S1:E68 – Bird Brain 2: Too Bird, Few Brain

Fear of the Mind podcasts are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Content warnings can be found in the podcast. Description. Welcome to Theater of the Mind presents retribution, episode number 68. My name is Mike. I'm your dungeon master. And tonight's question from the Ultimate RPG Campfire card deck. My famous motto is, what secret do you have that you've considered too embarrassing to share until now? Does it still embarrass you?

My name is Amanda, and I'm playing Mel Kelly. Mel is conflicted because she could go really deep and heartfelt, or she can go really silly and fun.

Working less does.

Why not do both?

Yeah.

Okay, so the really dark one, the secret that Mel's was too embarrassed to share of anyone is that she's never had any real friends, and it breaks her heart every day. The happy, silly, fun. Before now. Before now, motherfucker. Before now. The happy, really silly, fun one is that at an embarrassingly old age of, like, 17, Mel tried to cut her own bangs. Oh, God, it was so bad. There were pictures because, you know, selfies. They were deleted of everything off the cloud. She hacked into other people's clouds to delete these photos. It was bad. Like, we're talking Elizabeth Taylor and Cleopatra bad. Like, bad.

Like, would have been cool if you were goth.

No, no. Couldn't even make that work because not only were they super, super short because, you know, like, it's just a little off.

I'll level it off.

And then before you know it. So they were super, super short and crooked. Oh, so wearing headbands, bandanas, hats. It all went in vogue for about four months, but no one will ever know. And she's erased every piece of evidence from the history of the world.

If we ever find that out.

I'm Jeremy. I'm playing Elliot Randy Bain, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna share my secrets. They're not a secret if I share them. So I. Nope. I've never been embarrassed in my life.

That's on brand.

All right,

What does Elliot's diary say?

I haven't unlocked it yet, so I don't know.

Still working on it.

He's got a real lock on his.

Elliot's diary is so well locked, he didn't even write it down.

That was that.

Jeremy just screamed right through that one. God damn it. I was thinking of.

Vamp.

All right, I am Brunel. I'm playing All Knock Baga Johnson. I might need to get something to drink again.

Let's see.

So Old Knock has kept a secret. It's not one that matters to anybody. But you fuckers. I ain't never gonna tell you. Right, but. Because like, when are you gonna ask me about my naval service? This is when it happened. All right? We were on the flight deck during a carrier thing, right? We were checking on the. You had to wait there for the helicopters to do everything you gotta do. We had a bad, bad night of mid rats on the carrier. It was very, let's say, explosive diarrhea inducing. You cannot leave the flight line until all of your aircraft have left. He didn't make it. Didn't make it. He soiled himself standing on the flight line.

Yeah. I can guarantee you we will never ask you about that.

Blame that weird smell on jet fuel which nobody bought, but it doesn't matter. Got down, finally stewed in it for probably a good hour. It's not great. Not good. It was awful. Then got down to the lower deck to get to the bathroom and you know wy got back with his legs deep six his underwear and then hide it with the camo pants that go over the top.

Yuck.

And that's why we keep secret secrets,

Elliot, you are correct. Unfortunately, true story.

Going to say that sounds a little too detailed.

Yeah, like that's not something you just made up.

That one happened.

Sorry, bud. That's awful.

Well, at least that's only going to be broadcast to it. Couple thousand people.

I don't care. I wasn't ashamed about it. Then I told everybody I did it on the boat. I don't give a.

Well, you did.

Like, hey, why'd you run to the bathroom? You guys couldn't figure that one out.

Did you not follow would let me leave?

I mean, I could have dropped trout right there.

See, I figured the story was gonna end with like, yeah, you dropped trout.

Spray the flight deck.

Yeah, it's like you turn the flight deck.

You could have let me go to the bathroom, but you won't. So here we go.

I can't leave, so I gotta mark my territory and move on.

You turn the flight deck into the poop deck?

Yes.

Damn it, Charlie.

Yeah.

Shut up. Yep. I know. There was another one.

Always gotta have the last word.

Okay.

Hi, I'm Downs and I played James o'. Brien. And James biggest secret is he's not really good at stealing things in heists and stuff, but he's never gonna fucking tell anybody.

Yeah, we know.

Yeah, we've kind of figured that one out. It's about as good as your planning skills when you're trying to run away. From zombies.

Yep.

But he ain't gonna say it out.

Someday we might let you live that down, maybe.

Yeah. But over my dead goddamn body will I do that.

And the rest of us will be quite gray.

Yeah.

30 minutes before I pass jokes on, y'.

All.

I'm an elf now. I'm gonna outlive all you people.

True.

That's true. I'm Casey. I play Emery Lee. And Emery has. She is an artist. And she was an artist in the age of the Internet. She has a. Oh, God. What was that website?

Imder?

Nope.

Oh.

Oh. Flickr.

Nope.

Oh, I had a flicker.

It's a. It starts with a D and I can't remember the name of it.

Discord?

Nope. Anyway, she. There is some very embarrassing. Deviantart.

Thank you.

You're the one. There are some very embarrassing old drawings and things that she posted online. And she will never, ever, ever tell anyone her username on any site she was on from the age of like 13 to 20.

Mel's surprisingly good at removing that stuff from the Internet if it ever goes back. She can help you hack that.

Emory would not necessarily say no to your help in that. But that would require Emerie to tell Mel.

I know. And it would require Mel admitting why she's so good at hacking into the cloud and removing things. So it's never gonna happen.

It'd be the weirdest, most vague two way conversation.

Like, I got a thing. Don't ask anything about this account, but please help me. Great. Don't ask anything about how I know how to do this and we have a deal.

Yeah, pretty much.

Can't ask why.

Yeah, I learned this skill for a friend. Specifically a friend, definitely.

Yeah. A friend of mine had some really embarrassing pictures and I learned it for them because I totally had friends. Because that's a normal thing, right?

Obviously. I was totally sure an ex was cheating on me.

You had me until the question mark at the end.

The other thing I was kicking around was like some sort of thing that a friend group talked her into doing, but I couldn't get to what that was before it was my turn to answer the question.

Fair.

So I just wanna throw it out there. I think Emerie had some toxic friends in high school that convinced her to do something stupid and embarrassing.

Yeah, that tracks. Especially art community Jacob.

I'm hard to embarrass.

Yeah, that's true. Yes, you are.

You are.

Jacob had his most embarrassing memory was in pe. It was a real cute girl in his PE class with him that he had a crush on. And Annie.

Okay.

And they were playing indoor hockey, but not like field hockey, actual hockey. Just you run instead of escape. And he went to smack it and it caused him to. You know, it's a full body motion. Caused him to squeeze the fart out next to her. He said he's gonna die. It was very much like I'm gonna nail this shot. Oh, she's looking. I'm gonna go die now. Let's go on roll for recap.

Oh, we don't get any amortar secrets.

No. The Morator. I'd have to be able to be embarrassed. I rolled a three again.

I rolled a nat 2017.

Oh, I didn't.

16.

Go. Stop. 16 is five.

Okay, it's you. I this very force decision. Upper double digits five three.

Yeah.

The last time the recap. Nat 20 that I rolled was the best. I rolled all last episode.

Sub so exciting.

That's cuz I stopped it so it wouldn't spin forever.

Appreciate that.

What happened 30 minutes ago?

You were listening. You hear my eyes and ears.

I was in and out.

Yeah.

We started off by getting the hell out of Cincinnati for a little bit. We made it to the northernish area to kind of get past the guards that we noticed. We kind of snuck. Very sneakily. Very average. Sneakily.

It wasn't impressive.

No, but we.

It worked. So you snuck very mellowly. Yes, it's true.

We got up north, got up through some fun farm country. I forgot what city we ended up being at.

I don't know. We went through Clifton at one point.

Which is Clifton and Wyoming.

Yeah. Ah, Camden.

Good job. I'll give you the spray.

Camden.

Ah, thank you.

It's like farm country up there. Got Kaylee, Amelia, Jacob. We're all set up and camping. Right? We did one, huh? Oh yeah.

And end of May, don't forget James's girlfriend.

That's right.

Oh my God. How can I forget? All right.

Anyway,

you've got good taste, dude. She's a sweet old lady.

We love Edna Bay.

She was probably a fox like four years ago.

Yeah, you probably cash it on life insurance. I don't know. Anyway,

you know what if we give Brad the actuary life insurance?

Listen, Brad, I need you for a thing. You can't die on us now.

Come on, wake up.

All right.

Damn it. I did it again.

Okay, I need this.

Sorry.

Got everybody squared away. Jacob secretly has the sun sword. So protect and watch and attune with it. Nobody knows that except for Elliot and Jacob. Canonically. Then we got everybody situated. We made a Look, they. We've got them. They know we're going to probably be four to six days, give or take. Really hoping for the lower end, but it could take a little longer. We went back kind of the same way we came. Not with the horses this time, but for some reason it was exactly the same. Because, one, we knew where the hell we were going.

Two

reasons, I don't remember.

We didn't have to hide.

That's the one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We weren't trying to sneak. We were just like, we know where to go. We can stay out of sight. Better than that. When we got there. God damn it. Sorry. Then we went and tried to find a good place to get a good vantage point and Scout ended up finding this place across from what would be the Cincinnati Bengals Stadium. Crossed, we went up to the roof. Mel has a bunch of magicy things that make her super, super fast. She's basically a female usage Usain Bolt

now,

but like, for like a really long time. Not only like 200 meters, which is still impressive, don't get me wrong, right. But now like miles. She could just do marathons in mile time.

Yes.

It's crazy. So she ran up the stairs while we all decide, well, Emry started and it was like that. And then she started walking like the rest of us. We all got up to the top and we're sad and tired and like, damn. We used the binoculars to kind of get a layout for what we might be looking into. Made a little plan to. I can't remember what it's called, but. Animorph. Mel.

Polymorph.

Polymorph.

I'm sorry.

No, you're right, though. You're right, though.

Turn her into a crow or raven. I don't know if there's much difference.

Size, collect.

Not mechanically.

Whatever.

Not in D and D. Okay.

Crow. Raven. I don't know.

One of those.

You're a big blackbird that can also kind of talk and be smart enough to go somewhere.

Then turned on me invisible, so I couldn't see that I was a big black bird.

Yes. Then I did. Well, first I did my bee sense, so I started my process. Then we animorphed her. Polymorphed her into the raven. And then James booped her on the head and made her invisible. And then she decided to just fucking walk off the side with no prior flying experience, just assuming she would know what to do as a bird, I guess. And then I went on a horrible not moving roller coaster where she plummeted 40ft and then Shot back up.

Not a roller coaster.

She went, like, hard left, hard right, and the wind, like, blew her back, and I almost vomited. But, you know, we're still in it. We're good. We're focused. And then we got. She got to the Citadel. She was flying around the top, checking out the Flock of Seagulls elves up there or whatever they are, because they all had that one dude's Flock of Seagulls hair with them. It's like Ace Ventura, but not, you know,

Most of our demographics probably don't know who the Flock of Seagulls are.

They might be fuzzy on Ace Ventura,

frankly, at this point. Yeah.

So think I'm pulling it up. So I vaguely have a depiction of this in my head. That's exactly what I thought it was. So think devil horns with your hair, basically.

With emo bangs with.

Yeah, that little, like, hardcore punk quaff.

Right.

Kind of clay.

Could people at home see that?

Yeah, they can see that.

So for everyone on the podcast, listeners, devil horns, right? You got. You got the punk horns, right? Like you're going straight up. You got little devil horns on your right and left, right above the ears. And then you got the little emo quaff that comes over one eye, but one eye specifically, I don't know. It doesn't matter which eye. That's that important. But in front of an eye, and it comes down to almost his chin, because of course it does. And that is what everybody looks like up there that's super rich and likes their hoity toity little skyrise apartments or whatever.

And this dude thinks he looks cool.

He thinks he looks sick, dude. And back then, bro, sick toe.

There was like. Like 3% of the population that agreed.

And then I was gonna say most people still thought I looked stupid.

It was enough for it to catch on for a little bit. Anyway, that's an aside. Successfully. I want to point that out, because who. When does Olnock ever roll successful perceptions? Okay. Also, when does Mel roll successful perceptions? We fucking nailed this, bro. We were locked in. All right, the first couple of floors were a little murky, but we got her done. All right, so we saw the decorator. We didn't see Brad. Brad's not fighting. We didn't see him in his stupid dumb face. And then we went down to the middle floors. We were flying around, and it's kind of an intermingling of what you would maybe call upper middle class in the upper echelon of the society there that's living in the little castle citadel, whatever. I said it was in this pyramid shape kind of. So upper is not as high and then there's the middle and the upper is quite high. Yeah, that's what I meant. Not as big. Not as big. Very high. Not big.

Weird.

If the up wasn't at the height.

The uppers on the bottom. We flipped this pyramid now. So intermingling, looking around, not as decorated as the top level, but still nice. Right choice, but still no Brad. You don't know where Brad is. It went down to the bottom, which is basically where they keep prisoners. And they're on high alert and they're all moving around and they're looking for fucking. I can't think of the word.

Ne' er do wells.

That's the one.

Not sometimes do Wells.

Nair do well, always the Nair do Wells.

Yes. In their eyes they're probably just regular people, but you know, it's not important. Still did not see Brad. We looked around and tried to see what was in the little like cellar, dungeony gate things.

Couldn't see that don't recall.

We could not see. And then Mel went back up and found a way in to the like middle deck through a Romeo door that was left open. A Juliet door maybe. Maybe that's more suffice.

Through a balcony.

We thought we were gonna. I. I personally liked the screen door idea. It didn't stick, but I liked it. You know, the screen door open, but that's not what happened. And then Mel's flying around inside and then she was gonna look at something. I don't remember what that was, but that's where we're at.

I wanted to see if there were any open doors. And I rolled a luck check and I rolled the middlest possible outcome.

So it's. We passed or we didn't. It's a very pass or fail number here. So.

Yeah. Awesome.

Do you need two seconds to go grab a drink?

I might, yes.

I also want to give you props for not having the Tarantino one. Started at the beginning.

The first one, I made it linear.

Yeah, yeah.

You would think I would just happen

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Let me see the skinny minis.

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Yes.

They're designed specifically for the DM at home. You got a little. Click it into place. It's a mini. Pretty cool. Cool art. They have a Dungeon Masters box that sends you new stuff every month. Oh, cool. If you want to see it in person, you come hang out with us at Restoration Vineyards or at the Fruit of Tavern for our events where I use them and throw them at my players and have killed a lot of them.

He means in combat. Not physically.

Yeah, he. Yeah, he throws them at the.

I can't believe he just picks them up and just. All of my players are fine.

They're very light plastic at the. They don't hurt when they hit you on the face.

Like, I can see you getting annoyed enough at some point. You just pick one up and chuck it at a player.

All right, so we are in a room. You rolled a 10.

Yep.

See, if the door was open.

Is the door. Is there an open door?

There is a door. Cracked open.

Cracked open. Okay.

Seems like that's going by, like, death saving rules.

Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah.

So I will land near the door and then walk up to the door.

And nobody can land it before.

Nobody can see this because, of course, I'm invisible. So I land rather poorly, bounce off the carpet a couple times, and roll into something.

Can I get a constitution? Saving throw from Mohawk for that

constitution?

Let's see if you keep your lunch

down and it's saved.

Go through a fucking spin, a whirl.

You can feel Emery patting you on the back.

But wait, wait.

What's your saves, though?

Your constitution?

Oh, no,

I don't think I'm gonna pass as a nine.

Hey, you definitely. You figure up that was.

He's over here narrating, and then all of a sudden, just.

How was that?

And that's how you feel, pet?

Oh, my God. What the fuck did she do?

Split flush. Keep it together. Keep your eyes shut.

You can't see, so you don't even know where to aim.

That's true.

I would like. I would like to use my. My expert evasion to avoid.

Spider Man's out of the puke.

All right.

Spider Man's out of.

So

that portrays a puke.

Just stop.

We got it.

Just stop.

So trajectory or whatever, Belle.

Lan's not great because she's out. Been a raven before. Picks herself up, shakes off, heads for the door. And the cute little birdie walk and sticks her head in there and pops it open a little further.

Beautiful. And you open up into a pretty, pretty big hallway.

Okay.

I'm picturing kind of like French palatial inside, kind of. If you've seen the movie Amadeus. I'm picturing very much kind of that interior because this is the mid class, so a lot of white paint, lot of gold gilded trim, and lot of end tables of flowers.

Okay. I think I'll. I mean, I'll hop as much as I can, but if. If it's a big enough hallway and I can get airborne again, I'll try to fly.

Yeah, I'd say. I mean, it's probably like, like crazy huge, but I'd say It's easily, what, 10, 15ft across.

Okay.

We'll go with standard eight foot ceilings.

Okay.

So you can fly. It's gonna, like, probably be a little nerve wracking.

Yeah. I mean, at least to glide down it just to not birdie hop. Yeah.

Through this whole.

Because, yeah. My speed when I'm on the ground is not great.

Yeah. No, 10ft.

Like I said, not great.

What. What. Exactly. What are you doing? Just walking through the hall or what? What's your.

I guess my bird brain, unfortunately.

Polymorph means you run bird stats.

Yep. Well, if we're going off of bird stats, I never want to come in here, honestly. But now that I am here, I guess if. Now that I am here, I. What I'm really looking for is a way back out again.

Okay.

There was definitely that moment of I'm on recon and I'll go in here. And the bird says, there might be food somewhere. And the bird says, shit, I'm stuck inside.

Fair. Fair.

Guys, the bird's gone rogue.

So I. I think that there's. There's definitely a search for an exit. But I might see something useful while I'm looking for my next exit.

I will give you a perception check on this.

Okay.

But you know, he'll knock.

He's distracted.

No, you're not. Can't say that. And no, you're not talk nicer to yourself.

22.

Cool. You smell freshly cooking meat.

Ooh, I am going there.

It takes you a bit. It's just you live on the air currents, right? You're able to just find a raft.

Yes.

The meat draft.

Yes.

I've heard the meat sweats, but not the meat draft.

You got the jet stream. The meat draft.

Okay, these sound like things that lead to Olnok's problem on the ship there,

It takes a little while, but you do end up working your way down into the lower levels as invisibird. The nice thing is the lower level was intentionally oversized, so you've got a little bit more room to work around. There's more people. And I picture in the first floor, way more colony lots. Lots of support columns and stuff. A little more open, big rooms. This isn't really like, you know, there's probably servants quarters on one end of this area, but the majority of this is like eating halls and the throne room and things of that nature. So as you're traveling through here, both of you can give me.

Passive of 13.

Unfortunately, the 19s were unload.

I got. I got like my. My raven brain is thoroughly distracted by the smell of meat. It does not care about recon. It wants to go find food.

Olock's recovering.

I gotta get my bearings back.

Oh, wow.

That was jarring.

Yes. Yeah. So you're. You make it into a pretty good sized bakery. Like we're picturing cliche King's dining hall where he's got the table that could seat like 60 people. There's a very important looking dude at one end. And the closer you get to the dude, the better the food. That looks. I've got like a whole ass roasted hog down on his end. I said end, but that was the end of a sentence.

Following bird brain bot.

She came hear you.

I know's trying really hard to will this into her head. He's like, don't pack any. Don't.

Guys.

I got a bad feeling about this.

There's food. I. I think a lot of people. There's a lot of people. And I think the nervousness of people would keep me from actually landing on the table fair and trying to eat something. But if there's like any windows or ledges or anything nearby that I could land on to kind of get my bearings and figure out how I would get my little claws on some of that food.

Yeah, I'd say like this place has got the columns that lead into a high arch ceiling. We'll say that they've got like the thing where they put the gargoyle bits that look down. Yeah, they got one of those around the ceiling. So there's. Yeah, there's a place.

I think I'd probably land up there. And I love how everything just gets parked now. I think I would land up there and start problem solving the bird problem of food. And how do I get it? Because I have bird brain.

Okay, how do you Want to go about that? What skill set would you like to use to try to do that? Slide a beak.

Sorry. I mean.

No, you should just wing it.

My reasoning says that would be an intelligence check. But was where ravens are much better at wisdom.

That makes sense.

So maybe the wisdom is that the concept of raven has like an innate skill at stealing food from humans. I feel like that's been passed down raven by raven for generations. This is why we can unlock lunchboxes.

I've in fact seen this.

This is a legitimate thing.

They will totally do that.

This is why ravens can get into lunch boxes and trash cans and other things. Is that we've passed down the wisdom through our birdie heritage. This is how you outsmart a human.

That's absolutely a thing.

Okay.

It's absolutely a thing. There's a two. While you roll wisdom, there's a team of scientists that were really perplexed by a flock of butterflies as they would migrate down from Canada over the Great Lakes. At about the halfway point of the Great Lake, the flock of butterflies would hang a right fly for a while and then head to south again just over the. Over an open body of water. And it's generation after generation. None of them make this trip twice. Lake at once. They looked back through the geological record thousands of years. Used to be a mountain in the middle of the Great Lakes. They were dodging a mountain that no longer exists. Well, how well did that help you?

Not great. Not great. Mel is only polymorphed into a raven and therefore doesn't actually have the in a ability to outsmart other humans. So that is a six.

While she's lingering for a minute and looking around the hall.

What do I actually see though?

Could Olmog make another check to see more of the hall While she's pondering other things?

She absolutely can. You. You're focused on the food. You're focused on the food problem. There's a shitload of it. And it is. The people working on it are. It's. It's active around this town.

And Mal can't break into lunch boxes as a raven.

19s are back, baby.

Back, baby. They had to load.

They had to load.

18.

All right. You see. And here you unfortunately don't get to smell this delicious.

I know. Unfortunate.

It's. I could see it and go, damn it.

And again, that almost be weird. You're looking at this and you're like, this should smell baller.

Yeah.

And instead you smell just kind of city air.

You smell your own vomit.

Yeah.

You smell Vomit.

You have pres. Digitation, don't you?

No.

Oh, well, damn.

But you do. See, as you're watching and over here, somebody come up to the. The kingly looking guy at this table and with a what?

I built my phone. And I instinctively said, ouch.

It caught me by surprise. I didn't mean to interrupt.

Nope, you're good. Very distractible. You hear somebody come up to Sir Lordman's name? Yes, sir Lloyd, to my knowledge.

Yeah.

Yeah. The kingly looking laddy. And you overhear the accountant is in the basement.

Oh, there's gr.

You don't hear Emory say, I thought he was an actuary. Is that the same thing? Is Bas. They call it a basement. That's strange. You can't hear me.

Oh, yeah. I can't hear you at all. I only hear what like.

And he's fair and he's parroting whatever he hears. So em's over there going, wait, are actuaries, accountants, they call it a basement. He didn't say tension. That seems weird.

He did say basement.

That was. I am watching everything through the binoculars. Even though I can't see you. I've been just like watching outside from the boxes. Yeah, exactly.

Watch for shift change.

I'm also watching for that. Yeah,

I'm watching around the building. I'm on the overwatch for that.

But we'll get to that.

Yeah.

Anyway, I got bored of sitting here for an hour doing nothing.

Yeah, it's totally reasonable.

Emery's getting antsy and so is Casey.

Let's say that it's been realistically about

20 minutes, I think at this point, Raven brain over here has determined that there's way too much activity at the table to tackle that. But I probably noticed them coming in and out of the kitchens.

So.

Yes.

Birdbrain sees very obvious food being brought in and out of a servants hallway.

I'm gonna go down there.

Go down the servants hallway. So it's not a crazy long trip down this hallway. They want the food hot right when it gets there and you end up in a kitchen.

Weird.

Which I would imagine would be quite the trip for a bird because heat drafts are doing all sorts of crazy

shit to the air in here.

That's okay.

I'm not good at this anyway. Yes.

Oh, God, here he comes again.

I'd say close your eyes, but. But they're already closed.

I. I can't. Unless she closes her eyes.

I blink.

She was at blink once.

Sorry.

It's. It is kind of funny that this is. These two episodes are basically all Mel

and Olnock, you guys are struggling.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Definitely not planned.

I was totally worried about this too.

I was like talk all night and

I was over here going, I'm gonna be a bird. How much talking will I do

in character? Not much.

Yeah. So I think getting into the kitchen at that point will be like similar thing. Like land on something, try to recon how do I acquire the food at this point. What I'm probably hoping, unless he observes something that might change that plan, I'm probably hoping that there's a backdoor from the the kitchen that would lead back out again.

Yeah. So what I'll say is you see a pretty obvious granary where they keep their flowers and stuffs and you're able to slip in there. Give me one more lapo. Perceptions

19. 19. Give him the 19.

Ouch.

That's not the 19 face.

Passive 5.

Wow.

So passive 9.

Right,

cool. There's a lot of like grain and like, you know, good shelf stable foods like potatoes and things like that. And there is a door that very obviously leads outside.

Raven brain is quite, quite frankly at this point looking for the medieval dumpster.

There would totally be something like that out this door.

Be honest. Graven brain is over here. Like, where's the awful.

Where's num nums?

There's absolutely some sort of compost adjacent bin through this door. Yeah. You would smell it right outside the back door.

You know what? Thank God I can't taste what she tastes. That could be a.

You're now gagging for other reasons.

Listening to the verbal story about what's going on from Moloch going. Why the hell. I thought being a croat should be smarter than Mel, but apparently not.

It didn't help.

What is the go look around.

If you can't do it, come back still an animal.

Why is this difficult?

Yeah, it's as simple as instructions.

Go look around and then come back.

Why is it took 20 minutes to get distracted by food?

Still an animal.

Honestly, 20 minutes is pretty good.

We just gotta hope she comes back before she actually. Really?

That's gonna be a problem

for arguments.

A bird that we can't see and therefore cannot kite back to her.

Great.

Come on.

Sir.

As soon as she's out of there, I can make her not bird fair. So like invisible.

Yeah, I'll just keep an eye out for it.

You should do that.

Omak will keep an eye out for her.

Well, I was gonna say if she not birds me though, I have to run out of the courtyard.

You said when you get out of there.

Oh, oh. Like out of there.

It's like Kate first and then run gives you a 500.

So what is going to be at least later, to Mel's dismay, this raven absolutely eats its fill.

Yeah. Yeah.

Fair.

Mel's going to regret this later, I'm sure.

Give me one more perception. You're occupied.

Yep.

Cool. This door leads outside.

You're late on the payment till those 19.

I know. I fucked up.

Given that it's probably getting quite dark, I think I'll go back to what I have declared as my rooster.

There you go.

Because I don't really want to be out in full dark fair and. Yeah, scary place for birds.

Like, it was like night time on the lower level when you entered. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's straight up dark now because I'm gonna say, you know, you ate your fill. It's not the easiest activity to do when you only have a beak. So I'm gonna say it probably took another 20. But you're able to go get.

Got chased away by one of the cooks dumping a bucket of scraps on top of the heap.

Probably confused the. Out of a cook when some of the scraps stopped too high.

Right.

Ah. And then when they shook off and.

Yeah,

that was odd.

Okay, there's a. I don't care. Yes.

Yes. Pretty much didn't ask. Don't care.

Yeah, you're able to make it back to your roost on the roof. You do with polymorph. You are able to identify. Oh, these are friends. Clear. Once you're up, you see him, you get back. Milian.

Is she back yet? Oh, you can't.

As soon as Olan.

Well, actually, you could see you. Oh, yeah. You now see you too.

Oh, yeah. So I'd be able to hear him like. Yeah, she's unpolymorph.

And I dropped.

You do the really confusing thing of trying to figure out.

I know I can't tell you where she is, but she's here.

She's looking at me and it's weird.

I am now sitting all the way around.

That's fucking me up.

Going. That was weird.

I dropped. Concentration on the invisible as well.

Bird. No, she's. I unmilled. I milled her.

What have I been eating?

Did I taste like garbage?

Oh, God, I have.

Don't think about it too hard. Don't think about. Here, have some water.

You didn't tell me I'd eat awful things.

Tell you that. We didn't tell you to eat awful things either.

Would have Been nice. If you'd have known how to, I don't know, fly, that would have been great.

Have a brain when you're a bird.

Come back. He is.

Wish I had known that. I. I did tell you this.

I'm sorry about all of the terrible things I say when I watch to try to lick your own butt.

Who was that directed to?

That was Elliot.

Elliot was temporarily Charlie too.

I forgot about that.

I'll never speak of it again if you promise to never speak of this again.

Deal.

We shake on it

now? Shake.

So what we know is he's not in the offices. We know that the entrances are guarded, the rooftop's guarded. There's a lot of people on the inside of the courtyard. So we are assuming that there's a good chance that the accountant they spoke of could have been in the basement. Or it could be that all the accountants are in their basement. That's what keeps.

I mean, that's a good place to keep them.

They don't need to. We know he's not in the offices, so we assume he's in the basement. So now we gotta figure out how are we gonna get in, get to the basement and find him. And then assuming that he is willing to come out, how are we gonna get back?

They did see entrances down into the dungeon area that were in the courtyard. Were those near the gate? I'm assuming they were kind of like around the sides of the. Okay, did we catch the shift change while we were.

Oh, yeah. You three go to give me whatever Perception investigation. Whatever.

You want to argue with the vernacular, she'd have got advantage on the.

Sure do.

The Vernon, my 19s are back with

me, back to their right.

So don't rely on those anymore.

Are you saying that because that's what you rolled or are you willing it back into being?

No, it's a total of 19.

Okay.

I rolled a 13 plus 6.

I got a 16.

Oh, I got an 11.

Weird.

Okay, so again, that side of our table always happens. Yeah.

I have plus zero to my perception. I don't know why I roll so well on it this often.

So you guys see. Yes. You see the shift change, and for those of you who watched at night, it's very, very reminiscent of that. They do have the backfill comes in first and physically relieves the current staff. But it's not crazy. You guys have worked gig jobs, shift jobs. It's got that same energy of like. Yeah, what happened? They kind of shoot the shit for like, you know, five minutes to nothing happened. We're watching a parking lot. Okay, cool. I'll watch the parking lot now, bud.

I'll let you know if a car moves.

What information are you hoping to glean so I can help?

I'm also looking for, like. Cause we caught when we were in the apartment building, the guys out on horses coming back in too. So I wanted to kind of catch the citadel side of that as well and see what that looked like. And like basically kind of trying to spot where we might be able to infiltrate a weakness during the shift change.

Are we doing 2 shifts or 3 shifts today? Are we doing 8 hour shifts or 212 hour shifts?

Based on. I would say based off of the information you've gotten, these are two 12s.

Because during shift change is the best time to try to do anything because there's the most amount of confusion. So we need to break sight. So either or both we do this at night in the dark. And. Or if we could find a way to make us all invisible, that would be great. But there's five of us. I don't know if we can pull that off.

No, I can only make one tig invisible at a time.

Concentration.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the moment I cast another spell, it goes down.

Can you upcast another concentration spell?

Can you upcast it?

Oh, that's an excellent question. You can cast other spells. It just can't be concentration. Yeah.

At higher levels, when you cast a spell using spell slot of third or higher, I can say yes. But I don't have third or higher levels of spells.

You're at third.

I mean.

Or you're at level two.

I only have. Yeah, it's a second level spell.

You can't upcast it.

Yeah. Because the other two things I have is ascending.

So those are items. Yep.

So that's going to back us down to. We're gonna have to do this in the dark.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I would personally prefer to fly over the wall like Mel did. Do we have a way? We've got flying broom. You can polymorph one, but we still can't fly the groom room.

We have two teleportations.

Also, we could put four people in the portable hole.

Hold up.

So we could put four.

Four people in the portable hole. And then she goes.

She put polymorphs back into a bird, and then we go in her bird hole back to the.

Or one of us could. Or we could fly on the broom.

That sand is so bad.

We can't do anything in the myrtle.

We could fly on the broom with the portable hole in our pocket and land.

One person is invisible with the broom.

Yeah. I was like, we don't need to. Poly person is invisible.

Theoretically, yes.

Flying the broom.

If you're carrying.

Yeah, the broom should be invisible.

Yeah.

If you were carrying it when you got turned invisible, you can be. I'll be invisible. Was there a way to get into the building from the top of the. I would prefer to start from the top, less people milling about. But did we reconnoiter whether we could get in from the roof?

I.

Before you go too far, what else did you want to know about the shift change?

Because my. My other thought was that we could.

Because you rolled well, so you deserve information.

Kill a guy, steal his armor, that whole roll. Infiltrate Asgards. Not a great idea necessarily. But it was a thought that crossed my mind.

The biggest thing you would see as an obstacle. These dudes are at least Ulnok.

Yeah.

Like, they're big boys.

Aren't you a little short to be an Imperial?

And they are now the. So you would be. If you're wanting to do that. You'd be looking for specifically what they're like, is there a check in or whatever. Right. They just.

Basically, I kind of just want to observe how the shift change happens, both with the guys coming back and with the guys there. So we can find this timing of when there's the most chaos and distraction.

The guys coming back, the guys that you would in theory be jumping, they basically are able to just ride in to their designated stable spot. Okay. Through the binoculars. You know, the stables are again, right against that citadel wall. So you're seeing them come in. You're able to kind of sort of see through the back. It's not a great view for that specifically. But you don't see anything where they're having to like, report to a guy first.

Right.

Also, there's a problem of if we're planning on jumping people for their armor and whatnot, we're probably gonna have to beat the shit out of said armor.

We don't have to do that. I can disguise myself as one of them.

Well, that was gonna be.

I'll probably morph someone into one of the horses.

I could disguise myself as well into one of them.

Nose Ghost. Well. Cause I was thinking, I mean, the portable hole's not a great idea.

What do you mean?

That's a fantastic idea to get in.

Yeah.

Do you just have to let us out in 10 minutes or we'll die?

Well, some of us don't get Distracted by garbage.

I also have super scary up book in there.

Oh yeah.

If we. Absolutely.

Yeah, we can. That's an option.

I just realized. Yeah, I don't want to carpool with book.

Oh, it's fine.

Okay, well then we're back to how to get inside.

No, I think the portable hole is a good idea.

So what we just might have to find.

But it didn't take you that long to get over there. Like, even on the broom, 10 minutes is plenty of time.

He disguises himself as one of the knights.

You can disguise yourself as a guard. Everybody else can be prisoners escorts.

Did we see any of the guards bringing back prisoners at all?

Yeah, yeah, that'd be reasonable. You know, see one, they throw them. The. They very clearly are using the outside cages as. So they just toss dude in there. You don't see anything like crazy intricate lock or anything. They're just using bar presence to keep them in there.

And there were stables that went all around the walls towards the back as well.

Yeah, as far as. Yeah, as far as you can see. As far as they saw.

Did. Did you notice there's maybe like Fletcher shops and stuff. Like gestures, code words, secret handshakes, salutes. Secret handshakes between the guards. Which is actually directed at the dm.

Yeah.

Because I know all. Not currently has it, but did he

notice most of your really good roles were up high? Yeah, unfortunately, I think you did okay. Over the courtyard.

I was gonna say in the courtyard. We were both fantasies on the courtyard.

I rolled a 20 and she rolled like an 18.

We.

We were locked in on that one.

Yeah. So I'm gonna say you saw, you know, there was a. There's a guy with like. We'll say he's got like a red. He's got a cape. Other than that, his armor is. Is to say nicer. It's better maintained.

Okay.

Clearly very well oiled. He's a little shady. But they were definitely paying deference to that dude. Very medieval. They would, you know, they'd hold their sword arm up so they could show that they were unarmed. Bow to the dude. You saw that. You didn't see any like. Like secret handshake stuff or anything like that.

So I have Olock actually demonstrate what he saw several times. Both James and I. Watch carefully. If we're going to be. We need to kind of have that down. Yeah.

And it was very crisp. Was the big like slam. So much so that actually you could hear the chunk of slam.

So we. We'll literally practice that a couple of times. So we look kind of natural when we do that.

So. Yeah, so that's. I guess we've kind of got two trains of thoughts here where we either go in disguised as guards or we go in flying with the portable hole.

Well, what if we combine them? Two of them going disguised.

That's how we get over the guards, get to a hidden spot. Because in theory it's their biggest. There should be some dark corners. We can put portable hole in pocket. Everybody fly over invisible, find a dark spot, land, let everybody out, pretend to be guards, escort, and then we can get inside like in the building.

Because in theory, especially if we land in a less busy corner, whoever is going to be prisoners, you could, if anybody asked you, you could claim. Oh, we were told to bring these ones downstairs.

As a matter of fact, for some reason we are escorting them to the

account in the basement.

In the basement?

I wouldn't say that. Because we don't know for sure the account aren't.

Actually, we know that there's a. In the basement.

Yeah.

And we know we call. We know they call it the basement.

So I would just say I was told to take them to basement.

Bothering Emory.

I don't know. Why?

Because mentioning the accountants could get you in hot water. Because we don't know what they were doing at that point.

Do you know where we need to go in the basement?

No.

Me neither. So if we tell them that we need to go to the account in the basement, hopefully somebody will indicate the direction of that particular person.

Only if they ask us.

Only if they ask us. Hopefully. I'm making the contingency if we. If somebody comes ask, what are you doing?

Yeah.

We need an answer and we need it rehearsed before we go down there.

James, can you cast invisibility and your disguise at the same time?

That is excellent question. And the answer is yes, I can cast disguise self and then invisibility.

Okay.

But not the other way around.

Yeah. Yeah. Because if I cast a spell. Well, if I cast.

If you're not. If the invisibility is on someone else.

Right. Okay.

Are they both. They both concentration?

No.

Then it.

Yeah, it doesn't matter. You could do either.

The person who's invisible cannot cast a spell.

Right.

You can cast a spell. Otherwise invisibility, you cast it on yourself. Yeah.

Cuz my thought too is, and we can have at least one person invisible and one person potentially not visible as a human to make it look less of a large group.

It's true. Because multiple prisoners could be weird.

Yeah.

Two prisoners, two guards. One prisoner.

Even an invisible and an animal.

Yeah.

What animal are we escorting?

Something small. That could be.

Need to take this horse to the basement.

Contained and hidden.

Okay, so somebody gets turned into a mouse.

Essentially.

Okay, that's cool. That gives you. I was going to say two guards escorting one person.

Yeah.

Or we could do two guards escorting two and save either an invisibility or mousing to

mouse.

I could mouse Brad instead on the way out.

Yes, I. I think that we do that. Two guards, two people and one person's invisible.

Yep.

Turn Brad into a bug and I would say likely. Mel, you should be the invisible one because you can move a lot more quietly than Ulmok and I can.

Yeah, probably. As long as I don't have to fly while invisible. It's really hard to know with your where your wings are when you don't know how to have wings.

Oh, by the way, give me my boots back. Yeah.

Give me my kit right now.

Yeah.

Yes.

Damn. That was a one time thing, dude. That you didn't use.

I know. That's good.

I give Elliot his boots back.

Thank you.

Can I make cape back?

Yes. Anybody else want anything back?

No, I don't think I gave you anything.

I unburded you.

So I'm keeping my hole.

Okay, that's fine.

Keep that.

Yep, yep.

That's

cool. Cool.

I'm a child.

And then once we have.

I said it that way.

We were all gonna. Once we have. Once we get to Brad, then what's our plan and does it change?

It's gonna depend whether he's willing.

We turn him into a mouse, shove him into the hole and we leave.

I'm actually. Well, no, not in the hole. We've got two minutes in the hole, so.

Yeah.

I felt asleep on the.

We would still have to get out of the basement in disguise. Yeah, essentially.

Preferably.

Yeah. And then I mean hopefully because we fly back over the wall. Hope is an hour.

It's an hour.

Okay, so we have another hour to accomplish this.

And if, but if you're flying. If we're flying over the wall invisible, you might. The hour might start when we take off on the broom.

If it's dark, we shouldn't need to invisible over the There.

They said there were a lot of guards on the wall. We don't know. Honestly, these guys are. They're wearing a lot of armor.

Well, I, I.

Why do we need to fly over the wall?

How much less likely to get caught guards?

Well, I guess I was just thinking if two people are disguised as guards you just walk in like you belong there with your prisoners, and the invisible person tags along, tags along behind them.

The more guards that we encounter, the higher chances of getting made. So if we can get in and out and not talk or seat one guard, that would be the best.

The thing is, it's like, okay, that's me.

When I go to the stun.

Every time we talk to a guard, it's a chance of getting caught.

So we are combining the two plans. So one, like four people are going to go in the portable hold hole.

Yes.

Who's gonna go in somebody's pocket and the other they're going to fly over into a dark corner, pop everybody out of the hole, and then we'll proceed with the part two of the plan.

Yes. Where being guard is for sneaking around the castle.

Got it.

Not for getting in and getting out.

Okay.

So whoever, Whoever needs to be invisible, which won't be me.

I'll need to be like, oh, NOC should be the invisible one because he is large.

Yeah, that, that's not a bad idea. But it'll save a casting of invisible. Whoever gets cast invisible is the one that flies us over and is the

one that stays invisible.

So we don't have multiple castings. Invisible.

It's true. I would be less noticed.

No, I think that would work also because if he somehow, for whatever reason gets noticed, he's the one who could tank it.

The best.

Yeah.

And you'll have advantage on an attack.

The first one.

The first one. So unlock that.

Good.

You can.

You. You'll fly us over in the portable hole. Invisible. You'll let us out. Okay, James and I will.

One more person on the.

James and I will disguise ourselves as guards.

Yep.

And then we'll head in. You two will be prisoners. The story is

prisoner transfer from cell block 1138.

Well, no, they for some. We don't know why they were requested,

but it was requested that these prisoners be put in the basement.

What's Brad's last name?

Quick. Last name hasn't been said yet.

That's a weird last name.

Frederickson.

Fredrickson.

Brad Fredrickson.

I guess I was gonna go. Brad Bradbury.

Bradbury.

His last name is Barry. He's full name is Bradley.

Brad Bradbury.

We can do Brad Fredrickson.

No.

Requested that we bring these prisoners.

See, we don't know whether I like Bradbury.

Bradbury.

Bradbury.

Brad Bradbury.

No, Brad Bradbury. Bradbury.

B U R R Y. Brad Bradbury.

Okay, cool.

You couldn't say that Lord Ganache. Himself wanted us to take these guys. These prisoners died.

That might be a little bit. Bit too high level.

That's pretty high.

We want to look like we're important.

My concern is that the accountant in question is not in any position of power. Which means if you say like his name.

Or we could just be as vague as possible. Just be like we were.

I don't know.

Yeah, if you bring that detail into it, that might be red flag.

Bring him to the accountant in the basement. And then the question is, well, who or ordered this? I got no answer on that one. At least a name of somebody that exists. Might what they have picked up on

the commander's name when the guys are saluting him.

Yes. Because he can hear.

Yeah.

The years I had the ears of a hawk. Yeah. Mel got a 22 on that roll. I remember that one.

I did.

He did. And his name is

Red Berry,

Commander. Whole stock

and.

Or whole stock.

Okay, that makes more sense. Or if nothing else, I would phrase it as we were told to put the. Or to take them down here with the accountant. That could leaves it a little more vague as to whether we're putting them in a cell with the accountant.

I don't see why we even need to bring up the accountant.

Well, hopefully we don't talk to or see anybody.

Yeah, I would prefer not to talk to anybody ever, ever, ever again.

That's why we want.

I want to go back to the mountain.

Like we worked with the accountants.

What we can be completely.

And it gets that detail. It.

It makes perfect sense that the guards have no idea why he's. You're being sick here.

Just gotta go to the basement, you

know, so you might not even necessarily have to be prisoners. You could just be. Hey, we were told to escort these to the account. Yeah. And then you could. Then you. Then you quote, unquote, prisoners could kind of say, I don't know, we were brought here for accountant reasons. We don't know why we've been summoned.

I have to do accounting.

I gotta make sure the money to account the corn. They need to account the coin.

The reasoning gets really fuzzy when we don't know whether or not he's working with them. But considering that we couldn't find you couldn't find him on any of the upper levels and that he's in the basement, My guess is that he's not working with them.

That's mine as well.

Yeah. Okay.

So,

yeah, I think we know there's

accounts in the bakery, accountant in the basement.

But we don't know if the guards should know that

we're told to escort these people to the basement.

Just leave it there.

That's all we need to say.

And when they ask us why for

what purpose we just say that Commander Holstock ordered it.

And I don't question my orders.

Yeah, I'm like they. They're not going to be told details.

All right, let's all blue skadoo into all knocks hole.

I'm good with that right now.

It smells whole and I'm borrowing it.

Do we want to do this tonight?

We need to get over the wall in the dark.

Yes.

Yes. My question is relating to the fact that I have used a 4th level spell slot and I only have one 4th level spell slot left. Do we want to do this tonight or do we want to hold off to do have another day watching. Make sure we time this well do it tomorrow. Tomorrow night.

Yeah.

I unfortunately only have one casting wait. Morning shift changes before dawn. Why don't we just do it at the morning shift change?

That's a pretty good idea. The chance of us getting caught up here on the roof tonight is four all night tonight and all day tomorrow. That goes up quite a lot.

It does. Yes.

But to do it in the morning if shift change happens morning early enough

be dark and Ulnock will be invisible anyways. We don't have to worry about.

We did keep.

Oh that's true. We could do that I guess. It doesn't have to be dark. We have the invisibility.

Because our idea. Yeah, because the idea was to go over during the guard change because while yes, there's more people there, there's less people paying attention.

And you know what? Alnock's seen where we're going so you should already have an idea on where to land the broom.

I'll feel forced to do the ship.

Cause you've seen it already so that works.

And you know how to fly better.

Yeah.

So I think. I think we should.

Can I throw it?

Do it in the morning tonight do it during the guard change in the morning. We have a rough idea of when that happens. Cause we were watching from the other apartment building.

I like it.

A couple nights ago.

I like that.

And that way we are going in fresh and ready to go.

I like it.

Now let's take a long rest before we overthink it.

Yep, yep, yep. That's the plan.

Watch order.

I'm on second, fourth. I hit the wrong button.

I'll go first.

Elock.

I'll knock you on a watch with somebody.

I need somebody who can perceive things.

Who's on third?

All right, I'm with like an elf Oil three.

Elliot's on three.

Elliot's on third.

And you're with James. Yes, Jemel and Jemel.

El Bell.

Cool.

All right. So you guys are camping on the roof?

Yep.

Yep.

Okay. So cold camp, I'm assuming?

Yep.

Definitely.

Mal's oddly not hungry tonight.

Yeah, feeling quite full.

It's that banana peel you ate, I'm pretty sure.

Cough up an egg. Cool. Emery, you're up first.

What are you doing on your watch?

I've got binoculars out. I'm watching, I'm keeping an eye out there. Seeing what I'm sure they've got torches and stuff set up on the tops of the walls. I'm kind of just watching what they're doing. I'm making sure that we're not getting spotted up here as much as possible.

Okay.

You know, I'm taking this watch pretty seriously. We don't have any light or torches or like fire up here, so I can't really do a lot of my. Any activities or anything. Like usually I think Emery would be sketching in her sketchbook, but tough to do when you can't see in the dark. So. Yeah.

Well, the one I see you guys got going for you is, It's a large three story building. Like they're generous floors. You're on a 13 floor building. So you do have the advantage of looking down down on them, not them on you. Right. So go ahead and give me with your binox the advantaged percent.

That is an 18.

Beautiful. So you do see as you're watching the guard change pretty quick. Like I say it's about five minutes. They're, they are very polished through it.

Right.

It doesn't have the like wartime, like crazy strict vibe where it's here you go now.

Right.

Like they shoot the shit. But it's over and done in about five hours. Part of it is they just stood still for 12 hours, right. So they're ready to get the fuck off their feet. But once they are in their spot, they have a patrol kind of moving along the wall between the houses. And occasionally there's probably a. Probably a rhythm to it. You just don't know what it is. Occasionally the dude who's been patrolling will relieve and the other dude will go on patrol. I'd say that's probably the biggest takeaway from the watch. The courtyard never really dies down. And in fact, actually you specifically would see they've got a smithy running outside and a fletcher Fletcher's shop shuts down. Yeah but they've actually the smith is running pretty much through the night.

Okay. Interesting.

And you see a lot of like maintenance more than forging.

Yeah.

Reheating and undenting armor. That kind of stuff.

Sharpening. A lot of.

A lot of sharpening.

That blacksmith goes through a lot of pasta. It's a lot of al dente.

Yeah. You see definitely dudes making. The biggest chunk of time spent is making arrowheads. They've got a cool. It's almost like a leaf tip but it's got extra barbs on the end. Seems to be their go to error head. Interesting.

All right.

Yeah.

Aside from that your watch goes rather a bit.

Cool. Well I nudge James and Olnock awake and I let them know and I'll hand them the binoculars and then I'll go to sleep.

Perfect.

Thank you.

All right.

Right.

You get one of you gets advantage anyway cuz you are already on watch together. But we've got binoculars. May as well use them.

You want to use them? I got elven eyes. Yeah. What elven eyes.

Elven eyes.

Not 11.

I heard open eyes.

Look over just 11 eyes. Just blink.

Spider eyes. All right.

Reminds me of the biblical angels where be not afraid. There is a very real translation of the text that says please stop screaming. Please stop screaming. Don't be scared.

It's a description of it makes terrifying.

Yeah. Biblical angels are eldritch. Pretty eldritch.

You get advantage. Yeah.

You've got the pinox.

It didn't help but.

Yeah but I thought that was a fourth.

Cool.

Dirty 20.

Dirty 20. All right. Oh boy. A lot of the same. You do see like I described the last time there's a fairly not a steady stream. It's not like there's an army marching through the right. But a fairly consistent. You see specifically the guy with the tablet that had stared specifically at the apartment you were in I guess last two minutes ago. You see that guy come back out again on his. He's got a huge warhorse that he's riding out on and this time he seems to be on a mission.

He doesn't stop at this building.

No no, he's fine.

That's all I really care about right now.

And you're actually. You're a full block over from where you were. They were going up and down fourth. You're now over. So you could see them coming and going but you can't watch them the whole way. But as far as anything like crazy helpful. You do see. I'll say you notice that the ballistas are loaded.

Nope.

They aren't actively manned. But it is, it's clearly part of their patrol that they stop and they kind of, you know, make a point of maneuvering it around a little bit. Check the, check the rope.

Make a point. And it's still tensioned.

Yeah.

Is it single fire?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Big crossbow.

Yeah. I didn't know because they had some that were like, had essentially it was two on top of each other.

Oh, no, this is just one.

Okay.

It's just a single. Single barrel.

Cool. This is single action.

Yeah, it's like a 15 action.

Right.

So single barrel.

Yeah. The reload time on this thing probably sucks.

I mean, if you're, if you're specifically digging in on that, you do see that they have got a fairly impressive winching mechanism on the side. That's very clearly how they draw the bolt carrier back.

Fire.

Shit, we missed. Reload. And then you do see some very telephone pulley bolts. Whatever they hit, if it's a people. It wasn't it isn't it? It was. It's in a tense.

Yeah. That is a big tent pole if it's in the tents.

But as far as anything else,

I'm pointing out like all of these and he's looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.

It's really small. It ain't his baby.

I wouldn't. It was a maintainer.

But I feel like I could figure

out binoculars digs anyway

when you're sleep deprived in the dark in the middle of the night. I might struggle right now.

I don't fucking know. Here, take these back.

I'll say you do see at some point that the commander gets lap as well.

Yeah.

Cool.

He's not necessarily on a patrol. He appears to be going. And specifically checking you're far enough away you can't hear nothing. Right. And you cannot read their lips because they're all wearing helmets. Helmets is.

Yep.

Slightly difficult, but take your helmet off. Yeah, you'd have to roll like a nat 40.

Hold on, let me see, let me see.

No,

I want to see you roll a nat40 on a 20 sided day.

It's impressive.

Yeah, that's if you get it to balance on the corner. I did do that one time without a wall.

No, no, like, like in between the letters. I was able to do that once.

It was stupid, but so that, that's what I'll say. Okay, cool.

All right.

I'm gonna wake up Elliot.

All right, let's go get him.

Yeah.

No, it's close Fine.

Yeah. You can't find him.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. I need my knife so I can see him.

I was gonna say he. He.

He. He.

He wakes up Elliot by tripping over him.

Elliot, where you. Oh,

God damn.

Can't you see my bedroom? Shit.

No.

Oh, whatever. Thanks. What happened?

Not a whole heck of a lot go off of. They occasionally move the ballista around. It's not constantly manned. The red plume guy moves around coming out. Yeah, that guy.

You probably should remember his name. We might need to know that.

General Holstad. Right.

Commander.

Commander.

Commander Hol.

Also, you better think of the name. If somebody asks you what your name is, soldier, you better think of that. Yep. Don't stumble, Commander Holst.

Nope. Oh,

I'll be invisible. Doesn't matter.

So maybe you should hold up.

What the. And the castle? Haunted.

There's one cook that would agree with you

by what we have canonically confirmed. Although she's basically like Jeff.

Yeah.

All right, so I'll take the binoculars, and as I settle into position to do my watch, I will absentmindedly reach down to pat Charlie because he's always with me on watch and kind of for a moment, just go, oh, I don't have my dog. Oh, man, I hope they're doing okay.

Got to bring up the feels, man.

And then he'll go, well, I got a job to do. And then I'll start blasting the Citadel.

Awesome. Give me that advantage. Perception. That was crisp. Beautiful. That's a bummer thing. So, you see, I'm gonna say, you're watching long enough. And you actually were in the army, so you know how to glass a place. And you're Mr. Hunter, man.

Yep.

So binoculars for you are a normal tool. You know what you're doing. You got it styled in so it's not blurry and all that.

Right. And no problem.

Yes. Remember to take the caps off.

We're just slamming on tonight.

It's okay, Navy boy. You'll be fine.

It's hard to get used to seeing through human eyes again. The 360 degree view of a rapid was.

It was different. And I thought. I. I don't know if y' all remember. I threw up. I threw up.

You still kind of smell on my lap.

It was pretty awful.

Still is.

Yeah.

Change your pants, man, before you get in the sleeping flashbacks.

Wrong with you?

I didn't bring extra pants.

Go to sleep.

God, I miss having Preston digitation.

Should I try to wash them? So you're seeing a lot of the same, but you're watching close enough, you're actually able to get hints of insignia. They're real fake, but they've got some sort of like ridge on their shoulder Pauldron that clearly some of them have got none. It's just a smooth Pauldron. Some of them got one, some of them got two. And then, then red plume dude has got two. The cape and the red plume. So you're getting, you're getting a vibe on rank.

So I'm thinking that we're going to want to be a single notch. We don't want to be too high because there's not a whole lot and they're more well known. But we don't want to be the total. We don't want to be private. Like we want to be a little bit. Somebody to be high enough assigned a job that'll be important but not high enough that everybody would know who we actually are. Yeah, you don't want to be the sergeant major because everybody knows the sergeant majors. Don't pretend to be the sergeant major because everybody knows who he is. But a corporal.

Yeah, a corporal.

Okay.

So you're. That's, that's mostly what you're able to get. Again, it's far enough that even, even the best ears can't hear anything.

Sure.

I mean you, I mean you hear the smithy, right? But, but I'll say that's, that's the, that Act 20, you're seeing this ranking and clear chain of authority.

Those d deeper details on what is going to be discussed with us.

So yeah, you will absolutely be able to recreate. And despite the fact that these were never actually worn in combat, their helmets are very much like. Sir, Henrik's there.

Oh, perfect. We love it.

Advisored barbuta for those of you at home who can't see this. Never actually worn in combat. They just look cool. These guys actually wear them.

Perfect.

But we'll say the, the. The plume. Commander Wholestock, he's got a. The frogmouth.

And at that I will wake up. I think Emery's last. Or no, Mel's last. I'll wake up male pissed. Emery. I'll share all the information that I was given and that I witnessed.

Can I borrow the binoculars?

Of course you can borrow the binoculars.

Thanks.

For those of us who don't know that's a frogmouth helmet.

Ah, that's. Wouldn't it get that kind of goofy looking.

Yep, goofy. Very effective for jousting and other horse based combat.

Yeah.

Very good for seeing out of.

Not great for seeing out of.

Not great for Seeing out of.

No, not a lot of helmets work,

which serves to our benefit.

So you can kind of see there's a really creepy 3D rendering of a dude in the frog helm.

Yep. Okay. Hey,

so Mel's totally going to learn how to use binoculars tonight

here.

And he explains to her. He gives her a quick west nod. You set the left eye and then when you get in focus, you shut your left eye. Then you focus this ocular here on the right till it's focused. Then you put both your eyes. Now they're in. And now you turn the big knob for farther. That's how you use that. Good night.

Belle stares at him and blink. Stares at him intently like she's listening and blinks like she's not. For those of you who didn't witness

that he walked away just sort of shaking his head going, I don't. I don't know if that girl gets it or not.

I love how he absolutely said that in front of her and then went to bed.

Yep, yep.

I was walking away when I said it. I just muttered it.

Or not.

Crazy.

I think she hears me when I talk.

Tough to say sometimes.

So Belle takes the binoculars, gets into her position to stare out over the thing. She has both eyes open and focuses both eyes. And then remembers Elliot mumbling something about right eye, left eye. And then fidgets with that for a while and everything goes super blurry. She spends a bit doing this, but eventually she gets something you could do use. We think we'll see what my role says. I guess.

You got to give me that. You're still using the tool. You give me the advantage perception.

That's not my stats anymore.

You're no longer raven.

Can I have the raven perception? Cuz it's better than mine. Ah. Oh, that's going to be a 16. Nice.

You guys are on it.

Yeah. See, I figured it out. It took me, me. It took me a little bit because of course Elliot gave me very good instructions, which I did not follow.

But this is at least not immediately

significantly less complex than building a tent.

It is. It is.

There's only a couple of knobs.

There's only a couple of knobs. And it's really obvious when you don't do it. Right.

Yeah.

Whoa.

Can't see. So, yeah, a lot of the same. Right. I'm going to say you're. You're firmly back in the.

You Hakaloogie off the end of the building.

I just spit that stutter off my tongue. You see a guard Hakaloogie off The Citadel.

He lifts his helmet just enough. Great.

That's how you know it's a visor to Barbie.

You see him lift it. Yeah.

And you're actually. You're able to. You see, he has to like, pop to lift it. Spit, click it back into place.

Well, that's just obnoxious.

And the flow o people has decidedly come. They're coming back in. And you do see at this point, you see very obviously the tablet man. I don't remember what I called him.

I think he was an assessor.

Assessor. That's the word. That's what it was. You see the assessor. Thank you. You see the assessor coming back from. From a distinctly different direction this time, though, he's coming from the east. He left. Headed straight north. He's coming back from the east this time. Whereas everybody else is clearly retracing their path. But, yeah, I think that's. That's about what you see.

Okay.

And I will say that there's like one. One guy coming back in with a prisoner, very much walk, dragging behind his horse.

I would say about 30 minutes before what we know to be the shift change time, I wake everybody up.

Okay.

You guys got the long rest.

Okay. I really want to mage armor myself, but also, I am starting to get kind of high on my.

All right, guys, here's the stealth mission.

Oh, yeah. Your wild magic's up there.

Blows up the room.

And if I remember correctly, you glow. Just a scope when you've got mage armor up.

Not. It doesn't say that in the description. I don't think.

I think he's.

I think.

I think you can visually tell if somebody's got mage armor up.

There's like a thin layer of shimmer.

You touch a willing creature who isn't, and a protective magical force surrounds it until the spell ends. Target space AC becomes 13 the spell ends if the target dawns or if you dismiss, it does not say.

Oh, okay, cool.

I think we've just always used it as a flavor.

I. I use. I always like to describe it, like flaring when something hits it.

Maybe that's.

But yeah, no, there is nothing in the wording that says anything about visibility.

So maybe I go stand in the stairwell for a moment and pass mage armor before we get started.

Okay.

And that's why I woke you guys up 30 minutes early.

There you go.

Yeah. I explode

unicorn.

Everybody's like, hang on a minute, guys now.

It's been a long time. For those of you following along at

home, everybody gets advantage on all Their skill checks for the next hour.

Oh, my God. That'd be amazing.

We are running on the game master's book of astonishing random tables by Ben Egloff, published by Media Lab Books. We're using their alternate wild magic table.

You know, it's better for that to happen now than in the middle of the Citadel, Dell.

That's what I figured. But what's Delfish?

Yeah, that would really suck if you just planted yourself right now.

Yeah, let's get a D100.

Yep, it was a 69,

the actual funny number.

Don't. Don't do it. Do not do it.

You do not have any communication issues.

Oh, thank God. So what does happen?

The caster has turned into a platypus.

Well, we have the animals.

I need you to roll a D4.

Platypus. Here is a platypus. Lordy. What was that about? That being better. Here it is. A1.

Okay, no, this will be fine. We'll just put you in a Emory says.

All right, hang on, guys. I'm gonna go put my armor on. Give me just a second.

What's been here so long?

Steps into the staircase and you do not see me for the next five minutes.

You are a large,

large platypus.

No.

God damn it.

You have 60 hp.

Holy.

Oh, my God.

You're the tank. You can make a single beak attack using the caster's spell attack modifier. That does 6 or 1 D8 plus 2 bludgeoning damage.

Okay, large platypus.

We can work with this.

Or. The effect lasts for 1d4 days or until someone casts remove curse on the affected creature.

Hey, guys, remember when we needed remove curse for the werewolf problem?

Well, the good news is my wild magic surge reset.

That's good.

Okay, now we can still work with this because at nights you have a prisoner. And look. What the fuck did we just catch out of the zoo?

We should totally cook it.

Need it.

That's totally what they would say.

Not necessarily. Not everybody's as. Not. Not everybody's as food centric as you are.

Yeah. Guys, look at this. I have a mobile omelet station.

This platypus is the size of a horse.

It's a big.

Okay, we can't put the platypus in the portable hole.

I am. It is a 10 foot by 10 foot by 10 foot portal.

But we can't put everybody else in.

It's 6ft wide by 10ft deep.

And we don't have access to my

poly and we don't have the Polymorphs.

We've got none of her magic. So what we do so we can leave her behind or we can wait until she turns back.

Does she have her intelligence or is she. She's a platypus.

Now she's a large platypus.

That would indicate the animal.

So you guys find a rather large platypus in the stairs and Emery is missing.

Guys, there is a white streak on the top of platypus head.

Emery's a pathopus.

Emery did it again.

And on that note, I think we're gonna call it a night. Nothing like an entire planning episode to immediately. I have to sketch that shit. Theater of the Mind presents Retribution as Amanda Marston as Mel Kelly Jeremy Arsten as Elliot Brandybane Michael Burnell as Ulnock Vargar Johnson Michael Downes as James o' Brien Casey Weingarten as Emory Lee and myself, Mike Shock, as your dungeon Master. We release episodes every two weeks, so our next episode will drop on July 6th. If you're local, please do not be the reason we have bad fires this year. We're in the middle of a drought. Don't go playing with fireworks. As always, we have a promo code for both Pinecast, who we use to host our podcast, and Epidemic Sounds, where we get most of our music. The songs we use today in order are Flying High by Eva Hummingbird, Unconventional Wisdom by Howard Harper Barnes, Horizons by Hampus Naecellius and In Sempiternum by David Celeste. The Theater of the Mind intro and outro were written by Mike Schock. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of our collective imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. And any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Weirdly.

Oops.

I'm so sorry.

That was so badly timed.

You had to like mid steps. I couldn't even.

Kill the dm.

Sorry guys, we're going to have to end early today.

The DM is a thought.

I broke his leg. Oh, he gone.

So you guys think is going to happen this time?