stained glass.

You could maybe try to find locals to talk to or get closer to investigate it more. But we are, we're at this crack task, but it's like, is it, is it close? Are we like next to Sola Sad?

This is like in Solicad. This is Solestad.
Sola Sod. Sola Sad.

Okay. Happens in Sola Sod, stays in Sola Sod.

Netty would look for a local and want to ask about this interesting structure. Yeah, you look around and you see a booth with a sign that reads, place bets here, no magic.

And next to it is a wooden corral of worn-looking horses. Okay, I'll go to that counter.
You walk over to it and you see the booth with someone standing behind the booth duct taped together.

It appears to be an older plump human with bristly gray hair and he's wearing green fur-lined hoopland hoop land hoopland tell me what that is it's a loose voluminous outer garment popular in europe during the late middle ages like uh one of those like kind of poofy tunics you see like at rent hairs okay howdy sir my name is natty i am a traveler and i am quite curious about your wonderful city especially this little stained glass uh thing you got up here what's going on with that thing oh yes the craggis it is a very popular popular local landmark.

You can ride a lift up to the top if you like. Oh,

it's like an attraction. I didn't catch your name.
What's your name? I'm Iris. He sticks out a hand to shake yours.
And you are. Like I said, I'm Natty.
Natty Wonder. And Natty shakes it a lot.

Natty Wonder.

A pleasure to meet you. Not a single person will get this reference, but...
Hey, Iris, do you happen to know someone named Pepe?

Is this an Accatar thing? I don't get it. Love Island.
Oh, okay.

Wow.

I'm sure tons of people who are listening will get it. Super, I feel like that's everywhere right now.
It's so popular. Well, Iris, it is a delight to meet you.

Is this your like your business establishment, this booth? Are you like taking bets for the Vermustang races? Oh, yes, yes. Vermustang races go on here every day.

You're welcome to place a bet on any of the Vermustang over here. And he points in the direction of the corral where the Vermustangs are.
What does a Vermustang look like, Gustavo?

Is it like a rat the size of a horse? They're kind of like worm horses. It's like they're kind of in a horse shape with no hooves and worm skin.
And they've got colored mane of hair. Wait, what?

Wait, take that back. So move over, Orox.

So wait. It is the shape of a horse, no hooves, skin of a worm.
Yeah, it's a worm horse

okay and they have a colored mane of hair so look like little worm legs yeah i like to imagine that this is a drawing someone did in pictionary where they were trying to draw a horse but they forgot what a horse looked like

this is me drawing a horse in uh in some jackbox game okay we have we have this is just for our patrons we have a stinky art section in the discord i need people based off of just that description i don't want you googling nothing if this is a real thing from D ⁇ D.

I just want you to draw what a Vermistang is and let's we'll get a we'll get a consensus on it. Just for your reference, it is a made-up thing.
Okay, there you go. I figure.

Well, Iris, that is quite a unique creature you have there. Do those things, are those things that race? Do jockeys get on them? Oh, yes.
In fact, one of my nephews is one of the jockeys. Sheldon.

Sheldon, the Vermistang jockey? Yes, Sheldon is writing whoever hires him to write at the time. And you said this

aggro crag here, I don't remember what it was called, Cragtis. Cragtus? It's very popular, surely.
You know about the Cragtas.

Everyone comes to Sola Sod for the races and for the Cragtas. Well, I've never witnessed either of those things.
And so I think me and my party would love to experience both.

Does the Cragtas require any sort of admission? It costs one gold to ride the lift to the top. Oh, sorry, Nadi.
Can't make it in.

I think, actually, I think Gigi ate a gold piece at one point. So

you can wait eight to twelve hours for your gold piece. Well, do you guys want to go up to the top of the craftus? Can you afford to go to the top of the crackus?

You need to get off my butt about affording this thing. I'm sure one of my nicer party members might loan me a gold piece.
You know, I'm going to do it. I'm going to pay your way in.

I just need this lesson you need to learn about betting. I can get us all more gold.
Just give me a few minutes of heal.

I think you're talking about the virtues of betting to the wrong party member there, Tov.

Well, if you want to get to the top of the cractus, the lift is in that direction. And he points over closer towards the crackus.
And we can get a ticket over there?

Yes, there's a cactus right over there with a coin slot that you will pay to activate the lift. Well, isn't that cute? Because

we're in a desert, and you guys all got this cactus-like little thing going here. I love that.
And this is where we place the bets. Is that correct?

Oh, yes, this is where you bet on the Vermustangs right here with good old Iris.

Which of the Vermustangs do you think is hot today?

You can take a look for yourself. And he points over toward the corral.
Let me take a good look at these guys. Who we got? What are the names?

How many of our patrons did we use to name these worm horses?

They're like, oh man, I could be the next Smarsh. I could be the next Lynn Merr.
And then they're a worm horse.

That's going to get turned into worm glue after the race. Doug, you walk over there? Yeah.
Yeah, Kago too. Yeah, Doug and Gunther, the new, the pair for this episode.
Queen Team. Yes.

Yeah, we both strike a pose, but Gunther's on top of Doug's shoulder. Team Doug.
You walk over to the corral, and there are four mounts there. Each is in a stall with a name plaque.

And the four names read El Angel, Pop in Fresh, Terry, and Wester.

Which one you getting a good vibe from? Read that to me one more time. El Angel, like El Angel, Pop in Fresh, Terry, and Wester.

I know who I'm going to put my money down on. Yeah, Terry.
Yeah, $5 on Terry.

Terry's going to take it. Something about Pop in Fresh was speaking to me personally.
Gotta go with your gut.

If you want, you can make an animal handling check to see if you can get any more information about these beasts and their

behavior or anything about them. Yeah, I'll

do that as well. Yeah.

All right. That's a

one.

16. Which one of these horses bites Tov in the hand? Clear, Terry.
14.

Alright, so we got a 16 for Gunther, a 14 for Doug, and a one for Tov. Seemingly,

Toll walks up to Terry, and out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning streaks down from the sky.

Striking Terry, killing Terry, and Terry falls to the ground dead. No, no, no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding. We'll go with Gunther first, because he rolled a 16.

Which one did you walk up to, Gunther? It's an ankle. Hmm, yeah.
This Vermistang has a golden mane.

These things have hair? Yeah.

Okay.

What do you want to know about this Vermistang? You want to know something about its behavior or like an asset of its? Pick one. Yeah.
Does it seem like healthy? You're going to say happy. Yeah.

You try to ascertain whether it's healthy or not. And it seems to be in good health.
However, it looks like it is hungry. It's wandering around looking for anything to eat.

And it's like sniffing all over the sand and all around the stall, just looking, trying to find stuff to eat. I know what they eat.
Dirt. Steroids.
From stain growth hormone.

Make a nature check.

Two. Great.
You've never seen a creature like this. You're not really entirely sure, but you think probably just about anything.
It seems to be really foraging for whatever it can find.

And I'm good at finding food, as we have previously established.

It's true. Part of your nature.
You're going to help look for food for it. Berries, whatever.
Yeah, do you have anything you want to give to it, or are you trying to find something?

I guess I have rations and stuff, but I was thinking thinking looking helping it find what it was looking for.

Helping it forage for its you know so it's it's getting what it needs not just what I give it. Make a survival check.
19.

You uh poke around and you find some discarded like half-eaten pieces of fruit and as you handle them the Fermastang becomes very interested and begins like staring at you intently. Here you go

on here.

Make a dexterity saving throw. 13.
Okay, yeah, it like very quickly snatches the fruit out of your hand.

You feel like it almost bit your hand when it was taking the fruit out of your hand, but you're able to pull it back out of the way in time. Oh, this one is feisty.

Then next, I think we had Doug with a 14. That's great.
Which one do you want to look at? Pop and Fresh, please. Poppin' Fresh, are you more interested in like its behavior or like its assets?

Behavior. You walk up to Poppin' Fresh and its mane is a grape color.

And you know, as you walk up, it seems to not really totally acknowledge you. It seems to be kind of just like looking off into the distance and looking around.

It's somewhat aloof and disinterested in you and anything else that's in front of it. I see you're really focused on the race at hand, are you, Poppin' Fresh? Yeah, not focused on any distractions.

I like that. I like that about you.

Yeah, it's a very majestic looking creature. Is it? Is it?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are there any details of like the past records of these races? Perhaps you could talk to Iris about that. Yo, Iris, are you even close enough to hear me yell your name?

Yeah, I think we're right next to the booth. Yeah, Iris is a little off by the booth.
You all are at the corral right now. You probably have to walk back over to talk to him.

Okay, could I walk back over and inquire to see any sort of like race records? Yeah, let me deal with Tov real fast and I'll jump back to you here. Tollv, which Vermustang were you interested in?

Terry! Come here, Terry. It's me, Tollv.
Hello.

And you rolled a one on your animal handling. I mean, some may say that that is a critical fail, but you know,

that's a poor interpretation. This vermustang has a ruby-colored mane.
Ooh.

And it sees you calling, and it smiles at you. How cute.
Oh.

Revealing a mouthful of razor teeth. Of course these things.

Razor teeth. Jeez.
What a big, beautiful smile you have, Terry.

Wow.

Do you want some pets? Do you want some scritches behind the ear? Terry's just smiling with razor teeth exposed, looking looking straight at you. I think I'm going to go in for a scratch.

Come here, Terry.

Come to Papa.

Make another animal handling check. All right.

It's another one.

Yikes, dude. What happens, guys? I listen.
I have an inspiration diagram, but I like this. Terry seems unmoving and very stiff as you give him scritches.

Like normally, you know, an animal leans into it. Not Terry.
Terry's just like stiff as a board as you're scritching it, seemingly unnerved by the metal humanoid. It probably knows.

Who's a good Terry? Who's gonna win the race? Is it you?

Oh, there's the spirit. All right, let's come back over to Doug approaching Iris.
You walk back over to the bedding with Doug, and Iris is there, kind of standing around, and he sees you walking up.

Hello, Iris. I was wondering if you had any sort of records on past Vermustang races, especially these four guys that you got over there.
Oh, yes, and what are you interested in, specifically?

Like, who won the last race and that kind of stuff? Yeah.

Let me see. Let me

see.

You go into the booth, opens up a notepad, looks at this. Oh, why, it looks like El Angel won the previous race.
Okay, what about the one before that? The one before that, let's take a look here.

Uh, the winner of that one was Terry. Oh, okay.

And what about the one before that?

Um, the one before that, we have uh oh, uh, Terry again. Oh, Terry was on a hot spot.
Oh.

And just one more, one more question. What about the one before that? The one before that? Oh, uh,

Poppin' Fresh.

Okay. And maybe just one more.
What about the one before? Oh my god, what is this?

Let's see. Before that was Wester.

Okay.

Sounds to me like Poppin' Fresh is due for a win. So it's El Unhoe, Terry, Terry,

Poppin' Poppit Fresh, and Westor. Yes, that's right.
Well, feel pretty good about that. And one more question.

Yeah,

I thought we were going to keep going.

Just one more thing here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And was there one guy in particular that came in second place most of those races? Yes, let me take a look.

I just had a lot of time. How long of a history of these wins have you guys prepared before

this recording? I'm ready to answer all questions.

Second place was Terry, El Anhell, Poppin' Fresh, Wester, and El Anhel. I'm very curious if Barbara's actually using some sort of system here.
Yeah. I've never been to the races.
We're off to them.

You know, I thought there'd be some methodology, but there's something in this.

There's something in this pattern that is not adding up. Uh-oh.
The math's not mathing? You know, if El Hanhel. I just call him L.
I'm not very good at pronouncing that name.

Little Angel. El came in first, Terry came in second.
The next one, Terry came in first, L came in second. Third one, Terry came in first, Poppinfresh came in second.

Next, Poppin' Fresh won, Westo came in second. So, you know, like, it's kind of going, they're kind of cycling in a way.
Okay. Well,

Barb is genuinely trying to figure this out. I think I'm willing to put my money on Terry.
Okay. Okay.
What? Terry's my main man.

Oh, yeah, yeah, Iris perks up at this. Oh, yes, are we placing some bets now? You can bet as much gold as you want on one mount, so you can pick one mount if you want, Doug.

My gut instincts wanted poppin' fresh, but my analytical brain thinks Terry. Go with poppin' fresh.
Make it interesting. Okay, I'll put five on poppin' fresh.
Oh,

five gold on poppin' fresh? And are you going to be riding today, Doug? We can write one way. I'm sorry, I did did not realize that was a factor.
Oh,

is this your first time here? I'm sorry. I thought you'd bet on the races before, foolish me.

Yeah, if you want, you can choose to ride, and half the winnings go to you, and half go to whoever places the bet.

Okay, this got interesting. Tolf has arrived by this point.

Can I instead ride Terry?

Yes, you must ride whoever you place your bet on. All four of you, make a perception check right now.
I bet I would make a good jockey as I am little.

Six.

You are a little 16. Five.
Thirteen.

Okay, I'm going to use that in a second. I just want you to get it out of the way right now.
So will you be betting on Poppin' Fresh or Terry? So you're going to ride Poppin' Fresh? Yeah, why not?

Okay.

He could carry a lot of weight, right?

Oh, yes, yes, yes. No, you'll be fine.
Jockey's sorry, Yeah, not known for being bug bears.

What's the age requirement for riders? If you can sit, you can ride. Okay, I'd like my little angel, Gigi.
Actually, do I have to bet to ride or can I just ride? Because I ain't got no money.

I'll give you five gold. Okay, you can have whatever I win, okay? Okay, thank you.

You went popping fresh. You want Terry Gunther was a little bit of a

Western? Okay, Gigi can ride Wester and bet on Western. Five gold on Western and my perfect little son.
All right, make that Giggy roll. Oh, come on, Giggy.
That's a 13.

That boy's getting on the horse. The worm thingy of nightmares.

I like to think he's doing that thing where he's like reaching up and like making like grabbing motions with his hands like he wants uppies. Yeah.

All right, so that's five gold on Wester and Gigi's riding. Yeah.
All right. Anyone else? I shall do 50 gold upon Anhill, for he is an angel that shall fly.

Ooh.

Okay, 50 gold. And you're riding? Yes, I trust Anheld, and I believe Anheld trusts me now.
That wasn't an answer to Gus's question. Yes, okay.

Okay, what about you, Tove? Tove and Terry, double T,

10 down on Terry, and yes, I will be riding. Ooh, everyone's riding.
Well, Giggy's riding for Natty, but everyone's riding. Everyone's betting.
Good.

All right, let's get everything set up and get these races underway. Natty does change Natty's attire through her morphing abilities into a very fancy racing-like dress and a big old white hat.

Oh, nice, very appropriate. All right, you all lead your Vermistangs out to the starting line.
There's little stalls with the gate in front of it, and Iris is watching it from the side.

And with a flurry of magical explosions, go off on your mark,

get set,

the gates open, and from the top of the crackdown, all of of you hear a loud, blood-curdling scream.

We'll find out what Natty sees in the next episode of Tales from the Stinky Dragon. We've got a lot to start the next episode with.
We got a race, we got a potentially a murder up on top of crackers.

True. It's going to be packed.

But before then, of course, you can also listen to second one where we'll be talking about the meat grinder table and about some of the stuff from this episode and other things we got going on.

And again, you can check that out at stinkydragonpod.com.

Hey, this is Micah, the writer, editor, and composer of the show.

Just want to let you know that there is a recent episode of Stinky Pop Quiz hosted by my brother, John, who has a special guest, Laura Rothamel, to talk about movies.

Laurel is the voice of Kyborg's mom, Kristalena, Chip's wife, Carol, and they talk about why Laurel's mom wouldn't let her see Chicago, her opinion on the hyenas from the Lion King, and which Amnite Shyamalan movie is so bad it's good, actually.

Another episode is dropping this week with special guest Jacob Fullerton, the voice of a headless horseman and other lovely characters.

It's exclusively available for little stinkers and above at stinkydragonpod.com.

New episodes of Tales from the Stinky Dragon premiere every other Wednesday wherever you stream podcasts and on the Stinky Dragon YouTube channel.

Want to listen to the show 48 hours early and ad-free? You can support us by becoming a patron at stinkydragonpod.com or join us as a member on beacon.tv.

Both give you early ad-free access and a member-only Discord for each platform. Looking for even more sneaky content and community perks?

Our Patreon offers exclusive bonus shows, behind-the-scenes content, access to the sneaky dragon Discord, members-only live streams, sneaky community events, and a shout-out on the show, just like Kyla Solstice, Wes, Lil Fluff1314, Jonathan Healy, Moran Komedina.

These patrons directly support the show, get ad-free episodes, access to our patron-only Discord server, bonus content like Sicket Wind and Behind the Screen, and other sticky perks.

In fact, here's a sneak peek from the latest episode of Behind the Screen.

In order to keep things loose and you try to keep things as pivotable as possible, which is I think this is an interesting conversation to have because the way the modules are written out, it's like you're ready.

You're not ready for everything the players might do, but you're ready for a lot of things the players might do.

But at the end of each module, and this is a real peek behind the screen here, Chris might not even know this, like the specific end of each session isn't written.

You have a list of cliffhangers and stingers that are possible. Like it's like generic cliffhangers and stingers.
And it's like, can any of these be applied to the specific session we're in?

You've got 10 different options for different styles of cliffhangers.

And depending on how things have played out in the session, you know, as we're going, as we're nearing, you know, whenever we're going to stop recording recording time, you and I will typically have a conversation: like, oh, which of these can we do?

And how can we use one of these to create a cliffhanger that'll keep, in our case, keep the audience engaged and make them want to come back and find out the answer to what's happening.

Once again, that's stinkydragonpod.com. We're incredibly grateful for your support, which makes this show possible.

Some of our friends voiced NBCs in this episode, and listeners who interacted with us on the Stinky Dragon Discord had NPCs named after them.

Private, Private Parts, voiced by Ben Erst at Halcyon underscore Ben. Shannon, named after Shannon Logan, voiced by Ashley Burns, at Ashley Burns, from Morning Somewhere and Rooster Teeth.

Iris, named after Little Sector, voiced by Eric Badour, at Eric Badour, from Regulation Podcast and 100% Eat. Elan Hel, named after Angel Kite.
Pop and Fresh, named after Pop and Fresh.

Terry, named after Kaja. Wester, named after Andreas Westerman.
This week's Arrow Question was submitted by Lorena Hampel, Win Win, Fred Jordan, and Lu Scoos.

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

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

I'm Chris Maris. I play Gunther the Fighter.

Quiet Booger.

He sees a squirrel. He's very excited about your character.

He's got a backup guy. He's Gunther the Fighter.
Woof, woof.

Booger the hype man. Yeah.

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