2025-10-8 — Akasha

Josh:Now recording.

Mike:Howdy.

Josh:How do we play this?

Mike:I don't know.

Mike:I didn't review.

Josh:You haven't min-maxed?

Mike:Not yet.

Josh:I don't think it's possible to do that.

Josh:Maybe you should try.

Mike:Well, I can't do it yet.

Mike:That's what I mean.

Josh:Why not?

Mike:I don't know my character yet.

Josh:Just load the dice.

Josh:Just wait some dice.

Mike:Wait a minute.

Josh:Let me know and I'll wait it for you.

Josh:This whole time I've been telling people that it's cryptographically secure and random.

Mike:Load them.

Josh:It's not.

Josh:Every time somebody rolls something, I just go into my console and I type in a number that seems like that die would have rolled.

Noah:I knew it.

Josh:It works.

Mike:I believe it.

Josh:It's usually fine.

Josh:Hello.

Josh:How are you?

Noah:I'm here.

Noah:I'm alive.

Noah:How are you guys?

Josh:You made it back at one piece?

Noah:I did.

Noah:Actually, I made it back in several pieces.

Noah:They had to chop me up.

Noah:There was too many people on the plane.

Josh:I believe it.

Noah:I got reattached, though.

Josh:That's good.

Josh:It's good to have some kind of health insurance, just in case you need to be put back together again by all the king's horses and all the king's men.

Mike:healthy.

Noah:There was a Giant egg in the bed next to me, and it looks like they were having a lot more trouble with that guy than me.

Josh:Yeah, that sounds like it'd be harder to put together.

Noah:Yeah, you know, sometimes you're a person, sometimes you're a Giant egg.

Noah:I think it's just...

Josh:Sometimes it happens.

Josh:What do we need?

Josh:Is it just a D10?

Josh:I'm trying to figure out if I should be using actual dice.

Josh:I think the answer is no, because I'm bad at dice.

Josh:I will be back in a second.

Noah:I think so.

Mike:Is Tanner allowed to kill our characters?

Mike:Because aren't we going to be like really cute woodland creatures?

Mike:Is that allowed?

Noah:I mean, some of these are a little scary.

Noah:Some of these are spiders.

Noah:I killed a spider earlier.

Noah:Maybe that should be a fifth stat.

Noah:Can you be killed?

Noah:Mike, how are you doing?

Noah:How have you been since I saw you five days ago?

Mike:I've been good.

Mike:I had that... I don't know.

Mike:I don't know if it's just that I don't drink.

Mike:That when I do, especially on repeated nights, it's like the recovery is like I have to fight for every inch of not feeling bad.

Mike:And it just got very interesting Sunday.

Mike:Because Sunday I probably had close to a legitimate...

Mike:hangover or at least as close as I've had and um like headache essentially just like laying in bed but also like my heart rate variability was super low so like I'm also not going to be doing anything because I'm fucking completely wrecked um but yeah because I got a drink with coworkers on Wednesday then drinks Thursday then drinks Friday then drinks Saturday so Sunday I was like I need to bring this I need to bring this all back

Noah:someday you were like i am i'm dying

Josh:At that point, you keep going.

Mike:True.

Josh:So long as you never get fully sober, you can't be hungover.

Mike:I should have just became an alcoholic.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:Mike, have you tried just converting a little bit of your blood to alcohol all the time?

Josh:Just a teeny bit.

Josh:You don't need a lot.

Mike:Is that what they call it?

Mike:Blood alcohol?

Noah:Yeah.

Mike:Oh, okay.

Mike:No, but it's actually really funny because are you guys up to date with your...

Noah:Easy.

Mike:fitness influencer drama?

Mike:Or exercise scientist influencer drama?

Noah:No.

Josh:No.

Josh:Still no.

Mike:Okay, so someone dug up Mike Israetel's PhD.

Mike:This is Renaissance Periodization, science-based lifting guy.

Josh:Oh.

Mike:And it's just like, it's like as if you made up a document.

Mike:It's that bad.

Mike:Like, it's just terrible.

Josh:Oh.

Mike:Like, the premise is uninteresting.

Josh:Like his dissertation?

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:The premise is uninteresting.

Josh:That's fun.

Mike:There's over a hundred spelling mistakes.

Mike:Spelling, grammar, not like, oh, it's the wrong form of... No, no, no.

Mike:There's three extra letters in some words.

Noah:That's that's inexcusable.

Mike:Oh, and the math is completely and entirely incorrect.

Mike:He has tables that are like, the standard deviation of this sample for height was plus or minus 150...

Mike:And it's just like tables implying like some athletes had an age of negative one point three.

Josh:Bye.

Mike:Like it looks just straight up made up.

Mike:And so people have been going at him like crazy.

Noah:Okay.

Mike:And then he made up a bunch of bullshit.

Mike:He had a bunch of people that he's associated with defend them online.

Mike:But I was like, Dan, that's crazy.

Mike:I mean, for the most part, he's yeah, he is like definitely pompous and arrogant and whatever.

Mike:But for the most part, I thought like he had some semi legit advice on a lot of this stuff.

Mike:And then I saw a clip of him on a podcast, and I'm like, that's not correct at all.

Mike:That goes contrary to actual studies they've done.

Mike:And he said something like, because the woman who's the host of the podcast asked him, so alcohol, is it okay to drink?

Mike:Is it not okay to drink for fitness?

Mike:And he's just like, studies have shown that one to two glasses of wine a night has almost zero effect and maybe some fun positive effects on general health.

Mike:And I'm like, that's not true at all.

Mike:That's fucking psychotic.

Noah:The funny thing about that is that that's based on a study showing that French people live longer and have better heart health, but that got debunked because French people just don't report heart-related death as frequently as Americans do.

Josh:They're...

Mike:One to two glasses of wine a night?

Mike:Yeah, also, every other study.

Mike:It came to a point where Huberman had to have a whole episode about it.

Mike:He's like, guys, your life is not just optimizing health, but...

Mike:based on every single study I've seen and the meta-analyses of many studies, the acceptable amount of drinks per week is zero.

Josh:Thank you.

Mike:It's just don't drink at all.

Mike:You have to have less than one drink per week, less than one drink per month.

Mike:You will be significantly better off health-wise.

Mike:It causes cancer.

Mike:it has negative effect.

Mike:It's just like, it's just like, I'm sorry.

Mike:Again, your life is not maximizing health optimization.

Mike:So if you're, if it's going to negatively affect you socially or, or cause you to be more stressed out, that will also have deleterious effects on your health.

Mike:So you have to balance it.

Mike:But the acceptable, as far as health directly from alcohol is zero.

Mike:So for my kids, I'll be like seven drinks a week, seven to 14 drinks a week.

Josh:I mean, for what it's worth, though, Huberman is also a hack.

Mike:And it's probably positive.

Josh:One of Huberman's big things is he tells people not to drink coffee in the morning because it affects your sleep cycle.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:And it's blatantly not true.

Josh:He just straight up made it up.

Josh:And then people tested it.

Josh:And then he went into the comments of the videos of people testing it saying, I never said that.

Josh:And so people responded with clips of him on his podcast saying not to drink coffee directly in the morning.

Josh:And then he responded with saying, I drink coffee in the morning.

Josh:I don't know where you got that from.

Mike:I'd have to check that.

Josh:like he it happens

Mike:But Huberman has run a lab at Stanford University for over 10 years.

Tanner:That's crazy.

Mike:As far as Mike Israetel's credentials, he has not done anywhere close to that.

Mike:He's been an athletic trainer, so he is the smartest meathead.

Mike:Which, again, the smartest meathead.

Josh:So wait, who am I supposed to listen to for all of my fitness in place?

Josh:If I can't listen to... What's his face?

Josh:Dr. Mike?

Josh:Tanner.

Josh:Tanner, you have to make short-form video content for me that tells me how to best optimize my life.

Tanner:Like YouTube short kind of short form?

Josh:Uh, no, like Vine short-form.

Noah:All right, Tanner.

Josh:I want you to give me all of the information I need in six-second increments.

Tanner:Wait.

Tanner:Vine was seven seconds, wasn't it?

Tanner:Come on.

Josh:Was it seven seconds?

Noah:Wait, we're going live in five, four, three, two.

Noah:It's over.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:You're going to want breakfast, lunch, dinner, double fudge brownie.

Noah:All right, there you go.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Great.

Josh:I know what to do from now on.

Tanner:That's more of a treatment for depression than things like obesity or cardiovascular health.

Josh:For what it's worth, you also didn't specify that I can't have that brownie also for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Josh:So that sounds like four meals of brownie.

Tanner:Wait, what's the fourth meal?

Josh:Is that not what you said?

Tanner:I said breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Josh:Breakfast, lunch, dinner?

Josh:And then you said, Brent, oh, you were telling me to have that for all three meals.

Josh:You weren't saying that as dessert after the first three.

Tanner:No, but I only had the seven seconds, so maybe I should try to tighten that up a little bit.

Josh:That's true.

Josh:No, I mean, I apparently understood what you were saying, but I thought it was a loophole, but it was actually just what you were telling me to do.

Josh:Which, if anything, is better, because I get to feel like I'm rebelling against the man at the same time that I'm doing what you told me to do.

Tanner:Yeah, there you go.

Mike:Yeah, I am seeing the adenosine mechanism not verified anywhere.

Mike:I will also say that Huberman does still advertise AG1.

Mike:So the thing is, so you go to Dr. Mike.

Mike:Dr. Mike says something wrong about alcohol.

Mike:You go to Huberman.

Mike:Huberman says something wrong about caffeine and also has AG1.

Mike:So you go to the person that beat AG1, which is Brian Johnson.

Mike:Do you want to know Brian Johnson's advice?

Josh:Brian Johnson's a crazy person.

Mike:Okay, we're already there.

Mike:We've passed two crazy people.

Mike:We're now at the most sane, which is Brian Johnson.

Josh:Brian Johnson thinks I should be tracking the length of my erections at night and then comparing it with my son to see who has it longer.

Noah:Wait.

Josh:I don't trust Brian Johnson for anything.

Mike:He's correct.

Tanner:That was a crazy thing.

Mike:He's correct.

Tanner:Is that a thing that people say?

Tanner:Now, can I dig into this a little bit or do we need to move on?

Mike:Unfortunately, Brian Johnson may be the most scientific of the three that we've mentioned.

Noah:Wait.

Noah:Who is... Is Brian... Is Brian Johnson...

Mike:No, no, we can dig into it.

Mike:Brian Johnson's a fun guy.

Mike:I have lots of Brian Johnson facts.

Tanner:Using what tools is he measuring his erections while he sleeps?

Mike:There might be a band that he puts on it or something.

Noah:I hate that.

Noah:Is Brian Johnson the guy who replaced his blood with his son's blood to try and become younger?

Tanner:I mean,

Mike:Yeah.

Noah:I mean, dialysis?

Josh:He doesn't do that anymore, though, I don't think.

Mike:And replaces his dad's blood with his blood.

Josh:Right.

Mike:Well, yeah, because there's a better thing proposed where you just go get your blood cleaned.

Mike:So he goes into a machine and essentially, like,

Mike:cleans out his blood, and then it puts it back in his body.

Mike:It's not dialysis, but it's something else that he does.

Noah:Like, dialysis?

Josh:Yeah, it does sound like dialysis.

Mike:It's close.

Mike:But he does, yeah, he does that.

Mike:He does, I mean, they all have their own fitness routines.

Mike:Mike Isratel's is eat 4,800 calories and take steroids and dirty bulk.

Noah:Wait, when did you get it released?

Mike:And then when you've developed too much fat, you have to get it removed later so you can attempt to get your pro card for bodybuilding.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:Huberman's is what?

Josh:Wasn't... Was Mike Israetel the guy that did the voluntary surgery where they just ripped out a bunch of stuff from his back and gut?

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:Yeah, because there are consequences for being... You can't just be 400 pounds and then go and be a pro bodybuilder.

Mike:You can't simply get that lean.

Mike:The fat cells will shrink, but they don't really go away that easily.

Mike:Huberman recommends three days of high-intensity cardio, three days of lifting, and he carries a big rock a bunch of times.

Mike:That's his twist, is you've got to carry a big rock.

Josh:Interleaved.

Mike:And Brian Johnson says that you have to...

Noah:Like in a row?

Noah:You do like three days of high-intensity cardio, then three days of heavy lifting.

Mike:No, no, no.

Mike:It's lifting cardio, lifting cardio.

Mike:He has a very reasonable regimen, especially compared to Mike Israetel's eat 4,000 calories and take steroids.

Noah:Okay.

Mike:And then Brian Johnson is mostly cardio with his recommendation of you should spend an hour a week at zones four and five, which is probably pretty reasonable.

Mike:Although that may give a lot of people a heart attack if they did that immediately.

Mike:It's probably a decent goal.

Mike:He also still takes, I don't know, 100 supplements a day.

Tanner:Thank you.

Mike:He gets 20% of his calories from olive oil.

Mike:He's hardcore.

Mike:Olive oil is very good for you.

Mike:It is very unfortunate that I don't think that is the worst thing he's doing.

Noah:20% of your daily calories for that's a lot of olive oil.

Mike:He's done a couple of gene therapies.

Josh:Just take a cup of olive oil, and then you'll go into ketosis, and it'll be a good time.

Mike:Well, because he's like a draugr.

Mike:Huberman's in the middle where he probably has a reasonable diet.

Mike:I imagine Mike Gizritel eats mostly steaks of cows that had good lives.

Mike:Because Mike Gizritel has a lot of fucking money.

Mike:And then Brian Johnson is constantly in a 250 calorie deficit.

Mike:He eats vegan and 20% of his calories are from olive oil.

Mike:So that diet is...

Josh:And he takes 111 supplement pills a day.

Mike:I don't know how relevant, I don't know how much that is anymore.

Mike:I think his diet's way more depressing than 100 whatever.

Noah:So 20% of his daily calories are from olive oil and the other 80% are just supplements?

Mike:No, no, they're plants.

Josh:His last meal of the day is at 11 a.m.

Mike:They're plants.

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:He is the opposite.

Josh:When does he get up?

Mike:Oh, you could do Thermobolic.

Mike:Thermobolic eats a bunch of sweet potatoes.

Mike:So Brian Johnson is actively trying to... He's recorded record low body temperatures, like internal body temperatures, which he is keeping a very close eye out for diseases that start to be able to replicate at that 95 degrees, 93 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mike:So he has to keep Anaïs out for that.

Mike:Then there's the opposite, because it extends your life because you're metabolically less active.

Mike:But then there's...

Noah:Yeah, like a turtle.

Mike:What?

Noah:No, that's like... Oh, so he's just going to do like a sloth thing and live with her a long time because he... That's crazy.

Mike:No, exactly like a turtle.

Mike:And then there's the guy that... Because it improves all the health markers that indicate age because you will live longer if you are less metabolically active.

Mike:And then there's the guy Thermobolic on Twitter who's trying to do the opposite.

Mike:He's trying to bring the internal temperature of his body as high as possible.

Mike:So he has pictures of temperature sensors pointed at his palms that say 110 degrees Fahrenheit and shit.

Mike:He just wants the hottest skin possible.

Mike:So he eats sweet potatoes, coconut oil, all thermobolic foods to just get himself as fucking hot as possible.

Josh:Brian Johnson also eats sweet potato.

Josh:I'm looking at what he listed as his food for a day.

Josh:This is from an article about his... This is from October 29th, 2024.

Mike:How old is this?

Mike:Is this from his website?

Josh:So, you know, it's a little out of date.

Mike:OK, so that's pretty much it.

Josh:For breakfast, at 6.45am, he had nutty pudding, which had protein powder, nuts, blueberries, collagen, cocoa, and extra virgin olive oil.

Josh:For lunch, at 9, he had what he calls a super veggie, which is lentils, broccoli, garlic, mushrooms, hemp, and fermented foods.

Josh:And then two hours later, for dinner, he has a stuffed sweet potato, which is a sweet potato, avocado, tomato, chickpeas, radishes, and chili powder.

Josh:And then he's done for the day.

Noah:This dude's taking in like 1,500 calories a day.

Tanner:At 11.

Josh:At 11 a.m.

Mike:His goal is to... He also... He's undergone a bunch of skin treatments because he wants to live forever, but he also... Yeah.

Noah:This guy cannot be okay.

Josh:He looks like a vampire.

Josh:I don't know if you've seen a picture of him.

Josh:He looks like a vampire.

Mike:Well, he's anti-sun.

Mike:He's not even like, oh, wear sunscreen or like the nature bros.

Mike:Soul bra.

Mike:They call them moon bra and other people are soul bra.

Mike:But they will tell you like...

Mike:slowly increase your sun exposure until you have the melanin in your skin that can protect you from it.

Mike:And if you don't have the genes to produce that much melanin, then you use sunscreen, but still go outside because the sun is so good for you.

Mike:And then Brian Johnson's like, I have an umbrella everywhere I go.

Mike:Like there's a video of him.

Josh:because it's healthier sure I mean sure

Mike:Um, uh, I forgot what it's called, but he, he said he's now gay.

Mike:Brian chance.

Noah:What?

Mike:No, no, it's, uh,

Tanner:He's going to live longer.

Mike:It's like it's gene something.

Noah:This... This guy...

Mike:It's an acronym, but he got like some gene therapy in the Bahamas because this is where they do it, I guess.

Mike:And yeah, and he's walking around like an umbrella.

Mike:And I'm like, bro, there's I'm on unsubscribing.

Mike:I've done everything so far.

Mike:I've gotten 40 percent of my calories today from olive oil.

Mike:And but I have to stop with the umbrella, bro.

Noah:This is, this guy looks dangerous.

Tanner:guys I just want to be happy like why do these people do stuff like this

Noah:He, he looks like a head vampire.

Mike:Brian Johnson?

Josh:You can give him money, and then he'll give you his supplements and his, like, dietary plan and his daily goals.

Mike:He doesn't sell the info for money.

Josh:But also, I think he just wants to live forever.

Mike:He gives the info for free, but he does sell some products.

Mike:He has Nutty Pudding and whatever, but as far as I remember, they're not crazy expensive or whatever.

Mike:They're pretty...

Mike:They're pretty reasonable.

Mike:But he... 50 bucks for how much?

Josh:You can get his longevity mix for only 50 bucks.

Josh:Only 50 bucks.

Josh:One pouch.

Josh:What does one pouch do?

Josh:How much is one pouch?

Josh:Please stop showing me pictures of this man.

Josh:Tell me what is the serving size in a pouch.

Josh:Oh, 30.

Mike:You said...

Noah:This is.

Josh:Actually, it's $50 for a month.

Josh:And then you could pretend to be Brian Johnson.

Mike:Yeah, like I said, he's very transparent that he's like, I'm selling these essentially at cost, or to run whatever small outfit I have.

Mike:But Brian Johnson, by far, the most legit of the three that we've mentioned.

Mike:Because like, Huberman is fairly vibes-based.

Mike:Mike Irizotel, unfortunately, is bro-based, because again, smartest meathead.

Mike:But Brian Johnson is like, there was one study that said that this molecule could increase...

Mike:longevity i'm going to take it for three months and let you guys know and then he will do a protocol yeah i mean but he he does as good of work as he can with with n of one like a lot of times they were like cold plunge sauna and he's like no we haven't seen evidence for that being good yet

Josh:Right, there is... What is it?

Josh:Rapamycin was a thing that he started taking, and then he found out it actually makes you age faster.

Josh:And so he stopped taking it, and he told everybody, stop taking it.

Josh:It's not good.

Josh:But, you know...

Mike:And they're like, okay.

Mike:And then he had a three-month trial of – he might have done a six-month trial of sauna.

Mike:He did it at first with no ice packs, and he tracked sperm motility and essentially just watched all of his fertility die off.

Josh:of course.

Mike:And then he did another with ice packs.

Mike:But other things that he did is he tested the microplastic content of various parts of his body, including his blood.

Mike:and urine, and then he did sauna, and it essentially wiped out anything that the test could measure as far as blood microplastics.

Tanner:That's useful.

Mike:He's just sweating it all out.

Mike:N of 1, but N of 1, but who the hell's going to pay for 400 people to go into a sauna and measure their microplastics and their pee?

Josh:I mean,

Tanner:That's useful.

Josh:for what it's worth like guy makes tech company sells it for a lot a lot of money and then decides to spend all of it on doing experiments on himself is not the worst way that story could end so lindy

Tanner:That's totally fair.

Mike:I think it might actually be Lindy.

Mike:Does anyone know the concept of Lindy?

Tanner:No.

Josh:no like the dance the lindy hop if

Mike:Lindy, man.

Mike:No, man.

Mike:I'm about to drop some esoteric internet bro knowledge on you guys.

Mike:So Lindy, or the concept of Lindy, is the longer that something has existed, the more likely it is to work and exist in the future.

Mike:So something is Lindy means that it's essentially been done kind of forever.

Mike:Like chairs are Lindy.

Tanner:Right.

Mike:That's like an appropriate statement.

Mike:If you think, if you bet, I'm dead serious.

Mike:Like if you're betting in 10 years, if chairs still exist, go ahead and look back 10,000 years and let me know if there's chairs back there.

Noah:They experimented on other people mostly.

Mike:Yeah, they're probably going to be here in 10 years.

Mike:So Lindy meaning like rich people in the past just started experimenting on themselves.

Mike:Maybe they experimented on other people.

Mike:Thomas Jefferson dunked his head in cold water a bunch.

Josh:Like for health?

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Oh.

Mike:I think it was Jefferson.

Noah:You know, we don't have enough eccentric billionaires just doing stuff anymore.

Mike:This is what I'm saying.

Tanner:Yeah, now they got to get involved in geopolitics.

Mike:We need more... Yeah.

Noah:Yeah, they can go back and dunk their head in water.

Mike:We need... We need more.

Mike:We need Musk doing genetic experiments to have as many kids as possible.

Mike:We need Brian Johnson putting a hyperbaric chamber in his house.

Noah:He's breeding a bunch of kids genetically similar to him, and then he can just test all his crazy theories on them.

Josh:Why?

Mike:Exactly.

Mike:Zuckerberg needs to fund a university.

Mike:Bezos, I guess, is going to the moon.

Mike:That's probably good enough.

Mike:Or going to space in general.

Mike:He put Katy Perry in space.

Mike:I guess he gets a pass for that.

Mike:I'm just saying, if you're like, fund a university for several years or buy a yacht, go fund the university, but then tell them what to do.

Tanner:We love Katy Perry and space.

Mike:That's so much more fun.

Mike:Like, what's it called?

Mike:What's-his-face made a big stink.

Mike:Terrence Tao.

Mike:Terry Tao made a big stink that his funding was getting cut from the government at UCLA.

Mike:And then Renaissance Technologies was like, yeah, we'll fund you, Terry.

Josh:Oh, I thought he was going to China.

Mike:Good billionaires.

Josh:Is he not doing that?

Josh:Did that stop?

Mike:I imagine...

Mike:Actually, I don't know.

Mike:The Chinese government can probably compete with rent tech money, but if he wants to be in the US, I don't see why you wouldn't just take the Jim Simons estate and just be like, thank you.

Mike:I'll keep doing this.

Josh:There.

Mike:But yeah, Brian Johnson, he's heavy cardio.

Tanner:Fascinating stuff.

Josh:Are we going to be animals?

Mike:I don't know what...

Tanner:Yes.

Tanner:So what's interesting is I'm actually going to... Why did my screen just go black?

Tanner:Excuse me.

Josh:You're welcome.

Noah:Oh, no.

Mike:We can't hear you, Tanner.

Josh:You didn't mean it.

Mike:Tanner, we can't hear you.

Tanner:No, it's my other screen.

Mike:We can't see you either.

Mike:Oh.

Tanner:It's a totally different computer.

Tanner:It just came back, so hopefully that's just going to stay.

Josh:Oh.

Tanner:So I'm going to have to step away for five minutes in like 15 minutes.

Josh:Do you have it with you?

Tanner:Yeah, yeah.

Tanner:I bought a house today.

Tanner:Yeah, let me unblur my camera.

Mike:Ooh, can we see it?

Noah:Ooh.

Mike:Do you have it with you?

Tanner:This is part of it.

Mike:Oh, I was going to say that looks like just part of it.

Tanner:I can't show you the whole thing from here.

Noah:Ooh.

Mike:Is that a TV like six inches from a couch?

Tanner:Yes, my wife is legally blind.

Mike:That makes sense.

Mike:I was also thinking that would be a thing that I would do to optimize the space.

Tanner:It is on wheels.

Josh:Thank you.

Mike:Ooh.

Tanner:Until very recently, we shared this house with Liz's grandparents.

Tanner:So this room that I'm in now was our combined office, living room, anything besides bedroom, bathroom.

Tanner:But now we have a whole house, so we haven't really used this TV.

Tanner:But yeah, it's there so Liz can watch Survivor.

Mike:That makes sense.

Noah:Sometimes Mike will say a word that I know he didn't invent and found on the internet, and it's just the worst thing I've ever heard.

Mike:I see you have a relic of lies.

Mike:Are you a Globetard?

Tanner:Alright, I think I'll turn the blur back on.

Tanner:Yeah, you spend too much time in the wrong places.

Mike:I wish I could take credit for inventing that.

Mike:But now you guys know Lindy.

Mike:So when I say it, it'll be part of a joke.

Tanner:Yes.

Mike:I'm like, I think that's Lindy.

Tanner:Lindy was...

Mike:Like someone being mean to a child.

Mike:I'm like, I think that's Lindy.

Tanner:That's helpful.

Tanner:Something that may be good for us is if maybe we roll up our characters so that you guys can have time to think about that.

Noah:That sounds pretty useful.

Tanner:So we're going to roll some d10s.

Tanner:Who wants to go first?

Noah:I'll do it.

Tanner:OK, if you roll two d10, will the dice bot show us both results?

Tanner:I think we should just do it separately.

Josh:I mean, it should.

Josh:It'll, like, sum them together for one value, but you can see the two numbers that it rolled.

Tanner:yeah yeah you each get a spell okay all right

Josh:Oh, are we rolling two D-tips?

Josh:Oh, right, one for your spell.

Josh:Of course.

Noah:Okay, I'll do what animal am I first.

Noah:I'll do two separate ones.

Noah:All right.

Noah:Animal.

Noah:I got a three.

Noah:I'm a toad.

Mike:Toad.

Josh:A toad.

Noah:That works out well.

Josh:You're not very fierce.

Noah:I don't have a voice right now, really.

Noah:So that works out really well.

Noah:All right.

Josh:That's crazy.

Josh:The stats are not equally distributed amongst... You just got... No!

Tanner:No, and we might do something about that.

Tanner:Because I agree that... No, but not all of them do.

Noah:Oh, I have no...

Noah:What am I best at?

Mike:The Toad doesn't have a three in anything.

Noah:But it's okay.

Noah:I have Mage Hand, so I'm a Toad of Unseen Hand.

Josh:Oh.

Tanner:Yeah, I think that, right, because the toad stats only add up to four, and some of them are much higher than that.

Josh:Nice.

Tanner:So what I think we're going to do is give the toad another point of quick, because they can jump around.

Mike:Jump up, jump up and get down.

Josh:You're a particularly agile toad.

Noah:Nice.

Tanner:So you could be a toad with quick, too.

Tanner:All right, who's next?

Josh:I want to do it.

Josh:I'm doing it.

Mike:Oh no, he's doing it.

Josh:I'm a dog!

Tanner:dog.

Tanner:Oh, that's solid.

Mike:Speak human, speak human, speak human.

Josh:I'm a fierce dog.

Noah:Yeah.

Mike:Come on.

Tanner:Oh, never mind.

Mike:Speak human.

Mike:Let's go.

Josh:I'm a dog that can speak human.

Mike:We got a talking dog in the party.

Tanner:Okay.

Mike:One out of 100 chance to get a talking dog in the party.

Tanner:Now, Mike, I...

Tanner:We'll leave it up to you.

Tanner:I will allow you to re-roll on a duplicate result from other members of the party.

Tanner:I think that it would be... Okay, okay.

Josh:Second talking dog.

Noah:Two talking dogs and a toad.

Mike:Second talking dog.

Mike:Alright, let's see.

Mike:A rat!

Tanner:We like the rat.

Josh:I like how excited you were to be a rat.

Noah:He's a rat.

Mike:Let's see.

Mike:But what spell will I get?

Mike:I only know two of them.

Mike:I was begging for one of us to get Speak Human.

Tanner:Okay.

Mike:Tidy, clean, and mend.

Tanner:Who knows?

Mike:There's no...

Josh:Is that one spell that does all three, or is it three different spells?

Tanner:Could be good.

Tanner:It's one spell, but I guess you can kind of decide how it manifests.

Noah:It has to do all for you.

Josh:I just wanted to know if the rat knew three times as many spells as everybody else, because I thought that'd be fun.

Tanner:Hmm.

Tanner:Okay, so that's good.

Tanner:We've got our animals and our spells.

Tanner:Just a couple things to note.

Tanner:Obviously, the system is rather light on rules, so there's some interpretation to be had.

Josh:you

Tanner:Basically, aside from having the spell and being able to communicate to all other familiars...

Tanner:You're an animal.

Tanner:You can do what a member of your species can typically do.

Tanner:You can communicate with other animals, like non-familiar animals that are similar to you in species.

Tanner:And there's some leeway there.

Tanner:I would let the dog talk to a wolf, that kind of thing.

Tanner:The toad can talk to a frog.

Tanner:The rat can talk to mice.

Tanner:They just have to be of a similar type of animal for you to meaningfully communicate with them.

Tanner:What else did I want to say?

Tanner:We did role-speak humans, so that'll make communicating with people a bit easier, because otherwise you kind of couldn't.

Tanner:I will say that you all kind of have an understanding of what humans say, just via your training and familiarity.

Tanner:One thing it mentions in the rules is that using magic is always dangerous.

Tanner:And so that means that though you can cast a spell, you have learned it, there is some degree of risk at each casting.

Tanner:Which, by extension, I assume, means that there has to be a roll, because that's where the risk lives.

Noah:Thank you.

Tanner:So my thought is that I'm going to have spellcasting rolls be either clever or sly.

Tanner:And...

Tanner:Depending on the spell and the level of change you want to enact in the world, the DC may change.

Tanner:Yeah, and we'll just see how it goes.

Josh:Thank you.

Tanner:What else did I want to say?

Tanner:Okay, so they have kind of a reverse hit point system where you have a level of danger that starts at zero.

Tanner:And if you fail a roll or do something non-roll like that, either puts you in harm's way or in some other kind of compromised position, you will gain danger.

Tanner:And if at any point you make a roll and the result of that roll is... Is it lower than your danger or equal to or lower than your danger?

Tanner:It's in there somewhere.

Josh:equal to or under your danger.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:That's bad.

Tanner:And we'll play with the severity of that depending on the situation.

Tanner:But it could be deadly.

Tanner:could be maybe not deadly, but still take you out of the game for some reason.

Tanner:Danger can be cleared.

Tanner:It says this little thing at the bottom, you can lower your danger by solving or running away from your problems.

Tanner:I'm expanding on that a little bit.

Tanner:If you take a point of danger from a specific circumstance and you have a means of addressing that circumstance in a meaningful or logical way, that could clear danger.

Tanner:So if you got a cut or something and you managed to get some bandage on the cut or something like that,

Tanner:I would let that clear that point of danger, things like that.

Tanner:Other than that, we're just going to run with it, see what happens.

Tanner:The PDF is one page.

Tanner:My plans for the session are a little over one page, so we'll see what happens.

Josh:Nice.

Josh:So you wrote a whole source book, effectively.

Josh:Nice.

Noah:yeah that's true

Tanner:I did write a source book, yeah.

Tanner:It's more of... I would call it more of an adventure path, or... What do they call them in 5e?

Mike:Yes.

Tanner:Like, what do they consider Lost Mines of Phandelver?

Tanner:Like, that's not a source book, it's a... Yeah, maybe a module, yeah.

Josh:Watchable?

Tanner:Um...

Josh:An adventure.

Tanner:Nice.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:So I wrote an adventure for The Witch's Dead.

Tanner:Do we have any questions?

Tanner:It's clear enough.

Tanner:I do think we should probably wait to get starting because I'm expecting... Oh, did I say why I need to step away?

Tanner:Or did I just announce that I bought the house?

Josh:You just left it as mysterious.

Josh:We assume that you're going to fight the old owner.

Tanner:My mother is stopping by because I'm leaving to go upstate tomorrow morning, and she wants to congratulate us on the house.

Josh:New York has a standard graph law.

Tanner:So I'm going to go chat with her for a few minutes whenever she gets here.

Noah:Oh.

Mike:I thought someone was going to show up and you were going to try out New York's stand-your-ground law or something.

Tanner:I was going to say, I didn't think so.

Mike:No.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:I was in the barbershop semi-recently, and the guy next to me was complaining about how difficult it is to get a license to carry a gun.

Josh:And he was bemoaning that you're not allowed to shoot somebody if they're trying to break into your house.

Josh:So I kind of assumed that it was not a thing.

Josh:He did say that the hack to get around that is you just have to tell people that you're in danger for your life, and then you can shoot people.

Tanner:Hmm.

Josh:So I think he's going to kill someone.

Mike:Absolutely not.

Noah:Is New York not a standard ground state?

Josh:Oh.

Noah:I don't know why.

Mike:I think both New York and New Jersey are like, leave your house if you're feeling threatened.

Mike:And if you can't leave your house, then you can defend yourself.

Mike:But try to leave your house.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:And if you don't, we might find you liable for some form of crime of bodily injury.

Noah:That makes more sense.

Tanner:Josh, you've currently got a cat in frame.

Noah:Colorado.

Josh:What are you doing, bud?

Noah:Oh.

Tanner:Just barely.

Noah:Got a part of a cat.

Tanner:Is that a carrying case?

Josh:Yes.

Josh:And they hate it when they know that I'm going to use it to bring them somewhere.

Tanner:Uh-huh.

Josh:So I figured I would leave it out and they would get used to it and they would like it.

Josh:And so then they wouldn't freak out whenever I try to bring them somewhere.

Tanner:Yep.

Josh:But they know because it didn't work because he'll sleep in it.

Josh:But then as soon I don't understand how he figures out that it's time that we're going somewhere.

Tanner:Well, I guess if you approach it in any way, he's going to assume that you're going to interact with it.

Josh:He will run and then hide in a part of the apartment.

Josh:I cannot get to him.

Josh:No, if I go up to it right now, he'll be like, hey, who are you?

Josh:Come give me pats.

Josh:Like, it's specifically somehow if I, like, I give off vibes that we're going somewhere, I guess, and he picks up on it and he refuses to get in.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Noah:Some going somewhere vibes.

Tanner:What is happening to them while you're away next week?

Josh:I have some old lady from the neighborhood coming in and, you know, watching him.

Tanner:Hmm.

Tanner:Nice.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:We'll see how that goes.

Josh:I've never had an old lady watch my cats before.

Josh:He didn't like her, so we'll see what happens.

Tanner:Did you...

Tanner:meet this old lady in a separate circumstance, or is this a thing she does?

Tanner:I see.

Josh:This is the thing.

Josh:This is her profession.

Josh:I think she's retired and she just wants an excuse to see animals, which is fine.

Tanner:Yep.

Josh:But she came over for, like, just to see the apartment and where everything was located and all of that kind of stuff.

Josh:And Tattle, the other one, like, loved her.

Josh:Like, walked right up to her, let her pet him and all that stuff, which is, like, out of character because he normally runs and hides from strangers.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Tanner:Mm.

Josh:But this one hissed at her, refused to let her get near.

Josh:So, you know, that was good.

Noah:Oh.

Mike:There are two cats in this apartment.

Josh:I'm not picking Melos out.

Mike:One tells the truth and one only tells lies.

Josh:One lies and the other is wrong, but it comes from a good place.

Mike:Oh, man, I'm sorry.

Mike:I didn't mean to mislead you.

Josh:Do any of you watch Game Changer, the dropout?

Noah:That's where that came from.

Noah:I was like, I've heard that before.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:They, like, did actual crimes to get that episode set up, which I think is fun.

Noah:Wait, which episode was that?

Josh:That was the last one.

Josh:Sam gets trapped in a puzzle room.

Noah:Oh, yes.

Tanner:But it was for fun and for content, Josh.

Noah:Where they pretended to be, like, CNN or something?

Josh:They...

Josh:Vogue.

Josh:But in the behind the scenes for that episode, they straight up admit to actual embezzlement.

Josh:They made a new financial code so they could hide the actual thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars they spent on this episode from Sam, which is great.

Josh:Right, like, he's not going to press charges, obviously, but in another circumstance that is actually illegal, which I think is very funny.

Noah:But it was for good.

Tanner:It's impressive that they pulled it off.

Josh:Yeah, it was a good time.

Josh:It was a good episode.

Tanner:I have been on the fence about subscribing to Dropout for probably a year now, so I'm only familiar with what they put on the shorts and also the smattering of full episodes that they put on YouTube from time to time.

Josh:I like... Make some noises a good time.

Noah:I would recommend that they have good content.

Noah:I mean, they have Dimension 20, but outside of that, they have other good shows.

Tanner:I like very important people.

Josh:Smarty Pants has been good.

Josh:Just like most recent season.

Josh:Trying to think of what other stuff they've done that I've enjoyed.

Noah:Oh, very important people.

Josh:Very important people's fun.

Tanner:Yeah.

Josh:The one where they...

Josh:The guessing game.

Josh:What is it?

Noah:Um, actual?

Josh:Not lie to me.

Noah:Oh.

Josh:No.

Josh:I don't like Ify as the host of I'm Actually.

Josh:I like him in other stuff that he's been in.

Tanner:I'll be back.

Josh:It feels like a weird fit for me.

Josh:For him to be in I'm Actually.

Noah:Yeah, I don't mind him, but I liked Mike Trapp.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:I thought he was...

Josh:I like Brian David Gilbert, though, because I liked him back when he was at Polygon, and it was weird to see him pop up at Dropout.

Josh:But, you know.

Josh:Bye.

Noah:It's happened.

Mike:Oh, I'm here.

Noah:Everyone has left.

Noah:Oh, Mike has returned.

Josh:Mike, have you watched Critical Role Season 4?

Josh:Campaign 4?

Josh:The first episode, I went and I watched it.

Mike:That's my content list.

Mike:When I'm bored, I can post something else.

Josh:I enjoyed it.

Josh:I thought it was a good time.

Josh:For 13 people at the table, he does a pretty good job of managing them.

Noah:I've not had the time to watch her yet.

Noah:I'm very excited, though.

Noah:That's impressive.

Noah:That must be nerve-wracking.

Josh:He was talking about how he used to run this West Marches campaign with 40 people in it.

Noah:Oh, never mind.

Josh:He does have practice with this particular style of campaign, but that's still so much.

Noah:That's so many.

Noah:Not even just, like, four players playing 13 characters.

Noah:That's so many different people.

Josh:No.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:I mean, this one is definitely smaller.

Josh:It's 12 players, and after four episodes, I think they're breaking up into three tables of four people each, which is way more manageable than one table of 12.

Josh:But... Yeah.

Noah:I guess it's probably easier too when you're like an actual company paying people to do this.

Mike:Oh, the producer's in its ear?

Josh:They've got...

Mike:No, that's... Carrie does this.

Josh:I don't know.

Mike:You get, like, some level of help.

Josh:I wonder if he has an assistant DM.

Josh:I know he's like had assistant DMs for other things he's done for like Dimension 20.

Josh:I would assume that he has somebody just to keep stuff straight for...

Noah:I mean, Critical Role has a couple of people who that's their whole job is just to keep things straight for everybody else.

Josh:Right.

Josh:Like, what's her face standing?

Josh:It's been there for years now.

Josh:I have to imagine that she's doing the same thing for Bramlin.

Josh:Or maybe she hates him.

Mike:Just a legitimate lore master is like, no, that didn't the last time you guys did this.

Josh:She only liked Matt now that Matt isn't the DM anymore.

Josh:She left.

Noah:Oh, no.

Noah:Yeah.

Josh:When they do, like, streams and stuff, she has, like, this huge book that's everything that's happened, and they say, hey, when did this thing happen, and what was it?

Noah:No, that's her.

Josh:And she can, like, flip through it and find it.

Josh:Like, they do have an actual Lordmaster.

Josh:I mean, they're a full production company.

Josh:That's not crazy.

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:I think that's the first job you'd try to assign.

Josh:But, you know.

Mike:Let's not have the audience be frustrated about... Because the audience probably knows.

Josh:Like, weird inconsistencies and stuff.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:If you have 10,000 viewers, collectively, they know fucking everything.

Noah:not only is it like not only is it like 10,000 viewers it's also canonically the most toxic fandom on on the internet

Mike:So if you guys are like, what happened?

Mike:You guys threw the hammer out of the helicopter.

Mike:What do you mean?

Mike:That was the best part of Season 4.

Josh:also uh for what it's worth uh the first episode of campaign four has 1.6 million views so you know more than 10 000 and those people they're crazy

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:I don't know if it still exists.

Mike:Well, I was...

Josh:There was that website where they tracked every individual role that happened across the entire show.

Josh:People know what's going on.

Josh:I know there are transcripts.

Josh:You can go online and you can find transcripts of every session.

Josh:They have a professional closed captioning person writing the transcripts.

Josh:It's not AI.

Josh:They got a record.

Josh:They know what's going on.

Josh:But it's a good time.

Josh:The set is wild.

Josh:There's a subwoofer installed on the floor to actually shake the table for some reason.

Mike:How can this go wrong?

Josh:I should get that.

Josh:Can you guys install small motors on your desks that I can trigger with a button press to simulate a Giant walking around or something?

Mike:Sure.

Noah:You just have the access to all of our table shakers at all times.

Josh:It happens.

Noah:One of us in an actual meeting and the table shaking.

Noah:Sorry, there's a Giant walking around nearby.

Mike:Or I wake up in the morning and my desk is in my kitchen because Josh just like left it on all night.

Josh:No, I wouldn't leave it on all night.

Josh:What would happen is I would leave the stream deck with the button on it on my desk, and one of my cats would have just been hitting it the whole night.

Josh:Well, you know, it's...

Josh:I need more things to bring into the real world.

Josh:I've been... This light is lame.

Josh:I can't change colors on it.

Josh:I need to change that clearly.

Mike:Hmm.

Josh:Yeah, right?

Noah:My immersion.

Noah:We all get some VR headsets and then we take it to the next level.

Mike:We should do a VR session once.

Josh:Do you guys own VR headsets?

Mike:Or maybe... No, but that's why we haven't done it yet.

Mike:I think if we all own VR headsets... I have not...

Josh:We could do it in VR chat.

Josh:That's a thing.

Noah:It really takes off.

Josh:I have a VR headset.

Josh:It's not worth it.

Josh:I heavily do not recommend purchasing a VR headset.

Mike:bought it because it hasn't gone on sale yet but it's just a meta the meta quest three

Josh:It doesn't matter if it goes on sale.

Josh:Don't buy it anyway.

Josh:It's not worth it.

Josh:There is one game total

Josh:for the VR headset.

Josh:I know people will pretend that there's like two or three, and they're lying to you.

Josh:Because the vast majority of games for VR headsets are just developers who are like, we made this room, and we put a bunch of objects in the room, and you can pick them up and put them down.

Josh:And then that's it.

Josh:That's the whole game.

Josh:So... Oh, and Beat Saber.

Noah:That's pretty fun.

Mike:I played a pistol game once on Jorge's Quest.

Mike:But... Beat Saber and... Oh.

Josh:Beat Saber's also a game.

Josh:There's two games for VR headsets.

Josh:Half-Life Alyx.

Mike:Well, yeah, I guess VR Native.

Josh:Were you thinking of Boneworks?

Josh:Is that the pistol game that you were talking about?

Mike:Mine might have been some sort of a demo.

Josh:Yeah, maybe.

Mike:It was not very in-depth.

Mike:But, no, I mean...

Josh:Yeah, I mean, like, you can do No Man's Sky in VR, you can do Skyrim in VR, all that kind of stuff, but, like, for the most part, games are worse in VR.

Josh:Like, it's really cool when you first get in, and you see the whole environment and all that kind of stuff, and it's like, wow.

Josh:But, like, in Skyrim, in order to sneak in VR, you have to physically crouch.

Josh:Which sucks.

Noah:that's pretty cool

Josh:Or you bind it to a button.

Josh:And so when you hit the button, you feel the whole world jolt as your character's POV goes down and you get nauseous, which is also bad.

Josh:Which is why all of the good games are stationary.

Josh:In Beat Saber, you move nowhere the whole time.

Mike:When I do get a VR headset sometime in the next year, I'm just assuming I'm going to purchase one.

Mike:I don't have a timeline or a specific time that I want one.

Mike:I'm just assuming.

Josh:Sure.

Mike:That would be nice.

Josh:It'll go on sale for Black Friday, I'm sure.

Mike:It would be No Man's Sky.

Mike:No Man's Sky is what I'm worried about.

Mike:I'd feel like I'd get in this ship and I'd be like, this is the craziest thing I've ever fucking seen in my life.

Mike:I'm going to stay here for eight hours today.

Josh:Well, because now you can walk around the ships, I hear, which is supposed to be exciting.

Mike:Man, it's skydiving.

Mike:So if you have VR, you can jump out of your ship and fall into orbit or fall into the atmosphere.

Josh:And that's something you want to experience in VR.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Sure.

Josh:Okay, well, when you do that, you and I can do D&D in VR chat, and then the remaining people can just, like, Discord it.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:It will be a good time.

Josh:We should all get Apple Vision Pros so it makes the weird 3D-generated version of us.

Noah:And then it's like we're all talking, but it's just a little bit off.

Josh:That'd be cool.

Josh:I don't want that.

Josh:Right.

Josh:Yeah, that's what you want.

Josh:That's what video calls have been missing.

Josh:I keep hating that I can see your actual faces.

Josh:I wished that you were all 3D, low-poly representations of your face instead.

Josh:That would be better for me.

Noah:I think we should get closer to the Uncanny Valley.

Noah:That's what all our talks are missing.

Mike:Oh, I hate that.

Josh:What was it?

Josh:I think Apple?

Josh:Yeah, Apple has the patent on the AI tech that moves your eyes so it looks like you're looking at the person instead of at the camera.

Josh:And that's gotta be Uncanny Valley.

Mike:That shit makes me uncomfortable.

Mike:Can you imagine if I just have unreal eye contact?

Mike:Hey guys, yeah, I was just... You know I'm not looking at the screen.

Mike:Yeah, I'm just researching.

Noah:Maybe not trust you.

Mike:Yeah, no, I'm looking right here at the Pathfinder rules.

Mike:It says that grappled means that I can still take action.

Mike:Like, mm-mm.

Josh:I hate it.

Josh:You don't want that.

Noah:It'd be like, oh, well, Mike's not looking things up.

Noah:He's just staring at me.

Noah:He's clearly not actually.

Josh:Exactly.

Josh:It's good for if you're like on an interview and you want to pretend that you're not looking something up.

Josh:You're just keeping eye contact the whole time.

Mike:Well, you got to be careful of many things then, because apparently there's a lot of ways to fuck up cheating.

Mike:And I have unfortunately seen it, and it's very uncomfortable.

Mike:Did I tell you guys when I had to call out someone for cheating in an interview?

Mike:They're students.

Josh:Even.

Noah:What?

Mike:I volunteer to do mock interviews.

Mike:It's not even for a real job.

Mike:And the kid cheats.

Mike:And then I call him out for it, and he's just like,

Mike:I wasn't.

Mike:And I'm like, dude.

Mike:And he's just like... At that point, I'm like, I'm not going to argue with him because I don't really care.

Mike:So I'm just like, whatever you were doing, it looked like you were cheating.

Mike:I'm not changing my opinion.

Mike:But if you say you didn't, okay.

Mike:I don't care.

Mike:I really don't care if... I'm not going to force you to admit it right now.

Noah:What was he doing?

Mike:And then towards the end of the interview, he was just like...

Mike:I just feel bad because you think that I cheated.

Mike:I'm just like, yeah, you did several things that indicated that you were cheating.

Mike:So I asked him a question.

Mike:These are, by the way, not hard questions.

Mike:Like this is me looking at someone's resume and then being like, how does this work?

Mike:And then they tell me something and there's like, oh, but how did, what did you do for this?

Mike:And then they just fucking, they implode.

Mike:Like a person that's trained a model has never tried to figure out if the model is good or not.

Mike:Like literally like first week of whatever modeling class is ever.

Mike:So I'm just like, oh, what did you do for this?

Mike:And he's just like, uh, or I asked him, I'm like, what would be the better between these two methods?

Mike:And immediately what he starts doing is, is like, uh, uh, uh, and then like, I see like a bunch of like white move across his screen or across his face.

Mike:And then I hear him typing.

Mike:And then he says something that is barely coherent.

Mike:And I'm like, okay.

Mike:And then at the end, I'm just like, because I don't give feedback to the ends.

Mike:At the end, I'm just like, hey, yeah, you cannot be looking things up when I'm asking you questions.

Mike:You just can't be doing that.

Mike:You got to really know the stuff that's on your resume.

Mike:And he's just like, what do you mean?

Mike:And I'm just like, during one of the questions.

Mike:I heard you typing on the keyboard and I saw your screen moving.

Mike:I assumed you looked something up.

Mike:Am I correct?

Mike:And he's like, no, I'm just like, you didn't look anything up.

Mike:And I'm just like, he said something like the keyboard clicking was actually like a pen or something on like paper.

Josh:He was just messaging his friends, is all it was.

Mike:And I'm just like, or he had like a pencil and like, that was him writing.

Mike:And I'm like, I'm not fucking stupid.

Mike:Like, what do you think?

Mike:I think a keyboard sounds like a pencil or a pen writing on paper.

Mike:Like,

Mike:And I'm like, well, the thing is, the reflection in your face changed a bunch of times.

Mike:I heard typing, and you were struggling to answer a question.

Mike:So that's why I think that you were cheating.

Mike:I think you were looking up the answer to the question because you didn't have it.

Mike:And he's just like, no, no.

Mike:I'm like, OK, whatever.

Mike:I have to move on to other feedback besides I saw that you couldn't answer a question on your resume.

Mike:And then I gave him more feedback.

Mike:And I'm like that mad, or I'm not being mean.

Mike:I'm just being very straight up.

Mike:And then they tend to bleed into each other, like the interviews, and I have like four or five in an evening.

Mike:So I have to like bang out the fucking feedback and then get to the next person.

Mike:We go a little bit – and also people join early.

Mike:So I'm in my own breakout room in the Zoom, and the next person for the interview joins.

Mike:And I consciously make an effort.

Mike:I'm not going to mention.

Mike:It's between me and him that he was cheating during my interview.

Mike:I'm not going to talk about it at the end of the interview when someone else is in the room.

Mike:So someone else joins the room very clearly.

Mike:And then he brings it up.

Mike:And I'm just like, I'll discuss this in front of this person.

Mike:I don't think you want them to know that you were caught cheating in this interview.

Mike:But okay.

Mike:He's just like, I just feel bad that you think that I was looking stuff up.

Mike:And I'm like, yeah.

Mike:You had all of the signs of looking something up and cheating when I was asking you.

Mike:You're not going to guilt me into being like, oh, no, no, I'm so sorry.

Mike:I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.

Mike:Dude, this is volunteer work.

Mike:I don't get paid for it.

Mike:They don't give me anything for this, all right?

Mike:I can be as 100% as I want, and I am, and you were fucking cheating.

Mike:Also, in the same night, someone else was cheating earlier in the evening, and I caught him, and then he admitted to it.

Mike:I was just like...

Mike:For him, I was like, yeah, dude, you can't be looking stuff up during the interviews.

Mike:And he's just like, oh, and kind of awkwardly smiled.

Mike:And I'm just like, am I correct?

Mike:You were probably looking up this paper?

Mike:And he's just like, yeah.

Mike:And I'm just like, yeah, so I picked the paper because this is one of the most obscenely specific and complicated ML models that you can make.

Mike:So I wanted to ask you questions on it.

Mike:You can't be looking up the paper to answer the questions

Mike:Also, the answers that you were giving me were not... I was asking you things that were not direct references to the paper.

Mike:I don't know what the paper was.

Mike:I was trying to ask you pros and cons, like why the paper is better.

Mike:You would have to kind of read it and know how it was working.

Mike:And he's like, yeah, yeah, no, you're right.

Mike:I'm sorry.

Mike:I just really wanted to get the answer.

Mike:I'm like, yeah, that's fine.

Mike:But absolutely crazy.

Mike:Also, as far as I can tell, I have not had anyone else cheat prior.

Mike:Also,

Mike:Because no one... I've had people stumped on questions before, but no one's given me absolutely horrifically incoherent answers that were even approximating correctness.

Mike:I've gotten really incoherent.

Mike:I just did, I don't know, and I'm like, okay, that's fine.

Mike:But like... And then I talk to the undergrads.

Mike:Oh my god.

Mike:They're so scary.

Mike:The master's students.

Mike:They're very okay, most of them.

Mike:The undergrads, I talked to an undergrad, and he's like, just... I talked to so many students that were either in consulting or had some level of a business degree prior, and the word salads that they could form off the top of their head, I was like, it's all fluff.

Mike:You just bullshitted me the 100% of the answer on a modeling question, and I'm like, what the fuck?

Mike:And then I talk to the undergrad.

Mike:The sweet little innocent undergrad just cuts directly through all the bullshit.

Mike:I asked him about his senior research project and how essentially they were able to mathematically simplify this thing to get it in a nice, close form.

Mike:And in two sentences, three sentences, he just describes the lattice they used and some of the proofs.

Mike:And I'm like, oh my god.

Mike:That was so quick.

Mike:How did you communicate so clearly?

Mike:What the fuck?

Mike:And then I'm just like, so...

Mike:Why am I interviewing you?

Mike:I was literally like, what are you doing?

Mike:Are you going for a master's?

Mike:He's like, I haven't really decided, but it'd be a master's in math.

Mike:And I'm just like, have you looked into a PhD?

Mike:He's like, yeah, I've looked into it.

Mike:I think I'm just going to get the master's in four years.

Mike:So I think that's at least what I'm looking at now.

Mike:And I'm like, all right, dude.

Mike:Why did you request one of these interviews, bro?

Josh:Just got to practice.

Noah:I wouldn't say, bro, why are you here?

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:What'd you say, Noah?

Mike:Yeah, I was, like... Some of these undergrads are... I asked one... I made a horrible mistake.

Mike:I asked one on, like, some horrifically complicated, like, Monte Carlo simulation technique that used, like, advanced stochastic calculus, like... Not even stochastic calculus, but, like, advanced, like...

Mike:partial differential equation like insane like i had no idea what the fuck is going on so i'm like asking him about it and then he just explains it to me and i'm like yeah i didn't fucking how does does this i'm i'm trying to get to the essence of what the fuck you did and yeah i'm sure someone that has another year of study in this very particular domain could probably ask you good questions on this i can't i can't ask you questions at all you're so scary why are you in here

Josh:Do you guys have names for your animals?

Noah:At that point, you just hand the interviewer over to him.

Noah:You're like, do you have any questions for me?

Noah:Do you want to take the reins here?

Mike:Yeah, wherever you land, do you want to hire me?

Mike:Yeah, I just sent you my resume.

Noah:Anyway, here's my resume.

Mike:If you could just look over it and let me know if there's any changes that I should make.

Mike:Oh, good question.

Mike:So we can't communicate with each other, correct?

Josh:No, we can talk to each other.

Mike:We're a total... Oh.

Josh:Like, familiars can talk to each other, and then we can each talk to like other animals.

Mike:Like animals.

Mike:Because we're special.

Noah:Do our names follow a theme?

Mike:Got it.

Mike:We're not just straight animals.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:Or did you already have a name, Josh?

Josh:Right.

Josh:I came up with a name once I learned that I was a dog.

Mike:Lay it on us.

Josh:Because I was planning on going by Scrungle, but I feel like Scrungle isn't a dog name.

Josh:So I'm not doing Scrungle.

Josh:Instead I'm doing Gideon Westward III.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:Which is close to Skrunkle.

Mike:I feel like... Gideon Northward III.

Josh:Unless, of course, you want us to all have three themed names, which we could do.

Josh:Like Eenie, Meenie, and Moe.

Noah:I was thinking we could all be Gideon some direction the third.

Noah:Gideon southward the third.

Josh:Also...

Noah:Mike, do you have any strong opinions?

Josh:It was why you could.

Josh:It's up to you.

Josh:Yeah, what do you want, Mike?

Mike:Well, I was thinking, I'm a rat that was owned by a witch, and I feel like witches' brews need a bunch of weird ingredients.

Josh:Who?

Mike:But at this point, the rat would not be viable ingredients, so expired ingredients.

Josh:Okay.

Noah:So Gideon Westward III, expired ingredients.

Noah:I was going to call my toad meatloaf.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:It's a good time.

Mike:Expired ingredients will be XP for short.

Josh:Of course.

Josh:Can somebody roll in the dice chat to see if it took?

Mike:Try writing my name.

Josh:It did.

Noah:Meatloaf brackets toad.

Josh:Oh, I meant to change it to the toad.

Josh:One second.

Josh:I have to go and edit stupid databases.

Noah:I like that the toad is a rogue.

Josh:I needed something to put in there for classes, and I figured toads or rogues.

Mike:Should rats be rogues?

Josh:That kind of made sense to me.

Josh:If you have a different class that I could give you, tell me what your preferred class is.

Josh:I'll give that to you.

Noah:For a toad?

Noah:Let's see.

Noah:Let me try to remember all 15 classes.

Noah:Josh, I think you should be the animist, because the symbol for the animist is just... It's like a dude half an inch away from a deer, like they're communicating.

Mike:a paw printer.

Mike:Oh.

Josh:Okay, I'll be unanimous.

Josh:That's fine.

Josh:Oh, it's Guardian and Commander.

Josh:At some point, they just gave up on making tokens.

Josh:I don't understand why.

Josh:But the Guardian and the Commander both don't have one.

Mike:Sure.

Noah:Mike, did you want to be a rogue?

Noah:I can be... I'll be an exemplar.

Noah:Why not?

Josh:Okay.

Josh:An exemplar.

Josh:We left the exemplar and expired ingredients over.

Mike:I have an image of Josh's character.

Josh:What?

Mike:Why are you like a full-sized... Are you a small dog?

Noah:Visit.

Mike:Oh, nice.

Josh:No, I'm planning on being like a St.

Josh:Bernard.

Josh:Like Beethoven.

Mike:Beethoven was a Saint Bernard?

Mike:I thought he was a composer.

Josh:Wasn't he?

Josh:He did two things.

Mike:But I thought he was exclusively a composer.

Josh:Well, you thought wrong.

Josh:He is a St.

Josh:Bernard.

Mike:Isn't it Hypnotoad?

Josh:See?

Josh:That's Beethoven.

Josh:Frog.

Josh:No, that's not you.

Josh:That's Rick.

Mike:Oh.

Mike:I don't know.

Mike:Is this a normal toad, I guess?

Josh:That's just a normal toad.

Josh:What are you talking about, Hypnotoad?

Noah:It's just a toad.

Noah:Hypnotoad is... There's Hypnotoad.

Josh:Completely different.

Mike:Holy fuck.

Mike:Why are they so similar?

Mike:Maybe it's because they're both... Yeah.

Josh:Because they're both toads?

Noah:Because of all the toads.

Josh:What do those toads look like?

Josh:What's the difference between a toad and a frog?

Josh:They might.

Mike:I don't know.

Mike:They have slight personality differences.

Josh:I don't know.

Mike:I can't remember the books.

Josh:Frogs are smooth.

Mike:See, I told you there's personality differences.

Josh:Toads are bumpy.

Mike:I told you it was just personality.

Josh:Yeah, you could be Mr. Toad.

Josh:Isn't that his name?

Josh:Yeah, Mr. Toad's his name.

Mike:Oh my god.

Mike:Why do his fucking legs move like that?

Mike:No.

Noah:Your legs don't move like that?

Tanner:Sorry, guys.

Mike:It's okay.

Noah:We're just the wind and the willows characters?

Noah:Hi, Tanner.

Tanner:Hello.

Josh:All right.

Noah:We're just sending images.

Tanner:It looked like we might have been doing some naming of some kind.

Mike:Mm hmm.

Josh:We were trying to figure out what classes we were.

Tanner:Based off the spell that you have, or...

Josh:No, the animal.

Tanner:Okay, I'm seeing Noah is Meatloaf.

Josh:And also vibes.

Tanner:We love that.

Noah:I like that it's Gideon Westford III, the dog.

Tanner:Gideon Westward III.

Tanner:Excellent.

Josh:how else is he going to know who you are because he's both of those things he's a dead

Mike:you want me to roll it should just be the third dog ingredients

Noah:What happened to Gideon Westford I and II?

Noah:Oh no.

Josh:Well, expired ingredients is better because then you don't get used in the culture.

Tanner:Okay.

Mike:True.

Tanner:You think Expired Ingredients has a short form version of his name?

Mike:XP.

Mike:E-X-P-I.

Tanner:XP.

Tanner:Nice.

Tanner:That's cute.

Mike:We've thought about this.

Tanner:Yeah, yeah.

Tanner:That makes a lot of sense.

Tanner:Alright, are we ready to...

Josh:And can we use...

Josh:Well, is there a short name for Meatloaf?

Josh:Because that's a bit long.

Josh:Can I just call you Meat?

Josh:Is that fine?

Noah:Or low.

Noah:Either one.

Josh:Oh.

Josh:No.

Josh:I don't like loaf.

Tanner:You prefer meat to loaf.

Josh:Yeah.

Tanner:That's fair.

Tanner:Okay, are we ready?

Tanner:Alright, then let's get into The Witch is Dead.

Tanner:Before you were nothing.

Noah:Ah!

Josh:She'll get better.

Tanner:Primal.

Tanner:living on pure instinct to survive.

Noah:Thank you.

Tanner:And then she came and enlightened you, your master, Penelope Crows.

Mike:Thank you.

Tanner:Which

Tanner:But that's fine.

Tanner:She was always good to you.

Tanner:Fed you well.

Tanner:Taught you some arcane slash occult abilities.

Tanner:Expanded your mind and your understanding of the world around you.

Tanner:You live in a little witch's hut in the forest.

Tanner:You know that you're not too far from a nearby village that

Tanner:Penelope sometimes haunts, sometimes grants boons to her relationship with the village.

Tanner:It's a love-hate kind of thing.

Tanner:One morning, the three of you are all inside of the hut.

Tanner:Gideon, you're probably resting in your little doggy bed.

Josh:That's the life.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:XP, you're nibbling on perhaps some cheese.

Tanner:And Meatloaf, you're just absolutely lounging in a little bowl of kind of murky water.

Tanner:And Penelope is outside, tending to her garden.

Noah:Nice.

Tanner:picking some ingredients for whatever she's currently brewing in her cauldron that is bubbling kind of in the center of the hut right now.

Tanner:And then you hear her scream.

Tanner:And you hear sounds of a struggle.

Tanner:And you hear the clashing of weapons.

Tanner:You hear the arcane crash of some kind of spell being released.

Tanner:And then you hear one final kind of guttural scream come from Penelope as things kind of go quiet.

Tanner:And it all happens in just a matter of seconds.

Tanner:You guys know how combat works.

Tanner:A round is only six seconds.

Tanner:Before you can even have time to react, it seems like whatever just happened outside has concluded.

Tanner:And you're left ears perked, some of you.

Tanner:looking around at each other.

Tanner:What do you want to do?

Tanner:You can try to leave.

Josh:Can we leave?

Josh:Is the door closed?

Tanner:So the door, as you well know, is enchanted such that most of the time it is not there.

Josh:Oh.

Tanner:And it's more than just illusion magic.

Tanner:It's not that you just can't see the door.

Tanner:It is not currently material.

Josh:And I take it there isn't a separate doggy door that one could use.

Tanner:There is a doggy door.

Josh:We'll use that then.

Tanner:You pad on over to the doggy door and go to push it with your nose, and it doesn't budge.

Tanner:Seems like something has blocked the doggy door.

Noah:Oh gosh, are there any windows?

Josh:I think...

Noah:Oh gosh, that's so high.

Tanner:There is a small kind of circular window with just kind of a cross of panes up kind of in one of the corners of the hut.

Josh:Does it sound like there are people outside still?

Tanner:You hear a little bit of activity, but it's not long before you hear a fading rustling of the brush as it sounds like someone or something moving now away from the hut.

Josh:I asked because I wanted to know if I could do something before they left.

Tanner:What would you like to do?

Josh:I want to speak human.

Josh:Actually, wait.

Josh:When I speak human, can I choose what it sounds like?

Josh:Or does it sound like a cartoon dog?

Tanner:Um... Uh... Mmm...

Noah:Wait, open the door.

Noah:I've been hearing...

Josh:Right, yeah, because I want to know if I can pretend to be a kid who's trapped in this hut, trying to escape through the doggy door, but there's something in the way.

Tanner:Very interesting.

Tanner:I'll say you can attempt that.

Tanner:You're trying to do a more complicated casting than just a basic cast of this spell, because you're trying to enact a little bit of extra control over your voice, so it does raise the DC.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:Um... Uh...

Tanner:I'll let you choose between clever and sly.

Tanner:I think clever probably makes more sense based on the rules.

Josh:Also, I'm really bad at being sly, so I'll take clever.

Tanner:OK.

Tanner:So we're going to do a bit of a multiple DC thing, where if you get to a certain level, you successfully cast a more basic version of the spell.

Josh:I'll take it.

Tanner:But if you roll high enough, you can exercise the kind of control you would like to control.

Tanner:So you can roll a d10 and add your clever to it.

Josh:I rolled a one.

Tanner:All right.

Noah:I'm trapped in here and I'm not a talking dog.

Tanner:Well, there...

Noah:I'm a real boy.

Josh:They just, oh, what was it that Mike used to say?

Josh:It just sounds like I have vocal cords and I activate them, but I'm not actually saying anything.

Tanner:Essentially, you do something that sounds somewhere between a dog's growl and a person's very lackluster like, That is a very low roll.

Mike:It sounds like a deaf person is trapped in this room.

Josh:I assume that's a failure.

Josh:So I take a...

Tanner:That is a failure.

Tanner:And it's enough of a failure to the point where it puts a bit of strain on your throat and vocal cords as the magic very unsuccessfully flows through them.

Tanner:And so you do take one point of danger for that.

Noah:I heard a dog get laryngitis.

Josh:Absolutely great.

Noah:Hoda?

Josh:Great.

Josh:So if I roll another thing like that, I die.

Tanner:Not necessarily.

Tanner:There is consequence, but we're going to play with it a little bit based on the severity or the risk of what you're trying to do.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:I'm going to try to cast the spell again and I just explode.

Tanner:You know, not yet.

Noah:Throw it outwards.

Tanner:So you make this attempt to call out, and it really does not sound much beyond the sound an animal would make.

Tanner:And as I described previously, you hear as whatever is going on outside, whatever individual this is, distances themselves from the hut and kind of fades.

Josh:Thank you.

Noah:Wait, Tanner, before they distance too far, can I hop up to the window to try and see out it?

Tanner:Yes, you can.

Tanner:I will say that as a frog who is naturally good at jumping, you can get up to the window without a roll.

Tanner:You kind of jump up onto a counter first that is below the window.

Tanner:And then you can just kind of catch the... There's a little bit of a ledge of the frame of the window.

Tanner:And you get a very brief glimpse, because you can't really hold yourself up there for too long without any kind of roll.

Tanner:But what you see kind of just fading into the...

Tanner:The brush looks to be a rather large buffed, you assume, male figure with some kind of dark colored armor on and a large axe.

Noah:Oh, gosh.

Noah:Do I see Penelope Crowe anywhere?

Tanner:In the brief glimpse, you spot, kind of almost out of view of the window, you see what you are pretty sure is her lying on the ground.

Tanner:But you're not able to make out too much detail.

Noah:Oh no.

Noah:So I hop up, hop up, hop up, frog splat myself against the window, and then go, oh god, oh god!

Noah:And report what I saw to my companions.

Josh:So we need to go murder that guy?

Mike:teams like it.

Josh:That's a rat voice.

Noah:Ribbit.

Tanner:So, oh, go ahead.

Josh:I was just going to ask you if either of these guys have any particular experience in murder.

Josh:Because I don't.

Mike:I used to train some people that did a fair amount of murder.

Josh:You trained them?

Josh:So that must mean you're as good at murdering as them, if not better.

Mike:close i don't know if i'd be able to add much more power than you currently do

Josh:Okay.

Josh:That works.

Josh:Does somebody want to help me ram my head into this docking door until it opens?

Noah:Ooh.

Noah:Maybe either me or the rat can squeeze around whatever's blocking the way.

Josh:That's probably better than using the gradient as a bounding rim.

Mike:Is there any place for XP to go under the door?

Mike:Rats can get through a millimeter hole anywhere.

Tanner:That feels slightly smaller than it should be.

Josh:That doesn't sound right.

Tanner:I will say that teamwork would be easier than individual effort.

Tanner:So there could be a combo of Gideon pushing against the door to perhaps give enough room for...

Tanner:XP to slip through what gap there may be at that point.

Mike:xp okay do we roll

Tanner:I do still think that that is going to be a role on Gideon's part, a fierce role.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:But the DC is much lower because you're not just trying to fully open it.

Tanner:You're just trying to make enough of an opening for XP to slip through.

Josh:I could try that.

Josh:I'm an eight.

Tanner:And eight.

Tanner:That's very good.

Josh:Yee.

Tanner:So, XP, you kind of position yourself right low against one of the corners of this doggy door.

Tanner:And Gideon, you get a bit of a running start.

Tanner:You don't go just head first into the thing, but you get a little momentum behind yourself.

Tanner:Go kind of shoulder first and push against it.

Tanner:And it does budge just enough for...

Tanner:for XP to quickly slip through the crack and get outside of the hut.

Tanner:And you get at least 40.

Josh:25 millimeters is the size of the hole that a rat can get through.

Josh:So.

Mike:Can I take a look if there's anything blocked?

Josh:Nice.

Tanner:So yeah.

Josh:That's easy for you.

Noah:Wow, he's just.

Josh:That's like two quarters next to each other.

Josh:That's crazy.

Mike:Well, actually, what is blocking the doggy door?

Tanner:Yeah, so it looks like basically just a large stone was placed here pretty quickly, pretty haphazardly.

Tanner:Probably a little more than a rat can handle on its own.

Tanner:But something you do see, if I may continue, you can see the body of Penelope Crows.

Mike:Can I...

Tanner:And you can see she's laid out kind of on her back, pool of blood.

Tanner:You can see one of her arms was...

Tanner:Removed just below the wrist, and you see that's lying a couple feet away from her body.

Tanner:And you can see there looks like to be a large gash kind of across her chest.

Tanner:But what most catches your rat eyes is a small...

Tanner:orb of dark kind of purple light with little flashes of green hovering just above her body.

Mike:uh i'll can they hear me through the doggy door do you guys know what the hell this orb is probably not her orb

Tanner:You could speak through the door, yeah.

Josh:Do we guys know what the hell this orb is?

Tanner:you are not familiar with this orb.

Noah:Do we guys have help?

Tanner:You've not seen her conjure an orb like this in the past.

Noah:Tanner, would this stone that's in front of the doggy door, is it small enough that my unseen hand can move it?

Noah:I will.

Tanner:Hmm.

Tanner:It could be.

Tanner:You would have to roll, but it's definitely possible.

Mike:Can I tidy the stone into a million pieces?

Tanner:That would be harder.

Mike:I'm just trying to figure out the limits of what does tidy mean.

Tanner:That would be... Uh-huh.

Josh:What if he cleaned it?

Mike:It'd be real tidy if the door was removed entirely and my friends could come through.

Noah:i will do i'll do sly i'll uh i'll expand my throat pouch i think there's a name for it but is that is that true

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:I think that Unseen Hand is probably more of the solution here.

Tanner:And again, as I said before, you could do either Clever or Sly as your spellcasting role.

Mike:Jejunum.

Mike:No.

Noah:Oh, well, I rolled a d20, not a d10, so my bad.

Mike:So what was it?

Tanner:Yeah, we don't do that here.

Noah:I got a 19 on that.

Josh:It's called the vocal sack.

Noah:I got a 7.

Mike:The vocals.

Josh:It's the vocal sack.

Tanner:Seven.

Tanner:That's pretty good.

Tanner:I will say, so you kind of croak and then lash out your tongue, and your tongue returns to your mouth, but as you lash out your tongue, a little hand kind of comes up around it, a spectral hand, and that kind of remains, and it does kind of leave a trail back to your mouth.

Tanner:and you maneuver it there's a little bit of a gap that has remained open from Gideon's efforts and I'll say you are able to move the rock enough that you can definitely fit through and Gideon it's moved enough that you can push your way through and kind of get it the rest of the way out of there

Noah:We exit.

Tanner:So all three of you are able to exit the hut.

Josh:Does the orb look like something I should eat?

Josh:Because we haven't tried that yet.

Josh:Of all the things we've tried, we haven't tried me biting it yet.

Tanner:You've not bitten it yet.

Tanner:You're really not sure.

Tanner:I'm trying to think.

Tanner:I will give you a clever roll.

Tanner:A low stakes clever roll to think about how you might want to approach this.

Josh:to figure out if I should put it in my mouth.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:I mean, I'm fairly confident the way I'm gonna approach it is by putting it in my mouth.

Josh:Uh, I got a three?

Tanner:You definitely want to put this in your mouth.

Josh:Sick.

Josh:Okay, listen.

Josh:You two, hold tight.

Josh:I'm gonna eat that orb real quick, and then we can figure out what to do.

Noah:Okay.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:I tried to put the orb in my mouth.

Tanner:So you approach the orb and you chomp down on it and you realize that it is not material.

Tanner:Your mouth just passes totally through it.

Tanner:But as you do that, all three of you hear the voice of Penelope Crows.

Tanner:And she goes, no, no, Gideon, that's not it.

Tanner:That's not it.

Tanner:Just back up.

Tanner:Let me speak for a moment.

Noah:Mom?

Josh:I back up a little bit.

Josh:And then if it starts to talk again, I'm putting it back in my mouth.

Tanner:You start to hear voice.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Immediately back in the mouth.

Tanner:Uh-huh.

Josh:I understand it's not there.

Josh:That's not stopping me.

Tanner:No, Gideon, just get back.

Tanner:Sit, Gideon.

Tanner:Sit.

Josh:I sit.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:Listen up.

Tanner:This is very, very important.

Tanner:I just got my shit wrecked by some guy.

Noah:You look bad.

Tanner:I don't know him.

Tanner:I've not seen him before.

Tanner:But he got me good.

Tanner:I mean, look at this.

Tanner:Look at what you're looking at right now.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:I don't have a ton of time.

Tanner:You are looking at my witchy soul hanging above my body right now.

Tanner:And I cannot keep it here for very long.

Tanner:but there's something we can do to fix this.

Tanner:If you can find this man that just killed me, kill him and extract his eyeballs and bring his eyeballs to me, I think I can return my soul to my body and continue to live.

Josh:how intact do the eyeballs need to be like what if they've been chewed a little bit okay so like a nibbler too but not too much i accept your terms

Noah:That'll travel.

Tanner:Please, if you can not pop them, that would be good, but perhaps a small pierce is acceptable.

Tanner:Right.

Tanner:You guys are very well prepared.

Tanner:I've taught you well.

Tanner:I think he went towards the village.

Tanner:So head in that direction.

Tanner:Be careful of people.

Tanner:I don't know how they'll react to you if they catch on to the fact that you are perhaps a bit unusual for a typical animal.

Josh:Have we been in the village before?

Josh:Would we be recognized as related to the witch in some way?

Josh:Or... Incognito, again.

Tanner:I would say probably not.

Tanner:I think she doesn't really walk the village.

Tanner:So, no.

Noah:Cool.

Josh:Do you remember anything about the guy that...

Josh:that, you know, removed your arm and stuff?

Josh:Because we didn't get a very good look at him.

Josh:Also, you shouldn't tell me.

Noah:I got to look at them.

Josh:Tell Meatloaf.

Tanner:Alright, Meatloaf?

Josh:Because I will forget.

Tanner:You're here, Meatloaf, yes?

Noah:Ribbit.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:Well, he had a very freaking large axe.

Noah:I saw that.

Tanner:And he swung it with great skill and precision.

Tanner:Took my arm clean off.

Tanner:I tried to block it.

Tanner:Tried to put up a shield spell.

Tanner:And he went right on through it.

Tanner:Right through the arm.

Tanner:Uh...

Tanner:He had a goatee.

Josh:That's like a sheepy.

Tanner:Um... It's, uh... Yes, but a little, uh... Better manicured.

Josh:Okay, so we're looking for a guy with a big axe and a pet sheep.

Josh:That's fine.

Tanner:And he had, uh... Dark leather armor on.

Tanner:Black!

Tanner:Black leather armor.

Noah:Okay, eyes, bangles, sheep.

Tanner:And he took some of my bangles.

Mike:bangles now you're sure he had eyes to take

Tanner:So that's not as important as the eyes.

Tanner:But he did take some of my bangles.

Josh:cheap so you're confident you didn't get killed by a blind man okay okay

Tanner:Um, I'm fairly certain, yes.

Tanner:Yes.

Tanner:Oh!

Tanner:Oh my gosh!

Tanner:And he took Barry!

Tanner:He had a cage!

Tanner:Barry, you know, is another one of Penelope's familiars.

Tanner:Barry is a hare.

Noah:Oh, God.

Tanner:A rabbit.

Tanner:Um...

Mike:A long hair.

Josh:the fastest of us all.

Tanner:It was partially my own creativity, but also had to do with the essence that I felt come off of you as I gifted you your degree of sentience.

Noah:Mom, I really want to talk about the naming scheme you've given us.

Noah:It's kind of all over the place.

Josh:Jewelers have human names.

Mike:Really?

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:Thank you.

Tanner:Yes, of course.

Tanner:There's no other way to do it.

Tanner:When you make a familiar, that's how their name comes into being.

Mike:Okay.

Tanner:I cannot speak anymore.

Tanner:This is taking too much magical energy.

Tanner:I'm trying to remain tethered to this world.

Tanner:So you must go.

Tanner:Perhaps it may be good.

Tanner:There's a couple in one of the lower cabinets.

Tanner:There may be a couple vials of acid.

Josh:And we shouldn't drink that.

Tanner:Don't drink the acid.

Tanner:No, Gideon, do not.

Josh:But we can make other people drink it.

Tanner:It is not food.

Tanner:Perhaps, yes.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:I don't know if any of us can be trusted not to drink the acid.

Josh:I'm going to try and drink it as soon as I'm done eating this orb.

Noah:It's not crows like loudly shouts.

Tanner:Good luck, my familiars.

Tanner:I know you can do it.

Tanner:Do it for me, Penelope Crows.

Josh:Is it crows like the bird, but plural?

Tanner:Yeah, that's correct.

Tanner:Yeah.

Josh:Okay, cool.

Josh:I just wanted to make sure.

Josh:That's fair.

Tanner:No.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:I feel like the rat should get the acid.

Noah:Shulgin.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:Actually, wait.

Josh:Can you open cabinets?

Mike:And the red cat open... I've seen...

Josh:Every time we do something, we have to find a YouTube video of the animal doing the thing.

Tanner:I would say.

Tanner:I will say that Meatloaf actually has his own little tunnel under the cabinets with little holes that he has chewed out to get into the cabinets.

Tanner:So even if you can't open it from the outside, you have a way in, and then you're pretty confident you can push it open from the inside.

Noah:Totally.

Mike:And when you say meatloaf, you mean the rat, right?

Mike:I hope that the toad is not tunneling.

Tanner:Oh, I do.

Tanner:I'm sorry.

Mike:Okay, yeah.

Tanner:I did mean expired ingredients, yes.

Josh:No, it's the toad.

Mike:The toad has a tunnel.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:XP will go retrieve the acid.

Tanner:So you go through your tunnel.

Mike:Do we have like little knapsacks?

Josh:I've got a pouch.

Tanner:That is a great point.

Josh:Pouches are versupials, right?

Noah:We all have little animal backpacks that fit us and we're specially made.

Mike:Don't you have like a... What's the talk's name?

Noah:Oh, we all have in top hats?

Josh:Gideon Westward III.

Tanner:Gideon?

Mike:Gideon?

Josh:Listen, if we're talking about putting clothes on these animals, then I would have a top hat.

Mike:You'd have one of those wooden barrels.

Josh:Yes, I would.

Josh:I'd have a little thing of brandy in case anybody gets cold.

Tanner:I will say that Gideon does have a little pouch that's kind of buckled around his chest.

Mike:Let me see.

Josh:Can I fill my brandy thing with acid?

Josh:Sick.

Josh:Dog with a messenger bag.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:Usually she'll take you around as she's maybe harvesting ingredients or something like that and put them in the pouch to hold for her.

Josh:I'm pretty confident I could balance a basket on my head.

Mike:But a dog, a dog with the butter on it.

Josh:What?

Tanner:So, XB, you kind of push one of these vials of acid into Gideon's pouch.

Josh:Yeah, I'm going to rely on one of you guys to take it back out of the pouch.

Josh:I have no access to it, but I'll carry it around.

Josh:I am the beast of burden here.

Josh:I don't... Is this Butterdog?

Josh:This is Butterdog 10 hours, Butterdog.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:Huh.

Josh:I don't have time to watch that right now, so I'm going to take your word for it.

Noah:And hours to watch Butterdog 10 hours.

Josh:I'll do that once we're done with today.

Josh:Um, okay.

Josh:We have a vial of acid.

Josh:Multiple vials.

Josh:How many acids?

Tanner:Um, I'll give you two vials.

Josh:Two vials of acid.

Josh:My doggy backpack.

Mike:Huh.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Tanner:Yes.

Josh:And we need to head towards the village.

Josh:Do we know where the village is?

Josh:Can we track the guy?

Josh:Can I sniff the corpse of the witch?

Josh:Well, I guess it isn't really dead if she's talking to us.

Josh:Uh, if I could get, like, a scent of Axeman.

Tanner:That is certainly a possibility.

Tanner:To answer your first question, you do not know the exact path to the village.

Tanner:But using your scent is a good way to do it.

Tanner:I'm looking at these four traits and trying to decide which of them makes the most sense.

Josh:And neither of them.

Tanner:I will say we're going to stretch Fierce a little bit because it feels like the most animalistic to me.

Tanner:And so you're kind of using your senses.

Tanner:So I'll let you roll Fierce.

Josh:I'll take it.

Josh:I gotta die.

Tanner:Nine.

Tanner:So you sniff around Penelope's body and some of the other disturbed areas in the immediate vicinity.

Tanner:And you do pick up a scent.

Tanner:And you can start to follow that scent away from the hut and in the direction that this man went.

Josh:Everybody get on.

Mike:Get on?

Mike:What is this?

Mike:The Brothers Grimm?

Josh:I'm already carrying stuff.

Josh:You guys are a rat and a toad.

Josh:I feel like I could also carry a rat and a toad.

Noah:I hop on.

Noah:Ribbit.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:You begin to make your way towards the village.

Tanner:You're going for some amount of time.

Tanner:You guys, as animals, don't have very good sense of the passage of time.

Josh:I took the key mind feat at level one, so I do know what time it is actually.

Tanner:Hmm.

Tanner:I see.

Tanner:And you also know which way is north, I believe?

Josh:It is daytime.

Josh:Yes.

Tanner:It is daytime.

Tanner:That is true.

Tanner:You are not quite at the village yet.

Tanner:When you hear in... You hear a couple noises.

Tanner:you hear what sounds a little bit like the kind of clanging or scratching of some kind of metal.

Tanner:And you hear an individual yelling out in your familiar tongue, saying...

Josh:you

Tanner:Hey now, you back away from me!

Tanner:I swear if I get out of this cage, you are not gonna like it!

Tanner:Get back!

Noah:Barry!

Noah:Barry, it's us!

Tanner:Oh my gosh!

Noah:Ribbit.

Tanner:Meatloaf, is that you?

Tanner:I'm being accosted, I'm stuck in this cage and I'm being accosted.

Noah:Barry, it's me, Meatloaf the Toad!

Noah:Don't worry, I brought Gideon Westward III, the dog, and expired ingredients, the rat.

Tanner:Please, if you approach, take caution, but I could use some assistance here.

Mike:What happened?

Tanner:that is excellent news and you approach this raucous a little bit and you see what looks to be a smallish wolf

Josh:You.

Tanner:biting at and pawing at this small cage that's on the ground that holds Barry Mangrove, the rabbit.

Tanner:And...

Tanner:You can see the cage has gotten kind of dented in.

Tanner:It actually looks like maybe a couple times the wolf has had a bit of a successful swipe because Barry does appear to be bleeding a little bit.

Noah:Hold on.

Tanner:But this wolf is trying to get Barry out of this cage and perhaps dine on him.

Mike:Can I hide the wolf into the plane of bear traps?

Tanner:Unfortunately, no.

Josh:What?

Josh:But that's a common thing that people tend to tidy stuff into the plane of bear traps.

Noah:That's where I put all my dust.

Josh:Why won't you allow that?

Noah:Every time I sweep up, I sweep up my dust into a dustbin and then I toss it into the plate of bear traps.

Josh:Yes, the plane of bear traps that we all are aware of and are very familiar with.

Josh:Can I... Okay.

Mike:yeah but oh can't you just like speak to him paw to paw yeah nose to nose oh

Josh:If I distracted, do you think that you two could figure out a way to open up the cage?

Josh:I could talk to him.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:I was going to use my mouth.

Josh:I don't know how you talk, but I don't talk out my nose.

Noah:I don't know how I talk either.

Noah:Ribbit.

Josh:You're the only guy that makes animal sounds even while we're talking to each other, so you got some extra going on.

Mike:Can you guys hear that?

Tanner:Mike, we can see you making the noise, but we can't really hear it.

Tanner:But I can assume... I can kind of make the leap and imagine the sound.

Mike:It's actually being full noise gated.

Josh:Yeah, I knew what noise you were making from your face.

Mike:I'm going to turn it off.

Josh:Yep.

Josh:Yep, that was it.

Noah:Exactly.

Mike:is this better or worse from a bike perspective what that's crazy okay i'll turn that off

Josh:Definitely worse.

Josh:We can hear everything all the time now.

Josh:Yeah, I hear that.

Josh:It's, you just constantly have the, like, green border always whatever going on.

Tanner:We can kind of plug the time that you did make the noise in every time you go to make the noise and just kind of do it ourselves in our brain.

Josh:I'm imagining it right now.

Tanner:Yeah.

Josh:I hear it.

Tanner:It almost started to come through, I feel like, actually.

Tanner:Anyway, so... Yeah, do as you please.

Josh:Are they in the clearing?

Josh:What's going on?

Tanner:There's a little bit of space, yeah.

Josh:Okay, I would like to... I assume I disembark?

Josh:Are you guys sticking on me while I'm doing this?

Noah:I'm going to sneak around to stay out of this massive, terrifying wolf's line of sight.

Josh:Are you...

Mike:XB will head for the shadows, as he is known to do.

Mike:I'm rolling.

Tanner:Nice.

Tanner:I'll let you both roll Sly.

Tanner:Eleven is incredible.

Josh:And then while they're doing that, I'd like to walk out and say, hey!

Josh:He's my friend.

Josh:Only I can eat him.

Josh:Step back.

Tanner:Is it going to show me Mike's too or has Mike's not come through?

Josh:At first I was like, oh, that's... Mike hasn't rolled yet, I don't think.

Tanner:Oh.

Tanner:Both incredible.

Tanner:So you two use the natural foliage of the area to slowly make your way towards this cage.

Tanner:As Gideon and you speak out towards this wolf, its ears kind of perk and it looks at you a little confused and it goes, But hungry!

Tanner:Ibs.

Josh:Yeah, I get it.

Josh:I'm hungry too.

Josh:I just called dibs.

Tanner:Don't know dibs.

Tanner:What dibs?

Josh:It's mine.

Josh:And if you try to bite it, then legally I'm allowed to bite you.

Tanner:I want to make a roll.

Noah:Clever.

Tanner:And I feel like it should be clever.

Tanner:Even though it says it's mostly to do with humans, I think it still applies.

Josh:It's not fierce.

Josh:I'm trying to scare him.

Tanner:I guess... I'll let you roll fierce.

Tanner:Why not?

Josh:If you want me to roll clever, I'll roll clever.

Josh:Which am I rolling?

Tanner:You can roll fierce.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:I'm nine.

Tanner:He goes, Whoa, okay, man.

Tanner:No need to be so aggressive.

Tanner:I just didn't know dibs.

Josh:Now you do.

Noah:you

Josh:De-escalation.

Tanner:And you could see he kind of starts to back off.

Tanner:And we'll say he slinks away.

Tanner:That's good enough.

Tanner:Yeah, you called dibs, and he respects the pecking order.

Josh:And now my two friends can open the cage so I can eat Barry.

Tanner:All right.

Tanner:The cage has just a pretty simple latch on the outside that the three of you are together kind of able to get open at.

Josh:Thank you.

Tanner:There's some use of tongue on Meatloaf's part to kind of grab at the latch, and you guys can get it open.

Tanner:And Barry Mangrove kind of weakly limps out of the cage and goes,

Tanner:Oh, man, guys.

Tanner:I'm sure glad you came through that.

Tanner:That was great.

Tanner:That was genius.

Tanner:Yeah, way to call dibs.

Tanner:That was smart.

Josh:I was serious.

Tanner:Sorry.

Tanner:What?

Mike:Thanks.

Josh:What spell can you cast?

Josh:Do I know what spell Barry can cast?

Tanner:Barry can cast...

Tanner:Conjure Light.

Josh:No.

Noah:I'll, uh, I'll just... Barry, she's dead.

Josh:That's lame.

Josh:I think I'm gonna eat him.

Tanner:Listen, guys, I really appreciate you getting me out of the cage.

Tanner:Did you see what happened to Penelope?

Noah:We can bring her back.

Josh:I ate her orbs.

Tanner:You can.

Tanner:I'm not sure what that means, but what's your plan?

Tanner:What are you going to do?

Mike:We got to get that man's eyeballs.

Noah:We need...

Noah:Yeah, she told her her orb told us to get his eyeballs

Tanner:Okay, okay.

Tanner:Listen, I'm not feeling too good.

Tanner:That wolf kind of roughed me up, and that man, he had me in the cage, and he just tossed me aside when he heard the wolf coming.

Tanner:He kind of used me as a distraction or bait, I guess, from the wolf.

Tanner:So I don't think I'm going to come with, but one of you should take this, and you see that...

Tanner:Barry's wearing a little charm with a little gem at the end of it, like a little necklace with the gem.

Tanner:And he kind of shuffles it off and presents it to one of you.

Tanner:This actually will help you cast your spell a little better if you're wearing it.

Josh:Who wants it?

Mike:I think hand man might make more use of it.

Noah:I will take it.

Josh:We could give it to him.

Mike:What did this man look like that threw you in this cage?

Tanner:He was wearing some kind of black leather armor, kind of light skin, like a grayish goatee, and he was carrying a big ol' axe.

Tanner:And

Tanner:He had a couple rings on his fingers and...

Mike:Well, lucky for you, this matches exactly the guy that we're going to go get for the witch.

Mike:So we'll be very good at taking down gray goateed, black leather wearing axe men.

Mike:So a second one will be no problem.

Josh:Well, this guy's different because he doesn't have a sheep.

Mike:Oh.

Josh:The first guy had a sheep.

Noah:A lot of guys run around.

Mike:We'll just have to improvise.

Tanner:I don't remember seeing a sheep, so yeah, it must be two guys.

Josh:Because she definitely said that he had a sheep.

Mike:guys but only one sheep okay

Noah:Two guys, one sheep.

Tanner:Well, I wish the three of you the best of luck.

Noah:Four eyeballs.

Tanner:I'm going to kind of rest up here for a little bit and then hopefully make my way back towards the hut.

Tanner:I hope to see you and those eyeballs there soon.

Noah:Be safe, Barry.

Tanner:Yeah, you as well.

Josh:Thanks for the blame.

Tanner:You're welcome.

Noah:I'll put on the necklace.

Tanner:Hell yeah.

Tanner:It looks good on you.

Noah:Nice.

Noah:So can I cast Telekinesis now, or...?

Tanner:You get a plus one to your spell roll.

Josh:It's not bad.

Tanner:Pretty good for a d10 system.

Noah:When do I get spell slots?

Tanner:Maybe level up at the end of the session.

Tanner:I don't know.

Tanner:Anyway, you're able to get back on the scent and continue on.

Tanner:And eventually, the wood, the forest starts to thin a bit.

Tanner:And you start to pick up the sounds of activity.

Tanner:And you make it to the outskirts of this village.

Tanner:I feel like I'm going to sneeze, but it's kind of teasing me.

Josh:Do it.

Josh:You won't.

Josh:No balls.

Tanner:I actually don't think I will.

Tanner:That's kind of annoying.

Noah:Oh, no.

Josh:Quick, do a line of pepper.

Mike:Just feel the nose pain, the extended nose pain.

Tanner:So you have made it to the outskirts of the village.

Tanner:You could see some people coming to and fro between buildings.

Tanner:It's pretty modest, small homes, looks like.

Tanner:And there may be some, you see kind of a little bit in the distance, some larger structures.

Tanner:Question, yeah, go ahead.

Josh:Does this take place in the olden times?

Josh:Like, I'm imagining a village with thatcheries and stuff, is that correct?

Tanner:Yeah, it's a medieval...

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So, what's the game plan?

Josh:We just walk into town, ask around?

Mike:Oh, we should have asked Barry which direction that man went off to.

Mike:But maybe he went through Barry and then... I see.

Josh:He said that he threw Barry while he was walking through the forest towards the village, so I don't know if Barry would have any more information than us.

Mike:To the village, then?

Mike:I mean, there's only two guys in black leather with goatees and axes.

Mike:Well, one has a sheep.

Mike:So, there can't be that many.

Noah:Yeah, are there any footprints or anything that we can follow?

Josh:We're just going to walk in?

Mike:Are there any footprints that we can inspect so we know what the boot looks like?

Tanner:I will say Gideon, you had rolled pretty high to get the trail before.

Josh:Do some forensic analysis.

Tanner:So I'll say, yeah, during the course of your journey here, you were able to pick up a couple imprints of this guy's boots.

Tanner:I don't in my brain have a description for them, but I'll say that you'll know them when you see them.

Josh:I can't believe you don't just have boot prints prepared for this guy.

Tanner:Yeah, that evaded me.

Tanner:So yeah, this village is open to you.

Tanner:I leave it to you to decide how you might want to...

Tanner:track this guy down.

Tanner:I will say that now being in the village, there are a lot of other scents and things happening to the point where you kind of lose the trail once you get to the village.

Josh:That makes sense.

Josh:Which of us do you think is the best at looking around?

Josh:Who wants to take on the task?

Noah:I got a one clever.

Mike:I also have a one clever.

Josh:I'm similarly clever.

Josh:We're all so clever.

Mike:But slyness can get us.

Tanner:Blindness can get you into places.

Mike:We can sneak around.

Tanner:Clever.

Noah:Okay, let's get into his headspace.

Noah:You're a guy who just killed our mom.

Noah:and then you drop a rabbit in the woods, and then you come back here, where would you go?

Noah:Gideon Westward III, the dog, where would you go?

Noah:Okay.

Josh:Probably to take a bath.

Josh:Because I got blood on me.

Noah:Where maybe he has a house where he would go and take a bath?

Noah:Or there's a place for baths?

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:Well, what's her face?

Josh:Penelope said that she'd never seen him before, so it's unlikely that he lives here, right?

Noah:Oh, so many.

Josh:Is there, like, a tavern or something in the area, you think?

Mike:He might be renting a room.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:Also, blood is a pretty, as a frog who spends most of his time in liquids, blood smells pretty strongly.

Noah:Can Gideon Westward III, the dog, pick out the smell of blood?

Josh:Basically, it bled out.

Tanner:I will let you make another fierce roll to sniff in this area for blood.

Tanner:Stakes are low, but there is a lot going on, so the odds of success are also low.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:That's fine.

Josh:I can handle that.

Josh:A fierce rule?

Tanner:Yeah.

Josh:Salmon.

Tanner:You sniff around and you think that maybe for a moment you pick up some blood, but you don't really get a great sense of where it might be coming from.

Josh:There's blood.

Tanner:But it could be an avenue...

Tanner:of opportunity if you found yourself in closer vicinity.

Tanner:Yeah, I'll say that.

Josh:I sit.

Tanner:You know he's not in one of these first couple buildings near you because you believe that you would have smelled him better if he was that close.

Josh:I have narrowed it down to not hear.

Noah:Okay.

Noah:Maybe we should try to find the tavern.

Mike:Good.

Noah:See if he's there.

Mike:Yes.

Mike:Would Axby be good at finding tunnels by other rats, perhaps?

Mike:I imagine the tavern may have a rat problem.

Tanner:That is highly possible.

Tanner:So I assume you start to head into the village in search of a tavern.

Tanner:And signs of rat, of course.

Mike:And signs of rats.

Tanner:Describe to me the way in which you're entering the village.

Tanner:Are you just walking down the street?

Tanner:Are the two of you riding the dog?

Noah:Can we, can we like nestle into the backpack and kind of hide ourselves on the back of the dog?

Tanner:What's your plan?

Noah:Got an eight.

Tanner:Yeah, I'll say yes.

Tanner:You want to both give me sly rolls just to see how well you kind of get yourself nestled and out of sight?

Mike:I'm always rolling sly.

Mike:And a nine.

Tanner:Eight and nine.

Tanner:I'll say that you guys are able to kind of maneuver yourself partially into the pouch and not be just straight up on his back like, oh, there's a toad riding that dog.

Tanner:And Gideon, that leaves you.

Tanner:Did you just make some rolls and what were they for?

Josh:Oh, sorry.

Josh:No, I was testing something.

Josh:Ignore those.

Tanner:You think it's definitely not the weirdest thing that could happen.

Josh:I mean, would it be weird to see a random dog walking around in town?

Josh:I kind of imagine the answer is no.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:I think I might...

Josh:like, take a half second to roll around in dirt or twigs or whatever to make it look like I'm not from somebody's home, and then I think I just want to, like, wander through city.

Tanner:Hmm.

Josh:I know I'm not going to be able to slink around like my compatriots, so...

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:So you start to make your way into more of the heart of this village.

Tanner:And you're walking down one of these dirt roads.

Tanner:And you hear... Oh my gosh!

Tanner:Doggy!

Tanner:And you turn and you see a small child, maybe eight, nine years old, running in your direction, arms outstretched, looks like interested in interacting with you, petting you in some way.

Josh:I think I would get immediately distracted from the remission and let the kid pet me.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Tanner:oh doggy you're so cute how did you get here oh oh my gosh are you a good boy who's a good boy oh

Josh:I flap onto my back and start rolling around.

Josh:I'm seriously debating casting Speak Human to say I am.

Noah:No!

Noah:Okay, no!

Noah:Can I... Can I use... Can I use my unseen hand to... Not like... Not to pet a child.

Mike:of the child.

Josh:Pet the child.

Noah:To... Not hard, but like, kind of shove Gideon Westward III, the dog, to like... Get him back on track.

Tanner:You may.

Tanner:We'll have a low DC spellcast for that.

Tanner:Clever or sly.

Noah:I pick up Gideon Westworth, throw the dog, and throw him in the right direction.

Tanner:Yes, indeed.

Noah:Gideon!

Tanner:So yes, you make your hand.

Tanner:You kind of...

Tanner:You successfully get Gideon's attention.

Tanner:I'll allow the two of you to kind of figure out exactly how that plays out.

Tanner:But Gideon, you are pulled from the exact present moment that has fully occupied your mind.

Josh:I was having such a good time.

Josh:Why'd you do that?

Noah:Our mom is dead.

Noah:We need eyeballs.

Josh:Yeah, and so she's not petting me, and I gotta take them where they come?

Josh:Fine.

Noah:Should we, as we're all walking away, should we ask the child if she's seen anybody?

Josh:Should I ask the child?

Josh:Are there other, like, adults around looking at me?

Tanner:You kind of glance around and actually you don't see too many people around in this exact spot.

Mike:Ask the child, ask the child.

Josh:I want to ask the child I want to cast I want to cast Speak Human and speak human of this child and say Have you seen a man with an axe around?

Tanner:Indeed.

Tanner:Okay.

Josh:Also, could you keep petting me?

Tanner:You do have to roll clever or sly.

Mike:I do like the idea that curiosity killed the cat and attention killed the dog.

Mike:The dog's going to keep speaking human until it's dead.

Josh:I'm going to keep speaking human until somebody's like, hey, what the fuck's wrong with that dog?

Noah:Oh, they all rolled.

Josh:I got a nine.

Josh:How much talking does speak human get me?

Tanner:Uh, that's a pretty good roll.

Tanner:Um, the child kind of, like, stops and, you know, blinks a couple times and then goes, oh my gosh, doggy, you can talk?

Tanner:Where did you learn to do that?

Tanner:I will say, since a nine is a pretty good roll, so it has some duration.

Noah:Thank you.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:It's not just the one phrase.

Josh:Absolutely.

Tanner:You can continue to speak for the time being.

Josh:I will respond, most dogs can't talk, but you pet me, so I gained the ability to talk.

Tanner:Wow.

Josh:Have you seen a man with an axe?

Tanner:I must be a wizard.

Tanner:No.

Tanner:I'm a sorcerer.

Tanner:Because I didn't know.

Josh:No, it's called a witch.

Tanner:I shouldn't tell my mom that I'm a witch and I made a dog speak today.

Josh:You're a witch.

Josh:Don't tell people you're a witch.

Josh:No, because there's a man with an axe, and if he finds out you made me speak, he's going to kill you.

Josh:Where is he?

Mike:Thank you.

Tanner:Oh.

Noah:Thank you.

Tanner:Are you talking about that grumpy guy?

Josh:Probably.

Josh:Where is he?

Tanner:I think I saw him... I think... Oh!

Josh:Why did you stop petting me?

Josh:You can pet me and also tell me where the grumpy guy is.

Josh:You can do both.

Tanner:You're very cute.

Tanner:I think I saw him go to get a drink.

Josh:Thank you.

Josh:I know.

Josh:Where?

Josh:Also, can you scratch my chin?

Tanner:Uh...

Josh:That's good.

Josh:We can do that.

Tanner:yes sorry yes uh um at the at the drink place uh my daddy goes there yeah it's the big one over there

Josh:Can you give me directions?

Tanner:And she points to a building a little larger than some of the other buildings in this vicinity.

Josh:Thank you.

Tanner:Looks like it's got a second story.

Tanner:Looks like it's got, actually, interestingly, a couple small balconies.

Tanner:I think I saw him go in there.

Josh:You've been very helpful.

Josh:You are allowed to continue petting.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:This is fun.

Tanner:You know, I love being a witch.

Josh:Being a witch is cool.

Tanner:Yeah.

Josh:But you can't tell your mom.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:I'll be a secret witch.

Josh:Yeah.

Josh:Be a secret witch.

Tanner:And I'll go under my bed and do witch things, but nobody will see it.

Josh:That seems like a good place to do witch things.

Josh:That's fine.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:Thanks, doggy.

Josh:Yeah, no problem.

Josh:I'm not going to leave.

Josh:So long as she's petting me, I will stay.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:Thank you.

Noah:Thank you.

Tanner:She'll continue to pet you for another minute or two before she kind of gets up and looks around and goes, being a witch makes me kind of hungry.

Tanner:Doggy, I gotta go have a snack.

Josh:Have fun doing that.

Josh:Don't tell anybody you're a witch.

Josh:Thank you.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:And then she kind of starts to skip away and kind of sing to herself.

Tanner:I am a witch.

Tanner:Doggies talk because I magic witch.

Josh:Oh, no.

Josh:Oh.

Josh:Oops.

Tanner:That's fine.

Tanner:I don't think there's going to be any consequence.

Noah:I can't go wrong.

Josh:Were my two friends close enough that they heard it while they were being all sneaky?

Noah:We are on your back.

Mike:We were in the backpack.

Josh:Oh, you're still on my back.

Josh:I thought you guys snuck out to, like, look for other places.

Mike:Yes.

Tanner:No, they've been hiding in your pouch.

Josh:I didn't realize you were on my back.

Noah:Nope.

Josh:Okay, so when I was rolling around on the ground, I was squishing you?

Tanner:Yeah, they were making noises.

Noah:Yep.

Mike:Yes.

Josh:Sick.

Tanner:I don't know if that came to your ears, Josh, but they were... Yeah, yeah.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:It did not.

Josh:I was too busy thinking about being pet.

Tanner:So you still have them.

Josh:Okay, that's fine.

Josh:I'll get up.

Josh:Very belatedly realizing that they were totally being rolled over.

Tanner:Um...

Josh:Sorry.

Josh:It will happen again.

Josh:I'm sorry.

Noah:Luckily, we're two animals that are very good at being squished.

Josh:Yeah, you guys are mostly squish.

Mike:yeah i've got bones mm-hmm

Tanner:Thank you.

Josh:Yeah, who doesn't nowadays?

Noah:I got bones.

Noah:I definitely got bones.

Noah:I swear.

Noah:Are people saying I don't have bones?

Noah:Because I have bones.

Noah:Whoever's saying that I don't have bones is wrong, because I definitely have real bones.

Josh:Real bones?

Noah:Real bones.

Josh:That's good.

Josh:I wasn't doubting you before, but now I am.

Noah:I got bones.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:So many villains.

Josh:We'll leave it there.

Noah:I got... I got just a lot of bones.

Josh:We'll circle back.

Josh:We'll put a pin in it.

Josh:If you say so.

Josh:We're going to the big house.

Tanner:Yeah, you go towards this large building and you do, Gideon, pick up a bit of the smell of alcohol from this building.

Tanner:You pick up some food scents.

Tanner:There's definitely some kind of stuff that goes on in this building.

Tanner:And you kind of approach from the back of the building.

Tanner:It looks like there's kind of a bit of a more main thoroughfare around to the front, but currently you're behind the building.

Mike:Allow me.

Mike:I'll jump off the dog.

Mike:Do I see signs of rat?

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Josh:Thank you.

Mike:I'm looking for garbage.

Tanner:You look around, kind of pace back and forth along this back wall of the building.

Tanner:And you do believe you see some signs of rat.

Tanner:You see there's one area where there's a decent amount of rat droppings.

Tanner:Some would call it rat scat.

Noah:Let's get out.

Tanner:And you see what looks like a little rat hole, rat tunnel that has been carved out towards the base of this building.

Tanner:The rat hole looks like it has been very hastily and haphazardly plugged with just like garbage and junk.

Mike:Can I tell what the rats have eaten from the rat's cat?

Tanner:They... Okay, that's a question I can answer.

Mike:I'm trying to figure out if there's good eats in this tabloid.

Josh:That's good.

Tanner:They seem well-fed.

Mike:Okay.

Tanner:It looks like... Volume... Oh, jeez.

Tanner:What's that word?

Tanner:There's a decent amount.

Tanner:It looks healthy.

Tanner:Yeah.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:You said there's a bunch of shit in the fucking hole?

Mike:Can I just chew through that as a rat?

Tanner:You could attempt to chew through it, yeah.

Tanner:That would probably be a fierce roll.

Tanner:But you're not very good at fierce.

Tanner:But I feel like you should be good at this because you're doing rat stuff.

Mike:Correct.

Noah:Rat stuff.

Tanner:So I'll call it sly.

Mike:Okay.

Noah:Rat stuff.

Mike:Nine.

Tanner:Nine, yeah.

Tanner:You kind of chew away.

Tanner:It looks like there's bits of paper and just other refuse.

Tanner:It looks like someone very lazily tried to seal this hole.

Tanner:But you're able to chew through it and enter if you so choose.

Josh:Thank you.

Mike:um is this big enough for uh meatloaf to come with or we do some recon me you go in i'll chat with the locals we can see if we can get a good vantage point see if the uh see if the target's in the building

Tanner:I'll say yes.

Tanner:Meatloaf can fit.

Noah:I'll adjust my new chain, puff myself out a little bit.

Josh:you

Noah:Let's do it.

Mike:Bye.

Tanner:Okay, so you guys enter the rat tunnel.

Mike:Bye.

Tanner:And... It looks like there's... I'll say three ways you can go.

Tanner:There's a path that leads kind of upward.

Tanner:There's a path that leads kind of downward.

Tanner:And then there's a path that's a little like kind of in the middle, like more of a level, like straightforward path.

Noah:Should we do the... Yeah.

Mike:We want to get up high.

Noah:Getting an advantage point?

Noah:We'll take the upward.

Tanner:OK.

Tanner:You start to scamper up this upward path.

Tanner:Meatloaf, it's a little awkward for you.

Tanner:But you're able to slowly make little hops.

Tanner:And it's just a touch tight.

Tanner:But you're able to get along OK.

Tanner:And eventually, you come up to an opening.

Noah:Okay.

Tanner:it seems like you've gone up to the second floor of this building and you see a hallway with several doors in the hallway.

Tanner:And the doors all have...

Tanner:these symbols on them some like lines of some kind um you're not really sure what they mean but each one has its own uh something on it some kind of symbol of some kind

Josh:It's the lighthouse.

Noah:Are any of them... Lighthouse, we're back.

Noah:Are any of them splattered with blood?

Noah:We should get the dog in here.

Tanner:You don't currently see any blood.

Tanner:No.

Josh:I currently have my nose stuck in the hole that you guys used to get into the tavern.

Josh:I've been in no further.

Josh:I'm coming.

Mike:Do we want to start checking rooms?

Mike:Do we want to see if he's being part of the debauchery?

Josh:breaking down doors, taking names.

Noah:Maybe I can just start knocking on doors with my unseen hand and then we see which one he comes out of.

Mike:That does sound risky.

Noah:How many doors are there?

Tanner:There are four dwarves up here.

Mike:Fifteen.

Noah:Okay, that's not that many.

Josh:Wolf.

Noah:I was like...

Josh:I'm not here, so I can't say anything.

Josh:But what happens if he answers?

Mike:Is there... The asses... Oh, shit.

Noah:Run away.

Josh:Okay.

Noah:We'll come back with you.

Noah:No, the ass is with the dog.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:If he opens one of the doors, expired ingredients will pull out the M1911 that he has in his back pocket.

Tanner:Oh, yeah.

Mike:It's just the size of him.

Mike:He's like...

Noah:Part of your backstory.

Mike:Part of my backstory is I carry an imperceptible M1911 on me at all times.

Tanner:And you did have small arms training.

Josh:Have they invented room service in this world yet?

Mike:I have a dex score.

Mike:Is there not... Can the rat not get...

Mike:There were no tunnels going to the rooms.

Mike:It was just going up here.

Mike:I guess there's not going to be a whole lot of food in the rooms.

Mike:So why would the rats go in?

Tanner:You have no way of knowing.

Noah:Only we had to create dinner.

Tanner:Food gets put in your bowl at least twice a day.

Josh:Oh, I begged her to teach me the create dinner smell that she never would.

Tanner:Hmm.

Josh:I would have fused the hell out of that.

Mike:uh but there's no like the the doors aren't aren't rat slippable there's like a vacuum seal pop when you open the door all right

Tanner:No, they probably are.

Josh:Airtight.

Noah:you

Tanner:You could probably get through.

Tanner:That makes sense to me.

Tanner:This place is not... They're not... Yeah.

Josh:Each door gets hermetically sealed behind you when you enter.

Josh:Sorry, I apologize.

Josh:I thought you mentioned something about there being stuff... Did I imagine you saying there were terraces or stuff on the outside of the building?

Tanner:There are on the second floor four, or no, sorry, two balconies.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So that might be another avenue.

Josh:I'm trying to figure out how I can get to you guys.

Josh:But I... Yeah, I don't think I... Dogs aren't known for climbing, are they?

Mike:Just climb the side of the building.

Mike:Just... No, but just trick a small boy with a pulley on the side of the building to just pull you up.

Josh:Do I...

Mike:I'll grant you three wishes if you pull me to the top of this building.

Josh:So I should just try talking like speaking human to everybody I see, it sounds like, and then eventually someone will help me out.

Josh:That's fine.

Noah:you

Mike:Hey, can you help me get the top of the... What the fuck?

Mike:I'm talking talk.

Mike:Never mind.

Mike:Hey, can you help me get... Okay.

Josh:I'm just going to wait down here for a signal of some kind, I think is what's going to happen, until I get bored, and then I'm going to try going in through the front door.

Mike:Can I start slipping under doors and... Meatloaf, can you be a lookout and also...

Mike:The emergency word is flapjacks.

Mike:If you hear me say flapjacks while I'm in there, get me out by any means necessary.

Noah:Okay, I'll just follow expired ingredients up to the door.

Tanner:Okay, so XP, you squeeze your way under the first door.

Tanner:Can you make a sly roll, please?

Mike:course I almost ruled a d20 that would have been very high for

Tanner:Four.

Tanner:So you...

Tanner:squeeze your way under this first door and you make it into this room.

Tanner:This is a non-balcony room and you kind of shake off the squeeze and look around and

Tanner:And you see a person in this room not wearing dark leather armor.

Tanner:No goatee.

Tanner:You see instead a woman.

Mike:you

Tanner:And she also sees you and goes, oh, what the hell?

Tanner:A rat in this place?

Tanner:And she runs and starts to try and stomp on you.

Tanner:And I need you to make a quick roll.

Josh:I know for a fact that is the standard reaction to seeing a mouse.

Josh:So, I get it.

Noah:I'm just out in the hallway being like,

Josh:I haven't heard no flapjacks.

Mike:That's a six.

Tanner:Six, you just barely squeeze your way back through the door before she managed to stomp on you.

Tanner:However, you... What am I trying to say?

Tanner:She feels like she's got a chance to catch you still because you weren't that quick.

Noah:Oh, she's like, this is a slow rat.

Tanner:And you hear the door start to unlock, and it seems like she is going to pursue.

Noah:I can get it.

Mike:Luckily, this is the first door, so I imagine we're not that far from the hole.

Mike:Alright, we'll head towards the hole.

Tanner:That's correct.

Mike:Skittering.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:You are much more accustomed to running to and traveling through rat holes, so you make it.

Tanner:But I am going to need a quick roll from Meatloaf to now successfully evade...

Noah:Okay.

Mike:There's just...

Mike:There's so many jokes.

Mike:Meatloaf's like, man, he gets to work quick.

Mike:Because Flapjack, I'm not in danger because he didn't hear Flapjack.

Mike:So he just saw me go out of the door and a woman starts screaming.

Mike:And then I run out like, it's one of my axes.

Josh:Thank you.

Mike:Go, go.

Mike:What happened?

Noah:Meatloaf knows everybody.

Noah:Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit.

Tanner:A nine, nice.

Tanner:So you both actually manage to skitter right into the rat hole before she can fully open the door and take in her surroundings.

Tanner:And you kind of are peeking through the hole and you see her kind of glance around and just kind of huff and mumble about the quality of place she's staying in.

Noah:Okay, try the next one.

Tanner:and return to her room.

Josh:That means it's safer for you to try door number two.

Mike:Well, it's not that one.

Mike:Before she leaves the hallway, can I tidy the skin off of her body?

Tanner:Uh, no.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:Can I clean her blood of all iron?

Josh:Can you... I don't know why you gave up on sending her to the bear trap dimension so quickly.

Mike:It's dirty.

Mike:It doesn't need to be in there.

Josh:He's gonna let you do it at some point.

Mike:Okay.

Mike:Can I tidy swap her arms and legs?

Mike:I'll try door number two.

Noah:you

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:You can give me another sly roll.

Mike:Eight.

Tanner:Nice.

Tanner:You

Tanner:slip under this door, and this is one of the balcony rooms.

Tanner:There's a bit of a kind of glass, or there's a door with some glass and sunlight coming through and some curtains.

Tanner:The room is empty.

Tanner:It doesn't seem like there's anyone currently staying in this room.

Mike:um like there's no belongings or it's just unoccupied gotcha slip back under you didn't hear any screaming because i killed the woman before she could scream door number door number three

Tanner:Yeah, it just looks unoccupied.

Tanner:No one is currently renting this room.

Noah:Hiding all that iron out of her blood.

Noah:Where are you getting this from?

Josh:you

Tanner:Door number three.

Tanner:Give me another sly roll.

Mike:I tidied her into the Giant squid dimension.

Mike:Nine.

Noah:That one exists.

Noah:That's the plant of water.

Mike:It's just a Giant squid that grabbed her.

Tanner:you start to slip your way under this door and you stop yourself before you go fully through because you see and hear some activity.

Tanner:There is someone in this room and you look and you see kind of leaning against one wall of this room a rather large axe.

Tanner:And you see there's a man kind of sitting on the bed, kind of unbuckling some dark boots that...

Tanner:are shaped in a way that seems kind of familiar to you.

Tanner:And then you look up and you see a goatee on this man's face and you look into his eyes.

Tanner:He's not looking at you, but you look at his eyes and you need those eyes.

Josh:You look into his eyes and he's got them.

Mike:I need those eyes.

Noah:Hello, I'm a rat salesman and I will sell you magic beans in exchange for your eyes.

Noah:Special one-time deal.

Mike:I can't talk to humans.

Tanner:You can't talk to humans.

Mike:We need to die.

Tanner:I will say your role is high enough that you do feel like you could enter fully into the room and skirt under a piece of furniture or something without him noticing, if you wanted.

Tanner:You feel secure in that.

Mike:Yes.

Mike:Am I able to identify if this is a balcony room?

Tanner:This is a balcony room.

Mike:Interesting.

Mike:I just want to note where it is.

Mike:Like, I came in through the back, I went up, I've been checking doors, I just want to know approximately.

Mike:So if I was outside, I could figure out which...

Tanner:Yeah, both of the balcony rooms are kind of in the back of the building.

Tanner:So the hole that you initially entered in the building is kind of in the center, and then there's a balcony room to either side of the hole, obviously up.

Tanner:The rat hole on the second floor is kind of down at the end, though, because you kind of go up at a diagonal so that you come out kind of at the beginning of the hallway.

Mike:How tall is the axe?

Mike:Like it's leaning up against something.

Mike:Okay.

Tanner:It's probably like five feet, something like that.

Josh:So you're saying that XB couldn't wield it?

Mike:I'm not trying to pick it up.

Tanner:You would have trouble picking up this axe, for sure.

Mike:I would like to tidy.

Mike:XB is doing some mental calculations.

Josh:This is a rat that knows trick.

Mike:XB likes what he's seeing.

Mike:XB is going to...

Mike:Yeah, XP's gonna head out.

Mike:Meet with one of his compatriots.

Tanner:Sure.

Mike:Alright, he's in there.

Noah:Okay.

Mike:I think I know how we're gonna do this.

Mike:He's gonna fall asleep.

Noah:Should we go back down and share this with the dog?

Mike:Uh... Yes.

Mike:Although we don't want him to leave the room.

Mike:We want to make sure that he goes to sleep.

Mike:And then it's go time.

Noah:When do humans usually sleep?

Mike:when I'm awake.

Noah:So he's asleep right now.

Josh:You're awake right now.

Mike:He'll be sleeping soon.

Noah:Okay.

Mike:But yeah, we'll head down to the dog.

Josh:I've managed to wiggle some wood chips out of the way of the hole, so now it's up to here on my face.

Tanner:Yeah, you guys start to head down, and you just hear kind of reverberating up the tunnel, just a very loud sniffing.

Josh:I...

Tanner:We also can't hear that, Mike, but...

Mike:I know, I know.

Josh:While you guys were up there, I thought you had come down like two or three times and it just turned out to be regular rats that also lived in the tavern.

Josh:That was a bit awkward.

Mike:Do they have any recommendations?

Josh:I don't speak rat.

Mike:Ah.

Mike:So here's what we're going to do.

Mike:Hopefully, he will go to sleep tonight.

Mike:We get in there.

Mike:Hold the beefy tongue.

Mike:is going to pick up the axe and drop it on his neck while he's sleeping.

Mike:I will tidy the eyeballs out of his head.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:And we'll head back to Penelope.

Mike:Then we'll come back to town and look for the second guy.

Josh:Okay, well, was this the guy with or without the sheep?

Mike:No sheep.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:This is the less important of the two guys, but we may as well get him out of the way.

Mike:Correct him.

Josh:As practice.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Okay, so...

Mike:Maybe she can tell the difference with the eyeballs.

Josh:So the plan is use magic hand to drop axe on him.

Josh:That's it.

Mike:I mean, we have to kill him.

Josh:That's the whole plan.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:The other plan was to take some string and tie it around six inches off on one of the posts for the railing of the balcony, and then have you bark and have him go check what's going on outside, and then he trips and falls.

Mike:But I don't know if that's guaranteed to kill him.

Mike:We'll have to put something down here.

Mike:We could just try dropping acid directly in his mouth while he's sleeping, but I think he'd wake up and just start coughing a lot.

Josh:Do we know how potent the acid is?

Noah:Yeah.

Tanner:You're not sure.

Josh:Should have tested it out on someone.

Mike:You can bring that boy back, or that little girl back over here.

Josh:No, I've already doomed her because I made her think she's a witch.

Josh:Dude, what are the... What's the acid stored in?

Tanner:It's in like a little glass vial.

Josh:Right.

Josh:How is the vial, like, stoppered?

Tanner:Oh.

Josh:Is it a cork?

Tanner:Yeah, it's a cork stopper, yeah.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:Do frogs have opposable thumbs?

Josh:Or rats?

Tanner:No, there's no thumbs here.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:So it'll take a little bit of teamwork to get the vial open, if that's what we want to do.

Noah:For all.

Josh:Why does it should carry acid in vials that are pet-openable?

Mike:We can also see if he goes to the bar and maybe poison him through a drink.

Mike:But again, it's acid.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:I think he's just going to cough it up immediately.

Mike:No.

Josh:I don't... Maybe I could just ask him to kill himself.

Josh:Do you think that would work?

Josh:Okay, well, I can try that if the axe thing doesn't work, I guess.

Noah:Okay, so we wait until he's asleep, we sneak in there, and then I drop the axe on, like, a softer part of him.

Mike:Neck.

Noah:Nick.

Josh:The neck's got bones in it.

Josh:Do it on his, like, ear.

Josh:There's no bones in the ear, I checked.

Mike:But it's not going to kill him.

Josh:Do you need your... I thought you needed your ear to live.

Noah:If you lose... If you have ears and you lose an ear, do you die?

Josh:Well, I have both my ears, and I'm pretty sure if I lost one, I would die.

Josh:Exactly.

Noah:I guess everyone I met either has two ears or no ears, but not just one.

Josh:How are we getting in?

Mike:We're going to drop it.

Mike:Well, we can go in.

Josh:The rat can sneak into his room.

Josh:How is the frog with the hand getting in?

Mike:That's a good point.

Noah:Maybe, is there a way we can get up the balcony?

Josh:What's my vertical, Tanner?

Tanner:Um, you can, you, your vertical, it's, you would need to figure something out to get all the way up to the balcony.

Josh:I've seen Air Bud.

Josh:I know how big a dog can jump.

Tanner:You cannot just from the ground make it all the way up.

Noah:I have several questions and I think you'll see where I'm going here.

Tanner:Yeah.

Noah:One, how much can my unseen hand lift?

Noah:Like what is the weight?

Tanner:Mmm.

Tanner:Uh,

Tanner:It is not fully defined in that you can choose to increase the DC of the spell cast for more power.

Noah:Okay, and then is it like the similar DC for how long can I sustain this hand?

Tanner:Um...

Josh:Bye.

Tanner:Now, that's a good question as well.

Tanner:I will say that the stronger it is, even if you are successful, the shorter it can stay around.

Tanner:You think that you can get... The minimum would be around five, six seconds.

Tanner:Enough to do...

Tanner:some perform some kind of action.

Noah:Okay.

Noah:Here's my thought, guys.

Noah:We go back outside.

Noah:I'll throw myself at his balcony.

Noah:So then I'll land on his balcony.

Noah:Then when he opens the balcony to get some fresh air, I can hippity hop inside.

Noah:And then I'll pick up his axe and chop him.

Mike:While he's awake, you're going to hop past him, pick up his axe, and kill him?

Noah:No, I'll hippity hop inside, hide, and then we go to sleep.

Mike:We need to get fresh air then.

Mike:We need a distraction.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:I can start yelling.

Josh:Do we know his name?

Tanner:You have not learned his name.

Tanner:The child didn't know his name.

Josh:Yeah, I guess I could just yell Grumpy Man.

Josh:I don't know if he would know that's for him, though.

Mike:Well...

Mike:You can just bark.

Josh:He's barking.

Noah:Yeah.

Mike:Why do they have to speak?

Mike:Human.

Josh:Because I have a spell that lets me speak human.

Mike:Oh, okay.

Josh:What do you mean?

Mike:Never mind.

Noah:Maybe just go stand outside his door and bark a little bit.

Noah:And then when he opens the door to be like, hey, why is this dog barking?

Josh:I can do that and just be very annoying.

Josh:I'm good at that.

Josh:I can try.

Noah:We sneak inside.

Josh:Alright, I'm down.

Josh:Okay, so Meatloaf throws himself at the balcony and then finds somewhere to hide in like a corner so that he won't see him.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:I annoy the shit out of him, and hopefully he comes out onto the balcony to try and get me to shut up.

Josh:And then when he does that, Meatloaf sneaks into the room.

Josh:I guess expired ingredients can sneak in the front door for moral support.

Josh:And then we wait for him to fall asleep, which, since XB is awake right now, shouldn't be very long.

Noah:Yep.

Josh:And then you drop the axe on his neck.

Josh:And if that fails, can one of you take like a vial of acid just in case?

Mike:I'll also be.

Noah:Maybe as a backup, once he falls asleep, I'll open the front door and you can come in too.

Mike:Sure.

Noah:So in case he needs to, when you fight.

Josh:I'll get ready to like run up the stairs.

Mike:OK.

Josh:I don't know how much help I'd be.

Josh:We'll get ready to do it.

Noah:You ever seen a full grown St.

Noah:Bernard running at you being like terrifying?

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:I love the plan.

Josh:Sure.

Tanner:What is the first step of the plan?

Tanner:Is it the self-throw?

Tanner:Okay.

Noah:Yeah, I think I got to get up there first.

Tanner:So you can make it.

Josh:What time is it right now?

Josh:I know we don't know temporal units, but how close is the sun to leaving?

Tanner:It has been dimming.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:Yeah.

Josh:Okay.

Noah:I'll wait until the street is deserted and then hawk myself at his window.

Tanner:Sure.

Tanner:Yeah, you can make your spellcast roll.

Josh:Only one of us were a magpie or an owl.

Josh:Wow.

Tanner:Oh, hell yeah.

Josh:Never mind.

Josh:Didn't need that.

Tanner:You have not studied mathematics.

Tanner:But you throw yourself in such a beautifully parabolic way that the crest of the throw is right at the base of the balcony.

Tanner:And so you have, honestly, a pretty smooth landing.

Tanner:You throw yourself from the ground.

Tanner:You kind of give yourself a bit of a boost with your own toed legs.

Tanner:And you land no problem on this balcony.

Noah:I turn around and I say, ribbit, and then I'll hop down and hide in a corner.

Tanner:OK, I'll say there's a little flower box, if you want to get involved in the flower box.

Noah:Get involved with the flowers.

Mike:Can I head in?

Mike:I'm also recon, so I want to make sure that if he leaves the room, we get eyes on him, because he might be leaving the building or something.

Mike:So I can go and just be hallway recon, and then as the time comes, get closer to move into the door, or as I hear more going on in the door.

Josh:Was I supposed to start making noise as soon as you made it onto the balcony, or am I waiting until you think he's asleep?

Tanner:Yeah, yeah.

Noah:I think as soon as I'm heading on the balcony so that we can get it open and I'll get inside.

Josh:Okay.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:So then as XB's going up, I will plant myself, not directly under the balcony, but just like five feet away from it, so if you look down you see me, and start singing the song of my people, which is a very, very bad howl.

Tanner:So you start howling, making noise, being a nuisance.

Tanner:Meatloaf, you hear the door of the balcony kind of go to open, and it pushes, and it seems like the door to the balcony won't open.

Tanner:It looks like there is an unsuccessful attempt to open the door.

Josh:Don't know.

Noah:There's an unsuccessful attempt.

Tanner:XB, where are you right now?

Mike:I'd be at the hole.

Mike:I'd be looking out the hole, keeping Anaïs on the hallway.

Tanner:In the hallway.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:You don't see any activity in the hallway.

Mike:Am I able to hear the balcony door issues, or is that just too far?

Tanner:Yeah, I'll say you could hear because...

Tanner:You hear some... You can't make out words, but you hear some grumbling and you hear the door like a butt against something.

Josh:I'm continuing to howl, so one of you needs to figure out why it's not opening.

Noah:Oh, God, it's not opening.

Mike:Well, I mean... Actually, while he's distracted, I'll head into his room.

Noah:So, like, he's trying to get out onto the balcony, but it's not opening?

Tanner:Correct.

Josh:Something's either...

Noah:Is there...

Tanner:You go in, and he is kind of at the door.

Tanner:You can see there's some kind of latch of the door.

Tanner:And he's trying to jiggle at it.

Tanner:And it seems like it's totally jammed.

Tanner:He can't get the latch to go.

Noah:Is there any locks I can see from my side?

Noah:I don't like trying to...

Tanner:I'm not sure you'd really see much of use on this side.

Tanner:He's pretty distracted right now, and the bed is pretty... The bed and the nightstand are a good path for you to go underneath and get... You're almost right next to one of his feet.

Mike:how close can i get to the lock perfect i want to get there

Mike:And then I will cast Mend on his broken soul and hope that he turns himself and his eyeballs in.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Mike:No, I'll cast Mend on the lock.

Josh:and send it to the dare trap dimension?

Tanner:Yes, this is excellent witchcraft.

Mike:Yeah, I'll send it to the... Actually, can I cast Mend and send that lock to the Aqua Regia dimension and send another lock from the working lock dimension to where that lock is?

Tanner:You can make a clever or sly roll to mend the latch.

Mike:Perfect.

Mike:Do you guys know what aqua regia is?

Mike:Yeah.

Noah:No, what is that?

Josh:Isn't it?

Josh:It's like one of the major reagents that philosophers, not philosophers, alchemists thought could be used to precipitate lead into gold and to make the philosophers down.

Mike:It's like sulfuric acid combined with, like, fluoronic acid.

Mike:It, like, absolutely just chews almost any metal you put in it apart.

Tanner:Uh...

Mike:So that lock has been sent to the dimension that's just full of one of the most corrosive acids that exists.

Mike:And a new one has come in.

Mike:But I got a 12, so...

Tanner:Yeah, with a great deal of finesse and witchcraft, you watch as a degree of rust kind of dissipates from this latch, and it almost throws him off.

Tanner:Suddenly, as he's jiggling at it, it opens, and he pushes out, and he's onto the balcony.

Noah:Oh, front side.

Tanner:So what I need is either a sly or a quick roll from Meatloaf.

Josh:As I hear the door open, I think I will start barking and howling even louder.

Noah:They are the same, so I'll do quick.

Noah:I'm trying to quick my way in there.

Noah:Okay, okay, not bad.

Noah:And eat.

Tanner:Eight is good enough.

Tanner:As he is kind of looking down,

Tanner:A little bewildered at the dog, you quickly slip by into the room, and the man looks down at you, Gideon, and he goes, Hey, dog, you shut your mouth down there.

Tanner:I'm trying to get some shut-eye.

Noah:My apologies, sir.

Tanner:Get out of here.

Tanner:Get.

Tanner:I shouldn't have done that.

Josh:Dogs don't speak English normally, so I don't think I would respond to that.

Mike:Spanish.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Mike:What the fuck?

Mike:I wanted to show that, but I guess I'm already dreaming.

Mike:What the fuck was in those drinks?

Mike:I knew I shouldn't have killed that witch.

Noah:Now all the dogs are talking to each other.

Mike:Spanish.

Josh:I think I'm probably going to wait until it looks like he's getting aggressive or angry and then scamper away and then hope that my two friends are situated.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Tanner:He does at one point throw a mug at you.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:Yeah.

Josh:Yeah, I'll give him like a whimper and then run off.

Tanner:Having successfully shooed you, he closes the door to the balcony.

Tanner:and starts to settle into bed, none the wiser to the two creatures that now also occupy his room.

Noah:Now we'll just just wait.

Tanner:You wait and eventually start to hear some snores.

Noah:Alright, I'd like to look around for his axe.

Tanner:Yeah, the axe is kind of on the other wall, kind of across from the bed.

Tanner:It looks like...

Tanner:if you were to just kind of pull it straight down from where it is, it's not long enough to reach from where it's hung up to land on him.

Tanner:So you'd have to have a good enough roll to give it some distance in addition to just knocking it over.

Noah:okay uh can i find oh if i speak in familiar is that like loud is that gonna wake up this guy okay uh xp can you go get the dogs that uh he's in place in case this goes bad

Tanner:I'll say you guys can whisper.

Tanner:That's all right.

Josh:Whisper squeak.

Mike:that the dogs oh in place for like a getaway oh uh yeah

Noah:getaway or in case we need the dog to come in and fight

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Josh:Moving through the walls.

Josh:Okay, so where am I supposed to go?

Josh:Like, where would it be useful for me to be?

Josh:I can be outside of the terrace so that if you guys need to, you can, like, jump off of the terrace and then make an escape that way.

Josh:Or, like, I don't think I can get up to the second floor without arousing suspicion.

Josh:So I could, like, try and hang out.

Josh:in the tavern and hope they don't chase me out, but that I don't know how I would know to rush up the stairs if I hear shouting.

Mike:Yeah, but you're a dog.

Noah:Yeah.

Mike:You're charismatic.

Mike:I feel like you could just look thirsty and they'd be like, oh, needs some water.

Josh:Okay, sure.

Josh:I guess I'll wander into the front of the tavern after XP fetches me, and then do my best to beg for treats.

Tanner:Here's what you can do.

Mike:Play the piano shittily.

Mike:Yeah, I don't know.

Josh:I'm not going to play the piano.

Mike:Okay.

Josh:Does this place have a piano?

Tanner:There's not a piano.

Josh:That's the only thing stopping me.

Tanner:But what you can do is you can make a clever roll to

Tanner:interact with these people in a way that they'll hopefully prefer as opposed to not.

Josh:Seven.

Tanner:A seven.

Tanner:Okay, so you enter the tavern.

Tanner:And it has gotten a bit late.

Tanner:So there aren't too many people down here.

Tanner:We'll say there's three customers of some kind and a person behind the bar.

Tanner:And they all see you enter.

Josh:I'm not trying to be sneaky about it.

Tanner:Yeah, yeah.

Tanner:And the patrons kind of look to the bartender and say... One of them says, Molly, is this your dog here that just walked in?

Tanner:You know this guy?

Tanner:And the bartender, Molly, goes...

Tanner:No, no, that's not my dog.

Tanner:And she kind of comes out from the bar and approaches you.

Tanner:Oh my god, well, ain't you sweet?

Josh:As she gets close, I'm just going to flop down, present my belly, like just immediately full friendly mode.

Tanner:What brings you here?

Tanner:This is crazy.

Tanner:Do you need something?

Tanner:Maybe we could get you a little bit of water or milk?

Tanner:You want a little something?

Josh:I think I'm just wiggling around.

Josh:Either that or using human speak to say, yes, please, I would like the milk.

Mike:What's on tap?

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:Um... Um...

Josh:Do you have any IPAs?

Tanner:She turns to one of the patrons and goes, Alright, why don't you make sure that this fella stays here and I'll go get him a bowl of milk to drink.

Tanner:and one of the guys goes, whatever you say, Molly.

Tanner:And one of the guys kind of comes up to you, and he's petting you, but also seems like not very sternly holding you down, but he's ready to hold on to you.

Josh:So if something happens, I'm going to need to try and get out of his grasp a little bit to run up the stairs.

Tanner:Yes, they've not given you free reign.

Josh:Okay.

Josh:That's understandable.

Josh:That's fair.

Josh:I'll keep that in mind.

Josh:Also, do dogs drink milk?

Tanner:I don't know.

Mike:Are you?

Josh:Sure.

Mike:They're hungry enough.

Tanner:I'm sure a dog would drink milk if milk was presented to it.

Josh:That's fair.

Josh:I feel like dogs would drink most things presented to them.

Noah:Thank you.

Tanner:Yeah, exactly.

Tanner:So you are being fed milk, but also carefully watched over.

Tanner:But you have entered the tavern.

Josh:There are two animals upstairs trying to murder a guy, and also there's a dog who's just having some milk and being pet.

Josh:Unrelated.

Tanner:So I think that turns back to the two of you in the room.

Noah:Is dog getting some milk and we're preparing to take the student's eyeballs?

Mike:putting on the plastic gloves, setting up the tarp.

Mike:Like, what the fuck are we doing?

Mike:We're about to go kill this.

Josh:Mic drop is axe on that man.

Noah:All right, well, I guess it's time to take his hat off.

Tanner:Okay, and you're going to use Unseen Hand to do that.

Noah:Okay.

Mike:Drop it from...

Mike:just actually the ceiling.

Mike:It just,

Tanner:A 10.

Tanner:That's pretty darn good.

Tanner:You send out your unseen hand and bring it over an inch closer to the bed and line it up in a way that you feel will do some damage to this man.

Tanner:And...

Tanner:you release, and the axe comes down and lands.

Tanner:It doesn't hit clean on the neck, but it does cut pretty close.

Tanner:And he immediately exclaims in pain and starts bleeding profusely from kind of like around here, we'll say.

Tanner:And he kind of sits up in a panic and starts looking around.

Noah:I'm going to go again and try to swing the axe again.

Tanner:And...

Tanner:sees the two of you just kind of looking up at him in way too sentient of a way.

Mike:That's funny.

Tanner:You can make another spellcast roll.

Tanner:The DC is currently very high as he goes to also grab for the axe.

Noah:Almost rolled a d20.

Tanner:A 12.

Noah:That was pretty high.

Tanner:Wow.

Tanner:Holy crap.

Tanner:So... You... He goes to grab at the axe.

Josh:Thank you.

Tanner:And you... Lash your tongue out again.

Tanner:And the hand comes back.

Tanner:And... Almost like... Bats his hand away.

Tanner:And pushes the axe back down towards him.

Tanner:And... You...

Tanner:cut deep, like, along, like, the side of his face as he's, like, sitting up out of the bed.

Tanner:And you don't destroy one of his eyes, but the blood is getting into his eye, and you see he's very, like, incredibly disoriented, very hurt.

Tanner:Um...

Mike:Can I jump on them?

Tanner:You can jump on him.

Tanner:He's going to act before you're able to do that.

Tanner:He kind of panickedly grabs at a smaller blade on his nightstand and throws it at...

Tanner:at Meatloaf, at the frog who just conjured a hand and is slicing at him.

Noah:Oh, that was not very good.

Tanner:He's disoriented.

Tanner:His aim is not at its peak right now.

Tanner:So the DC is not very high, but you do need to make a quick roll.

Tanner:a four, so he throws this blade in your direction, and you attempt to jump out of the way, but it does kind of catch you kind of across your back as you try to leap out of the way, and you take two points of danger.

Noah:No.

Noah:Oh, that seems to be a lot of...

Tanner:as you are wounded and similarly become disoriented, as XB, you leap onto his chest.

Tanner:He's kind of looking around wildly, disoriented, bleeding.

Mike:Is he sitting up?

Tanner:He is sitting up currently, yes.

Mike:I'm going to go to his back.

Mike:He can easily hit me, but if I'm on his back, he's going to do this.

Tanner:Uh-huh.

Tanner:Right, yeah.

Mike:From his back, I would like to pull out the vial because I was holding it because I'm a rat with few compartments.

Tanner:Yeah, you had said you were taking the vial before, so you've been kind of dragging it along almost.

Mike:Yeah.

Mike:He also saw me with just an acid vial.

Josh:He sees a toad with a hand coming out of his mouth and a rat holding a vial of acid.

Mike:There's no way he thinks anything other than, oh my god, the witch's familiars are trying to kill me.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Mike:There's no way he thinks anything else.

Mike:So anyways, I would like to open the vial and let's see...

Tanner:Of course, yes.

Mike:I would like to open the vial and move along top of his shoulder and just pour the acid directly into the wound towards the heart.

Tanner:I do think that this has to be a fierce roll.

Mike:That's fine.

Mike:Nine.

Josh:Cool.

Tanner:Nine.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:You uncork the acid and pour it on to the wound.

Tanner:He starts to shriek in pain.

Tanner:This is very audible from the rest of the tavern.

Tanner:Um...

Tanner:Gideon, you are released as these people kind of are shocked by the noises coming from upstairs.

Josh:To my canine ears, it sounds like he's in pain, right?

Noah:you

Tanner:It sounds like a man, yes.

Josh:Okay, because I kind of want to make an audible.

Tanner:It does.

Josh:I don't think I would be of any use trying to break down the door or whatever, but I am concerned about the townsfolk coming up and doing something.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Josh:So if I hear that and he releases me, it's like a staircase that goes up to the second floor.

Tanner:Correct.

Josh:I think I kind of want to run ahead of everybody and post up on the staircase in front of them to try to dissuade them from coming up the stairs.

Tanner:Uh-huh.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:I think that that's probably a fierce roll, because you're trying to scare them from going past you.

Josh:Okay.

Tanner:A six is not very good.

Josh:Yeah, I want to give my peeps time to do their murder.

Josh:I rolled poorly, though.

Josh:I got a six.

Tanner:They kind of... You do cause them to pause for a moment.

Tanner:But two of them kind of push you aside.

Tanner:They're not really that disturbed by your show of force.

Tanner:but you have raised a level of suspicion about yourself and your intentions here.

Josh:Understandable.

Tanner:And so you take a point of danger.

Tanner:Okay.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:We'll gather some things.

Josh:I think if that doesn't work, my next step is to just run out.

Josh:I'm going back to post up outside the terrace, and if they try to make an escape, I want to be there for them.

Josh:Actually, can I try one last ditch thing?

Josh:I want to try and run out of the tavern, and as soon as I make it out of the tavern, like out of you, I want to yell.

Tanner:Sure.

Josh:help, there's a man with a sword attacking me here.

Josh:And then I want to keep running around to the tavern.

Tanner:That's a spellcast roll.

Josh:I may just be digging a hole for myself, but, you know, I just don't want them to walk in on the murder.

Tanner:Uh-huh.

Mike:What else is a dog supposed to do?

Josh:Oh my god.

Josh:I got a four.

Tanner:Uh...

Tanner:wrote already horse from your previous failure at this spell.

Tanner:You try to let out human noises, and again, it just does not work.

Tanner:There's maybe...

Josh:well i'm at danger three dog drinks milk

Tanner:a hint of human yelp in the dog yelp that comes out, but not much.

Tanner:And again, you feel this occult magic kind of strain at your, not only your throat, but also your mind at this point, and you take another point of danger.

Tanner:So...

Josh:hangs out on a staircase, leaves.

Tanner:We're going to go back to the room for a moment as this man is just full of panic and suffering.

Mike:The horror scene.

Noah:Oh gosh.

Tanner:You can feel him losing this battle, but as he is, he kind of just reaches with his hands

Tanner:and tries to grab at you, XB, and you need to make a quick roll.

Mike:11.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:Yeah, he can't get you.

Tanner:He kind of reaches towards his back where you were, and...

Tanner:He can't get you.

Tanner:You kind of scurry back down lower on his back and he can't reach.

Tanner:He tries to get up from the bed and does not have enough blood to conjure to stand and he immediately stumbles and falls to the ground.

Tanner:What would you guys like to do?

Tanner:He's now fallen on the ground.

Mike:yeah I'd like to rip one of his eyeballs out

Tanner:You start to hear footsteps outside of the door.

Noah:We got to get those on nice.

Noah:Same.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:In a fast-paced, kind of uncontrolled way, that's going to have to be a fierce roll.

Josh:Quick, gnaw his eyes out.

Josh:Do it.

Noah:Oh, gosh.

Josh:I prescribed this man rat bites.

Noah:I have no fears.

Mike:nine we've doubled down

Tanner:Nine, you... What was the ten of Noah?

Noah:10.

Tanner:Were you similarly going for Anaïs?

Tanner:Is that... Okay, okay.

Noah:I was going to say vote for the I, the other one.

Tanner:Yes, you both descend upon his face.

Tanner:And... XB, you...

Tanner:appendages that lend themselves a little better to this.

Tanner:And so you are successfully able to extract one of his eyes as he's just wildly waving his arms, trying to grab at you guys.

Tanner:Um... Uh... Uh...

Tanner:Meatloaf, you don't really have the anatomical tools for a task such as this, but you rolled pretty well.

Tanner:So...

Tanner:What I'll say is you lash out with your tongue at his other eye, and this eye was closer to the face wound that you dealt to him, so it's already been slightly loosened from the socket.

Tanner:Um...

Tanner:And you start to pull at his eye, but it is going to take a little bit more time.

Tanner:And in that, you need to make a quick roll to avoid his last gasp of energy as he's trying to get you guys off of his face.

Josh:I totally expected we'd kill him first and then take his eyeballs.

Josh:I didn't realize we weren't going to wait that long.

Noah:I have never rolled better than as this toad.

Mike:We got to play with the hand we're dealt.

Josh:Holy shit.

Tanner:Um, yeah, you, uh, kind of, uh, uh, you see his hand coming at you and, uh, uh, you, uh, you leap, uh, tongue still latched to his eye and, uh, use that momentum of your, your leap, uh, and, uh, the eye pops out with you as you leap.

Tanner:Um,

Tanner:And so you now each have Anaïs.

Tanner:The struggle from this man has more or less abated.

Tanner:He is rapidly passing away on the floor.

Tanner:But you start to hear the sound of a key in the keyhole of the door.

Mike:Under one of the dressers or tables or whatever?

Noah:Oh, I thought we'd just go out the window.

Noah:Jump on the dog's back and ride away.

Mike:Oh, yeah.

Mike:I guess we could just leave out the balcony.

Tanner:So, yes, I think we're going to call for another quick roll each to make your way out to the balcony and make an escape as the door opens and people see the two of you.

Mike:We would have to make some way down.

Noah:Dragonite.

Tanner:Neither of those are the best rolls.

Tanner:I will say... Meatloaf, you leap ahead of XB, and you get to the edge of the balcony, and you can see...

Tanner:Gideon down there waiting for you, and you leap from the balcony in the direction of Gideon.

Tanner:XB, you being behind Meatloaf,

Tanner:people start to run in and you take a point of danger as they begin to close on you.

Tanner:And you need to make another quick roll to make your way off the balcony.

Mike:9.

Tanner:There you go.

Tanner:As one of the men from downstairs is running at you, saying, Somebody get that rat!

Tanner:You jump from the balcony, sending all caution to the wind.

Tanner:this man's eye kind of in your mouth, and the two of you land hard on the ground.

Tanner:You both take a point of danger from the landing.

Noah:Oh, God.

Noah:Tanner, that puts me at three danger.

Noah:Is that bad?

Noah:Okay.

Tanner:You know, it could be better, could be worse.

Josh:If you roll the danger number below, you perish or some other bad thing happens.

Noah:I see.

Tanner:You guys have made it to the ground.

Tanner:You are with Gideon.

Tanner:What's happening?

Tanner:Someone is up on the balcony looking down.

Josh:I want to just grab them both and start running.

Mike:Way out.

Noah:Go, go, go.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:Um...

Tanner:You start to sprint out of the village.

Tanner:Gideon, I will say, let's do one quick roll from you to see how well you can escape the town.

Josh:Okay, so I did roll my danger level.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:That's really fascinating.

Tanner:So, let's see here.

Noah:I mean, they're not wrong.

Josh:I'm sprinting.

Tanner:You start to run, and you hear people yelling, you know, there's animals in the town, they just killed a man.

Josh:I have a quick heart attack.

Tanner:Someone's got to bring him in, this must be some kind of witchcraft.

Tanner:Um... And... Uh... Uh... You hear, like, alarm bells going off.

Tanner:You're running through the streets.

Tanner:Um... And, uh...

Tanner:you feel a pierce of pain as an arrow pierces you in one of your legs.

Tanner:And you kind of fall over.

Tanner:Your two companions kind of fall off of you.

Tanner:You guys tumble.

Tanner:And you are currently arrow in your leg.

Tanner:not mobile.

Josh:no longer able to be an adventurer, is what you're saying.

Noah:Oh no.

Tanner:You're still here, but as of right now, you cannot move.

Josh:I think, like, you guys should go on without me.

Josh:I obviously can't continue unless you can mend my knee into the bear trap dimension.

Josh:I think the best I can do right now is be a decoy to let you guys keep going with the eyeballs.

Josh:I've got nothing of worth on me.

Mike:Yeah.

Josh:Except I have a vial of acid.

Mike:You do.

Mike:You actually work very well as a decoy in that you have the acid that was used in the murder.

Mike:They did see the rat, but we'll get a lawyer and see how they can spin this.

Josh:Can you... Yeah, that's true.

Josh:They'll think that the dog did it.

Josh:No, they'll think the dog did it.

Noah:There's no law saying a dog can't commit murder.

Mike:Anyways, we keep running.

Josh:Oh, yeah.

Josh:You guys have to keep running.

Mike:Get your murder dog laws.

Tanner:You guys keep running.

Tanner:It is dark, and you guys are quite small.

Tanner:And you leave Gideon behind, loyal to his master.

Tanner:Gideon remains the individual that hit you with the arrow, approaches you.

Tanner:But the two of you run into the forest.

Josh:The last they see of me is me just trying to bite the guy's ankles as they continue further into the forest.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:Mm-hmm.

Mike:Just call in the little girl.

Mike:I'm the witch.

Mike:This is my dog.

Mike:I made the dog.

Josh:Oh no!

Noah:Oh no, the poor girl.

Mike:They're going to burn some little girl alive.

Josh:Yeah, I don't want that to happen!

Tanner:The two of you, with an eyeball each, make your way back to the witch's hut.

Tanner:The orb is still there, but it is about a third the size that it was previously.

Tanner:And you approach and you hear Penelope's voice.

Tanner:She goes, ah, my familiars, you've returned.

Tanner:Have you the eyes?

Mike:Yes, and Gideon needs help.

Tanner:Oh, Gideon, he's not here.

Tanner:What happened?

Noah:All right.

Mike:Hit with an arrow.

Mike:He was stopped.

Mike:We barely got out.

Tanner:My gosh.

Tanner:Okay.

Tanner:Go into my hut and cast these eyeballs into my cauldron.

Tanner:Uh...

Tanner:And you throw the two eyeballs into the cauldron, and it bubbles with these sickly yellowish-green colors.

Tanner:This kind of fog and mist kind of starts to come and pour out from the cauldron.

Tanner:And...

Tanner:cascade out the doggy door and over to the body of Penelope Crows and it kind of congeals over some of her wounds and you see as the orb descends back into the body and Penelope draws breath.

Tanner:And I think we'll call it there, as you have successfully saved Penelope Crows from her death.

Noah:We did it.

Josh:We're so good at this.

Noah:We lost.

Josh:All three of us equally successful today.

Josh:We all rolled so well.

Tanner:Indeed.

Mike:Josh, do you have a plot?

Mike:The same.

Josh:I can.

Josh:I have to change it to work for D10s, but I can get one set up.

Noah:I don't think I've ever rolled better than as this toad with a mage hand.

Josh:No, you rolled like 50 billion tenths.

Tanner:Yeah, that was really good.

Tanner:I was expecting the actual battle with the guy to be more of a struggle than it was.

Josh:It was crazy.

Mike:We rolled 11.

Mike:He's going to try to... Oh, you rolled an 11?

Mike:Okay.

Mike:He's going to... Oh, 15?

Mike:How did you... He's going to try... I think there may have been a couple other recent sessions where I rolled about as well, but those were particularly annoying to Josh because it was like...

Noah:I draw a 15 on 1d10 plus 2.

Mike:Oh, and this person uses their proboscis to try to suck the life out of... Yeah, it's a manipulate.

Mike:Oh, you crit?

Mike:Okay, he's dead.

Mike:He tries to... Oh, you crit again?

Mike:Okay, well... Proboscotti.

Tanner:Yeah, I'm so glad we didn't have to deal with those proboscis guys.

Josh:You know, I'm fine with it.

Mike:They're crackers.

Josh:I'm at peace.

Josh:I kill you guys off in one shots all the time.

Josh:I'm allowed to die every once in a while.

Mike:I think you're just in captivity.

Mike:I think you're just in a holding cell.

Josh:One bleeding out.

Mike:Because they're going to question the dog.

Mike:They think the dog's sentient.

Mike:They're not going to kill it like it's some animal.

Mike:They're going to keep you in a cell and be like, who are you working for?

Josh:I'm going to try and just get put into a circus or something.

Mike:They're going to give you wooden blocks with letters on it.

Josh:That's what will happen.

Mike:If he can't speak, maybe he can spell.

Mike:Fuck you.

Mike:Look, look, that's just happenstance, John.

Noah:Yeah.

Mike:The dog's not sentient.

Mike:There's like one guy that knows.

Mike:There was a little girl that talked about a talking dog.

Tanner:That was good.

Tanner:I tried to before we played think of ways that like everything all the possibilities would have some kind of use and tidy clean and mend was probably the toughest to find a use for.

Mike:Yeah, I was like, I was like, I don't I was like, men's probably the most useful.

Mike:And then I started thinking about a bunch of ways to use men.

Tanner:Yeah.

Mike:I feel like you softballed me the door being broken.

Mike:And I was like, fuck it.

Mike:I would rather have this than not.

Tanner:That could have been fun.

Mike:But then I was going to start asking questions like if he was going to wield the axe, I was going to ask is like, is the axe handle worn?

Mike:And if you said yes, I would have tried to mend the axe handle and make it slippery and new.

Mike:So it's like doesn't have quite the grip.

Tanner:You also... You chose to just rat your way through the blocked rat hole.

Mike:Yeah.

Tanner:That also could have tidy...

Mike:Oh, been tight.

Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tanner:Yeah, but it was definitely required some shoehorning for that spell.

Noah:That was fun.

Noah:I like that everything felt very much like when you watch an animal cartoon movie and there's things going on and there's like people out of frame and you know things are happening and the animals have no idea what's going on.

Tanner:Yeah.

Noah:We didn't know names.

Noah:We didn't know who these people were.

Noah:We were just going for the eyes.

Tanner:But I am glad that we rolled rat, because I was thinking about the rat holes in the building, and you didn't need them, but there were other rats.

Tanner:But we didn't encounter them.

Tanner:Oh, and I guess I should share that you never got the witch hunter's name, but it was Gorlando Bloom.

Josh:We missed Gourlando Bloom?

Tanner:Yeah.

Noah:Oh, we got to move.

Tanner:There weren't, honestly, too many avenues to discover his name.

Tanner:But... I think if you had... Yeah.

Josh:Because none of us can read?

Tanner:The strange symbols on the doors were numbers.

Josh:They were?

Josh:I thought we were in the lighthouse.

Tanner:Yeah.

Josh:What do you mean?

Tanner:No, no.

Tanner:There was...

Tanner:Something that didn't end up having to happen was down on the first floor of the tavern was like key rings or like a key hanger.

Tanner:And it would have shown you they were also numbered and you would have seen which rooms were occupied.

Mike:Yeah, luckily to have the rat redemption quality with the mend, although now I'm just thinking of interesting ways to use mend.

Noah:What do you mean?

Tanner:But going room by room as a rat worked just as well, if not better.

Mike:But this plot is crazy.

Mike:Josh rolled significantly under the average.

Tanner:Oh I didn't see it.

Mike:Well, I don't know if it's statistically significantly.

Josh:Which is crazy, because I rolled more than everybody else.

Mike:Well, yeah.

Mike:Well, I think it's also crazy, because you felt under the average in terms of your rolls, just on a feel basis.

Mike:And Noah was further from the average than you were, and I was...

Mike:over double the distance you were from the average in just the opposite direction like that's crazy i had like four rolls below a six and five rolls below a seven

Josh:40% of my rolls were a three or lower.

Tanner:Well, just being a dog was helpful because you had the strength of a dog.

Tanner:Yeah, that's tough.

Tanner:Big reason why you didn't make it back.

Josh:And it's not like I couldn't reseed because these guys were both on a roll.

Mike:Oh, yeah, I know.

Josh:I'm not going to... You would have killed me.

Mike:We would have been mad.

Mike:I've got that.

Noah:I have never rolled better.

Mike:I take that.

Noah:Ever.

Noah:I've never ever rolled better.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:You guys were, as a whole, very successful.

Josh:Yeah.

Tanner:And that's why the eyes made it back.

Josh:According to the rules, we had a week to do it.

Josh:And you guys did it in like 12 hours.

Josh:So...

Noah:So she's really alive.

Mike:That's actually crazy, isn't it?

Mike:I was worried he was going to leave.

Mike:I was like, we're going to go to fucking, like... I was thinking, like, we set up the accident, we make it look like an accident where he just set it up dumb and it fell on him.

Mike:And then I was in my head, I was just like, would, like...

Mike:a character at level 1 in Pathfinder die to their own axe being dropped?

Mike:I was like, no!

Mike:We're going to have to do way more to kill this guy.

Mike:That's actually kind of disturbing.

Mike:How the fuck are we going to do more damage than the axe?

Mike:I was like, we've got acid.

Mike:Oh, and we're going to put it on his hand?

Mike:And then he's going to die?

Mike:No, I have to put it in a critical area.

Tanner:yeah and like you as a rat could have like bit him which wouldn't have been all that effective but if you really needed the dog also you know would have been good at biting and scratching right oh yeah yeah

Mike:But you can't put it in his eyes because we need them.

Noah:I have the .

Mike:Yeah, I was debating burrowing into his chest if the acid didn't kill him.

Noah:Terrifying.

Mike:Because that's what they do, the thing where they put the rat in the metal bucket, and then they heat up the bucket, and the rat starts burrowing through the dude's stomach.

Tanner:Yeah, that's unpleasant to think about, but could have been a possibility.

Mike:But he had an open wound.

Mike:If I just slipped in as a rat and just tried to get through his ribcage, it'd touch his heart.

Josh:I don't like that at all.

Mike:You tasked three animals with killing

Mike:An Axeman.

Mike:I don't know.

Mike:You were going to get some sort of Ant-Man Thanos solution.

Tanner:Yeah, I was asking for it, for sure.

Tanner:We didn't get any flying creatures.

Tanner:There were... That's true.

Josh:I mean, we got pretty close.

Josh:We had a self-propelling frog.

Mike:That's...

Noah:Yeah, I realized that at the end there.

Noah:I was like, I can throw myself.

Tanner:So...

Josh:Does that mean if you get a strong enough Mage Hand in Pathfinder you can turn yourself?

Josh:Is that how that works?

Noah:I don't know, Josh.

Noah:Is that how that works?

Josh:Yes.

Josh:Candid.

Mike:no laws of physics in these parts i'm just thinking the uh the

Tanner:yeah sure Penelope Crows can be canon and her bundle of familiars

Josh:I think I want these characters to show up in the campaign if you're okay with me stealing them, Tanner.

Josh:Yeah.

Noah:He has to know.

Mike:like written down one shot I have in my mind like at least this story Josh would not want in this campaign in this world at all actually I don't know maybe not at all we'll see the hard part is getting the net Librem and then I gotta write down

Josh:You don't need to let them know.

Josh:It could be a secret.

Tanner:Right.

Tanner:Well, that was fun.

Tanner:Thank you guys for playing The Witch is Dead with me.

Josh:Thank you for running it.

Tanner:That worked out pretty well.

Noah:Yeah, thank you, Tanner.

Noah:It was great.

Josh:It was a good time.

Josh:Yeah.

Tanner:Josh, I hope you have a nice trip next week.

Noah:Yeah, fun in the Bahamas.

Josh:Thank you.

Josh:I will.

Tanner:Hard to say if the four of us will get the motivation together to play something without you.

Tanner:It's unprecedented.

Josh:You gotta try once.

Josh:Just once.

Tanner:It's unprecedented, but it's not impossible.

Josh:It cannot be that 100% of the games that you guys have participated in in this group have included me.

Noah:I really enjoyed it.

Noah:I enjoyed it.

Josh:That's crazy.

Noah:I really enjoyed this alternate rule set, so maybe I'll run one with a short rules light rule set next week.

Tanner:There are other one-page RPGs.

Tanner:I'm familiar with Honey Heist, but I know there are others.

Tanner:You can poke around and see what you can find.

Noah:There's one that I think we could have a lot of fun with called Roll for Shoes.

Tanner:Okay, I'm down to roll for shoes.

Noah:Let's see.

Noah:Oh, here it is.

Noah:This is this is all the rules for over shoes.

Mike:You are a pair of shoes.

Tanner:Maybe we can play Dimension 20 on a bus.

Noah:Who who will be the lint?

Josh:It's a good time.

Josh:Good.

Tanner:This webpage is not loading for me.

Tanner:That is weird.

Noah:Oh no.

Tanner:It's just shapes and colors.

Josh:Don't get to see it.

Tanner:Oh, there we go.

Josh:You ever played Instant Bullets?

Noah:what's that whoa oh no goons

Josh:it's cool because there's a mechanic called goon dice yeah i'm sorry

Mike:Oh, different kind of gooning.

Tanner:This is an incredibly simple system.

Noah:Yeah.

Tanner:At the start, you have only one skill.

Tanner:Do anything.

Josh:That's a good system.

Noah:Some of these one-page RPGs are crazy.

Noah:There's one called There But For The Geese Of God, and the description is, you are a fragment of the Lord God's will condensed into the form of a fourth-century goose.

Josh:Short?

Mike:You'd say thirsty?

Tanner:Crazy.

Josh:What was it?

Josh:Thirsty Sword Lesbians?

Josh:I think that's one.

Josh:Yeah.

Mike:Sure.

Josh:I don't talk about.

Tanner:I will be traveling on Monday and also unavailable on Wednesday of next week.

Noah:Okay.

Tanner:So I apologize for that.

Josh:I mean, you know, is Jorge back next week?

Tanner:I think they were just doing a short trip.

Josh:Because if they are, then you have to figure out his availability, too, anyway.

Tanner:I think it was... Yeah.

Tanner:It's just five or six days I think they were going.

Josh:I should have had him watch my cast.

Josh:For some reason, I thought he wasn't going to be around next week.

Josh:Oops.

Tanner:Yeah, because they're doing like a...

Tanner:mini getaway and then doing a more legit honeymoon in the spring, I believe.

Josh:That's fair.

Noah:Alright friends, I'm gonna... I'm gonna head to bed.

Tanner:Yeah.

Tanner:Have a good night, everybody.

Tanner:Peace out.

Noah:Ribbit.

Josh:See.

Mike:See ya.

Tanner:Indeed.