Episode 4

full
Published on:

23rd Mar 2021

Episode 4: Look This Way

After reuniting with Epi (again) the party decides to break into the Bard Rock and investigate the obelisk. Can Brock's street concert keep the guards distracted?

Our Cast:

Kenny as the DM

Khadeja as Rook

Stephanie as Epi

Paul as Brock

Tyler as Armbar

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Transcript

bardrock cafe is brought to you by sassygamers.com and viewers like you links to sassy gamers our patreon and our social media accounts can be found in the show notes

previously on bard rock cafe with the party together for their first job they went to the general's general store to deal with the rat problem our heroes stretched through sewers until they found the rats were actually being controlled by amanda and sigmund a couple who were down their luck because of the general store the party didn't have the heart to turn them in and instead helped them start a new life working for brock's parents they were collecting their reward when effie suddenly disappeared the question was again where in faerun did their friend at p go find out today on bard rock cafe

hi welcome to the bardrock cafe d d podcast i am kenny your dm for the evening and this is episode four thank you so much for listening i'd like to give a quick shout out to our paid sponsor sassy gamers uh thank you so much for sponsoring us and without further ado here are our players uh hello i'm paul and i play brock song the kalish star noble who gave up his charmed life to pursue his dream of being a bard and opened the bard rock cafe hi i'm khadija ali i play rook a teenage half elf from water deep stocks district with sticky fingers hi i'm steph and i play epi a goat-eyed tiefling wizard but uh don't tell anybody because he's posing as an acolyte of the raven queen and i'm tyler playing as roland armbar wild magic barbarian is the hired muscle for the bard rock cafe okay epic so you realize that this guy he is doing something shading doesn't want to be seen but you think he's on the up and up and then immediately you find yourself staring at a wall full of trumpets i duck okay i mean you see just trumpets lining the wall oh okay so they're not being immediately played no that would be horrible

just appeared in front of a marching band epic ducks instinctively on sight at a trumpet canonically eppie's greatest fear is marching bands

we have made a character choice so you talk nothing happens all right i look back up it's fairly quiet actually look around behind you you see a tuba some some flutes the next style over you see violins and liars and loots you seem to have found yourself in an instrument shop well that's not what i was expecting uh hello can i help you uh yes i i just wandered in from outside how did you get in without the bell ringing uh d fling i just pointed my hooves uh that's not okay don't worry don't worry it happens all the time right can i help you find something sure um you know i heard rumors that there was a um a flute with an enchantment on it one that could uh you know make make pets dance and sing have you ever heard of such a thing are you putting me on unfortunately no this is the first flute shop i could find you came to a flute shop to find an instrument to play for your pets no no one that's specifically enchanted to make them dance listen that's something you'll probably find in the castle ward at some of the enchanters shops this is just an intimate shop do you need a drum you seem to march to your own beat anyway

that is some that is some classic marching band humor um no i i think i'm good thank you for your help do you need anything at all uh any instruments unless you have one that can play itself i uh i think i'm good i don't do you have one that can play itself

t it looks like we have about:

not me but maybe it has something to do with the obelisk the ava what eppie looks very intently that's young rook oh oh yes do tell i'd love to know more about the obelisk i forgot you guys didn't see it that's what crashed into the cafe brock uh anomalous it's like a big rock basically not to be confused with the bard rock don't worry so an obelisk it's like a rock but it's long it's pointy and it looks like a tower with no windows in it sometimes rook nods yeah it was like that what do you suppose what kind of influence this would have with this mistake so i think uh now they do know i'm the owner there we might be able to get in and take a closer look if i say to them i just need some things from the premises if they survive the fire they might let me lay in for a few minutes we want to take a closer look that would be wonderful let's do that right now and i'm going to grab him by the hand and start kind of walking that way

all right so you guys make your way towards the castle district uh where are you guys headed uh i think we're going to uh as you might call epi was just dragging me so i think we're gonna forgo those baths for a moment and we're gonna go and see if i can get some things from the bard rock okay well the bard rock is just south of the castle district so you guys make your way there out without any trouble uh you do see all the guards standing outside seems like it's the same shift from the last time epi just lets go of the arm kind of you know shepherds you forward a little bit hello i we spoke earlier i'm brock song the proprietor of the bard rock cafe i know that you weren't letting folks in but actually i only have the one change of clothes and i didn't get any of my personal belongings can we get in for just a few minutes to gather some of my personal effects i brought some friends to make it quicker hey so uh yeah i totally remember you from earlier here's the thing everything that was inside has been either gathered up and put into storage at the nearest guard post for evidence and study or it's been completely ruined beyond all repair and it's just been out there

now so i don't even have a change of clothes left in there you don't have anything left in there it's just ruined ah you didn't have to rub it in this has been a hard week for you have nothing nothing uh all right can i roll inside to get the impression that this guard would ever let us in sure go ahead i rolled uh 15 plus zero

you get the sense that he's not very bright and he's just following orders all right is there a it would i really appreciate if i could just even just a few minutes to look around i want to see how bad it is for the repairs can i do that maybe do i have to speak like your supervisor and maybe they can let me in i just it's been a really hard week and i want to know how hard it's going to be to get my place back in business oh sure i understand you're having a really hard week and i'm so sorry about that so here's the thing i've been told not to let anyone in because last time we had a guard impersonating individual named kevin he came in and all sorts of crazy stuff happened our magister started spewing sand out of his robes no idea why he said it was magic i've never seen magic like that and i've been on the force for three years anyway so he had to leave and until he gets back i don't know if he's still spewing sand or not but it gets everywhere it's very coarse and unpleasant so until then i'm not supposed to let anyone in here all of us have the same orders i'm very sorry if you want to take it up with the guard captain he can be found at the guard captain corners in this the the doc's district tower it's right on the border with the castle ward and he kind of pulls out a map and shows you on the map where it is so feel free to head up there but i can't let you in right now i completely understand you're just doing your job you know i i'm you know i'm of the water deep song family so i know i'm sure you're aware my family has the deepest respect for the guards i will go speak to the captain to see if i can get a direct order just let me in i'd be helpful if i could let the people that would be doing the repairs no the extent they'll need to be working so i'll go take that up with him oh sure i'm happy to help best of luck to you all right so uh i will without epi shepherding me there make my way there happy follows slightly dejected and not being able to go in just yet but hopeful that you know maybe soon so you guys make your way up to the guard captain's uh outpost there is a a it's just a guard post right there's a little it's a two room place uh the back room has the cells in it the front room has like the the bunks for the guards and like the equipment storage and stuff like that you see a guy sitting at a desk seemingly shuffling through paperwork and signing off on stuff now does he do i see anything that says like maybe he's the captain or if he's like the desk worker do i see any like uh any sort of like regalia that indicate he's of a higher rank or is he just the clerk at the desk uh he does seem to be the captain you do see a captain's badge all right so i walk up to him and say uh hello sir i'm sorry to disturb you uh i'm brock song the owner of the bard rock cafe and i was just i went over there i was trying to survey the damage because i'm trying to get repairs planned and the guard said i need to speak to you about getting access to my place of business for just 10 15 minutes so i can look around

nasty business that's my sympathies to you thank you my understanding is that the guild of magisters has asked not to have anyone come in or out until the media impact has been fully studied i believe they were going to be done by the end of the day but we had some complications i think the new deadline is the end of tomorrow at which point i believe we're going to try to move some things out of there particularly out of the basement where the meteor struck ah and after that you're free to go in and out begin repairs anything like that so give us another day to it the most and then check back all right uh one other thing then uh the guard mentioned that and i was also hoping to recover some personal belongings when i was there uh the guards that were there mentioned that all of my belongings that did survive the fire would be entering evidence is there a way i could have access to that i only have the one change of clothes at the moment ah i see uh he kind of motions for you to come back he's like follow me and he opens up the in the back room there's is does he make only letting me or can everyone kind of tag along everyone can tag along there's all right nothing to hide uh he does take you back there is kind of a wall of chests stacked on top of each other uh there is one that's labeled bardrock cafe and he kind of wiggles it out from the the slot that it was inserted and he opens it up and i mean everything's dirty and kind of fire damaged but the stuff that's in there seems salvageable um he says now this is all the personal effects that we were able to recover some of the bulkier stuff like the the alcoholic beverages that were in the basement were largely unharmed those have been moved to a warehouse those will be returned once we are out all right thank you and i look through it i'm i'm specifically looking i'm planning on taking like the whole thing anyway probably because i do need a change of clothes uh but i'm looking through it just to like get an idea what it is and if there's anything like from the basement where maybe that would be helpful to somebody who's able to examine it for magic stuff to get better idea what's going on with that obelisk it looks like it's just some personal effects looks like some mugs from the bar you do have what clothes are still usable are in there they smell very smoky and some of them have some burn marks on them for the most part you still just have all your regular stuff all right uh i thank the guard for his time and we head out and uh once we're a safe distance away that would probably be where we can have a discussion about what we want to do next and he lets you leave he wishes to the best of luck with your repairs apologizes again for the inconvenience send you on your way all right thank you kindly and uh once we get a fair distance away sorry i tried i don't think they're gonna let us in there well at least you gave it a good shot i appreciate you well rook says i mean we could still try to get in maybe when it's darker we have tonight i think about it for a minute i go i i hear what you're saying my one concern is i if anything were to go south with this i don't think that we would be the code legal is pretty tight i don't know if we want to risk any trouble with the guards for a direct look at that obelisk rook shrugs well on the bright side the magistrate isn't there right now so they may not be able to tell if you had any sort of magical assistance in getting into the boardwalk i would just hate for somebody to see what we do and then the bar rock can't face reputation goes right down the tubes

the strong man has a good point if we did anything we'd have to be very very sneaky about it or maybe we don't have to be sneaky about it maybe someone being incredibly not sneaky would be the perfect distraction indeed i look at my flute and i think myself guys i think i know what we can do what's the plan all right so i actually do need cash right now so uh the area across the street is not sanctioned off so maybe if i put together a little impromptu concert collect a couple of coin from the street maybe the enough of the guards will be distracted that uh those of us whom are more inclined to be sneaky might be able to get in and get a closer look if i go on my own i won't understand anything so who would come inside with me a volunteer at no no particular reason i think i could manage it and then we can have uh roland you could be the lookout and you can signal me if anyone's close to seeing them aye eyeballs anything you say all right so the plan as i understand it for our dm's convenience is we wait until it gets a little bit darker and then i will go make a display of myself play music on the street corner adjacent nearby hopefully distracting the guard sufficiently to give our uh wizard and our rogue the ability to sneak into the basement unnoticed and tyler will keep an eye out on them to make sure that they don't get caught and help me make a better distraction if they will oh i'm so excited for this okay so how long do you guys wait what it's already in the evening like 6 6 30. all right my question is how late would it have to be where there's still people out on the streets that would be actually reasonably attending my street performance because we wait too late then there won't be anyone there and i'll just look ridiculous so you do know that you live on kind of a performance road so lira's alley has the bard rock cafe it also has the three towers which is a performance hall that is also a bar and people go there to listen to bards and once a week there's like kind of a karaoke thing where anybody can come up and sing but most nights they have somebody paid to play for the night it's just kind of a nightclub kind of thing so as it gets later

there is a nightlife that is centered on your street all right so i think the ideal distraction if i want to get the attention of the guards would be to do it right before it gets busiest on the street so that the guards will have their attention drawn to it i want to do it before any other performers that might perform in the streets start though okay so you think seven to eight is a little too early for the nightlife to be started but people will start being out and about at that point uh that sounds perfect to me unless people wanna try waiting later i think it's a good idea not me i'm good with it okay so you guys make your way back to the bard rock cafe yeah uh i think there's probably enough time we also properly bathe first because it sounds like we had at least an hour sure you're pushing it a little bit but i'll allow it you guys go and get a proper shower and come back and you feel better about yourselves and you make your way back to the bard rock cafe all right so i will let everyone get in position and i just kind of like stake out my corner and once they're in position i have a number ready i'm prepared to play

okay uh go ahead and roll performance for me should i do that after i perform sure go ahead all right so i so i have uh the three inches so what i start doing is i started playing a bum bum bum bum bum bum bum and then i just press agitation shoot out of sour sparks and then my flu to go

and i start playing the uh song flash by queen and i rolled uh nine plus seven that is 16. okay you've certainly got people's attention because of the flashiness if not because you played flawlessly you're still playing pretty good but you know this is outside of the bard rock and three towers where performers come fairly regularly but people are taking notice and i do have my violin case on the ground in front of me by the way okay so you're taking tips right yep okay uh how long do you play uh i am going to play basically i have a set of songs i'll be cycling through for the next at least 15 minutes to half an hour watching for a signal i can keep going but i'm watching for some sort of signal from roland that it's okay to stop and then i'll play my final number when i see that signal

okay so so what what signal am i looking for uh you're supposed to be keeping an eye out on our two infiltrators if you see they're in danger you signal me if you see that they're done with the job you signal me no i'm just gonna keep playing i'm the distraction so i'm just being as flashy over the top as possible to keep everyone's eyes on me okay and you're gonna send me one two signals either they're in danger be more distracting or they're all good do your finale okay you do seem to have the attention of the guards most of them the guard that you spoke to earlier while he has taken notice of you does not seem to be too distracted by you uh one of the guards is actually leaving his post to come over and give you a tip he gets kind of the stink eye from the other guards but nothing's really happening right now rook and effie you do see a small opening very briefly to that same hole in the back of the cafe

all right i signal to epi to follow me and we're gonna try and stealth it in there i'm gonna pull a misty step okay so you're sure this will end well inside of the bard rock cafe yeah and would i be able to do a few things while we were on the way there tell me what you're doing can i ritual cast the detect magic and would i also be able to pull and alter self again hang on one second

presumably there was some time for me to actually get ready for my set she would have the lead in for it yeah so alter self and detect magic are both concentration you can only have one going at a time ah gotcha they both have the little c marker by them okay then i would like to um i'd like to stick with alt herself instead of the tech magic before this all goes down epi just sort of you know looks at rook and then just says don't tell anyone i can do this and just sort of holds a finger up to his lips and you watch as the horns pull back in and just it's like this you know five foot seven tiefling man pulls into just this wafe of a human girl who comes up to rook's shoulder at most and just you know the scraggly dirt blonde hair and everything rook nods she's impressed well that takes some dude go ahead you roll still unless you have something to get in do they get advantage because of my distraction hey go ahead and roll it normal i got 20 total the one guard that's paying attention rolled really well but not that well nice

that's a rogue for you yep thank god so you sneak in epi you misty step in um and you see a small green wisp up here in front of you condense into an acorn and drop to the ground that is fascinating i am going to pocket that acorn okay you guys are in the bar drop cafe and no one seems to have noticed you i message uh rook so um where do we go from here i don't think i can climb down the hole like even his voice has changed you couldn't have turned into somebody more agile rook rolls her eyes follow me i follow rook and kind of shrug um if i remember correctly i acrobatics to my way down but i think you told me there was a way i could have climbed down am i correct so you've done this a couple of times now you've climbed up the shelves which previously had all the booze on them now the shelves are empty which give you some stuff to grab onto it's still like an acrobatic thing but one you think it's gonna be a little easier and two you've done it before so yeah i think it's probably the safest is it the safest looking option for this tiny girl um will she be able to reach the the shelves and everything so let me say this alter self you can change your appearance at any time oh for the duration of the spell so if you want to give yourself some things to help out like claws or like longer legs you could do that that's a sweet spell i love this spell rook did not know that rook is really impressed and rook is just going to lead a little epi down the shelves excellent and you watch as epi kind of reaches for one of them just kind of deep size and then you see just the girl seems to age up just a bit until she's tall enough to be able to climb down this the uh thing you know okay both of you is a little both of you wrote me acrobatics at advantage alrighty okay

24. yeah you make it 30-20 you make it you are both in the basement you see the the obelisk still head down three feet into the ground still with the the glowing golden sigils all along the side effie immediately takes out his notebook and starts sketching whatever definitely was not sketched the last time okay uh rook what are you doing rook is um rook has taken a look at this thing before and feels like there's nothing new she can gain from it so she is going to kind of stand guard and look out see if anyone comes in okay uh go ahead and roll perception then 10. okay you keep a lookout nobody seems to be coming down here just yet epic you're able to copy all the runes and sigils that you're able to see you copy completely into your book very accurately yeah okay with a slightly longer time to look at it can i do i see like maybe what type of magic it is or anything do i notice anything do you drop alter self till you just detect magic no i'm just looking at it with my eyeballs it's an obelisk made of obsidian with golden sigils that glow

you can roll an arcana check if you want as you're taking a long time to look at it yeah let's do an arcana check all right ketchup dice don't fail me now ketchup guys why okay so i got a nine plus six solid 15. 15. fairly certain this is magical but you can't glean any information about it specifically you do know that these sigils are a language but you don't know what language you're looking at you've never heard of anything like this obelisk before you don't know what you're looking at it's a mystery to you fair enough so i'm going to very quietly message rook i'm going to be like going to try something stand back always you don't have to tell rook twice she stands back all right i cast message while we were down there that's the can trip right um i jot down in my book that i cast message okay and then i pull out my little twig mutter a few words and the string spools up and i cast unseen servant again

[Music] pick any character in the world anyone that's specific magistrate with the sand okay i'm sure this will end well you have 25 words what do you say to him as you cast sending centered on him let me think about this for just a hot second

so would i be able to do it in kevin's voice oh sure and the voice of kevin i knew you're gonna do that and the voice of kevin with a y i would like to say are you enjoying your sandy beaches i hope that you are sincerely kevin with a y that was 11 words i think you don't have to use all of them if that's all you want to say that can be it that's all i want to say okay so you feel the spell dissipate you have cast sidney you are positive it went through to the magistrate spectacular and you have an unseen servant now i look over there i look back to rook with just the biggest grin on my face oh oh that's interesting i'm gonna have to tell you about that later uh cool are you done

uh i don't think i can capture anything else for now and i have learned some valuable information do we climb back up the way we came or yeah while we're down there can i do one last look around to see if there's anything down there of of note it is empty down here fair enough so both of you roll acrobatics and advantage again climb back up

15. okay i'm not kidding i rolled a natural plus a one for a solid 21 to scoot my butt up there but you rolled in that 20. but i rolled in that 20 right next to the obelisk i'm sure this will be fine yeah

2d 100 yep would you like to roll it or take the ones i rolled uh [Music] if any of mine involve fireballs then we'll take the one that you rolled i actually don't know go ahead and roll okay we've got a 15 and a 23. i swear if you disappear again it's fine it's fine how could it possibly happen again okay the nat 20s are getting me man yeah all right these are both bad choose which number you would like oh no 23 it is okay as you make your way out of the basement you see that the guard has made his way back to his posts i'm so sorry

what is your save dc oh no uh it's uh it's a solid 14 because i still had mage armor up if that was still up it's been like over an hour though that's still up it's eight hours actually oh wow yeah that's pretty sweet do me a favor yeah roll eight d6 oh no is it fireball it is lightning bolt

hd6 29 brook give me a d100 roll as well just one yeah just one

39 39 all right hang on let me see what yours does yeah i'm wondering if if roland can see any of this from his vantage point okay i still don't even know what those ad6 are sorry yikes all right khadijah until further notice you have complete amnesia starting immediately rook is in a daze huh as for the guard he does duck out of the way of the lightning bolt oh thank god it shoots and like fries some of his hair he shouts an alarm he has not seen inside just yet what do you what do you do well a guard right outside that i heard scream so rook is confused and screams also i would like if at all possible to um use can i do a reaction with thoma turji no dang uh can i reaction cover her mouth yeah you can do that okay kadesha do you let her cover your mouth no rook is very paranoid right now rook hisses at eppy's hand and tries to scramble away as far as she can get okay ah we're only a deck save deck save oh my god where is it here we go 20. okay so you catch yourself natural or dirty dirty uh dirty yeah oh my god holy [ __ ] this place is broken i'm going to yell out sister calm down i don't know how we got here either the rook is just stunned there was a lightning bolt we were at home and now we're here all right so armbar and brock you guys definitely saw the lightning bolt come out from inside of the bardrock cafe everybody saw it it was very loud and very striking everybody saw so everybody sees it coming out oh yeah but it wasn't uh but wasn't everyone facing me for the most part yeah until a bolt of lightning streaked out of the cafe you know lightning strikes pretty fast so i actually so i actually like when i see the lightning bolt coming i actually strike a pose as if it's part of my pyrotechnic show good call role performance i believe in you i rolled yeah you really shouldn't i rolled a four plus seven is eleven damn it okay that plus seven helps a lot though because it does at least it wasn't a 20. you convinced some people the guards are definitely going towards the hole at the back all right i'm going to take a risk here and cast enthrall okay i decided to miss my window to do it let me check the spell then 60 feet sure you can get every guard except the one in the back all right so i'm going to go ahead and i switched to playing my fiddle and i start singing a beautiful set of lyrics to cast and thrall to try and get as many people as possible not to go investigate what clearly is just stuff going south what is your save dc all right my save dc is 13.

all three fail now i'm going to see if you need actually no y'all are around the oculus you don't need it just roll me a d100

wait do i roll the d100 oh yeah all right let me make sure i have the right dice this time i rolled a 78 come on something distracting okay you cast to spell magic [ __ ] [Laughter] on what oh no happy oh no

happy i will let you i will let you roll it evens unseen servant odds alter self roll me whatever you want okay okay okay come on unseen surfing shiny blue dice please evens 18. okay your unseen servant piffs away he's not there anymore i breathe a heavy sigh of relief you don't know what's happening no i think she meant she does yes i personally do

the the three guards are now enthralled by you they are focused entirely on you they seem to have forgotten what they were doing the one guard in the back is still coming into the the bard rock cafe he sees that the two of you standing there he has it he pulls out his sword he's like what's going on here sir sir we teleported we were at home my sister and i and then we wound up here i don't know what happened i'm gonna be a little weepy while they're doing that try and like distracting the guard armbar is gonna sneak up behind the guard and try to get him in a choke hold and knock him out

all right roll me a stealth check

armbar strong scene by far awesome awesome you are you are stealthy fun fact every time i've ever said that to tyler in d and d he's had a good role i kid you not keep saying it that's awesome keep saying it roland technically you had a round at the start of all this that was your action stealth and movement so you are able to make your way behind this guy he does not see you go ahead and roll i will say just roll athletics 16. now i got to look up this guy's athletics score freaking pull some haggar [ __ ] all right i believe in you you just beat his 15. oh wow so i breathe inside of release he is now grappler what is your strength score um 17 okay you think it'll take about around maybe two for him to go all the way unconscious but you have him grappled and in great in such a way that he can't really yell out either i will give you that all right so rook you're seeing all this happen yeah i have no idea what's going on what is your amnesiac response to this was horrified when the guard was coming up to her with a sword and then a huge guy shows up behind him and grabs him and rook goes holy [ __ ] what the hell is this where the hell am i she shrieks okay rook is frozen in place doesn't move okay brock go ahead give me a performance check all right that is a nat twenty the best performance i've ever performed unfortunately not 20s have caveats so despite her screaming at the top of her lungs you have them very enthralled and they are focused on you and not her but she rolled in that 20. so we're only two d100s uh 48 and 57. if i get a choice i pick 57 because 48 is really dangerously close to the bubbles and i can't lose my verbal components i don't remember what number i got the bubbles with before but i don't want to risk it so as your tm i am giving you 47. you don't know you don't know what it does but it's not the bubbles okay but for right now nothing happens all right i am giving you because you rolled in that 20 i'm giving you the better option okay where that one gives you the worst option okay i appreciate that now do i know that something happened even though i don't know what it is you don't feel any different there is no external sign that something has happened okay all right so next round epi and rook you're watching as roland armbar is wrestling this guy into submission armbar go ahead and roll another athletics

oh boy i got eight eight total eight total okay he wrestles free uh that is his action to get out what would you like to do because you have about a split second before he starts shouting um

are you guys grappling on the stairs no they are out back like right behind that hole in the back of the bard rock cafe all right so right at the top of the stairs where the hole is or you no you don't mean the seller entrance you mean the hole yeah the hole in the back wall epi and rook you both see this you can also take an action right now if you would like to rook is frozen in place and i still look like a young girl i'm going to run up and you know holding my hands up i'm like look please you're my sister just follow me we've got to get out of here and i look her very sternly in the eyes and like just i'm trying to convey how much we need to get out of here and i hold my hand out to take hers but i don't take her hand i'm just holding it out there rook doesn't see another choice doesn't take her hand but nods at her but looks at her very suspiciously okay that'll do and if i've got her attention i'm gonna start running can you follow yes okay absolutely you both sprint out of the bardrock cafe roland what are you doing i guess i'm gonna have to do it a take down and like do some kind of like move to get him on the ground by also trying to you know keep him from yelling while these guys are escaping okay so that's fairly complicated and very quick rolling roll athletics at disadvantage 10 that's enough so you get him back he he breaks free for just a second but you grab him back into another hold so you've got him same situation i he is now on his knees at this point okay you haven't grappled you can drag him at half speed somewhere if you would like i'll uh i'll attempt to is is there like any alleyway with no people around i mean it's now getting to to happy hour like there's gonna be a lot of people everywhere in very short amount of time right are we in the bardrock cafe mostly you're like half and half inside and out so people haven't really noticed what's going on because you're at the back of the bar drop cafe i'll try to wrestle them into the bar rock a little bit under by like buy some debris to get some cover sure so you're you take him inside the bar drop yeah okay rook romeo wisdom saving through all right oh my wisdom is the worst okay oh a natural 20. oh no all right y'all so first of all first of all you come to your senses your memories come flooding back like it just snaps back into place roll me 2d 100 53 and 74. 74 okay i would laugh so hard if it was amnesia again oh man these are both good choose which one you would like oh good i'll take the 74. choose a creature you can see a creature i can see a creature you can see any creature person whatever a snake no no i mean something you don't see a snake right now like okay as you look around you see like sorry no like you see epi you see the guards you see roland okay all right all right i choose the guard okay you

all right you learned that this guard is a member of the church of tyr you learned that he belongs to the city watch who also learned that he belongs to the xanathar's guild oh you just gain that knowledge and know it to be fat okay cool i'm gonna write that down all right okay and that is your your event y'all are rolling a whole lot of math 20s all at once isn't this wild all right [Laughter] and the most inconsequential rules by the way

i'm guessing you're continuing to play uh brock yep i am i am i have to continue singing or i will lose my enthrall over everybody so i am just continuing to sing until i see a signal and of course the lookout is preoccupied so i'm just playing can i see any of this going on like at all not a bit you don't you saw the lightning bolt you know [ __ ] has gone wrong very very wrong but you see nothing how am i doing on tips oh man uh i will let you know right now you're you notice you have a lot of coins but again they're tips so there's a lot of silver and copper in there there's a couple of gold coins though so you you're doing okay all right all right so you're continuing to play roland robbie are you continuing to grapple this guy are is everybody kind of like out of there now like is epi and rook yeah they're gone okay i'm gonna try to throw the guy down the hole in the basement okay excellent so roll athletics come on i got seven okay so he manages to break free of your grapple but you do manage to get him close enough to the hole he does fall in so he falls and takes

four bludgeoning damage as he falls flat on his back he is still conscious what do you do i think there's only thing one thing you can that a uh an arm bar can do in this moment it has to jump down after them and elbow drop them okay roll me at d4 plus your strength modifier okay s7 so that's seven all right we're only just a straight d20 [Laughter] all right so he does get mostly out of the way so he takes four points of damage he looks really bruised and beat up and he's prone as are you at this point you take seven points of damage as you also fall down into the hole you're both down there now uh effie and rook what are you doing rook is rubbing her eyes still stunned from the fact that she didn't know who she was a few moments ago oh real quick uh roland she did that go ahead and roll me at d100 sorry i forgot you're barbarian you have different triggers 21 21.

lay it on me so have you seen the movie flubber

there's no there is no sane outcome to follow up on that sentence so you armbar drop this guy and you you club him really good and then immediately bounce back up into the air you take no none of that seven damage none of it you come back down to arm bar him again bounce back up come back down

[Music]

and i mean you're bouncing a good 30 feet in the air every time okay and then you come back down the third time and that's it but this guy is all the way unconscious yeah not dead but oh yeah i know what you're doing

okay so that happened as of right now for the sake of expediency the other three guards are enthralled and not looking anywhere else epi and rook is there anything you two would like to do okay i'm going to look at rook and be like sister stay here i'm going to go get some help okay i still think she doesn't have her memory back sure rook says let's just go to brock oh oh okay thank god you remember what's going on why were you screaming okay i'm gonna go make sure our um our big muscley friend isn't dead so um you get brock i'm gonna get the big one and we're all gonna be fine sure and that's when rook makes her way towards brock and i'm going to if nobody's there make my way towards that cellar door see if it's unlocked uh no it is locked i love how they locked a door to a building with like 10 different points of entrance that are just wide open listen like this one door they're gonna laugh they have a very specific mode of operation here fair enough the front door for the record the front door is also locked the whole building has collapsed on itself but the front door is locked just so you know anyway go ahead would i have time then to kind of crawl back into the bard rock just ever so briefly uh with all the movement you've done i mean you can get inside like at that entrance but that's about it okay rook did you want to do anything when you got over to brock i wanted to i want to tell brock that eppie's still back there as um as well as oh my god what's his name i'm sorry i'm sorry tyler roland there we go oh my god so yeah i want to uh let brock know that uh roland and eppie are still back at the cafe all right so you're just kind of signaling me to keep playing yeah exactly all right so i kind of like see your sign to keep playing and so i'm actually gonna try and even though i have them enthralled i'm gonna try and be more distracting like uh switch up the song lyrics to something even more fast-paced okay roll performance that is a nat one oh boy oh boy you hate to see it oh you know the drill 2d 100 uh 79 and 77 if the die literally stuck on a corner for a second okay so happy [Music] once again you find one of your spell effects to be dispelled oh no you are now epic i look down i look up [ __ ] oh that actually is not the worst thing that could have happened well you rolled two numbers very close to each other yeah that was the worst option carry on

once again i the role player breathe a sigh of relief

you are in the basement for the first time you see the obelisk is a large obsidian structure with a square base and a pointed coming to a tip but the first it's three feet implanted into the ground upside down and you see glowing golden sigils all along it okay what languages do you speak um uh common and orc oh yeah no you don't read that you do not understand what the sigil says but you see it he's uh roland's probably like enthrall with it and uh goes up to touch it have any of us touched it yet we have not i wanted to see what would happen do it do it oh my this could be interesting or anticlimactic so as you are the first one to touch it you uh for the next hour you gain the benefits of the tongues spell which means you speak every language every language okay and damn yes anyone who listens to you understands you and you understand anything that they say if you're talking to a room full of orcs and goblins and elves the orcs think you're speaking orcish the goblins think you're speaking goblin the elves think you're speaking elvish okay does that make sense yep does that mean i can now read the sigils

[Laughter] good for him good for him and that's where we're gonna end the episode oh that's a good one that's a good one

i was three feet from it i didn't think to touch it if you touched it i was like all right

that's the one that touches it you know what good for him honestly i was thinking about it and then he said it was like three feet in the ground i'm like this must be massive amazing spectacular effie is going to have so many questions for you

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About the Podcast

Bard Rock Cafe
A DND 5E real play podcast with an improv comedy focus.
Join Armbar, Brock, Epi, and Rook, as they investigate the mysterious rise of wild magic in Waterdeep!

About your host

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Paul Kinter