Episode 82: The Third Anniversary Special: The Secret Diary (An HP DnD Adventure, Part 1)
This transcript was provided by our excellent volunteer transcription team! Thanks to:
Transcriber: Stacy
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Kim: [to the tune of The Room Where it Happens, from Hamilton) The room with the kitty, the room with the kitty. Yeah, I did just turn on recording so we can make sure we capture all of this.
[Theme music (Wolfstar by the Whomping Willows): You know we really love you/It ain’t our place to judge you/You’re feeling scared about it/Naturally/There’s no point in hiding/So feel free to start confiding/If you need a good friend/You can count on me/You can count on me/You can count on me)]
Sequoia: Hello, I’m Sequoia Simone.
Kim: And I’m Kim.
Sequoia: And this is Fanatical Fics and Where to Find Them!
Kim: It is NORMALLY a Harry Potter fanfiction podcast, and what we are doing today might arguably be tangentially related to Harry Potter fanfiction, but if this is your first episode, I don’t think we would recommend you starting here.
Sequoia: Yeah. [laughs]
Kim: We are…
Sequoia: If you opened up this podcast for the first time and think that this is gonna be where you’re gonna start out, I recommend going a few episodes back. Maybe start with the Ethan Sisters.
Kim: That’s a good one.
Sequoia: Part one.
Kim: That’s a good one. [both laugh] We haven’t been doing some weird shit recently. And look, it’s our anniversary month. We have a month of celebrations where we do some bizarre shit, and culminating in this bizarre shit. [both laugh]
Sequoia: All right, excellent. Well, first things first, if you wanna catch us…
Kim: Us!
Sequoia: …on some other stuff that isn’t…
Kim: Other stuff!
Sequoia: …this podcast. We’re gonna be doing that soon.
Kim: There’s gonna be a couple opportunities to do that. I just recorded a video livestream experience with Mike Schubert of Potterless, which I think is dropping July thirty first. It was for some kind of like, nerd bar experience. I don’t have any like, links or anything on me right now, or know when or where that will be dropping. [Sequoia laughs] But when we have that information, you know, check our social media accounts and there will be links to that. It was a really fun episode. I’m excited for that to drop.
Sequoia: Nice! I am doing a video live stream experience with Mike Schubert.
Kim: Mike Schubert! Pew pew pew pew!
Sequoia: Pew pew pew!
Kim: He’s so great!
Sequoia: On the first, it’s gonna be part of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text’s summer tour…
Kim: Series?
Sequoia: Summer camp.
Kim: Yeah!
Sequoia: Virtual summer camp. So if you’re going to that, make sure to… make sure to come by that panel.
Kim: Yeah! That’s gonna be really fun. I’m excited. The other announcement… another… the next announcement we have [Sequoia laughs] is an apology! [Sequoia laughs louder] Continuous… I mean, you all should have known. You should have seen this coming. We’re having a disaster of a month. Sequoia just edited this thing that you’re about to listen to forever this week.
Sequoia: Yeah!
Kim: And we did not finish going through the Yes!! Glitter!!! submissions. Obviously.
Sequoia: No we did not!
Kim: Obviously not. Why did we think we would be able to do that? That was stupid. [Sequoia laughs] Yes! Glitter!!! is coming some day. And we will let you know when we have better information.
Sequoia: [laughs] Hopefully the some day is soon. We don’t… some day.
Kim: It’s gonna… it’ll be SOON. We’re just… we’re very sorry, but we’re really excited about this thing that we recorded!
Sequoia: Yes. And it was so fun to record, and it is taking me roughly eight million hours to edit, so… [both laugh]
Kim: It ended up being a lot of work, and I’m so excited to get to it. But we got a little bit more to get through. Sequoia.
Sequoia: Okay. Yes!
Kim: 2 Sur 2 Vey update! [Sequoia laughs] We’re getting such powerful and such cursed responses on this survey. I… I… I haven’t gone through them yet because, you know, we’re having a continuous ongoing disaster, but the things you’ve been posting on social media are so… [sucks teeth] concerning.
Sequoia: I… my favorites. A couple of my favorites thus far. Like, there’s a lot of great responses to what is the distillation of your soul?
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Great responses to your Draco true pairing. Right? Always.
Kim: Mhm. Very good.
Sequoia: What really has come in clutch, in a way that I did not know was going to happen, is the fucking how did you hear about this podcast? which I just…
Kim: We’ve been putting out an energy into the world to get people to get other people to listen to this podcast, and apparently that’s taken root. And you all [laughs] are doing some stuff.
Sequoia: Aw man! I like… I… there was one person who got tricked by whomever was sitting next to them on a twelve hour long flight.
Kim: Extremely concerning!
Sequoia: Very concerning. Great job, trickster. [Kim laughs] Somebody who like, got into their Uber, was wearing some kind of Harry Potter paraphernalia, and the Uber driver was like [through laughter] hey, can I play you some of my favorite podcast? Excellent.
Kim: Like, okay, here’s the thing. Shout out to you, but that is so dangerous. Have you listened to this podcast?! [both laugh]
Sequoia: I need to know what episodes you’re choosing. What you’re choosing when you’re doing this.
Kim: Yeah!
Sequoia: Because I feel like you’re doing really important trickster work, but I wanna make sure that you’re not endangering your livelihood. [laughs]
Kim: Please don’t endanger your livelihood! [both laugh] We’re very proud of all of you tricksters, but wow! [laughs]
Sequoia: Truly putting in the work.
Kim: Also concerned. Okay, one last thing before we get to this thing, which, I mean, I’m guessing the title or the description is gonna have some hints about what’s about to happen. And I think maybe you all can guess, also.
Sequoia: Yeah. Yeah.
Kim: Based on how excited we are. There is going to be some supplemental material for this episode. Some of it will be going up on our like, Instagram and our Twitter, but there’s more of it, and it will all be collected in a blog post on our website, the link to which is in the description of this episode. So if you’re curious, go check that stuff out! Go look at the supplemental material.
Sequoia: So we’re gonna get into it now. This episode is a two parter, because we did record for roughly five hours.
Kim: Yup.
Sequoia: When we did this thing.
Kim: Yup.
Sequoia: So this is two episodes long. The next episode comes out next Monday, the third.
Kim: Mhm.
Sequoia: Then that following week will be our break week…
Kim: Mhm.
Sequoia: …right after that, and then we’ll come back the week after, so…
Kim: With our regularly scheduled bullshit.
Sequoia: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. But this is a two part episode, so…
Kim: Look forward to the next part next week. Let’s go.
Sequoia: Let’s go!
[pause]
Sequoia: Well, I guess it’s time to get into this thing that we’re doing! The… the people, they needed it. They wanted it. They’ve asked for it.
Kim: They won’t shut up about it.
Colin: Back by popular demand.
Kim and Colin: Pew pew pew!
Sequoia: [slightly deeper] Pew pew pew!
Colin: [much deeper] Pew pew pew!
Ryan: Meow, meow, meow, meow.
Sequoia: Who are all these people?
Kim: Oh! How weird!
Hannah: Oooh, who am I? Who are you? [Colin and Sequoia laugh]
Ryan: How did I get trapped in this box?
Kim: Uh huh. Uh huh.
Colin: I… my spirit has never left the spare bedroom, so I’ve always been here.
Kim: Sure. [Hannah and Kim laugh]
Colin: And if you have a spare bedroom, if you listen quietly on a dark, still night, you’ll hear me. [laughter]
Kim: Uh huh. Uh huh.
Hannah: You thought that this was a fanfiction podcast. This is a horror podcast. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Today, at least!
Hannah: Colin haunts your spare bedroom. [Colin laughs]
Kim: It’s nice to have you all in the recording studio. Not in body, obviously, but, you know, in this little screen area.
Colin: I’m astral projecting as hard as I can. [Hannah laughs] [Kim sighs] [through gritted teeth] I’m there. You can… I was there for a second. I saw myself.
Kim: I mean, I can smell… I smelled it. [everyone laughs]
Colin: Whoops. I astral projected just the contents of my insides. [everyone laughs again]
Kim: Yikes. Should we have our guests introduce themselves? Or are we just gonna keep doing this? [laughs]
Sequoia: Oh my god. No, we gotta get to introductions! This is already… [everyone laughs] okay. Our first guest is a guest that you may know from our original Harry Potter role playing something something. It’s Kim’s husband, Ryan! Hi Ryan!
Ryan: Hello! This is me. I… I… I came back to this recording room. This is my second time being in this room, in all the years we’ve lived here. [everyone laughs] Normally I’m not allowed in. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Sure. Yup. True enough.
Ryan: My… my day job is Kim’s husband. And I will be revisiting the role of Dickie, in this special episode.
Kim: No.
Colin: With the fan favorite, Dickie.
Kim: Oh, dear.
Ryan: [laughs] He’s back. [Hannah laughs]
Kim: I’m excited! We play a lot of D&D as a group. Not this exact group, actually, but I’m really excited to share this experience with our listeners.
Colin: I know. You guys play a ton of D&D now. Way more than me. The whatever has become the whatever. The whomever. [laughter]
Kim: Sure.
Sequoia: I played D&D once. And speaking of D&D and this podcast, our second guest is of course the fan favorite, Colin! [everyone laughs]
Ryan: [chanting] Colin, Colin! [Colin laughs]
Hannah: [also chanting] Colin, Colin!
Colin: Ah, my people, yes! It’s… it’s… it’s very good to be back. Thanks for having me back, and thanks for having me on the livestreams, those are super fun. Always excited to tell people about the things I see on my long walks through the neighborhood. [laughter]
Kim: Every liz... name every lizard.
Colin: [through laughter] Every lizard.
Sequoia: Excellent.
Kim: Last, but almost certainly not least, we have our lovely game master for the day, Sequoia’s housemate and our good friend, Hannah.
Hannah: Wassuuuup! [everyone laughs]
Colin: Great intro!
Kim: Hannah’s kind of become the designated one shot GM for our group, so we obviously reached out to her to do this big favor for us. [Hannan laughs]
Colin: Yeah, to do a TON of work! [Kim laughs]
Hannah: [laughs] Yeah, I’ve made some garbage for you guys today. [laughter] I… the.. the idea for this experience that we’re going to travel through together today came, I’m not gonna lie to you, at a burlesque show. It was not connected to the burlesque, per se, but I was like enjoying the burlesque show, and then I was like, what if I…? And then I did some bull shit at three am a few months later, and wrote this garbage. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Yeah, we’ve been planning this for a very long time because obviously the listeners won’t shut up about how they want another of these, much to our amazement.
Colin: [laughs] I mean, WE had fun.
Sequoia: Yeah, the last one was three hours long.
Kim: Yeah, we were like, we’re gonna do something for us!
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: No one’s gonna listen.
Sequoia: People listened to it MULTIPLE times!
Kim: Weird. Super weird.
Colin: Yeah, which is surprising. And I had never ran a Fate campaign before, and none of you had ever played it.
Kim: It was weird, it was fun!
Ryan: It worked out very well. That was a good time.
Colin: This one should go a LOT smoother.
Kim: Awesome! Cool! So let’s get into it! Today, we’re playing Dungeons and Dragons, fifth edition, with some cool home brew content by Hannah.
Ryan: Pew! Pew!
Kim: For those of you that maybe aren’t familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, I guess we can give a quick run down of the rules. You have some, like, basic restraints on what you can do. You’ll have a character with some skills, and those skills will have numeric values, which will add or subtract from things you try to do. As a player you’ll try to do something, the dungeon master will say, roll for it. You will roll a number, add any modifiers you have, and then that number will get compared to a number in your game master’s head, who will say whether you succeeded or not. What do you think?
Ryan: The one… the one true rule is that Hannah is the lord of this universe.
Kim: Uh huh.
Ryan: And she can do with us what she will.
Kim: Uh huh.
Ryan: And going in we know nothing about the adventure that’s in store for us, so I’m…
Kim: Actually nothing.
Ryan: …slightly terrified.
Kim: We actually know a little less than normal going into this than we normally would. Hannah has not let us see the character sheets or know what our characters is. She’s done nothing but laugh ominously whenever we’ve asked about it. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: It’s genuinely been so difficult. The… I… I’m in quarantine right now with Sequoia ALL the time [laughter] and I just have to not talk about the things that I’m doing at every second of my life. What the fuck is that about?! [everyone laughs] Like, I have to have a filter? It’s been horrible. [laughter] Honestly. I hate it so much. This is really… this is gonna be a really big weight off of my chest. But, yeah, no. I’m… I’m excited to be, you know, your GOD for the next few hours, or whatever. It’s gonna be chill.
Colin: [laughs] It’s gonna be…
Kim: Hell, yeah!
Colin: Yeah, I’m… I’m really excited.
Kim: I’m excited to see this fucking character sheet!
Colin: Yeah, let’s do it! The only thing I know is approximately what my character is wearing.
Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, we’ve… we’ve spent a lot of time, actually, working that out.
Kim: Mhm. Workshopping ideas.
Colin: Yeah.
Kim: All right, Hannah!
Hannah: Well! I mean, this is usually the part of playing D&D where I would intro some… some… music? Some Harry Potter themed music.
Kim: Mhm.
Hannah: So I mean… I mean, would you guys… would you guys mind gracing me with some meows or something to help me get in the mood?
[Colin, Kim, Ryan and Sequoia attempt to meow Hedwig’s Theme, then dissolve into laughter] [Colin makes a shrill meow scream]
Kim: That is gonna be the WORST thing to listen to, possibly ever recorded on this podcast!
Colin: [laughing] So hard!
Ryan: We cursed the recording already?
Kim: Yes!
Ryan: Oh, no. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Well, I mean, since this is a fanfiction podcast, I… I did want to… I did want to hear your predictions. For what we’re going into together. So I mean, can you… can you guys give me some predictions for an adventure titled The Secret Diary? Tagged humor and adventure. [laughter and snorts in the background] And set vaguely somewhere between book three and book five. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: What I’ve been hoping and praying for, and putting on my vision board, is that this would be like a Breakfast Club sort of situation taking place at Hogwarts.
Hannah: Oohh!
Sequoia: Huh.
Hannah: That’s good!
Ryan: Is that in the right ballpark?
Hannah: Well, I can’t answer that yet. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: Darn.
Kim: Not how the game works! Oh, man.
Sequoia: I… I’m gonna go ahead and predict that the… what was it called? The Secret Diary?
Hannah: The Secret Diary.
Sequoia: Okay. I’m gonna go ahead and guess that the secret diary is not a… a, like, pen and paper experience.
Kim: Hmm.
Sequoia: The secret diary is, like, a person.
Colin: Ooh!
Hannah: Oh! Interesting! Okay.
Colin: Nice, nice.
Kim: Huh. I was kinda coming into this expecting kind of like an Isekai experience.
Colin: Hmm. Mhm.
Kim: Characters transported to another world kind of thing.
Hannah: Hmm. Okay.
Kim: But I don’t think that’s fitting with what you said, so I have no idea what’s happening. [everyone laughs]
Colin: I… I predict, or rather I’m putting out what I want to see, [everyone laughs] is that we will play a group of scrappy nobodies who are undergoing an adventure parallel to the adventure of the main characters that intersects minimally but supports their actions somehow. [laughs]
Hannah: Ooh! Interesting! And Kim, your prediction is that you don’t know what the fuck is happening?
Kim: Yeah, I think so. I’m gonna go with that. [Colin and Kim laugh]
Hannah: Okay. Cool, I accept that. That’s valid. [Kim laughs] Cool, cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Well then, without further ado, let’s get.. let’s get into this. Let’s quest! [clears throat several times] [smacks lips] [does several other vocal warm ups] [Sequoia laughs]
Kim: Some vocal warm ups!
Hannah: [high pitched, slightly German sounding accent, used for Voldemort throughout] “Where are ze house elves? Bring me ze house elves!” You hear a voice shouting from another room. Looking around, you can see that you are in the grand kitchen of one of your master’s friends’ mansions. Suddenly, you feel an instinct pulling you towards the voice that you can’t seem to resist, and at the exact same time, you and all of the three other house elves around you apparate to where your masters stand calling you. “Good!” shouts the Dark Lord. “Now everyone leave this room immediately except for ze house elves!” [everyone laughs]
Ryan: Is that US? [everyone laughs] Okay!
Kim: This is so cool! Ahh! [laughs]
Hannah: [through laughter] You watch as the Death Eaters begrudgingly leave the room. “Now, I am sure you are all wondering as to why I have brought you here today! [laughter] I have a very important job for you house elves, one that you can not tell anyone about, ever! I need you to break into Hogwarts and steal back a very important item that ze headmaster has stolen from me. You will break in and steal a diary for me. [everyone laughs] There may be two diaries here. One that looks like it was stabbed, and another one with hearts on ze cover. Ignore ze stabbed one. [everyone laughs] Take back the one with the hearts on ze front! And ig… ignore, and under no circumstances should you read what is inside ze diary! [everyone still laughing] I have created an infiltration package for you.”
Colin: Oooh!
Hannah: “It includes a map of the castle that I drew with my own two hands! It also includes a drawing of the diary and an X marking where Dumbledore’s office is. Each house… elf… [everyone laughs] Each house elf’s packet also includes an infiltration disguise.”
Sequoia: Oh.
Ryan: [mumbling] Yes, yes, yes.
Hannah: “You will need to apparate to the place that they call the Shrieking Shack, as everyone knows you can not apparate into Hogwarts. You will then break into Hogwarts, get past the alarm doors, and then you will trick another house elf into giving you the secret password to get to Dumbledore’s office. And finally, you will steal the diary and escape without notice! [everyone laughs] If you should fail to bring me the diary, I will feed you to the basilisk. However, if you succeed in bringing me the diary, as a reward, I will not feed you to the basilisk. [everyone laughs] Any questions? No! Good! Go, go, go, go, go!” [claps on each go!] [everyone laughs]
Ryan: [high pitched voice] Oh, you got it, boss! [Colin laughs]
Hannah: You guys can all use your very special apparate skill that I gave you earlier, now.
Kim: I’m a little stunned, but that was incredible. Thank you. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: That was a good intro!
Colin: I’m so on… I’m so on board with this! [Hannah laughs]
Sequoia: We’re ALL house elves! [laughter]
Hannah: Okay, so you all suddenly appear with a POP into a disordered and dusty room.
Ryan: Pop!
Hannah: You can see that paint is peeling from the walls. There also appears to be some sort of mysterious stain all over the floors. As you look around the room, you can see moonlight filtering through the boards nailed to the windows and hear the creaking sound of the shack as the wind whips around it outside. Across the room from you is an ugly old chair that appears to have had one leg ripped off. You can see that there’s something dark and mysterious looking under the chair. You start to look around you, disoriented from the fast paced turn of events, and notice that you are surrounded by the three house elves you noticed before. And with that, you guys can all now go and look at your character descriptions.
Ryan: Yay!
Kim: Oh, hell, yeah!
Hannah: And read them out to each other.
Colin: Yay!
Hannah: We’ll assume that also, while you were opening your descriptions, that you’re all putting on your infiltration costumes, so you can include your costume description with that.
Kim: Cool, excellent. All right, I guess I’ll go first? All right, you see before you a house elf wearing a baby blue cap sleeve t-shirt. It’s hard to distinguish if the print is supposed to be tie dye or camo, and the word ANGEL has been bedazzled on the front.
Sequoia: Yes!
Kim: Over the t-shirt is a denim jacket with rhinestones in the shape of stars on the pockets. The house elf is wearing ultra low rise bell bottom light wash blue jeans [laughter] and Skechers platform sneakers with curly laces. [everyone laughs] In addition to that, the house elf is wearing a necklace with a rhinestone charm in the shape of the house elf’s first initial, and a choker, and a slap bracelet, and there are butterfly clips clipped to the house elf’s ears, I guess. [everyone laughs] Okay.
Hannah: Kim. Kim, your character’s name is Smooosh, with three Os.
Kim: Smooosh?
Hannah: Smooosh. With three Os.
Kim: Smooosh! All right! You asked us to do these character descrip… the outfit descriptions and character voices without knowing anything about these characters, so here we go. I guess I’ll introduce myself. [valley girl voice, used for Smooosh throughout] “I’m Smooosh. I’m a house elf to the Lestrange family. I love kitties, and I secretly enjoy being hugged! And sometimes I make poop and fart jokes at inappropriate times!” Do you want me to read the thing you’ve got marked heist role as well?
Hannah: Yeah, yeah. Let’s… yeah, let’s let everyone know what you’re bringing to the table for this heist.
Kim: “And for this heist, I’m bringing the muscle!” [everyone laughs]
Hannah: That was beautiful, thank you Kim.
Kim: Stupid. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: ‘Kay, Ryan, would you mind going next? Let… let’s see. What are we looking at right now when we see you?
Ryan: So this… this is another case where I think the outfit made more sense when I human-centrically assumed that I would be a human, or some sort of student, perhaps. [Colin and Hannah laugh]
Hannah: That’s on you, honestly. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: But I… I think I need to check myself, just assuming that.
Hannah: Yeah, check your human privilege. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: My… my outfit is denim overalls. Now, normally I would wear different colors each day, is what I had in mind. Like red denim and green denim, like real Osh Kosh kind of vibe.
Kim: Hmmm. [laughs]
Hannah: Cute.
Ryan: But being a, a house elf, I think we’ll just go with the standard denim color. The standard blue.
Kim: Mhm.
Ryan: My shoes, though, are a pair of Heelies that I managed to…
Sequoia: Nice.
Colin: Nice.
Ryan: …steal from a Muggle.
Hannah: Nice!
Ryan: And in… in my backstory that I imagined, I was the only wizard slash now house elf who had discovered this Muggle technology of Heelies, so, you know, I… I glide around on floors and all the other magic users assume that I’ve invented some amazing new glide spell, and they’re… they’re asking me to share my secrets, and I say, no, these… these, I will take to my grave. [laughter] So the other house elves assume that I’m an extremely powerful magic user. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Excellent.
Ryan: But it’s really just the Heelies.
Hannah: You’re gonna… you’re gonna be BURIED with your Heelies! [everyone laughs]
Ryan: I will never tell! And my…
Hannah: So what’s…
Ryan: What’s that?
Hannah: What’s your… what’s your character name, Ryan?
Ryan: Oh! My character name is Long Derek. [everyone laughs] Because back in the… the house that I come from, which is the Selwyn family, which I’ll say in character voice in a minute, there was… there was another Derek. There were two Dereks. House elves. The other one’s a little more… little more squat than I am, so to… to distinguish between the two, I’m Long Derek, or LD for short, and…
Hannah: It’s good.
Ryan: And you, my friends, can call me LD if you prefer.
Sequoia: I do prefer.
Ryan: [high pitched, southern voice, used for Long Derek throughout] “And this is my character voice!”
Kim: Oh dear. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: “Hey friends! Nice to meet all these new friends here in this weird shack. I’m a house elf with the Selwyn family, and I try to hug everybody I meet. And sometimes I pick my nose when I think no one’s looking. I don’t know why I just told y'all that. And I’m allergic… allergic to eggs, so don’t give me no eggs.” [everyone laughs] I, outside… outside of the game, I need you all to know that I wrote this joke a long time ago, that his character was allergic to eggs, and it’s aged really well in our friend group, after you brought me NINETY eggs. [everyone laughs]
Kim: You did do that! You did do an egg crime to our dear friends.
Ryan: That egg crime is not part of this podcast!
Kim: [laughs] It is now!
Ryan: I was… I was given explicit instructions to get all the eggs that Costco had, so I brought ninety eggs to them.
Hannah: I forgot that you take things very literally, that you’re secretly a robot, and I only ate eggs for weeks. [everyone laughs]
Colin: If eggs, then all eggs. Until no eggs. [more laughter]
Ryan: I got into an egg loop, I didn’t know when to stop. [everyone still laughing]
Hannah: Oh, it’s okay, buddy. I appreciate you.
Ryan: I’m glad you enjoyed those eggs, though. To your credit, you managed to eat all of them.
Hannah: I did! I ate all of the eggs, and I have transcended? I have become Gaston. [Sequoia laughs]
Ryan: I brought the Gaston energy.
Hannah: I have… I have the Gaston energy. [laughs] I’m very swole.
Colin: [laughs] You… you should… you should see the Zoom call. She’s roughly the size of a barge. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: I’ve… I’ve also become accustomed to a standard of living now. I… we…
Sequoia: We have ninety eggs in our house!
Hannah: We have. We have a lot of eggs in our house right now, still! We made that life choice.
Ryan: You guys, you have to eat fifteen eggs in the morning, just to feel normal.
Kim: You unleashed something on them. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Yikes.
Hannah: It’s part of that quarantine energy that I’m bringing. But anyways, back to the game! [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Colin.
Ryan: Oh, I… I should probably… oh, I… I should point out also my role in this heist.
Hannah: Oh. Oh yes, please. Please tell us.
Ryan: I’m going to be the burglar.
Hannah: Yes!
Colin: Oh! A little Bilbo action!
Kim: Oh, yes.
Sequoia: Fine.
Kim: Long Derek, aka Bilbo.
Colin: LD.
Hannah: Everyone will hear the name Long Derek and shake in fear! [everyone laughs]
Kim: [whispering] Shit.
Colin: Okay. My name is Karl. I’m… I’m a house elf to the Yaxley family, and the look that I’m rocking today, I’ll start… I’ll go from the bottom up. So I’m wearing really wide, hot pink Vans skate shoes.
Kim: Hmm!
Colin: With checker board laces.
Kim: Nice!
Colin: And I am wearing camo cargo shorts that are really baggy, and held together with some rope that I’m using as a belt. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Mhm.
Colin: I also have a super dangly wallet chain that since I’m a house elf practically goes to the floor. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Glad one of us got the wallet chain in.
Colin: Yeah.
Kim: My first… my first draft of the outfit did include a wallet chain, but I decided to go in a different direction.
Colin: Nice. Nice, nice, nice. What else? I am wearing a… a retro looking but not retro Beatles shirt, ‘cause it’s from WalMart.
Kim: Mhm.
Colin: So it’s a retro style Beatles t-shirt.
Hannah: Nice.
Colin: And I have sweatband wristbands on each wrist.
Kim: Amazing.
Colin: One is just a pentagram, and the other is a 1-Up mushroom from Mario.
Hannah: Nice. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: Dang!
Colin: And that pulls the whole look together.
Kim: Oh, incredible. I feel like we’ve maybe gone with a similar strategy, Colin.
Colin: Yeah.
Kim: I was like, what would I have wanted to be wearing at approximately age eleven?
Colin: Yes. Yeah! [everyone laughs] Pretty much.
Hannah: Yeah, this does have some really, like, high quality early to mid 2000s vibes happening, and I’m here for it. Very good.
Colin: [laughs] Since Kim posted that picture in the group chat yesterday, I was doing a lot of research for what I wanted to be wearing. [laughter] But yes, my name is Karl. Karl… hold on, I’m dialing in that voice. I’m channeling Karl. Karl, Karl! [surfer voice] “Radical Karl!” Nope. Still dialing it in. [everyone laughs] Karl is house elf to the Yaxley family. He some day dreams of traveling to outer space, and he’s always carrying around a… a packet of… of Smarties or Skittles, ‘cause he’s got a serious sweet tooth. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Nice.
Colin: Also, he is… am I supposed to just read all of these? Anyway.
Hannah: Yeah.
Colin: He is looking to seize… his name is Karl with a K, and he is looking to seize the means of production in a RADICAL way. [everyone laughs] And my role in this heist is gonna be the hacker! Yeah! [more laughter]
Ryan: Hannah, did you write this FOR Colin, like, to be, more biographical than anything else?
Hannah: Oh yeah. I tried to… I tried to write stuff that would be easy for each of you to role play. Take with that what you will. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: Well, I’m glad I got the booger picker with the egg allergy, then! [everyone laughs]
Kim: Hannah!
Ryan: Thanks, bud.
Hannah: You and Kim got some weird ones. I… I was really tired when I wrote yours, to be fair. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: That’s fair.
Kim: It seems like it kind of diverged at some point. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: It devolved a little at the end there.
Sequoia: Okay, I guess it’s my turn. Excellent. So you look at this house elf. What you see is a black denim pleated skirt with a black belt with silver studs.
Kim: Mhm.
Sequoia: A black Nirvana t-shirt with the smiley face with Xs for eyes. Pink fishnets.
Kim: Nice.
Sequoia: Black high top Converse, bright pink hair. I don’t know, this house elf has hair. [everyone laughs]
Kim: It’s a wig.
Sequoia: Very dark make up, thick black eyeliner, and pink fingerless gloves.
Hannah: Yeees!
Colin: Very nice.
Kim: Excellent.
Sequoia: I did google Hot Topic early 2000s. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Beautiful. [Colin laughs] That’s a good strategy.
Sequoia: [clears throat] [high, hesitant voice, used for Floppy throughout] “Okay, hi. So my name is Floppy, and, oh, I’m a house elf to the Avery family, and my dream is to one day be on Broadway. [Kim laughs] Often, I quote musicals in everyday conversation, hahaha, and I experience a LOT of back pain, hahaha. And my heist role is the face.”
Kim: [laughs loudly] Oh, good! Good, good, good.
Hannah: [clears throat] Yeah, so, you’re the… you’re the charisma of this operation, Sequoia.
Sequoia: Oh, of course I am. [Colin laughs]
Hannah: I mean any time we’re… we’re running into a weird situation where we need to talk ourselves out of it, you’re… you’re the… you’re the house elf to call.
Sequoia: It’s… it’s… I… I… I did not choose that voice knowing any of these things, but I think it fits. [laughs]
Kim: Uh huh. Yeah.
Ryan: It worked out well, though.
Kim: Yeah, it was good.
Colin: [laughs] The voice chose you.
Sequoia: Yeah! [laughs]
Kim: The voice is becoming me now? It’s fine. [laughter] Can we see our character sheets now?
Hannah: Yes. Yes, you can all look at your character sheets now, yeah. Okay, now that you guys have your character sheets in front of you, let’s talk a little bit about what’s happening here. So you guys are basically… basically playing like a simplified and slightly modified sorcerer class. My thinking with that was that, you know, sorcerers’ source of magic is innate inside of themselves, or comes from their lineage, essentially, which is kind of similar to house elves. For the race, you guys are playing house elves, obviously, which is a home brew that I found on the internet and adjusted just a little bit. Shout out to that anonymous person that I don’t know who made it. Thanks for that. [everyone laughs] And let’s see here, what else do you need to do? Each of you has still like a background that is associated primarily with your heist role, as much as I could connect them. So for example, Sequoia’s character is an entertainer, obviously.
Sequoia: Always am.
Hannah: [laughs] Ryan’s character, Long Derek, is a burglar, or, excuse me, a crim… criminal. And then his heist role is burglar, so connecting things as much as possible. Your stats have also been connected to your heist role specifically.
Kim: Mhm.
Hannah: Which is why some of you are gonna be, you know, really bad sorcerers. So… [everyone laughs] so you’re not all super great at charisma.
Kim: Yeah, my third highest skill is charisma. That’s fine.
Ryan: Not ideal. [everyone laughs] What’s… what’s Colin’s background again?
Colin: I’m a hermit. My background is hermit.
Ryan: A hermit? And what’s… wait, what’s your role in the heist?
Hannah: And he’s the hacker.
Colin: I’m the hacker!
Ryan: The hacker?
Colin: Hacker!
Ryan: ‘Kay.
Kim: I don’t know how much HACKING we’re gonna be doing, but…
Colin: Hackity hack, hack hack! [everyone laughs]
Kim: We’ll figure it out.
Colin: Shreeed the hack. Shred those hacks, brah! [everyone laughs]
Kim: Awesome!
Hannah: I mean… I mean, hacking… hacking can be, you know, like, a computer hacking. It could be, you know, stabbing some whatever, like…
Kim: Uh huh.
Hannah: There’s lots of different types of hacking that can occur.
Colin: Yeah!
Hannah: Yeah!
Colin: Hacking is what you make of it. [everyone laughs] Hackity hack! And I have a hacky sack, so maybe that’s why I’m the hacker.
Kim: Oh!
Hannah: Oh, yeah, that’s good. I like that.
Colin: Maybe I was confused. [Hannah laughs]
Ryan: It’ll help you blend in around campus. You go out to the quad, hit the sack around.
Colin: Yeah. Hit the sack.
Kim: Wow, just don’t say the sack. I hate that!
Ryan: Hit my sack.
Colin: Wanna play some sack? Wanna sack it up? Sack it up in the quad?
Kim: [groans] Oh, gosh. Wow.
Ryan: Hack me, bro!
Colin: [laughs] Hack me.
Kim: Cool.
Sequoia: Stop.
Kim: Is there any more info we need to know right now, Hannah?
Hannah: Just some race specific things. So as a house elf, you have a couple specific features that are connected with, you know, being a house elf. Probably the most important one that you’ll want to keep in mind, and that the listeners would need to know about, would be that if you choose to disobey an order from your family, you will take 1d4 of force damage. So that is… that is something to keep in mind as we’re playing. You also have advantage on saving throws against being charmed and magic can’t put you to sleep because of your fae ancestry. And then each of you has… actually, maybe Ryan is the only one who has a specific feature based off of his class and his heist role. And yeah. I think that we… we should be good to go. Do you guys have any questions for me? Before we jump in?
Ryan: Just one kinda like gameplay question. Are we going to try to do the whole adventure in character, as much as possible?
Kim: Yeah!
Hannah: Yes.
Ryan: I… I assume that’s the goal, right? I just want to clarify that.
Kim: You’re gonna have to listen to that obnoxious character voice I did ALL DAY.
Colin: You mean the… the one character voice you do? [everyone laughs]
Kim: The ONE I can do. I’ve got… I’ve got very limited range here. At least I didn’t go with Cho voice. Like, be happy. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Yes.
Kim: Yeah, I mean…
Ryan: “It’s a good thing Long Derek has such a soothing, melodious tone.” [Hannah and Sequoia laugh]
Hannah: Okay, so I mean, we… we’ve chatted about a lot of things, so I’m gonna… I’m gonna give us an introduction on where we are again right now. So you… you had apparated into a disordered and dusty room. You can see that paint is peeling from the walls. There appears to be a mysterious stain on the floors. You can see moonlight filtering through the boards nailed to the windows, and you hear the creaking sound of the shack as the wind whips around you outside. Across the room from all of you, you see a really ugly old chair that appears to have one of its legs ripped off. You can see that there’s something dark and mysterious looking under the chair, and you’re surrounded by all of your new house elf friends that you’ve been forced into an adventure with. What would you like to do?
Ryan: “Well, well, hey, new friends! Well, you sure all dressed weird. Did I miss the memo? [everyone laughs] I just got my trusty old overalls! [everyone still laughing] And my normal shoes, don’t look too close at ‘em.”
Colin: [surfer voice, used for Karl throughout] “Speak for yourself, farm boy. These threads are totally fresh!” [everyone laughs]
Kim: [whispering] Jesus Christ.
Ryan: “Well, your shirt looks kinda old, I don’t know if it looks so fresh. Where’d you get it?”
Colin: [laughing] “I got it at… at… actually it was $12 at WalMart, but it’s retro style!”
Ryan: “Well, looks, looks pretty cool, friend!”
Colin: “Not technically vintage. Yeah! Thank you!”
Kim: “Yeah, you guys look funky fresh.”
Colin: “I…”
Kim: “Do you see that thing under the chair over there though? Like, what’s going on in that vicinity? Stand back, everyone. Let me go take a peek!”
Sequoia: “Oh my gosh, will you please… can you just, just be careful, okay? If you could just… just be careful!”
Kim: [laughs] I’m gonna walk over and look at the thing!
Hannah: Noice! Roll for investigation!
Kim: I got a fifteen.
Hannah: Noice! You walk up to the chair. It looks pretty gross and old and, you know, unpleasant. A strange scent wafts from it.
Kim: Yeah.
Hannah: Not vibing with that, but you look underneath the chair and there’s very clearly a hole leading into the ground. It seems to be a tunnel of some sort.
Kim: “Oh, it’s just a hole, everyone! Nothing scary!”
Colin: “I…”
Ryan: “Nothing to worry about there!”
Kim: “You sillies!”
Colin: Yeah. I perceive that it has nothing to do at all with the mission we’ve been tasked to… to handle. [everyone laughs]
Sequoia: I… is there a door? I forgot.
Hannah: There does not seem to be a door. All of the windows are boarded up, and from the inside and the outside.
Sequoia: ‘Kay.
Colin: All right, I’m gonna go stick my head in the hole and sniff around.
Hannah: Nice. Just generally sniff?
Colin: Just, I’m gonna literally sniff and see if the air smells sweet or foul.
Hannah: Hmm. It smells… how far into the hole do you go?
Colin: Neck deep Like, deep, but you know. [Kim laughs] As far as my neck will allow. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Sure!
Colin: I’m really stretching.
Hannah: So… so you stretch your… your little house elf neck as long as it can go, and you get in there, and for… for the first little bit, it sort of just feels like you can smell the lingering scent of the… the mildewy chair that had been there previously. But as you stick your head in there for… for a minute, you get, like, the slightest sense that a breeze might be coming through the tunnel.
Colin: “Ooh! This hole is RAD, dudes! I think we should check it out!”
Sequoia: “Okay, I think we should be super, super careful about it, though, if we go into the hole. And I also think that… I think that Karl should go first, and then I think that probably LD should go second.”
Ryan: So I’m… I’m still where we started, and I… I kinda like clear my throat and cough [clears throat] so everyone looks at me, and I make a real show of using my gliding… my Heelies to make it to the other side of the room. [everyone laughs]
Colin: “Woah, bro! Bro! How are you doing that, dude?!”
Ryan: “Oh, just a little something I figured out, it’s no big deal.”
Colin: “You are shredding this shack!”
Kim: “That was really cool!”
Ryan: “Hey, thanks guys.”
Sequoia: “Wow!”
Ryan: “I like you friends already! Hey, can I do a little… little magical spell?” And I do an evocation cantrip called dancing lights, and I create some little floating lanterns, and I kind of float them into the hole so we can get a little peek in there.
Sequoia, Kim, and Colin: Nice.
Hannah: That’s awesome. As the… as the very beautiful lights float down into the hole, you can see that it appears to be a very well worn tunnel. You know, people have… people have used it before. It hasn’t… doesn’t seem like any prints or treads inside of it are recent, but… but it… it’s been used over the years.
Kim: “Hell yeah, dudes! Into the hole!” And I do jump in. [everyone laughs]
Colin: [trailing off like he’s getting more and more distant] “Let’s go into this hole!”
Hannah: Amazing. Cool. So…
Colin: Okay.
Hannah: So Smooosh jumps into the hole first.
Kim: Mhm.
Hannah: Who else… who else goes second?
Colin: I will go. Karl! “I’m gonna shred this hole.” [dissolves into laughter] [everyone laughs]
Ryan: Can you… can we get another take on that? Don’t say… don’t say, “shred this hole,” please.
Kim: Yeah.
Colin: “Gonna totally shred this hole!” [laughs]
Kim: Nope, you said it again! Wow!
Ryan: That was the same thing as the… the first time.
Hannah: No, it’s can… canonical to this game now. Karl shreds the hole. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Great.
Colin: Oh, and also, while I’m [laughing] shredding the hole, I’d like to… I’d like to open up the map and see if I can’t just glance at it in the light of the dancing lights.
Hannah: Yes. Yes, you have all been given an infiltration package. It includes a picture of the map, a very poor map of the castle drawn by Lord Voldemort himself. [everyone laughs] As well as…
Ryan: That’s the castle? That looks like a… like a Mario level where Donkey Kong is throwing old barrels down at you.
Hannah: Inexplicably, Hogwarts castle is only a series of tunnels stacked on top of each other. Don’t question it. [everyone laughs] And you also can see a picture of the secret diary that you are attempting to locate.
Sequoia: [laughing] Check our Instagram! [everyone laughs]
Kim: “Oh! This is like a super helpful map! I think this is gonna go really well, everyone.”
Colin: “I’m getting just very positive vibes out of this.”
Ryan: “Hey, do you all know how to read? I can’t… I can’t make heads or tails of this.”
Kim: [laughs] “Well, it looks like we gotta find this angry tree first.”
Colin: “Yeah, we’ve got to find the cute, frowny tree.”
Hannah: Cool. You… you guys begin making your way through the tunnel, and you eventually make your way out into the cool night air. You find yourself emerging from what appears to be a gnarled and twisted tree. Make a perception check, which means that you’re going to take a d20 and you’re gonna roll it, and then let me know what you got.
Kim: Yeah, I got a four. [Sequoia laughs]
Hannah: Amazing. So good.
Sequoia: I got a five.
Kim: Nice!
Hannah: Beautiful.
Colin: [laughs] Nice.
Kim: Seems like we’re a really WISE bunch. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Karl, what did you get?
Colin: I got a six.
Hannah: [laughing] You got a six.
Sequoia: Jesus fucking Christ.
Colin: I got a six, yeah.
Hannah: Hey, Long Derek, how’d you do?
Colin: LD!
Ryan: A fourteen.
Hannah: A fourteen! Holy shit!
Colin: Oh!
Hannah: Long Derek is fucking paying attention.
Colin: He’s seeing around corners. [everyone laughs]
Sequoia: Classic Long Derek.
Hannah: Classic. Cool, so you guys emerge out of what appears to be a gnarled and twisted tree. Long Derek, you are fucking ready for literally anything to come at you. You’re just, like, entering into the world like, come at me, bro, come at me! But like in a really sweet and pleasant voice, because that’s… that’s your character voice. [Ryan and Sequoia laugh] And you immediately notice the arm of the tree swinging towards you. Make an acrobatics check. And the rest of you don’t notice the tree swinging towards you, and you’re thumped squarely in the chest by the tree’s branches, and you take 1d4 of damage.
Kim: Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.
Sequoia: Damn it!
Ryan: I did get a nine.
Hannah: Ooh, yikes! That’s a bummer! [Sequoia laughs]
Ryan: [laughing] That’s what I assumed.
Hannah: [laughing] So, you see the tree swinging towards you, and you attempt to, like, sort of jump over it and do a somersault, but you forgot that you’re actually… even though you’re called Long Derek you’re actually kind of short still because you’re a house elf, and so you didn’t really jump high enough and it still clipped you with the… clipped your knees a little bit, and you…
Ryan: And how much… how much of that damage am I taking?
Hannah: You… I was gonna have you all roll a d4 of damage, and this is all… this…
Kim: “Ow, that smarts!”
Hannah: This is all on the… the honesty… honesty is… is good skill, that I assume that we all have as friends. So… [everyone laughs]
Ryan: Yeah. We sure do.
Kim: We’re all friends here.
Hannah: Ouchie! So you… the tree seems to be kind of really pissed off by the fact that something has emerged from its bowels, and is continuing to swing towards you. And, everyone, as you start running away from it, presumably, [laughter] you should make another acrobatics check to dodge additional tree branches.
Kim: You don’t know, maybe I want to fight the tree!
Hannah: Do you want to fight the… I mean, I’ll let you.
Ryan: I… I think that my best chance of getting out of this alive is to use a disguise self.
Hannah: Oh, okay.
Ryan: And try to blend in with the tree. I just look like a… like an extension of its roots or something. Can I just turn myself into a, like a tiny little duplicate of it?
Hannah: Yeah, you can try.
Kim: Of the tree? Of the whole tree?
Ryan: Yeah, just like a tiny version of the Whomping Willow.
Hannah: Yeah, you can try. You should do that. [Sequoia laughs]
Ryan: Okay. I do that!
Hannah: Okay, cool! Let’s see here. I’m going to… fuck, I didn’t roll out anything for a tree. [everyone laughs] I should have known. The tree rolls really poorly for a perception check, and yeah, he doesn’t notice that there shouldn’t be a smaller version of him. [everyone laughs] He actually… he actually becomes kind of confused, and assumes that you are its child, and instead of… instead of trying to kill you, now he’s just gonna… gonna kind of pat you on the head and try to draw you in close for a hug.
Ryan: Oh, I love hugs! That’s perfect! I make a little tree happy noise.
Hannah: Nice. Oh good! I was gonna have him roll for hug, but I mean, if you’re into it, you can just…
Ryan: No, I’m way into it. This is the best adventure ever! [everyone laughs]
Hannah: We’ll just let that happen, then.
Ryan: All right.
Colin: Okay.
Kim: “Should we, like, be worried about Long Derek, everyone?” [everyone laughs]
Colin: “I think Long Derek knows things that we don’t.”
Kim: “I think the tree’s gonna eat him.”
Hannah: Everyone make an acrobatics check that isn’t Long Derek.
Kim: Fair enough. Twelve.
Colin: Fourteen.
Sequoia: Twenty six!
Hannah: Holy shit!
Kim: What the fuck?
Colin: Nice!
Hannah: Floppy! Look at you go!
Sequoia: “Well, you know, I used to do gymnastics when I was young, so, you know. [giggles] I’m really good at… at tumbling away from tree branches. Thank you.”
Hannah: Yeah. Yeah, Floppy… as Floppy tells you about her gymnastics history, she actually does like a really dope Matrix dodge. It seems like everything starts to go in slow motion, and she goes [really slowly] I used to do gymnastics as like the tree branches are like voom, voom, voom, voom, vooming over her… her body. The… a very similar thing happens with Smooosh, where she, you know, does like a very, very beautiful pirouette. She leaps into the air and does like a really nice twirl that I don’t think even she was expecting she had inside of her.
Kim: Yeah, no way.
Hannah: But you… you solidly avoid the branches. Karl, what did you roll? Can you remind me?
Colin: Fourteen.
Hannah: Fourteen! Karl… actually, as the branch is coming toward you, you… you actually grab it mid-air and then you like sort of boop the branch as if you were like booping a nose, and you say, “No!” [everyone laughs] And the tree looks… looks as confused as a tree can look, and pulls its branch away.
Colin: “Aw, yeah. Dialectic!”
Hannah: [laughs] And… and you guys… you guys have now successfully disturbed the tree enough that it will leave you alone. [everyone laughs]
Colin: It doesn’t want to bother with these weirdos any more.
Sequoia: “Is LD okay?”
Colin: “LD?”
Ryan: “Oh, I’m great, guys. I’m just getting a big hug here.” So I… I pat the tree real good. Like, I’m having a real close one, and I say, “I love you, Dad.” And then I just calmly walk out to be with the rest of my friends.
Kim: Nice. [Colin and Sequoia laugh]
Hannah: Yeah, the… you hear… you hear a strange rustling in the branches, and as… as you listen closely, you hear something that sounds vaguely like the tree saying [slow, deep voice] “Be safe, son!” [everyone laughs] But, you know, it could have just been the wind. You’re not entirely sure.
Kim: Uh huh.
Hannah: So…
Ryan: So does that mean I escape the tree?
Hannah: Yes, you have also escaped the tree. [laughs]
Ryan: Okay, I caught up with the group.
Hannah: Yeah.
Ryan: “Bye Dad!” [everyone laughs]
Sequoia: Stupid!
Hannah: Cool. So, winded and obviously very distressed, other than Long Derek, by the strange and terrifying tree that just tried to murder you, the four of you run towards the castle looming in the distance. As you run alongside the… along the side of the castle, you see lights flickering in windows and the filtered image of what appears to be a ghost floating past a window on the fourth floor. You run up to the front of the castle, where you find two enormous oak front doors. What would you like to do next?
Sequoia: “I… I would like to… I would like to politely knock on the door, just to see if anyone’s home.”
Hannah: Cool! Floppy knocks on the door, and…
Colin: “Floppy, no!” [everyone laughs]
Kim: No, that sounds reasonable. That’s what I was about to do.
Hannah: And nothing really happens immediately, but you do hear a strange… a muffled meowing sound on the other side of the door that slowly gets further and further away.
Sequoia: “There’s a… there’s a kitty in there.” [Colin laughs]
Kim: “I LOVE kitties!”
Ryan: [laughs] “Oh, god!”
Kim: I’m gonna try to open the door. Pull it open or something.
Hannah: Cool. Yeah, yeah. It opens. [laughter] And…
Kim: Nice.
Hannah: As you… as you enter into a mass… the massive entrance hall, you see that it has stone walls that are bedecked with flaming torches. The ceiling is so high that you can’t quite make it out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing you leads to what appears to be the upper floors. To the right of you is an entrance hall, and you can see a small worn wooden door with a strange looking door handle. And as you guys take all of this in, the meowing seems to be getting closer again, and running down the stairs you hear and see a strange man shouting, [shrill voice, used for Filch throughout] “Intruders! Intruders! Intruders in the castle! Oh, it’s just… what are you house elves doing here? What? What?” And it seems to be a man standing next to a cat. And the man has stringy hair, the cat also kind of has stringy hair, but yeah, he seems pretty pissed off, at like… “What are you doing here in my entrance hall, you house elves?”
Ryan: “We forgot where the kitchen is. Could you point us which way…”
Sequoia: Yeah.
Ryan: “Where… what were we doing again? We were serving food, right?”
Hannah: “In the middle of the night?!”
Kim: “Yeah, someone said they were hungry and needed a night time snack.”
Colin: “We gotta get the bread dough… the bread dough has to rise for tomorrow.”
Ryan: “Yeah, just proofing some dough. Proofing the dough.”
Sequoia: “Yeah! We’re so sorry about it.”
Hannah: “You should be! You gave me quite a scare! Was unacceptable. Mrs. Norris told me that there was someone knocking at the door. What were you doing outside? She said there was someone knocking at the door.”
Sequoia: “It was, uh…”
Ryan: “Just getting ingredients.”
Sequoia: “…Hagrid, who needed the… the bread dough? I mean…” Why would I know that?
Hannah: Roll for persuasion. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Yeah, no, that’s not gonna… [snorts] got a one! I did get a one. [laughs]
Hannah: Nice.
Colin: Oh, baby! I got a twenty four!
Hannah: Holy cow.
Sequoia: Oh, damn!
Hannah: You know what?
Ryan: I did get a five. [Colin and Kim laugh]
Hannah: “I don’t know how I feel about you house elves. Something… you’re dressed very suspiciously. I really trust that one over there with the… with the bracelets and the… and the wallet chain, but, you, the rest of you seem sort of weird. You just… where did you get all of these weird outfits? I don’t understand what’s happening right now.”
Kim: “It’s a new uniform we’re testing out!” [everyone laughs]
Hannah: “But the headmaster didn’t mention a new house elf uniform to me.”
Colin: “He doesn’t have to tell you everything.”
Kim: “We’re testing it!”
Ryan: “Yeah, we’re on the… the house elf uniform and school spirit committee.”
Hannah: “Hmm. Suspicious. Well, yeah, I mean, it’s weird that you guys don’t know where the kitchens are, but it is over through that door over there. Kind of weird. I’ve got my eye on you, weird creatures.” And he… he does like a… like a little suspicious eyes at you and, like, some finger movements.
Kim: Mhm.
Sequoia: [laughs]. Mhm.
Hannah: And then he says, “Mrs. Norris, let’s go!” And begins to walk away.
Sequoia: “We didn’t get to pet the kitty.”
Kim: “Have a nice evening, sir!”
Colin: “Nothing to… just a couple of unthreatening have nots over here. Nothing to worry about.”
Kim: Yeah, I guess we’ll shuffle off toward the kitchens.
Colin: Yup. Yup, yup, yup.
Kim: In the direction indicated.
Hannah: Cool.
Sequoia: Okay.
Hannah: So you wander up to the door and you can see that the door handle, as you twist it open, there seems to be like a cornucopia on it. And as you open the door you find yourselves on a staircase leading down. At the bottom of the stairs you find a broad stone basement corridor that’s brightly lit and decorated with food themed paintings. In front of a painting of a pear, you see another small house elf wearing many knitted hats stacked on top of each other. He reaches up to tickle the pear, which then giggles and turns into a doorknob, and you see him enter into what appears to be a kitchen.
Sequoia: “So part of what we’re supposed to be doing is that we need to get the house elves to tell us the password. So I think that we should go in there, and say hi!” [giggles]
Colin: “Right, but we…”
Kim: “That sounds like a great idea!”
Colin: “Maybe we should go in with a cover story! Something rad, but not so rad as to arouse suspicion.” [laughs]
Ryan: “Well, we do have to have proof that dough we were just talking about. I’ll go… I’ll take care of that, and you all do the adventure.”
Colin: “LD, I believe you’re confused about the veracity of the dough!”
Ryan: “Is there no dough?”
Colin: “The dough was fictitious.”
Ryan: “Oh, it was a ruse! I got it. Okay, I’m on. I’m on the same network. Here we go!”
Kim: Uh huh. Uh huh.
Sequoia: “I mean, so, it did seem like that guy… that guy was really mean, first. But it did seem like we’re not wearing what we should be wearing, so maybe we should decide why we’re wearing this. [everyone laughs] Just for cover purposes.”
Colin: “What do you mean, why? This is me! This is my look!”
Kim: “Yeah, this is me!”
Colin: “Karl is as Karl appears! One dimension.” [everyone laughs]
Sequoia: “Fine.”
Ryan: “Well hey, I got a spell what would do this!” Is… so if I look at the other house elves, are they just wearing like, standard, you know, like, burlap sack kind of attire?
Kim: Yeah, we saw one just now. What was he wearing? A stack of hats, and…?
Hannah: [laughs] He… I didn’t write anything else, but we’ll assume that he’s not naked. We’ll say that he… he is wearing a flannel shirt, and also, um, some like, cargo pants. [Sequoia laughs]
Ryan: [laughs] Okay.
Hannah: Where the pockets seem to have… they… they definitely have like a lot of stuff inside of them. And he… he is also wearing a really cool pair of Vans. And all of the hats are stacked on top of him.
Kim: “Honestly…”
Colin: “I think we’re good.”
Ryan: “It actually seems like we’re… we’re kinda wearing the…”
Kim: “Honestly, I don’t know what that old man was so mad about.”
Colin: “Yeah, I don’t…”
Kim: “That other house elf looked just like us!” [Sequoia laughs]
Colin: “It appears to be the uniform.”
Kim: “Just a cool, radical dude! [everyone laughs] Just like us!”
Sequoia: “So I guess we should just go in?”
Kim: “Yeah!”
Ryan: “Yeah!”
Colin: [suggestively] “All right, who wants to tickle that pear?”
Ryan: “Ooh!”
Sequoia: Okay, I’m gonna go up and tickle the pear.
Hannah: [laughs] Roll for tickling. Just kidding. [everyone laughs] So you… you tickle the pear and it… it does turn into a doorknob.
Colin: “Radical!”
Sequoia: And I… I’m gonna open this door.
Hannah: Okay. [laughs]
Kim: Okay.
Hannah: So you open the door, and as you enter into the room, you find an enormous high ceilinged room with mounds of glittering brass pots and pans heaped around the stone walls, and a great brick fireplace at the other end. The room feels warm and inviting, and you can see that the only other creature in the room is the many-hatted house elf that you saw from the hall. He turns around, and suddenly you can see that he is actively the most beautifully stunning house elf you have ever seen. [Sequoia laughs] And you actually recognize him as… as your old friend Dobby from when he used to work at Malfoy Manor!
Sequoia: “Oh, wow! Dobby! What are you doing here?”
Kim: “Hey bud! It’s been a while!”
Colin: “Hey pal! You are looking tubular!” [everyone laughs]
Ryan: I… I walk up and hug him. Very tightly.
Hannah: He… he seems… he seems uncomfortable, but he accepts it. He… he looks at you kind of confusedly. He’s like [deep breathy voice, used for Dobby throughout] “I’m… I’m sorry. Do I know you?” [everyone laughs]
Kim: “What do you mean, Dobby? We’re your old pals from back in the dayyy! You know, palling around, getting hit by Dark Wizards. Fun stuff like that!”
Colin: “Fearing for our lives.”
Hannah: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Yeah, I mean, like, I’m sorry, honestly. I’m being rude. You guys obviously know me. I’m… my memory’s sort of being foggy. I just… I actually just got back from America, and like, I just… [Sequoia laughs] I’m just sort of trying to get my bearings, you know what I mean, my dudes?”
Kim: “Oh wow! I… wow, I always wanted to go to America and come back hot! This is so cool!”
Hannah: “Oh wow! You think I’m… I’m hot?” And he blinks like his really, really, really long house elf eyelashes at you. [everyone laughs] And he sorta does, like, an anime eyes thing. He says, “Wow! Thank you! Yeah, I mean, America was like, really cool, dude. Like, I had a… I had a super, super cool time, and like… like, there were… I caught some sick waves, and yeah.”
Colin: “Dude.”
Hannah: “Vibed with some people. Good vibes! Nothing but good vibes. [Sequoia laughs] What… what are you guys’ names?”
Colin: “Dobby is so chill now! I love this new Dobby!”
Ryan: “Is it true in America that the house elves own the mansions and the humans are the servants? Is that true? I heard that.”
Hannah: “I mean, yeah, I mean, like, America’s kind of fucked up man, but, like, it’s… it’s a vibe. [everyone laughs] Like, that’s definitely not true, but… but, like, you know, it’s a vibe.”
Sequoia: “My name is… it’s um… Dooooorknob.”
Hannah: “Oh. That’s a… that’s a really unique name! That’s… yeah. It’s nice to meet you, Doorknob.”
Sequoia: “It’s nice. I… yeah. Because we’ve never met before, as you have said.”
Hannah: “Yeah, I mean yeah. I’m… I… it’s possible. I meet a lot of people, you know, so it’s just… I don’t know. I… I have a bad memory, or whatever.”
Sequoia: “We are trying to get jobs here.”
Hannah: “Oh, wow! That’s…”
Sequoia: “Because we’re unemployed!”
Hannah: “That’s a vibe.”
Kim: “Yes!”
Colin: “Yes.”
Hannah: “I mean, yeah. Like, what are… what are the rest of your names? Like, I could probably like get you like, an application or whatever.”
Colin: “Yeah, that would be… that would be sweet, dude. I’m Karl.”
Kim: “I’m Smooosh!”
Ryan: “My name’s Derek. Hey, are there any other Dereks here?”
Hannah: “You know, I… I just got back, but like, there’s probably like a couple other Dereks.”
Colin: Mhm. Can we have an aside? Can we have a quick group meeting?
Ryan: “Dobby, you stay right there. We’re gonna just step over here for a second, don’t move!”
Hannah: “Well, I mean, yeah, sure. I’ll go try to find some… some applications for you or whatever, my dudes.”
Colin: “Yes, yes, thank you. Oh, that would be so sweet, my friend.”
Sequoia: “Thank you, Dobby!”
Colin: “God, you are looking SO, so fine!” [everyone laughs]
Hannah: “Thanks, my dude. I’ve been… I’ve been, like, really working on my muscles.”
Colin: “Yeah? You been lifting? Lifting heavy?”
Hannah: “Yeah. Yeah, actually, like, I… I just got a gym membership, but we can talk about this in a minute. But like, we’ll talk about it.”
Colin: “Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll talk it up later.” [Sequoia laughs]
Kim: So did Dobby leave to go get us stuff?
Hannah: Yeah, so he’s… he’s still pretty close by, but he’s… he’s like shuffling through drawers, kind of, what seems to be vaguely randomly. He’s just sort of pulling open some drawers and looking for some whatever. [everyone laughs]
Colin: “Okay, team! Obviously this new hot Dobby… this new hot version of Dobby doesn’t remember us, so how are we gonna like…?”
Kim: “Rude!”
Colin: “I know! But…”
Kim: “Make sure he remembers us in the future and asks us out? What?” [everyone laughs]
Colin: “There’s a lot of… okay, I think we need to, as a team, focus a little bit. All right? So just, Dobby IS being unchill, but we gotta find a way to… to get that password.”
Sequoia: “I. Was. Working on it! [everyone laughs] Here’s the thing.”
Kim: “We’re helping!”
Sequoia: “Clearly!”
Colin: “You did not… you did not, Floppy. Floppy did not communicate that intention to the rest of us. As a group, we are… we are ice team, here.”
Sequoia: [squeaking] “He was right there! Ugh! I… [sighs] never mind. I’m not gonna say that, because that’s mean, and it’s fine. This is all fine. So I think we should… he’s not gonna be able to find us some applications, right? He just seems to be looking through drawers at complete random.”
Kim: “Oh, I know what you mean! I got it. I got it! Hey, Dobby, what if we just talk to the headmaster about getting jobs here?”
Hannah: “Oh, hey, hey, that’s actually a… yeah, that’s a really good idea. Yeah. I mean, I don’t… I don’t see why we couldn’t. I mean, yeah, we could… we could definitely go up there together. I actually have something that I gotta go do first, but what if I like met you guys there? You guys could take the house elf tunnels up to his office or whatever.”
Kim: “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea! Is there a password or something we need to worry about?”
Hannah: “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's actually a really good question. The password is… oh shoot. Oh, man. Oh yeah, it was dinglehopper! I think that’s the new one.”
Kim: “‘Kay.”
Hannah: “Yeah, so I mean, like, if you guys wanna just like, pop on up there or whatever, like, I’ll keep seeing if I can find these applications, and… and… and then like I’ll meet you there in like a couple minutes.”
Colin: “Sweet. I would love to shred those tunnels with you. Can you, like, describe them in detail? [everyone laughs] Like, excruciating detail?”
Hannah: “I mean, I… I can… I can do my best, bro. Like… like, I… I think that probably the most important thing is that they’re made of stone. And they sort of smell, like, a little weird. Like… sorta like mildew, and like… like a little bit like armpits. Like… like if someone was like a really stinky student and they, like, went and just were chilling in there instead of going to class.”
Sequoia: “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh, Dobby, this is… this is great information!”
Colin: “Cool, dude! This is super chill and great and exactly what I wanted to hear from you.”
Sequoia: “Thank you so much for all that information.”
Hannah: “Yeah!”
Sequoia: “I think that’s enough, though. Information.”
Hannah: “Oh, okay. I mean, yeah, yeah. I mean, if that’s what you need, yeah, like, that’s chill. I mean, yeah! Sure! I’ll… I’ll open the tunnels for you and then I’ll meet you guys up there in a couple minutes.” He walks over to the back wall and appears to tap like a series of random bricks. Like, you can't really tell what the order is specifically, it’s just sort of he taps them whatever. And the stones begin to shift and warp until a small, approximately house elf sized entrance appears, twisting into a dark and damp looking tunnel. He, you know, turns back to you and says, “Yeah, I mean, like… like I said, my dudes, password is dinglehopper, and yeah, I’m gonna go get those papers for you and then I’ll totally give you a recommendation, ‘cause like, you guys are pretty chill, and like, it’d be cool to… cool to do some like chill hangs with each other.”
Colin: “I think a chill hang is exactly what we need!”
Hannah: “Noice!” [Sequoia laughs] Cool.
Colin: Can I fist bump Dobby?
Hannah: Yeah! Roll for… roll for fist bump.
Colin: Cool. I got a twelve.
Hannah: [laughs] Cool, you successfully fist bump Dobby.
Colin: Aw, yes! It feels good!
Sequoia: If you… if you like… if you… if… if… if Karl had rolled a one, would Karl have accidentally just like DECKED Dobby in the face? [laughs]
Hannah: One hundred percent! Of course that’s what would have happened.
Colin: Bam!
Kim: Excellent.
Sequoia: Dobby passes out, we get nothing more out of him. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: You probably would have also probably taken a little bit of damage to his fist, ‘cause Karl… we… I don’t know if we’ve established whether or not Karl knows how to punch without hurting himself, so he probably would have…
Sequoia: Yeah. Yeah.
Hannah: …hit… hit with the wrong part of his fist. [Sequoia laughs] Yeah, so yeah! Dobby… Dobby’s like, he… he does some finger guns at you as he’s walking backwards and like a pew pew pew pew! And yeah, you’re now alone in the kitchen.
Colin: All right.
Hannah: Do you guys need to grab any snacks before we continue your adventure, or are we cool?
Kim: “Yeah, I think we do need to grab some snacks!”
Colin: “I have Skittles and Smarties, but do they have like cinnamon rolls, or like a donut, or like…” Can I do a donut check?
Hannah: There is… yeah, roll investigation. All of you roll an investigation.
Kim and Colin: Okay.
Sequoia: [laughing] All of us!
Hannah: Roll… roll for snack search.
Kim: I got a ten.
Hannah: Noice.
Ryan: It’s gonna be a fourteen.
Colin: Ooh, fifteen!
Hannah: Ooh! So snacky!
Ryan: Finding the good snacks!
Sequoia: Sixteen!
Hannah: Sixteen?! Floppy is here… Floppy did not come to play with you hoes. [laughter] They… they came to get some fucking snacks! [laughs] Cool. So you guys begin like rummaging through the cabinets as soon as Dobby leaves. Like… like you just look at each other and then just SCATTER and begin like ripping open cabinets and…
Colin: “Oh, god, I’m so hungry!” [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Karl. Karl, you find, actually kind of really obviously placed on the counter, it’s… it’s sort of silly that you guys didn’t notice it before, a stack of cupcakes.
Colin: Oh, yes!
Hannah: And they’re… they’re really beautifully decorated cupcakes. They look super tasty. Yeah, as you begin looking around, you find some left over bacon that seems to have been cooked yesterday for breakfast, you find… you DO find a carton of eggs in the fridge, that’s important to keep track of. There’s actually like a lot of them.
Ryan: “Hey, I can’t… hey, nobody can… nobody get those eggs and touch me with them, okay? I’m allergic to them. My character sheet says.” [everyone laughs]
Kim: “Fair enough.”
Colin: “Wait, like even if I touch you… even if I touch you with the outside of an egg to the outside of Long Derek?”
Ryan: “Well, I… I have a… a Epi-pen spell, so it’s really not that bad.”
Colin: [laughing] Okay.
Ryan: “So…”
Colin: “Okay, well, I’m gonna redistribute these cupcakes into my belly!” [Ryan laughs]
Kim: “I think we should take some of these snacks as cover! We can be like, we’re just delivering snacks!”
Colin: “I thought our current cover was tubular enough.” [everyone laughs]
Kim: “We need several covers! Stories!”
Colin: [laughs] “Can I like, share something with you guys? I feel like we’re getting to be friends now, and I just want… I just need to get something off my chest.”
Sequoia: “Yeah.”
Colin: “I’ve never sk… I don’t know how to skateboard or surf or anything like that. I just… this is just how I talk.”
Sequoia: “Oh, Karl! I’m so happy you felt comfortable sharing that with us.”
Kim: “That’s okay, bud.”
Colin: “Yeah, I’m still totally ready to shred, figuratively, this mission with you guys, though.” [everyone laughs]
Kim: “Maybe when we’re done we can find a skateboard for you!”
Hannah: That you can just carry around. [everyone laughs]
Colin: [voice cracking] “That’d be… that’d really radical, guys. Thank you.”
Ryan: “Hey, I bet Dumbledore’s confiscated a few. He’s got some in his office, I betcha.”
Colin: “I’m gonna ride that skateboard right to the moon!” [everyone laughs]
Kim: So nothing in this room…
Colin: “You guys wanna shred these tunnels?”
Kim: Nothing in the room that looks like it might be, like, an extra house elf uniform?
Hannah: Hmm, no. No house elf uniforms. Just, you know…
Kim: All right.
Hannah: …all of the fireplace, and then all of those pots and pans and other cooking utensils. And… and the various snacks that you found.
Ryan: Could we grab, like, a tray of food and kinda pile it up so high that like it kind of obscures our little forms?
Kim: Yeah!
Hannah: Oh, yeah, totally.
Ryan: Just, you know, walking around with a huge pile of food.
Kim: Yeah!
Colin: Or a dessert cart that we can, like, put a bunch of us INSIDE, and then they pop out!
Ryan: Oh!
Sequoia: The hacker, here he is!
Hannah: Ooh, that is pretty good. That is pretty good. Yeah, I’ll say… I’ll say that over in the corner, yeah, you do see a dessert cart actually, that’s very conveniently placed there. [Sequoia laughs]
Ryan: Does it have a tablecloth so… so it’s kind of hiding the interior?
Colin: Yeah, it’s almost to the floor? [everyone laughs]
Hannah: You… you don’t see a tablecloth on the dessert table, but you… you could definitely try and see if you can find a tablecloth…
Ryan: Cool.
Hannah: …if you wanna roll for investigation again. Specifically for tablecloth investigation.
Ryan: Oh, I do, very much.
Kim: Roll for tablecloth.
Ryan: Tablecloth I think, uses my Intelligence modifier, I assume.
Hannah: Mhm.
Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ryan: Which gets me to an eleven.
Kim: Nice!
Hannah: Yeah! Yeah, as you’re looking around, you see a series of very beautifully decorated and nicely folded tablecloths in one of the cabinets.
Ryan: Great! So let’s set that up on the dessert cart and the muscle here can be the one to push the rest of us around as we hide.
Hannah: Nice.
Kim: “Yeah, I can totally do that!”
Hannah: Nice. Cool.
Kim: “Hop on in, friends!”
Colin: “Should we like, arrange, some, some of these treats on top of the dessert cart, instead of just like having an empty dessert cart we push around?” [everyone laughs]
Kim: “That’s a great idea!”
Hannah: Which of the snacks are you going to take with you?
Colin: “Well, I already redistributed several cupcakes into me, but we could put some of them on the cart.” [Hannah laughs]
Kim: Mhm. [laughter]
Hannah: You guys wanna take… you wanna take like the bacon or the eggs or anything like that with you?
Kim: I think we’ll just take the cupcakes.
Hannah: [laughs] That’s valid, I GUESS. Yeah, so you guys stack all the cupcakes on top of each other. You have a beautiful tablecloth. It’s has… has gold stitching on it. And as you look closer, you see that what you had thought was butterflies embroidered on it is actually tiny dicks. [Sequoia laughs]
Ryan: “It’s beautiful!”
Hannah: Embroidered on the tablecloth in gold.
Colin: “In hindsight, it’s totally whack that I thought those were butterflies at first!” [everyone laughs]
Kim: “This is a weird design for them to just have sitting around. Let’s go, friends!” [everyone laughs again]
Hannah: Cool. So presumably you all, all except for Smooosh, get underneath and you’re all cuddling real close together underneath the dessert cart.
Kim: Mhm.
Hannah: And you… you begin walking. You begin walking down the damp looking tunnel. As you travel through the very dark and stinky tunnel, you hear what appears to be a very faint scratching sound ahead of you. And as you turn the corner, suddenly four large rats jump out of the darkness at you. Roll for initiative.
Colin: Ooh!
Ryan: That’s a sixteen for Mr. Derek.
Hannah: Oh, wow!
Kim: Three!
Hannah: A three. Karl, did you roll four?
Colin: I rolled a six.
Hannah: You rolled a six. Okay, what did you roll, Floppy?
Sequoia: I rolled an eight.
Hannah: Oh! Cool. So the rat is gonna go first. Or, excuse me, LD is gonna go first. LD, you are stuck underneath a dessert cart, what would you like to do?
Ryan: I… I poke my head out and kinda take… take inventory. So I’m… I’m assuming they’re all kind of down the hall from us in a group. Like, nobody’s really moved yet?
Hannah: Yup, nobody’s moved yet. They… you did turn around the corner, and they were all just like chilling in the tunnel, and you sorta stumbled upon them. They’re… they’re in a group in front of you.
Kim: “Rats!”
Ryan: Okay, you gave me a VERY good spell, and I’m going to use lightning bolt.
Kim: Nice!
Hannah: Nice, nice, nice.
Ryan: So a stroke of lightning forming a line a hundred feet long and five feet wide, so I’m assuming that captures all the rats in it.
Hannah: Yeah, sure! Sure, that’s…
Ryan: Okay.
Hannah: We’ll say that that’s a thing.
Ryan: Each creature in that… in that volume must make a dexterity saving throw.
Hannah: Cool.
Ryan: So they have to roll dex, and score to beat is a thirteen.
Hannah: Oooh! Wow! They all failed except for one. [Sequoia laughs]
Ryan: All right, well, I have bad news for really all of them. The ones that failed are gonna take 8d6 lightning damage.
Hannah: Zoinks!
Colin: Oh my god! [laughs]
Kim: What?!
Ryan: And the one that didn’t fail is gonna take half that.
Hannah: Cool.
Ryan: So, yeah, that’s thirty, so the ones… the four that failed take thirty, and the other one takes fifteen.
Hannah: Noice, noice noice. So [laughter] you sorta stick your little… your little house elf face out of the dessert cart, and you peek around, and you very calmly shoot lightning out of your hands. And just eviscerate three of the rats. Just, like, they’re just completely destroyed, and you say, you know, whatever… whatever your catchphrase is when you murder people.
Ryan: Oh, it’s, uh, huff my nuts? [everyone laughs]
Kim: You wanna do that in character voice?
Ryan: “Huff my nuts, rats!” [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Cool. The next… the next person’s turn is rat. Rat. Both of those died. [laughter] We’re gonna say that it’s Floppy’s turn.
Sequoia: “Okay.”
Hannah: You are underneath… you are underneath the dessert cart as well.
Kim: How does this last rat look?
Hannah: He… he’s looking pretty singed. His hair is all standing on end, and he’s smoking a little bit. Not, like, out of his mouth, although, I mean, he could be doing that. Maybe his…
Colin: [deep, old man smoker voice] Ugh, it’s been a long day. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Maybe he has a cigarette problem.
Kim: We… we came across some rats smoking. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: They’re taking their cigarette break in the tunnels.
Sequoia: I’m gonna peek out from under the thing.
Hannah: Mhm.
Sequoia: And I am going to… uh, cast fire bolt.
Hannah: Cool.
Sequoia: At the remaining rat.
Hannah: Cool, cool!
Sequoia: I rolled a twenty.
Hannah: Wow! Natural twenty?
Ryan: Damn!
Sequoia: Yep.
Hannah: Cool! So you SUPES hit that rat really hard. [everyone laughs] You just like, scorch that rat in the ass.
Kim: Get that rat!
Hannah: These poor rats! They were just minding their own business, they didn’t really even do anything to you guys yet,
Colin: Nope. [laughter]
Hannah: But you… you peek your head out of the… of the thing, and shoot fireballs out of your fist, presumably. And yeah, you… you hit him. Hit him square in the chest, and because it was a natural twenty, you… I think how this works is you get to roll your damage twice.
Sequoia: Sixteen.
Hannah: Nice, nice, nice. So yeah, the… the rat explodes upon impact. [everyone laughs] And all of the sound from this um, uh, appears to have attracted the other animals in the tunnel.
Sequoia: Uh oh.
Kim: Mhm.
Hannah: And so you hear some SCREE SCREE SCREE SCREE SCREE SCREE coming towards you, and some flapping sounds. And around the corner, yeah, there are a whole bunch of bats that have just come and are flapping around your head now. So we’re gonna… we’re gonna roll them in now.
Sequoia: Oh good.
Hannah: Since you destroyed my rats. [everyone laughs]
Kim: “Back off, bats! We’ll fuck your shit up!”
Colin: “Yeah, come on, dudes! We like really fucking murdered those rats!” [laughs]
Sequoia: “Bye!”
Ryan: “I’ve never done that spell before! Man, that was… whoo!”
Kim: “That was GROSS!” [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Yeah, you can see in front of you that there’s just like a pile of viscera where the rats used to be. [everyone laughs] Stinking viscera. [Colin laughs]
Kim: “I mean, like, I know our masters don’t like rodents in their houses, but wow!”
Hannah: Coming in hot! Okay, cool, cool, cool. So now the bats fly up to you, and the first bat is going to… since you’re the only one that’s like really solidly standing up, Smooosh, they’re gonna try and like, smack you in the face with their wings, and just sorta like, like, like, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop! Like that. [everyone laughs]
Kim: Rude.
Hannah: Cool. The bat rolled a twelve.
Kim: That hits!
Hannah: Noice! So the bat smacks you in the face with its wing. Let’s see here. Yoinks! That bat does six points of damage to you. With his little wing. [Sequoia laughs]
Colin: Oh!
Kim: “Hey, what the fuck!?”
Hannah: That hurt! Six points of wing slap damage, straight to the noggin. [Colin makes swooshing noises]
Kim: Yeah, I don’t like that, actually.
Hannah: Too bad, ‘cause another bat’s coming at ya. But this time, he’s gonna… he’s gonna deviate from his other bat friend’s tactics, and he’s gonna go straight for Karl. He saw him… he was actually buds with… oh, no, wait! Karl… excuse me, Long Derek. He’s gonna go straight for Long Derek’s little head, poking out there.
Ryan: Oh, darn.
Hannah: He was friends with some of the rats that you murdered, and so he screes, and if you spoke Bat you would know that he says, “GERALD, NO!” as he comes and tries to smack you in the face. And he’s gonna roll a [mutters for a moment] eleven!
Ryan: That is, I think, just barely not gonna do it.
Hannah: Oh! He’s so overwrought with grief that he just sort of flies adjacent to you and smacks the air around your head.
Ryan: “Hey guys, are we the baddies?”
Colin: “Yeah, are we?” [laughter]
Ryan: “Why did we kill those rats?”
Kim: “We? Okay…”
Ryan: “This… I mean, this is on me. Okay, I did destroy them all with lightning, but…”
Colin: “Yeah, you MELTED them, LD!”
Ryan: “Why did I do that?”
Hannah: Cool. LD, it’s your turn.
Ryan: Oh. Okay. How many bats are there?
Hannah: Six bats.
Ryan: Oh, okay. So…
Kim: Fuck ton of bats!
Ryan: With scorching ray I can target three, and for each one I make a ranged spell attack. So the first ones gonna be a sixteen.
Hannah: Sixteen. Yeah, that… that does hit, yeah.
Ryan: Second one’s gonna be an eleven.
Hannah: That one does not hit.
Ryan: And the critical one. [laughs]
Hannah: That one… that one you accidentally hurt yourself a little bit.
Ryan: “Ow! Ooh!”
Hannah: Cool, so…
Ryan: So the one that I hit is gonna take seven damage.
Hannah: Noice. Noice, noice, noice. Cool, so you zap all of the goop out of your hands, still kind of internally questioning the morals and ethics of what you’re doing, which is why the other two didn’t hit quite as squarely. [Sequoia laughs]
Kim: Mhm. Mhm.
Hannah: But yeah, the… the one that you got, you got him zapped pretty good. So he sort of falters a little bit, and the other ones scream, “FUCK YOU!” in Bat. [everyone laughs] The other one… now it’s gonna be a couple other bats’ turns. It’s gonna be the two bats that you missed, and they are going to fly up to Floppy.
Sequoia: Oh, no!
Hannah: And they’re going to try to… try to getcha.
Sequoia: “I’m so squishy, though!”
Hannah: That’s gonna be a nine, from me.
Sequoia: [makes strangled noises] You didn’t hit me.
Hannah: Okay, phew. That’s a phew for you, my dude.
Sequoia: I know, I’m very squishy!
Hannah: You’re very squishy. They’re gonna fly up to you, and they’re gonna go… [makes squawking noises] Which means, again, fuck you.
Sequoia: Right.
Hannah: And yeah, they’re… they’re totally gonna miss. The next bat is gonna go for Smooosh again, and wow, that was really bad. It’s gonna be an eight from me, dawg.
Kim: That’s a miss!
Hannah: Noice. He’s going to try to bite you, but instead is going to bite himself, and is also going to injure himself.
Kim: Nice.
Hannah: So he does a little bit of damage as he bites his own wing, presumably. Cool, so next it is Floppy’s turn. Floppy, what would you like to do?
Sequoia: Oh. Um. I would like to cast mage armor on myself. [laughter]
Hannah: Yeah, I respect that.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Colin: Good. Good career move.
Kim: Checks out.
Sequoia: Yeah, so that my AC for the next eight hours is now thirteen.
Hannah: Cool, cool, cool. So that is your turn, and we’re going to…
Sequoia: Can I also move?
Hannah: Yes, you can move.
Sequoia: I would like to hide in the cart again.
Hannah: Yeah! [laughter]
Sequoia: Okay.
Hannah: Cool. Your head is once again inside of the… inside of the dessert cart.
Kim: Hey, Sequoia, I think your AC should be thirteen plus your dex modifier, so it should be higher than thirteen.
Sequoia: My dex modifier is zero.
Kim: Nice! [everyone laughs] Killing it! Never mind!
Sequoia: So now my turn’s done. [laughs]
Hannah: That’s okay, you’re hidden now. That was good. Cool, it is going to be another bat’s turn. Let’s see here. The only ones that are immediately accessible are Smooosh and Long Derek, so we’re gonna come in hot towards Long Derek. He’s gonna roll a [mutters] fifteen!
Ryan: That’s gonna do it. That hits.
Hannah: How you doing, Long Derek? Cool, so that hits.
Ryan: Oh, I’m doing okay.
Hannah: Oh, I’m glad. I’m glad to hear that. That’s gonna be, wow, I rolled really bad. Three points damage.
Ryan: [laughs] ‘Kay.
Hannah: He just sort of like flies up to you and sort of like nibbles on your nose. [Sequoia laughs]
Ryan: Well, he just needs to wait. I’ll nibble him back.
Hannah: Noice. Yeah, he’ll wait patiently. Presumably you said that out loud.
Ryan: Yeah. “I’ll… I’ll nibble you back for that, pal!” [laughs]
Hannah: He’s… you’ll have to roll for nibble later, but he’s… he’s considering letting it happen. [everyone laughs] Cool. Next, we’re gonna have Karl.
Colin: “Hey! Radical!” Okay. What… how are the bats situated in the room?
Hannah: There’s three around Smooosh’s head, one around… in front of Long Derek’s face, and one, oh, let’s see, two over by where Floppy’s head used to be.
Colin: Okay. ‘Cause I’ve got a spell here I’m aching to use. Hey, actually, quick question to the group. How’s, what’s everyone’s constitution like?
Kim: Hmm.
Ryan: Not great.
Colin: Not great. Okay. Maybe I won’t use it.
Sequoia: No?
Ryan: I think it sounds funny, so…
Colin: It does sound funny.
Ryan: Let’s… let’s cause this to happen.
Sequoia: Please don’t kill all of us right now.
Colin: I kind of just wanna just…
Hannah: It would be a really short episode.
Colin: I have a radical spell I need to use, but instead I guess I will actually use… or, no. You know what, I AM gonna use shatter.
Hannah: Nice.
Kim: Oh shit! [Ryan laughs]
Sequoia: Okay.
Hannah: Noice, noice, noice.
Colin: I AM gonna cast shatter. So this means that I chose a point in the room and everything within a ten foot radius of that point has to do a constitution save or take 3d8 thunder damage.
Hannah: Noice.
Ryan: Oh.
Kim: I think you take half on…
Colin: You take… oh, that’s right. You take half on a save.
Kim: What?
Colin: So I’m trying… let’s see. I don’t have spell shaping, so I’m trying to chose a point in the room that contains… ten feet away from which contains bats and not people.
Kim: That’s not gonna happen.
Sequoia: That’s not anything! [Colin laughs] What the fuck, Karl?!
Kim: This is gonna hurt us very badly.
Colin: [laughing] Okay!
Hannah: Cool, everybody roll constitution save. [Colin still laughing]
Ryan: Are we all caught up in this?
Colin: [laughing] Wait a second, no, I wanted to chose a point in the room!
Hannah: Okay, yeah, but, what… where would you like to drop it?
Colin: Okay. I guess, no… damnit, this is gonna kill everyone. [everyone laughs]
Kim: We’re very squishy.
Hannah: That could be fun.
Colin: I’m gonna cast fire bolt at the one that’s attacking LD instead.
Hannah: Okay. That’s valid, I guess.
Colin: Sorry. Sorry. So fire bolt, 1d10. Okay. Actually, 2d10 fire damage. Okay. I’m gonna… yeah. Cool, that’s a one. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Yeah. You… all of this did pass through your mind in a split second, your intense desire to shatter all of these bats into a million pieces. And at the very last second you change your mind and decide to cast a, you know, a spell that won’t actually murder all your friends, or whatever. [laughter] And unfortunately don’t give enough of your attention and desire into the spell as a result. And so you actually somehow manage to, while you’re sitting inside of the cart, stub… stub your finger like you would stub your toe, as you try to reach out and cast the spell.
Colin: “Ow!”
Hannah: Yeah, it hurts. That was an ouchie.
Colin: “Unchill!”
Hannah: You take one point of damage from that.
Colin: [laughing] One point of damage?
Hannah: Stubbing your finger. ‘Kay. Next it is going to be a bat’s turn, so we’re gonna say it’s one of the bats over by Smooosh. We are going to do a… let’s see here. I’m not counting on my fingers, that’s… that’s definitely not what’s happening right now. [everyone laughs] Thirteen.
Ryan: You know that we’re doing a, a video chat here, right?
Hannah: Oh, yeah, you can…
Ryan: We can see you. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: You CAN see me counting on my fingers. It’s fine. I know how math works. A thirteen! Up on…
Kim: Thirteen does hit.
Hannah: Nice. Smooosh’s noggin. So we’re gonna smooosh your noggin, Smooosh, and that is gonna do… uh, one… three points of damage!
Kim: “Hey, like, I don’t love that, is the thing. Ow. I’m gonna go with ow.”
Hannah: That’s valid. I respect that. Smooosh, it is your turn.
Kim: So what I would like to do is yell at the bats. “Bats, we don’t have to fight! If you just take some cupcakes we could all be friends, and then we could continue on our way! You can eat all these cupcakes, please just stop biting me! Please.” [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Cool, roll persuasion.
Kim: Okay. I did get a one. [Ryan snorts] [Sequoia laughs wildly] I guess I also fart? I dunno!
Hannah: Yeah, you… you… you’re so anxious that you… you scream that really loud and a little bit of a toot comes out. And also, the bats don’t speak English, so they’re like…
Kim: Yeah.
Hannah: …why is this thing screaming at us? It killed our friends! Agh!
Kim: Shaking a cupcake at them.
Ryan: Yeah, that tracks. That one makes sense.
Kim: Well, I tried!
Hannah: That was good. That was a good try. I approve of that. Would you like to do anything else?
Kim: Oh, okay. I guess I duck under the cart ‘cause they won’t stop biting me. [laughter] I guess I… yeah.
Hannah: That’s valid. Cool, we’ll say that you…
Kim: Back up.
Hannah: We’ll say that you guys are… are all…
Sequoia: We’re ALL in the cart.
Hannah: All in the cart together.
Colin: [laughs] We ARE all in the cart.
Kim: Crying.
Hannah: Crying.
Sequoia: This can only end well.
Hannah: Cool. Yeah. We’ll go back up to the top of the order. Let’s see here. I’m gonna have the bats roll a perception check. I don’t know how great their object permanence is [everyone laughs] so we’re gonna see if they recognize that even though they can’t see you, that you are in fact still there. Cool, you do not have object permanence. You definitely don’t have object permanence. We’ll say that two of the bats do have a sense of object permanence. They ARE above the intellect of a toddler. [everyone laughs]
Sequoia: Good.
Hannah: And so they are going to remain present, like vaguely hanging above the air where the cart is, trying to figure out where you went. But the rest of them are going to cry in Bat, and they’re going to go back to their homes to mourn the loss of their friends. [Sequoia laughs]
Colin: [laughing] Oh, no! [everyone laughs]
Hannah: And next we’re going to have Long Derek’s turn! [Colin laughs]
Ryan: Okay. So I’m gonna go for an intimidation check, and here’s how it’s gonna go down.
Sequoia: Oh my god.
Ryan: I have the cantrip prestidigitation.
Kim: Uh huh.
Ryan: And one of the things I can do is create an illusory image that can fit in your hand, and last until the end of your next turn.
Hannah: Okay. Okay.
Ryan: So I’m gonna kind of reach out and cause an illusory little bat to look like I’m holding a bat in my hand.
Hannah: Ooh!
Ryan: And I’m gonna go full Ozzy, and I’m…
Kim: Jesus Christ!
Sequoia: Fuck!
Ryan: I’m gonna… I’m gonna bite its little head off.
Hannah: Oh my god!
Sequoia: Oh my god!
Ryan: And I’m just gonna…
Hannah: You’re gonna give all of my bats PTSD!
Ryan: Well, that’s… that’s the idea, yeah. And I’m gonna say, in, you know, English, I guess. I don’t believe I speak Bat.
Kim: Mhm.
Ryan: But, you know, it’s the principle of the thing. I’m gonna say, “You want some of this!? You want some of this?!” And I throw the bat to the ground.
Hannah: Okay, cool. Roll an intimidation check.
Kim: Mhm.
Ryan: It’s a seven. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Yeah, I’m gonna let this happen. Just based off of the horror that the bats are experiencing, it wasn’t particularly hard to scare them with, you know, an image of you ripping another creature’s head off. So yeah, the bats are going to… the bats are going to start screaming in terror.
Kim: Mhm.
Hannah: And crying for their mothers.
Kim: Mhm.
Hannah: And they are going to look at the image of the… the magical hologram, if you will, of the decapitated bat on the ground, and the one that was next to you, Long Derek, is gonna try to take a final swipe, and the rest of them are gonna run away. So it’s gonna be… after Long Derek it IS the bat’s turn. And he… [laughs] oh no, wait, that is… that’s a seven, not a natural one. I was gonna laugh at myself. [everyone laughs] Okay, so he rolls a [mumbles] eleven.
Ryan: That is not gonna do it.
Hannah: Zoinks! So he’s terrified! [Sequoia laughs] And so he, you know, tries to nibble your nose again, but then ends up deciding to run away instead.
Kim: Nice.
Hannah: And so he is going to use his movement to run away, which means you can take an opportunity attack against him.
Ryan: I’ll pass. He seems like a nice enough bat.
Hannah: Okay, cool. Yeah.
Ryan: Although I do… before the illusory blood is, you know, disappeared from my hands and my mouth, I… I’m gonna look at my party. Can I see any of my party or are you all hiding?
Hannah: You’re stacked on top of each other.
Colin: I am still… yeah, I am surfing this dessert cart.
Ryan: Nice. Well, I just look at Karl, then, and still with illusory blood on me, I say, “Am I the bad guy? Was this… was this EVIL?”
Colin: “Derek. Derek, I’m beginning to have my doubts as well. [everyone laughs] This encounter with the rats and bats was decidedly unchill.”
Ryan: “I just kinda got caught up in the moment, and now I’m covered in blood. I need to go pray on this. All right, well.” [everyone laughs]
Colin: “Not even the Lord can forgive you for what you’ve done.” [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Oh, that’s funny. What would you… you guys are free…
Colin: But seriously.
Hannah: Free from… free from the bats. You are covered in viscera. You have viscera in front of you.
Kim: Mhm. Mhm.
Hannah: What would you like… [laughs] what would you like to do next?
Kim: I guess… so which of us are covered in viscera? Just LD?
Sequoia: “I think… I think I am.”
Kim: Okay.
Hannah: Yeah, I mean, we’ll say that most of you have a little bit of viscera splatter.
Kim: I guess we… so I… I’ll prestidigitate us all clean.
Ryan: “Oh, thanks, pal!”
Kim: “That was disgusting!”
Colin: “Thank you, friend.”
Kim: “And I did hate that.” [everyone laughs] I’m also gonna take this opportunity to cast mage armor on myself.
Colin: Yeah.
Kim: ‘Cause it lasts for eight hours and it doesn’t need concentration or anything.
Hannah: Yep!
Colin: I’m going to do the same.
Ryan: Y'all are smart people. I’m doing that.
Kim: Do you need… okay.
Colin: Yes!
Kim: I’m going to take some calming breaths, and I’m gonna resume pushing the dessert cart up the hall. [laughter]
Ryan: Oh, this is important. Did we lose any of the cupcakes or are they still good to go?
Kim: Oh yeah.
Colin: Dang.
Hannah: What did you… what did you do with your cupcake that you were waving at the bat, Smooosh? Are you still holding it?
Kim: I… yeah, I guess I’m still holding it. I probably smoooshed it a little bit. [everyone groans]
Hannah: Gross.
Kim: I’m gonna go ahead and eat this one.
Hannah: Cool. Yeah, we’ll say that you get… you… the sugar rush that you receive from the delicious cupcake that you consumed gives you a nice little boost.
Kim: Mhm.
Hannah: And you get 1d4 health back from eating that cupcake.
Kim: Oh, thank god.
Colin and Sequoia: Nice!
Kim: Yeah, I wasn’t looking so hot after that.
Sequoia: Slapped around by a bat a little bit. [laughs]
Hannah: Yeah, they really went for you, Smooosh.
Kim: Slapped around by a bat til I cried. I am crying, just a little bit. I guess I didn’t say that before.
Ryan: I come in and give you a hug.
Kim: Oh. [Sequioa laughs] Thanks. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Roll… roll for hug. Roll for hug, Long Derek.
Colin: “Should we continue to shred this hallway?”
Kim: We’re rolling for hug!
Ryan: What’s my hug modifier? I’m gonna say it’s my charisma?
Hannah: Yes, that would be a charisma roll. If you…
Ryan: It’s a sixteen, have a hug!
Hannah: If you do not accept the hug, Smooosh, you can roll against the hug.
Kim: I did roll against the hug, but I rolled a fpur, and I kind of wanted it anyway. [everyone laughs]
Hannah: Okay, cool.
Ryan: All right.
Colin: You roll at a disadvantage.
Hannah: Cool. You look very irritated, but your friends know you well enough at this point in the adventure that they can… they can sense that you… you really needed a hug. You continue traveling down the dark and stinky tunnel, past the remains of your victims. And you eventually come to a fork in the tunnel road.
Kim: “We should consult our map!”
Colin: “This is what I had hoped that Hot Dobby would have… would have helped us with.” [everyone laughs]
Sequoia: “Instead, he just told us how it was gonna smell a lot.”
Colin: [laughing] “He was really… he was really focused on the sensation. More on the sensation and vibe of this tunnel than the directions.”
Sequoia: “I think… who’s looking at a map?”
Kim: “The map doesn’t have the house elf tunnels on it! Surprise, surprise!”
Sequoia: “It doesn’t?”
Ryan: Can we see down the… the tunnels? Is it too dark? And if so, can I make a little dancing light action?
Hannah: Yeah, you cast… you cast dancing light, and you send it down each direction in the tunnel, and you can see that down one side of the tunnel, there seems to be what appears to be a dead end, but there is a light emanating from the floor of the tunnel. And then down the opposite tunnel, to your right, you can see that the tunnel curves off to the left and then continues going in a direction that appears to be up.
Ryan: Can I… I guess I consult with the team? In character. [everyone laughs] “I say, hey guys, there’s this thing called sneaking. We probably should have been doing it this whole time, but what do you say I sneak over there and take a look at what them lights are about?”
Kim: “To the left?”
Ryan: “To the… the one that had like the lights at the end of the tunnel.”
Sequoia: “Yeah, to the left? Sure!”
Ryan: “Yeah.”
Kim: “Go ahead! Do that!”
Sequoia: “I think you should!”
Ryan: I do that! Can I… do I roll a sneak roll?
Sequoia: “Be careful!”
Hannah: Yeah. Yeah, roll for stealth.
Ryan: I am proficient in stealth, so that actually is a seventeen.
Kim: Hmm.
Hannah: That is very sneaky! So you… you’re an extra sneaky house elf right now, and you begin presumably making your way down the tunnel?
Ryan: Yeah.
Hannah: Cool, so you start wandering down the tunnel towards the light. Are your friends coming with you, or are they going to stay?
Sequoia: “No, thank you!”
Kim: “We’re gonna hang back.”
Colin: “I’m, yeah, I’m gonna… I’m gonna stay here.”
Hannah: Cool. So LD, you begin wandering towards the light, in like, not a death way. And as you get towards the end of the corridor, you can see that the light is emanating from a grate in the floor, and you can deduce that you’re probably in the house elf equivalent of some air vents throughout the school. [everyone laughs] And, yeah, you can see down into a classroom. You can see that there appear to be two young students, one with bright red hair and one with one toe-head blonde hair, and they’re like… like macking on each other. [Sequoia gasps] [everyone laughs]
Ryan: Am I… am I aroused? Do I have to roll?
Hannah: Yes, roll for arousal. [more laughter]
Sequoia: No!
Ryan: Oh, man. Hey, what’s the modifier on that? That’s a good roll!
Hannah: Hmm… constitution.
Kim: Constitution? Wisdom? [Sequoia laughs]
Hannah: Yeah. Yeah, I’ll… I’ll… I’ll let… I’ll let you pick. Either constitution or wisdom.
Ryan: I… let’s say it’s constitution. That’s a twenty. That’s a dirty twenty. So… [Sequoia laughs]
Hannah: Nice! [laughs]
Ryan: Am I aroused or not aroused, then? [everyone laughs]
Hannah: I feel like it’s dealer’s choice on that one. [everyone laughs]
Ryan: I think I could… I think that’s, no. I don’t think I’m into it.
Hannah: Not into it?
Ryan: I just, like, walk back to my group and say, “There’s just some… some weird shit going on there.”
Kim: “Cool! Let’s go the other direction!” [everyone laughs]
Colin: “Wait. Which of the… gang? Which of the directions was up?”
Kim: “Up?”
Sequoia: “Right.”
Kim: “Up is up.”
Colin: “Up.”
Sequoia: “Right!” [Ryan laughs]
Colin: “Okay. I seem to recall one of the tunnels was heading roughly up.”
Sequoia: “The right one. The one on the right.”
Kim: “Yeah.”
Colin: “Should we go up?”
Kim: “Let’s go…”
Sequoia: “I feel like we should go up.”
Kim: “…that way!”
Sequoia: “Because we’re supposed to be meeting Hot Dobby at Dumbledore’s office.”
Kim: “Oh.”
Colin: “Yeah, we’re like way late to meet Hot Dobby, and I do not, like, I don’t know. I don’t know how you guys are feeling, but I do NOT want to disappoint him.” [everyone laughs]
Kim: “Cool. All right, let’s…”
Sequoia: “I think we should go to the right. And up.”
Kim: “Let’s keep rolling!” Let’s… we go that way.
Colin: “Tubular!”
Hannah: Cool. You… you continue moving through the very dark and stinky tunnel, and as you turn the corner to the left… you turn the corner, you go right and THEN you go left, and you begin making your way up the tunnel. And eventually you arrive at what appears to be an entrance to something. You can see, carved into the wood wall, the face of a gargoyle. He looks sorta grumpy. And that is what you see. What would you like to do next?
Kim: I think… “Hey, face! Do you want to come talk to this guy?” And by face, I mean Floppy.
Sequoia: [laughing] “Yeah, sure! I’ll talk to whomever.” What am I talking to?
Hannah: [gravelly voice, used for the gargoyle throughout] “It’s rude to talk like I’m not here!” says the gargoyle face.
Kim: Fair point.
Sequoia: “Oh, I’m so sorry! I really am. I really am so, so, so, so sorry. What’s your name?”
Hannah: “Greg.”
Sequoia: “Greg’s a great name!”
Hannah: “Thank you, that’s actually very nice of you. My mother was really proud of it. It was her… her… her brother’s name, too. Yeah, it’s… it’s a family one.”
Sequoia: “Oh, I love a good family name! That’s so nice!”
Hannah: “Thank you, thank you, that’s very nice. What’s your name?”
Sequoia: “My name is Floppy.”
Hannah: “Oh, nice! It’s… it’s really nice to meet you! What… what are you guys… what are you guys doing in here? It looks like you got some cupcakes there?”
Sequoia: “We do have some cupcakes here!”
Hannah: “You mind if I have one? That actually… I’m kind of hungry.”
Sequoia: “Of course you can have a cupcake!”
Hannah: “I’m just joshing you! I’m made of stone, I can’t eat cupcakes. [everyone laughs] Thanks though, you’re really nice, I like you.”
Sequoia: “I like you too, Greg! We need to deliver these cupcakes to Professor Dumbledore, but we got lost.”
Hannah: “Oh, well… well, conveniently you’re in the right place. I’m… my… I’m the cousin of the other guy who guards the… the entrance, you know. He’s an eagle technically I think, but I, you know, I’m his cousin. We guard it from opposite directions, so you’re in the right place. You got the password?
Sequoia: “We do! The password is dinglehopper!”
Hannah: “You sure got it! Wow, look at you. You are smart. Smart and nice hobbits. Or, I mean house elves, right?” [everyone laughs]
Sequoia: “Yeah, I’m a house elf! You’re smart too, Greg!”
Hannah: “Aw, thank you.” I feel like… I feel like… I feel like you should roll for friendship.
Sequoia: [laughing] Okay!
Hannah: I think you’re creating like a really nice bond here with Greg.
Sequoia: [squeaks] Do I… is there… [Kim snorts]
Ryan: Uh oh.
Hannah: I’ll let you add charisma to it. What did you roll, though?
Sequoia: I rolled a one.
Hannah: Okay, no, you just fail.
Sequoia: [laughs] Damnit, I was doing so well!
Colin: Downgraded to acquaintance.
Hannah: He… he… Greg, as he… you don’t know this automatically, but as Greg is looking at you, beginning to form a bond, he has some memories come back into him of previous house elf and hobbit friends that he has come to know, and the ways that they’ve hurt his heart.
Sequoia: Oh. Sad.
Hannah: He’s really… he’s really been betrayed by a lot of… Greg’s seen some stuff. And so he has some walls up inside, and he starts wanting to be friends with you, but then you… you can sense him pull back.
Sequoia: Oh, okay. All right.
Colin: [laughing] It’s important to respect Greg’s boundaries.
Sequoia: I mean, yeah, whatever makes Greg the most comfortable. “Okay, well… well, Greg, if you… do you let us in?”
Hannah: “Oh, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. You told me the password. Yeah, yeah. I can… I can let you in! [everyone laughs] Yeah.” Greg… Greg had been kind of… kind of lost in a flashback, [everyone still laughing] but he… he then like, the door sort of like begins sliding into the wall, and… and Greg’s face disappears into the side of the tunnel, and he says, “Bye! [muffled voice] I’ll see you again later!”
Sequoia: “Bye, Greg!”
Ryan: “Bye, Greg!”
Hannah: He slides away, and you can see what appear to be some… some stairs going… going down. And we’re gonna pause here. This is a really good pausing place.
Sequoia: Oooh.
Colin: Oooh!
Kim: We’re gonna have lunch.
Hannah: Yeah, it’s time for lunch!
Kim: Reconvene in a little bit.
Hannah: Yeah.
Colin: I could go for some lunch.
Sequoia: And… and… and then we went and had lunch.
Kim: We certainly did, and it was good for everyone. [Kim and Sequoia laugh] This was a pretty good spot for us to break, we thought. This is a very long episode and this next one’s also going to be very long. And, I don’t know, I… I never have gone back and listened to our last play through because it’s so long and so daunting. I know a lot of people like it, but, seeing that three hour time stamp is very daunting and I didn’t… we didn’t want to release a four hour long episode. [both laugh]
Sequoia: Yeah, yeah, the next one’s likely to be longer than this one, even, so…
Kim: It is. I think it is.
Sequoia: Yeah, so we… since we didn’t want to do that to you guys, here you are. This is a breaking point.
Kim: Also to create narrative tension.
Sequoia: [laughs] Sure, we did it for that reason. We’ll go with that.
Kim: Find out next week on…
Sequoia: [laughs] You can find the supplemental materials for this episode on our blog. The link is in the description. It is also on our website.
Kim: I guess we didn’t tell you before, but the supplemental materials, if you’re curious, they’re the pictures we mentioned in this episode as well as our character sheets, so go check that out. Our website is at fanaticalfics.com.
Sequoia: [laughs] You can also find on our website our story submission form. Submit us some good, good stories. You can also find our merch. We’ve got our TeePublic up there, we’ve got some hold for the text please bookmarks on our website.
Kim: Correct.
Sequoia: Some good shit.
Kim: Hell yeah.
Sequoia: You got some squid merch.
Kim: Squid merch! Squid merch! Mine’s on its way right now, Sequoia.
Sequoia: Nice.
Kim: I’m so excited.
Sequoia: Nice.
Kim: Wear that squid merch everywhere. If you wanna contact us and let us know your thoughts on this experience, if you wanna send us, you know, just the word Colin a whole bunch, like people keep doing, you can reach out to us on social media. We’re Fanatical Fics everywhere, or through our email, fanaticalfics@gmail.com.
Sequoia: If you want to support this podcast, you can leave us a review on iTunes or Facebook or anywhere else that we are unaware of that receives reviews about this podcast.
Kim: Yup. Or trick everyone within reason 2020.
Sequoia: [whispering] Trick everyone! No, just trick everyone. Anyone.
Kim: Look! I’m concerned! Don’t… don’t lose your job! [both laugh]
Sequoia: [laughs] You can also find us on Patreon. Our Patreon page, we’ve got some bonus episodes. We’ve got a Discord where our Patrons are doing some insane shit.
Kim: Yup. Yup.
Sequoia: Which is great.
Kim: Yup. [laughs] We are doing quite a thing with those bonus episodes, also, Sequoia. We don’t talk about it on the regular episodes usually, but…
Sequoia: No.
Kim: …we’ve made some choices recently.
Sequoia: If you wanna… if you wanna take a little peek into the world of what we’ve done to our Patrons for the last three months, just go look at the playlist. [laughs]
Kim: The playlist is growing and we haven’t been mentioning many songs in the regular episodes, so, you know.
Sequoia: No.
Kim: Something’s happening. [both laugh]
Sequoia: Thank you to all of our Patrons for helping us continue to make this insane bullshit. And thank you as well to the Whomping Willows for our theme song. It is their amazing song Wolfstar.
Kim: See ya next time!
Sequoia and Kim: BYE!