A quick note to start, last episode we introduced Arizona Johnson as a guest. As you will soon see in your feed, after a couple sessions playing with her, we decided to add her to the permanent cast. So please send her a big orc zone welcome. Now onto the show.
In our last episode, the party realized they'd made it to their destination, the center of the forest. A battle between two powerful foes raged on, and Day, Waylon, and Palestra planned how to best deal with it. But the Falby, Stervin' Elf at the center of the forest was not what he seemed, and they realized they would have to travel through the portal. Our adventurers today are Kieran who plays Waylon the Barbarian, Max who plays Playster the Monk, and who plays Da, and who plays Day the Druid.
Nobody wants to cuddle with a big frog, and who plays Psyche the Medusa. I look like I petrified my shoulders. And our DM Hazel. The police are waiting for the magic, but what are you two doing?
Welcome, fellow travelers, to Legends of Channel. This seems like the only option that's left. So, fine, I'll go with you. I'm not playing Felistra, you don't have to come.
If I twist my arm, I don't you. If I figure you're staying behind, we're not taking the most. I'm not letting you guys do this alone. Stinky, you stay here.
The hand's coming with us though. Is he? If he can lead us to the portal, he can lead us to the portal from the other side, right? That's true.
Yeah, he's coming with us. I thought for a second I was thinking that his ability was to lead us here, but he can lead us to any place that we tell him to that's been mapped. So, yeah, who's going first? I want to know what Jack is coming with us.
He says, no, I will not enter this realm. I will stay here and fight as many monsters as I can and wait for your return. I say, Stinky, you're with him. But if it looks like a lost cause, you save yourself.
You got it buddy? I have no idea if Stinky understands common. I tell that to Stinky in Sylvan. He'd work.
I'd like to translate it. Stinky doesn't understand Sylvan. Yeah. Okay, so you're stepping through the portal?
Yep. Okay. You all die. Thank you for listening to the last of some talk.
I was like really getting amped up. I have all these very real feelings. So you find yourselves floating in the air. Below you, the sky is dark.
Bright orange luminous filaments stretch out through the darkness, like fingers of lightning, but there is no accompanying thunder. You are floating away from the portal. We're floating? Yes, floating.
Please forgive me a d20 roll. Alright. 17. Oh, good for you.
Well, whoa. You float past the rock that you threw into the place without striking in. I grab the rock as I float by it. Looking back, okay.
You can do that. Looking back towards the portal, you can see a long line of monsters standing before it. Some of which you've encountered in the Witchwood and many that you have not. There and there you see one with a suitcase or a hand cart.
The giant spider at the front of the line keeps looking at something on its leg and tapping it with another leg before it turns against the portal. Ahead of you and above you, you see a large city enclosed in a faintly iridescent dome. The buildings are tall and seem to be made out of gems. The streets that run through them look like they're made of pure gold.
Gold. And follow the yellow brick road. Yeah, can we control where we're floating? You try to control where you're floating and yes, you can.
Okay. Has the line of monsters reacted to us in any way? Some of them are looking over at you like you're really weird. Especially the ones probably towards the middle of the line.
The line stretches back a long way towards the city. So the ones who aren't too far away keep looking at you every now and then and then looking back at the line and talking among themselves is. I want to ask one of them what they're waiting for. Oh, that's better than what I was going to say.
So I want to go down to something that seems like it won't want to eat me or anything. You mentioned a spider, didn't you? Yeah. Okay.
So can I go and ask a spider? Like what are you all doing? Are you going all the way up to the spider in the front or? No, something.
Just another spider. Something you're going to cut. So you approach a nearby giant spider and you ask it what is up and it looks like no cutting. Oh, I'm not trying to cut.
I just why are you all waiting to go through this portal? It doesn't open very often and this city's overrun. We're all getting out. Overrun by what?
Rats. I don't know what to say to that and I float away. Twenty twenty. You're the rat.
They're burning away because of the rats. Are you seriously? You see another Night Stalker in this line and they're like big powerful demons like pithines and baylores and stuff in this line waiting to get out. What the fuck?
Can I go up to him and talk to him? Who's the Night Stalker? The Night Stalker. Yeah.
I don't want to be like not right next to him but like within shouting distance. Sure. Outside of 30 feet does a Night Stalker understand common. I'll try different languages.
I know. Common, Elvish. I won't use druidic and Sylvan. After languages it just has a dash on my character.
It does speak. Okay. I'm sure. I want to try to talk to it.
Does it react to me? It looks at you and it nods like it's listening and understanding what you're saying. It seems nice. I'm confused.
I like do a loop-de-loop in the air. I'm confused. We. I guess we should go figure out what's going on.
Yeah. Slowly floating down the line of monsters towards the city. Maybe we can take care of their rat. Probably.
I hope it's just rats. Do the rats have exposed brains because we have dealt with those? That's true. Do you want to ask somebody if the rats have exposed brains?
Or are you just amusing? I'm just amusing. I'm not actually going to ask anyone. As people seem very busy.
It's bad enough that I don't have to worry about the fact that my dog's going to antagonize them when they get through the portal. I have no way to tell them like, hey, they're just vibing. Let them just vibe. I think they're certainly not just vibing once they get to chill.
I think that something happens when you go through the portal. Do I feel weird? I mean, you're floating in darkness. So.
Other than that. No? Okay. Pretty much.
You feel mostly like you. All right. At least these creatures aren't all trying to kill us instantly. Yep.
We should venture on and see if maybe there's someone who can help us. I don't know. Maybe like a special guest on our adventure or something. I wonder if we can blame that.
What's that voice? Who said that? Yeah. I guess we head towards the city.
I guess. See what's going on. Okay. There are so many things about this.
Like not even the general situation, but also all these people are basically waiting in line to be slaughtered by that all. The monsters never come back. It must be good over there. Oh, God.
I feel so bad about setting stinky up for this gig now. Okay. We head for the city. Like we followed the line up.
If there's any cool creatures, feel free to tell us about them. Mike was asking. Or Shrek. Or Shrek.
Yeah. Just the green ones. Okay. You move down towards the city and whenever you move through the domes surrounding it, you see this in the holder coming up to you.
Oh, God. Oh, no. I produce a flame in my hand. I'm pretty sure that it's going to be okay, but it's like a it's like a it's it's like a reaction that I can't control.
I just I yeah. I'm not going to throw it at him. Produced flame is a cantrip. Yeah.
Can you roll me a D 100? Oh, yeah. 68. Oh, so close.
Yeah, the flame appears in your hand. Do I notice that it took effort or something? No, no. Okay.
And the beholder kind of starts back a little bit and looks nervous and it's like, and it's from a distance has telepathy anyway, I think it's like no no need for that. New visitors welcome welcome to the city. Okay, I let the flame die out. Sorry, that was I'm just a little jumpy.
Okay. Okay. What is this place? This is station five.
Five of what? Can you explain a little bit more thoroughly? We don't we're we're from the other side of that portal. We have no idea what this place is like at all.
Oh, certainly certainly. Listen, let's just give you your IDs first. Okay. Yeah, so I've got an ID for each of you and can I get day you're up first on my little thing.
So can you roll a D four for me and ignore force? Actually, you can roll me a D three because that makes more sense because you can do that on here. Three. Oh, nice.
You get this ID card. I am none of these things. Oh, well, that's okay. But this is your ID card.
You need an ID card. Okay, I don't understand. But okay, the DMV isn't operational anymore. It got overrun by rats.
So for somebody leaves, we take their ID card and we just hand them out to new people. Okay, I will I describe it for the listeners, I guess it says in like a fancy script old Dominion and then under that identification card, it has a picture of a death night and it says name to rock type death night height fairly tall. Wait, well armored identifying features green flume dog front cage. What does dog for me?
Does it mean it has little like animated dogs on it or does it mean that it looks like like a Dalmatian skin? It's it's a cave and then it has like little like terriers or something printed on it. Okay. Okay.
Okay. So who's next up too many windows? So Wayland, if you could roll me a D two two. Okay.
Okay. Oh, apparently my name is this I am a bit old height. That is very heavy and I wear thick prescription glasses. Okay, and that leaves this one for play straw.
Uh, nay, I'm sorry. I need a name juggle tooth type amnazoo height tall weight junkie identifying features beautiful voice. Aww. Is juggle tooth a juggle?
Don't tell me. I don't want to know. At least my ID reflects that I am in fact chunky. So I guess I think the beholder for handing me this wild information.
Oh, you're welcome. I believe you were a I forgot what were you talking about? I wanted you to tell me some more about this place because we have never been here before and we also hear you have a rat problem and I think that's wild that it's bad enough that all of these people haven't been able to take care of it. So please just tell me everything.
Oh rats rats are very dangerous and we indeed do have quite a big problem. They're over running the lower levels of the city. Everybody keeps moving up and up and out. But they're just rats and you have any points that a pit fiend in line?
Those. Have you? We're talking about rats and he holds out his hand to like little, you know, rats, tiny little rodents. No?
Yes, yes, they are very strong and I don't, that pit fiend over there might be a little bit stronger than the year. But we are both fairly weak and we cannot handle rats. Rats. But yes, as I was saying, this is station five.
We are being overrun by rats. You look, you three look very strong. I'm sure you'll do all right. I advise not going and fighting any rats.
But you ought to do, you ought to do all right. Can you explain what station five is? Are there stations one through four? Yes, there are.
There are eight stations, each one containing a portal that leads elsewhere. Is there one that goes to the fair while? Maybe. I don't know.
Where does this one go? The shell. What is our place called? I don't know.
I don't know. What's our whole called? How much knowledge do we have of that, I guess? I feel like...
Because Kieran just wants to say the prime material plane, but I don't think Weyland. It depends on how much listening to Ichabod we've done, I think, because he is very interested in planes. Also, I guess it depends on what kind of education police are received as the child of nobility. So it sounds like an intelligence check to me?
Sure. If you would like to do intelligence checks, that is fine. I would give either Weyland or Day advantage for hanging out with Ichabod for so long. Cool.
Plus zero. So, there you go. I got it too. You could come up with prime material plane if you wanted to.
Okay, I would just say material plane. It's like, oh, it's causing quite a ruckus. Beggold. Is it?
I'm sorry to hear that. You don't know what to do about it. It's kind of just the way things work. So, if you're looking for a place to stay temporarily, if you don't have any homes set away already or any other arrangements, I'd recommend...
It's called level 15 because it's on level 15, but there are many buildings. But I'll give you directions there and you can go there. The proprietor is a Caliban. They're a litch.
They're a lovely human being. And I'm sure that probably has rooms available somewhere. A lot of people moving out. Okay, thank you.
Hi. You're very welcome. Caught. She just keeps it in.
We heard her. So, does he float off? Yeah. He'll float back away.
Just kind of circling around the city, looking for anybody coming in. Do we think that we're in some sort of backwards, weak, is strong place? Probably. I mean...
This is not what I expected. No, not at all. Yeah, I don't know what's going on here. Check out this Caliban place or...
Yeah, let's go to the... We'll just treat it like we're adventurers or something, right? We'll go to the inn, get rooms and learn some stuff. Like in the books.
Sure, I get... Damn. So you float on down. There is an outside balcony in one of the Crystal and Sky scrapers.
And there's like a neon sign that just says level 15 on it in a bold font. Okay. And there are doors leading inward. We enter the inn.
Oh, you enter the inn, do you? Yes. Plot twist. You notice that there are a few people at the inn.
There's a litch behind the bar. You also see, yeah, there's a skull lord walking around delivering a few drinks to tables. There's a band stand on one side. They are currently playing.
So you see a mare lith, which is a large six armed humanoid serpent who's playing the drums. There's a greased throw, which is a huge bull like demon thing playing an enormous upright banjo. There is a bay lore, which is a huge bull like thing with wings, with the singing, and an naufishene or something like that, which is a large pig like wings creature, which is playing a double next violin. Oh, right.
So they're just jamming over there on the band stand. Sounds pretty good. Nice. Wait, is an upright banjo a real thing?
It is now. It is. I just googled it. It is.
Ah, fuck. I will go up to the innkeeper and ask if there are any available rooms and how much they cost. Hey, look at you. Where did you come from?
Never seen anyone quite like you. My friends and I, we came from the other side of the portal. We didn't hear about the rat problem until we got over. Oh, well, good luck getting back out.
What's that supposed to mean? You got to get to the back of the line. Oh, okay, that makes sense. But while we're here, we would be interested in renting some rooms, depending on how much they cost.
Oh, certainly. We have a few rooms. Don't get many visitors and most people here have their own places. Plenty of room with people moving out.
Well, not as much as there used to be. The rats and all. Yeah, we've got rooms. I'll give you rooms for standard amount of gold.
I'm a really good DM. Like almost did not register with me that that was not a normal thing for a person to say. So how nice of an in is it because that kind of matters. Medium.
Okay. So like a gold for two days kind of thing. Yeah. Okay, well, we don't have that much money.
Wait, hold up. Are you sure? I'm not sure, but I don't have that much money on my character sheet. I do.
I'm a fucking spoiled rich kid. Yeah, you guys have been picking up loot and stuff. I'm a specialist. Are we getting like three rooms?
Like one for each of us? If we're rich, I would say, yeah. Why not? Three gold then.
Yeah, for today. However much we're saying, I guess we'll see if we're saying past that. Is it okay if we like pay for tonight and then like stay for however long we need to like later figure things out? Hazel?
Yes, that's fine. Thanks. I've subtracted the gold from my character sheet. It's like a blazer.
Yeah. I'm just like, oh, this is money, man. Can't take it with you. You know what I mean?
I mean, kind of hoping we would actually get to a town where I could spend money now think about it. Yeah. The laser goes shopping while you guys actually save the world. We go shopping.
Take your little rep. We have never been shopping. I know. That's why I was starting to wonder if I was ever actually going to use my gold.
I want to see one of these mysterious rats. Yeah. Are you saying that out loud or are you going somewhere? Sure.
I'll say it to the innkeeper. Like, so if I wanted to see what these rats are like that everybody's so worried about, where would be a good place to do that? The bartender looks at you and then looks over at another person sitting at the bar and is like, maybe you should ask her about that. Cool.
Yeah. What do you look like? I know that. You see a kind of a picture that I have on Roll20, but for people at home, you see a Medusa with snake hair, but in armor, sort of like, I don't know exactly what armor, but like, she looks to be an adventurer, but she is just hunched over at the bar just like, she sort of looked up while you guys were talking, but now seems to have sort of returned to staring down her fucking pint of bitter or whatever they serve here.
But when the bartender mentions her and sort of gestures over to her, she kind of looks up again and looks over at the three of you and kind of like, inside check these three to see what they're doing here. You certainly can. Okay. Nine.
You don't see any reason to disbelieve the story they're telling and they look like they're probably fairly strong. You've definitely taken weaker looking people with you on your quest. I look at them and I'm still like really like, I just like look very like emotionally heavy right now, but I sort of try and hoist myself up a little bit and look at the three of you and go, you've fought rats before and live. I mean, they might not be like the rats here because the rats we fought were like little rodents.
Oh, they are little, but one bite from them could kill a child. They're venomous? Well, no, they're just, you see the people around here. They, why do you think they're leaving?
If a rat gets within two feet of them in a taxi, like I said, one hit or maybe two. To demon lords. Yes, demon lords. Because your side of the portal are rats somehow not ferocious?
They're not, I mean, they're kind of mean, I guess. Sometimes they carry disease. Yeah, sometimes they carry disease, but they are small, like minor pests that will occasionally like get in people's kitchens. And then sometimes there's like weird variant ones that have like exposed brains.
Yeah. Oh, I think those are for mostly other planes of existence. I look like absolutely disgusted. Like this fucking like, scaly green face just goes, and I think my snakes were kind of like drooping before because I was just staring up, but now they kind of start to perk up and move a little bit.
Curiously. And I say, you don't take this lightly, but you look like you could hold yourselves in a fight. I'm not exactly well to do, but if you would like, I could cover your rooms. If you come and try and help me with this rat thing, I hopefully none of you will die, but I'm not going to lie to you.
This is, I have lost a lot of people. I don't think you need to cover our rooms. It seems like we would be doing a real great service to you and all these other people. If we survive, it would be the least I could do.
Well, actually, you know, you could, if you wanted, I mean, if we do survive, you could, you could crush on my home. I mean, I'm sure a client would love to have you. Oh, sorry. Clio is my wife.
Excuse me. I think. Pace really never so slightly crestfallen because Pace was definitely like digging the snake lady. I'm sorry.
I mean, Waylon's probably also like, damn, she is kind of hot, but I'm married. What? Wait a second. That doesn't sound like Waylon.
Do I notice that half the party is like, like, looks like disappointed when I mentioned my wife. No, no, Waylon's fine because he's married. He already has his hot green wife. Okay.
So this is Blazer's like, fuck. Oh, man. And Waylon's just like, your wife has good taste. I blush as much as I'm a dusacan and I go, well, thank you.
No things at home haven't been great. And I don't mean in the sense that like, Clio and I are not getting along. It's just that, well, it's been rough. Yeah, this whole rat thing, she's, she's sort of been staying home to take care of our four.
I mean, sorry, three children. And sorry, I'm just feeling my whole life story. I'm sorry. I take another drink.
I feel like really embarrassed that I'm just like, I hold on. I kind of try to take a sip. And then I look at them again, but I look like really, like I feel super bad. I mean, I'll be like, well, it's okay.
Like I've been roughly the same situation. My wife, Cajasura is back home defending the farm against, well, giant spiders. Oh, wow. Who are coming through this portal into our home.
Oh, oh, I'm well. Oh, so as you see, like us taking care of the rat problem, allowing everybody to move back into the city would help us too. That makes sense to me. I'm sorry that some of the people that I know leaving has decimated your home.
But again, you looked tough. Maybe whatever day to day I prayed to a smile on me. You know, I just kind of, I take a sip and I just kind of look at the three of you and I say, Hazel, do I know where to go or would it require a little bit of scouting? You know where to go.
You've been taking people down to fight these things for a while. So you've got. Explain that to the party. Were any of them other people from like our side of the portal?
No, they were all, well, I mean, really the people you see leaving now. All right. So that, you know, people like, like, I mean, Adon was a pit fiend and Vyari was a dragon, but they're a dragon? I mean, yeah.
Oh, sorry. I forgot. Yes. Here.
Well, size is not equal might. I suppose where you come from, that must be the case, but the smaller the scarier. Strange. Well, I'm sure I would find your place strange.
Probably puts me at a disadvantage, doesn't it? I like look at Spike sitting on my shoulder for a second. Are you a rat? Spike just now has a broken death grip.
You're like, wait, what is, oh Spike don'ts is the hand. Yeah, I noticed the hand in like for a second. I think it's a rat. So I like kind of flinch and then I go, why do you have an undead hand on your shoulder?
It's rather handy. Oh, man. Wasn't me this time. Sorry.
Am I just a grown? I just shake my head and all my snakes shake their heads too. He was leading us to the portal to get here. Okay.
So we still don't know what happened to the people who came before us. That side quest marker is still going to be on our overworld map. As it were. Yeah.
I mean, you know exactly where to go. It's not hard to find rats if you go anywhere on the lower levels, but you have this place that you've been working on clearing out. I tell the others where that is. Yeah.
I mean, I give them the like the spark notes version. We go this way, we go down this alleyway, we jump off fence. You know, essentially. Shuckats.
And I suggest like, if you cannot cast as many spells as you would at the beginning of the day, I suggest we spend the night here and then go after them. Trust me, you will need them and all of your strength back. I am pretty well rested. We were just stiking ourselves up for a big fight that didn't happen.
But if anybody else needs to rest, that's fine. Good. I don't need to rest. We're going to go now if you are.
In that case, I think we had over to the place with our rats. Yeah. You float out of the end. I mean, I assumed you kind of walk out and then was from the balcony, then you float.
But I already want to do it. As we were floating over, I think, did we actually like formally introduce ourselves to each other? I don't think we did. No.
No. All right. High place. Nice to meet you, place.
You can call me. I'm Dae. You. Hi.
My name is Waylon. Nice to meet you. I nod. I look into the middle distance and I'm under something about goddamn rats.
I'm addressing any of you. I just kind of keep going. But I look like very like things are not okay right now. As we're following a place for us, it's like I hope this isn't rude of me to ask.
But I'm just wondering, how does the snake thing work? Like can you see through their eyes? Do they eat like independently of you? Oh, they don't need to eat.
Although it does freak out some of the other patrons sometimes. I will sometimes prank them and claim my snakes haven't eaten in a few days and I'll make them snap out and see. But that's when I was feeling better and I feel pretty. To answer your question, play store.
Nice. What pronouns do you use out of curiosity? Oh, they them. Thank you for asking.
Cool. I use she or but I'm like non-binary and dummy woman. You would not believe how many people here like some of them get it. Some of them really don't.
It's so weird. Anyway, but like the snakes. The snakes, right. I also say I cannot see through their eyes.
Unfortunately, that would be cool. But they are more like creatures who are more like limbs than anything else. Very tiny little limbs. Don't think about that too hard.
You'll get confused. I can see them flowing and I'm just quietly sucking myself up. I'm just like, I mutter something about God, I hope these poor outsiders don't also die because of me. But I don't know that you guys are just saying very quietly.
I'm just like, God, they're going to die. I'm so curious of like maybe their just normal rats. You float downwards and down a few blocks. You come to a building, it's about eight floors above ground level.
You come to another balcony. What is the sign there, say, what kind of shop is this? Or is it a house? You asking me?
Anyone but just thinking aloud. I think I like a shop better because it seems more likely for a bunch of rats to congregate in a shop. Maybe like a bakery. Yes, something.
Oh, Sheila Nova's shadow plane bakery. Asmodeus is sweet or something. So, yeah, you descend down to this bakery. I just heard, yeah, I just heard toward it and I say, can we see any rats?
Just off the bat? When we approach it. No, so you and your previous people have emptied out the main area of this place and you were working on the storage area below. And that's where you're at here, really.
Okay. So I tell the others, thankfully we have not been met by a group of rats. But the previous few times that I came with others, we did manage to put a dent in this, which is encouraging. But every time we got to the basement of this place, something always happened.
Either we'd have had, it's just that basement, that's been real tough. So I think we start heading down there very sneakily though. At least he's going to be sneaky because, you know, obvious reasons. Okay, well, I'm definitely going to ready my short sort.
I will follow her lead on being sneaky and I have like spell plans. I will do my best to also be sneaky while holding my massive mother fucking sight. I will be sneaky with my bare hands. Okay, well, we shall see if you'll be sneaky if everyone would like to roll a stealth.
Day has already done it. 14? 9. 18.
It's the hoofs. 10. Not too bad. Only one below average.
So you're walking along down to the basement. You see here and there, petrified rats or maybe a few groups of petrified rats. I just your weekly lemon said, that's my handy work. I like grin hugely at that and give you the thumbs up in my attempts to remain silent.
I do finger guns back. I also try to stay silent. So are they like just normal rats? Yeah, they are.
They are normal rats. Okay, well, I was just going to like stop and look at them for a second and be like, yeah, look at it's like he's back and just be like, just tilt his head to the side. Be like, fuck. Shake his head and just keep going.
My shoulders are like so tense. I look like I've petrified my shoulders. Can I examine a dead like, like pick up a dead rat and take a closer look? Yeah, do you want to examine a petrified one or just a dead one?
Because they are both available. Oh, if there are just dead rats available, I'd be very much into looking at one to see if I can tell anything different from the rats that I'm familiar with. I was going to say when they're petrified, are we talking literally turned to stone? Probably.
Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm a dead one. Yeah, I know, but sometimes petrified can be like, not stone, I guess.
I don't know. Okay, so people examining rats may use... Nature? Investigation is good.
Nature is good. I just kind of assumed it is not there. But my assumption paid off, I guess, because I got natural 20. I only got an eight.
Once again, the natural 20 confirms that this will not matter. As far as both of you can tell, they look like completely normal rats. So, Place, you notice that though it looks like a completely normal rat to you, it looks like it has several small injuries. It looks like it took a lot of attacks to take this rat down, which is very strange, but it looks just like a normal rat.
Thank you for listening. Legends of Chalice and Orcsone production made possible through the support of our wonderful patrons. You can join them at patreon.com.com. And even gain access to bonus content, including patron only behind the scenes channels of our Discord server.
Even if you can't make a monthly donation, you can always still join the server to chat with the cast and fellow listeners. To learn more about the players, characters, and other workzone shows, head to workzone.com or check us out on Twitter at the workzone.