The Intern: Welcome to Coffee, Cults, and Empires.
I'm your host, the Intern, and Ooh, have I got a treat for you. Don't want to say too much and ruin the surprise, though.
In the game, Ruffort and Urekas got up to more hijinks, and they all ended up barricaded in Georg's room because Urekas lost concentration on her spell, which means that the Sorceress is definitely not going to be in the desert for a thousand years, or even for eight hours.
Outside the game, I'll let you find out.
Harmony: hello, everybody.
Don: Hi,
Tanam: how you guys doin'?
Harmony: Good. I brought a present.
Tanam: Oh?
Don: oh no.
Harmony: I brought, as requested, my book. And I'm going to- would like to read to you an excerpt from "Dating Advice for Losers Named Don."
Don: you, ' n'even bother to change my name. Thanks.
Harmony: I don't say your last name.
Don: Yeah, I know, it's not obvious.
Vafrus: Gotta, gotta make room for a sequel, you know.
Tanam: I did appreciate your chapter titles, those were definitely excellent.
Harmony: Thank you. Well, the whole thing is excellent.
Tanam: I mean, yeah, yeah, not to diminish the rest of it, but like, in particular, the titles were- choice.
Don: I, for one, wouldn't mind if you wanted to diminish the rest of it. I haven't read it, but I can guess.
Harmony: Well, if you haven't read it, let me help you. Um, I thought Chapter 3 be good to start. Chapter 3 is called "How to Embrace Your Inner Loser in 5 Easy Steps."
Don: Mm hmm.
Harmony: Let's go. "Don. Let's cut to the chase. You think you're a loser, and you are. Don't worry, though, because that's what we're here to fix. Step number one, stop wallowing in self pity.
The only thing more loser y than a loser is a loser who knows he's a loser and refuses to do anything about it.
Tanam: I mean, it's sensible advice.
Rozafeen: Yeahh, that's real.
Don: You know, have you ever heard of other self help books that say "you can't fix him?"
Harmony: I don't read self help books, I write self help books.
Don: Yeah, this is part of the problem.
Vafrus: Seems like it's kind of a Don help book.
Harmony: Step number two. Accept yourself. Look in the mirror and say, "I am Don, I am awkward, I have a questionable sense of humor, and I might be the human equivalent of a potato." Own it.
Don: Um, I am Don. I hate you. Did I do that right?
Rozafeen: You forgot to say anything about potatoes.
Don: Oh, I'm sorry. I do like potatoes.
Tanam: Potatoes are pretty good, that's, that's, yeah.
Harmony: Well! That's a great transition into step number three, Don. Write down three things you like about yourself every day. It's okay to aim low. It could be something as simple as, "I didn't spill coffee on myself today." Or, " I managed hold a conversation for more than five minutes without claiming I invented physics."
Don: Okay,
Tanam: Wait. What? You invented phys-
Rozafeen: Don's a megalomaniac. We all just accept this.
Don: I mean, I didn't invent physics, I-
Tanam: 'kay.
Don: It's just a silly thing I say sometimes.
Vafrus: Do you tell your dates that you invented physics?
Rozafeen: Yeah, is that a silly thing you say to pick up chicks?
Vafrus: Does that work? Should I start saying that?
Rozafeen: No, it does not work.
Don: don't recommend it. So far, it has not been a successful silly thing to say. Unless you're really into Harmony and her, uh, complaining about you later.
Vafrus: Nobody tell my girlfriend I was talking about pickup lines.
Rozafeen: That would be impossible because we've never met her. But anyway.
Vafrus: Actually, yeah.
Don: mean, if she'll show up for us, just-
Vafrus: this is a good reason for her to never show up. Nobody can tell her about this conversation.
Harmony: Anyway, Don, if you can't think of three things, then think about me. Which one of my amazing qualities have you embodied the most today?
Vafrus: Makes a good point.
Don: I've embodied, oh, I think I have this one. Yeah, yeah, I embodied not being a jerk to everyone I meet.
Tanam: Oh wait. Not being a jerk? Ha
Rozafeen: the negative threw me.
Don: Oh, no, I'm sorry, that wasn't one of Harmony's qualities at all. I got the assignment wrong.
Harmony: Step number four. Understand that dating isn't about finding someone to fix your life, Don. For you, it's more about finding someone who can tolerate you, even after you ruin theirs. Aim for that. Do not, hypothetically, tell your date, "Ehhh, I'm Don, come pay attention to me, talking about this thing, in my office, in excruciating detail."
Don: Well, I'm glad this is a hypothetical different Don.
Vafrus: You, you, you talked to her so badly that you ruined her life?
Don: I feel like we all know: Harmony is prone to a lot of exaggeration.
Vafrus: That impersonation was pretty much perfect. I'm pretty sure this happened.
Rozafeen: I feel like I was there.
Don: Some completely different hypothetical Don.
Vafrus: Okay. Yeah, yeah, you're right. It probably happened to some other Don. Oh man. All right, Harmony, tell us more about how this "other" Don ruined your life.
Harmony: To all Dons, try going on a romantic date outside of work.
Vafrus: Ooh, you, I mean, some other Don took, took you to work?
Rozafeen: Take hot girl to work day?
Don: I mean, that would make some of work more interesting.
Harmony: Which leads me to step number 5. Have fun!
Don: I tried.
Rozafeen: tried by taking her to work? You're doing it wrong, Don.
Don: You know, if you're all just gonna gang up against me, maybe, you know what, I'm- I get it. I made some mistakes.
Rozafeen: Okay.
Don: I'm not good at dating, okay?
Harmony: Good job, Don! You actually kind of embodied Step 2 of accepting yourself.
Rozafeen: Listen, ganging up on each other and being vicious is part of what we do here.
Vafrus: Oh, I didn't remember it being quite this spicy, though. Like, like, it's prety funny Don, you're- but, but, whew.
Don: Yeah, the last time it got this spicy, we were making fun of you for not having a girlfriend.
Vafrus: I appreciate you taking the heat off me, but whew.
Rozafeen: I appreciate you bringing it back there. Shall we go back to making fun of the girl?
Vafrus: No, no, no. Hey, remember when we compared Don to a potato? That was pretty funny.
Don: I can't even, I can't even fault that one. I really do like potatoes, so, yeah, if I'm gonna be a vegetable, might as well pick a good one.
Harmony: And that's Step 3! Writing down something you like about yourself.
Don: You are not helping.
Harmony: I wrote the book! And you're following the steps. You know what?
Rozafeen: literally wrote the book on that.
Harmony: because I'm such a great leader, you don't have to credit me. If you think this is your idea, then that's great.
Don: Nope! I don't think this is my idea. I think that this is the idea of the person who tried to start nine cults and failed at starting all of them.
Vafrus: You wanna play a game where she's succeeded at starting a cult?
Don: Definitely. Let's do this thing.
Rozafeen: Yay! Happy times!
Harmony: Yeah, I think this is as far as we're gonna get with Don. Let's play the game.
Don: Oh yes, I'm the problem here. Definitely.
Tanam: I think I was around for a couple of those. They were pretty good cults, Harmony. I'm sorry that they didn't work out.
Harmony: I mean, they were great. I wouldn't say they didn't work out. We might be taking a break, temporarily.
Rozafeen: Sort of like your and Don's relationship?
Don: Just amazing.
Tanam: Okay. Okay. yeah, let's, play. Nobody's in the mood to do so, huh?
Don: No, let's do this thing.
Harmony: Yeah, let's play!
Vafrus: We're down. What was happening last time?
Tanam: let's see...
Vafrus: Would you like someone to do a recap?
Tanam: Sure, but let's do a quick recap so that we have time to actually play.
Vafrus: All right, I'll do it. So last time, tough to remember, but I'm pretty sure, Urekas and I had a perfect date that went flawlessly. Nothing went wrong, small fire, I'm sure it's fine. We ran through the Hall of Mirrors twice, I'm sure that won't come back, it's probably fine. Then we came back and everybody kind of had an "oh shit" moment, and so we, we sort of pillow-forted up inside of our hotel room.
Tanam: I mean, "oh shit" moment was because Urekas's concentration broke as a result of that excellent date.
Vafrus: Yes, yes, the excellent date was so good, she couldn't keep her attention on keeping us alive.
Harmony: You said it like that!
Rozafeen: Yeah that has some strong implications there.
Don: I don't know I thought it was just the flavor of the, uh, sawdust waffles you made. That broke my concentration.
Tanam: Just the description of it.
Vafrus: The sawdust waffles were amazing. If a little bit, you know, crunchy.
Harmony: Did we save one of the sawdust waffles for Beebs?
Vafrus: I imagine there's plenty left, but, uh, the, the spell I used to flavor them only lasts an hour. So, uh, they're, they're, just back to being sawdust.
Rozafeen: That's so sad.
Vafrus: oh yeah. And, and Ruffort had a little bit of character growth as he gave back the crown, or at least allowed Hellena to take it from him. Uh, in a moment of exhaustion and being cared for by his friends, and then went to sleep and didn't even bother to secure the rest of the treasure.
Rozafeen: Did we cover that you guys, for some reason, like, ran down the public Hall? Attracting lots of attention?
Vafrus: Twice we did that.
Rozafeen: Just wanted to make sure that got that in there a third time.
Tanam: I guess it was kind of a walk on the first time. And then on the way back it was just that you were also screaming, "FIRE, SOMEBODY SHOULD DEAL WITH THAT."
Vafrus: Yeah. We, we, were running through the, through the crowded hall yelling fire. I'm sure nobody remembers us. It's fine.
Rozafeen: Absolutely no consequences for that.
Vafrus: Yep. And then, uh, Georg did an expert job of securing the room. No chances any sorcerers will get in tonight. We're safe. And that's what happened last time.
Don: Not through door, and not through the window, either.
Rozafeen: Yeah, not through the random ropes that are stretched across the window. Nobody could sneak through that.
Tanam: I I believe I believe it's webbing. It's webbing.
Rozafeen: I think it's web like, but I, I thought it was like ropes.
Don: the, the door is webbing. The, uh, the window is just ropes.
Vafrus: Impenetrable.
Tanam: Yeah, you guys are really super good at this.
Don: Thanks, I really appreciate it.
Vafrus: If only the Sorceress had us to tell her how to secure her fortress, none of this would have ever happened.
Tanam: I'm not gonna look at that logic too closely.
Vafrus: Um, yep. And then, I'm assuming we wake up completely unharmed 12 to 15 hours later, right?
Rozafeen: I mean, Justice wants at least eight hours beauty sleep in hair curlers.
Tanam: So...
Vafrus: Oh no, he's tallying up how many hit points we have. trying to, gonna have to make some saving throws, guys. Did you make that rope barrier fireball proof?
Don: I mean, it might catch a fireball.
Tanam: So, Georg is the first to wake up.
Don: Oh, sure. Why you gotta pick on me?
Tanam: As is his habit.
Don: Georg starts making coffee. A lot of coffee.
Tanam: Nonetheless feeling well rested. It has in fact been a long rest.
Vafrus: Woooo!
Don: Nooo exhaustion for Georg.
Vafrus: I have so many things to recover. there we go.
Tanam: And while you're doing that, and while Georg is making coffee... are you trying to be quiet and let your friends rest at all?
Don: Oh yeah, I go in the other room and I mean, assuming I can get to another room, we're all kind of jammed in one room.
Tanam: Whose room? I can't remember who everyone crowded in.
Vafrus: I think it was Georg's room.
Don: Yeah, pretty sure it's mine.
Rozafeen: And how is it that Georg is planning to get to some other room?
Don: Uhhh, maybe I just go in the bathroom.
Rozafeen: Mmm, bathroom coffee.
Don: You know what? It is a fully contained coffee apparatus. If I make the coffee in the bathroom, it's the same coffee. It's not like you're drinking toilet coffee, okay?
Vafrus: -which he also knows how to make, though.
Don: Well yeah, I mean-
Rozafeen: Out of character, all coffee is toilet coffee, but Hellena apparently likes it.
Don: There's something wrong with you.
Tanam: I, mm.
Vafrus: It's very important to the water hot if you're doing it that way.
Rozafeen: Ew.
Tanam: I mean, You don't have to like the coffee, but, maybe don't, uh, compare the gift of the Intern to toilet water.
Rozafeen: I said what I said.
Don: I can't believe this blasphemy.
Rozafeen: Rocks fall, Hellena dies, is that, is that what I'm hearing?
Tanam: I am not going to use my in game power to try to convince you of your out of game mistakes.
Rozafeen: Yeah, and I mean, Hellena, the character likes coffee, so killing her isn't the answer.
Vafrus: Tanam is showing mercy and hopes that the gods do too.
Don: What a kind and merciful DM.
Tanam: Okay, uh, moving on.
Vafrus: Oh yeah!
Rozafeen: I'm pretty sure he's about to try to kill us.
Vafrus: Also, I forgot part of the- part of the recap. I had a great speech impediment for apparently no reason. No, it bothered nobody. Didn't, didn't really, wasn't really an issue.
Rozafeen: Oh yeah, I forgot why, like, my character didn't know, but I forget as a player why you had the speech impediment.
Vafrus: Uh. Hot rocks.
Rozafeen: Sure, okay.
Vafrus: because of hot rocks, they're gonna do all kinds shit to me for- from time to time.
Don: Every once in a while you get indigestion and have to say, "wanna make something of it?"
Vafrus: I made the choices I made, and I get what I get. That's, that's how this game goes.
Tanam: Okay, so Georg is going into the bathroom to quietly make coffee.
Don: I am making, you know, several cups of I'm making coffee for everyone. I just assume that everyone does want to wake up.
Tanam: Yeah. I'll also note that like yeah, I know that indoor bathrooms is probably anachronistic, but I I don't really want to... we're gonna say that a thousand years ago, they had indoor bathrooms, at least in fancy hotels.
Don: I mean, it could have been a mirror portal at the time. It is the Gambling Hall.
Vafrus: I don't think they were stealing bathrooms from Sinister World yet.
Don: Never did study up on that.
Vafrus: But maybe they were? I'll have to look it up, I guess.
Tanam: I wouldn't be so certain that they weren't stealing bathrooms from Sinister World yet.
Rozafeen: I mean, I think at that point it would have taken a lot of work though, so I don't think they'd be doing it for like the, you know, discount suite.
Vafrus: Oh yeah, like a whole hotel full of them, that's gettin' a little greedy. Every room has a different bathroom in it.
Rozafeen: Sir, madam, here's your lumpy pillow and your... well appointed bathroom.
Tanam: Okay so you are in the nicest hotel. However, it is the case that the place where the Mindlord is staying, the place where Urekas has a date in a few hours, you're not quite sure how long, but, that place definitely has some sort of something going on that may or may not be a bathroom stolen from the Sinister World.
Vafrus: Alright, it's canon.
Tanam: Again, I apologize for the anachronism. Anyhow.
Don: Cannon would be a good use of a bathroom. Uh, we can just stick it in a cannon. Shoot it out.
Rozafeen: Wait, what?!
Vafrus: Are- Are you suggesting we should start blasting our waste away?
Don: Yeah, seems like a really good idea. I'm gonna add that to my armor.
Vafrus: Yes! Oh, wonderful. Oh, next time I start pressing buttons on the armor and black goop shoots out of it, it's gonna be way worse.
Rozafeen: We did already establish that you have a bathroom in there, right? Because it's so hard take off.
Don: course I do.
Vafrus: I take it back, it'll actually be better once the cannon gets installed.
Don: No, I'm pretty sure it's actually just a butt flap. But, uh, but I'm gonna turn it into Georg's shit-cannon .
Vafrus: Yes. Your armor has a butt cannon. Oh, DM, please let it be so.
Rozafeen: So right now, is it just like a slow mo butt flap? Like, things fall out?
Don: I, it, things fall out. Yes, this is how pooping works. I don't really have a good explanation other than you lift up the butt flap and... that's it.
Vafrus: Rozafeen doesn't know what bathrooms are for. Is it making coffee? Is it-
Don: Coffee does help with the bathroom part
Tanam: Oh gods Okay,
Rozafeen: Oh, what? Ahhg
Tanam: Okay, cutting that off.
Rozafeen: Get to the killing us part. It'll hurt less.
Tanam: I'd say, probably Hellena's the next to wake up since she has been described as a light sleeper.
Rozafeen: Well, what I said was that she can get up and do things if necessary for work or an adventure or so forth but that she also enjoys sleeping in and typically has no problem relaxing. She is a chill coastal druid after all... When she's not telling people how it is.
Tanam: Okay, then Hellena is not the next one.
Don: I don't know, uh, weren't Urekas and, and Ruffort out all night?
Vafrus: Yeah, Ruffort's gonna be last.
Harmony: Yeah, and I'm cuddling with Justice, so I'm pretty sleepy.
Rozafeen: Yeah, if it was a big enough bed, I might have, like, draped myself on the foot of it, and either Urekas or Justice or both might kick me awake.
Tanam: Okay. So Georg is doing his best to quietly make coffee in the bathroom. Can I get a Stealth roll?
Don: Alright, that is... nat one... and I mean nat 20.
Tanam: what?
Vafrus: Sure, you-
Don: No, just kidding. It's a nat one.
Vafrus: Get those confused all the time, do you?
Don: Uh, yeah, I know a one looks a lot like a 20 if you squint really hard and pray a
Vafrus: If you, if you just wish-
Tanam: And Don unfortunately slips, bumps into something and knocks a bunch of stuff on the floor.
Rozafeen: Good job potato.
Vafrus: I mean, it's done. So like a 19 would've done the same thing like-
Don: um, is the coffee okay?
Tanam: The coffee's fine-
Don: Oh good!
Tanam: but, how does Georg react when this happens?
Don: I think in typical Georg fas- I mean, Georg is not a quiet person. Georg's in full splint mail, and, he might as well be wearing freakin wind chimes. Like, he clatters when he walks.
Rozafeen: maybe we should bolt some wind chimes to you, it might sound prettier.
Don: It probably would. I don't know if I like it, though.
Rozafeen: Fear me! Ding a ding a ding!
Vafrus: And then he turns around and there's a cannon. Pretty scary.
Don: This is definitely how Georg's character will go. Georg of course trips over something and, uh, several choice expletives come out. uh, and then he's like, oh, alright, coffee's, coffee's fine. Oh, good. But, like, there's nobody that didn't hear this.
Tanam: Okay, everybody's up.
Harmony: Ooh, okay, if I'm awake, I have a surprise. While everybody was asleep, I took the bedsheets that we got from the Sorceress, and I made myself a cute outfit. And here's where I do my quick change ability, and now I'm wearing the dress. It is a beautiful ball gown.
Tanam: So just right there on the bed?
Rozafeen: Justice was not ready for quick change. Like people should continue to be wearing what they were wearing a second ago, and it's right there.
Harmony: I think Justice can cuddle the dress if she wants.
Rozafeen: I-
Vafrus: That's probably not what,
Rozafeen: it smell?
Vafrus: not what Justice had in mind.
Don: Right!
Vafrus: Usually when I'm startled by something that's not supposed to be there, my first thought isn't, "oh, I should cuddle it."
Harmony: What it's soft and it's pretty?
Vafrus: I mean it-
Don: it pops outta nowhere.
Vafrus: is Harmony. So, you know?
Harmony: See, that's what I'm saying. Live a little.
Rozafeen: Live a little, be suffocated by a dress that came out of nowhere.
Vafrus: It's, it's so good. Lemme tell you.
Don: i, like, pop my head out of the bathroom with, like, two cups of coffee in my hands, and I'm like, "oh."
Rozafeen: We were gonna return those.
Don: Yeah.
Vafrus: So, Ruffort is like, wrapped up like a mummy in his sheets, right? He kinda wiggles around for like a weirdly long period of time before like, excitedly popping his head out and being like, "I WANNA SEE!"
Harmony: Oh, you made coffee. Thank you.
Don: "Yeah, here." I hand cup out of the door.
Harmony: Thanks. Do you like it? I mean, it's gorgeous. It is form fitting. It has these really nice sleeves. It's all golden. It has like these great ruffles like in the front and in the back. It looks fancy.
Vafrus: Ah It's so pretty, Urekas, it's gorgeous! When did you say you made this while we were sleeping?
Harmony: Yeah, I sewed it.
Rozafeen: I want it to be the case that Urekas said all of those things out loud for real.
Harmony: I did.
Vafrus: Yeah, she's like, indicating each bit as she describes it, yeah, yeah, this makes complete sense to me.
Harmony: I like appreciation, you know, sometimes people don't notice unless you show them. Yeah, look at fabric, look at the sewing pattern, this took me a lot of work.
Rozafeen: You've got to lead a complimenter to water.
Vafrus: Alright, well, the, the complimenter has found water, I'm like, oh, giving applause.
Harmony: Thank you.
Rozafeen: I think I'm going to go with, "Uh, too damn loud, yes, pretty."
Don: Sorry. Also, why do you show off a dress before people have had coffee?
Harmony: I thought it would wake everybody up.
Tanam: Some of the light shines in this weird pattern through the roped window and glints off of the dress.
Don: I mean, I gotta hand it to the Sorceress. Great taste in curtains.
Harmony: Sheets.
Don: Sheets, not curtains. Sorry.
Rozafeen: Know your fabrics.
Don: Oh, it's far be it from me to mess up a fabric. Heh
Harmony: Oh wait, or was it curtains? No, no, no, it was sheets. It was sheets.
Rozafeen: So, we're not dead yet, that's great.
Vafrus: Yeah!
Rozafeen: Love the whole being alive thing.
Vafrus: She probably just forgot about us, or she couldn't find us. "Well done, Georg?" I say as I'm like, assuming he's the one that fortified the room. Certainly wasn't me.
Harmony: High five!
Don: Well, I, I did do my best to... well, okay, it was probably kind of ineffectual, but it was something.
Vafrus: it clearly worked. I feel like we should do this every time.
Don: Uh-
Vafrus: just in case
Don: Okay.
Rozafeen: So I assume that she has gotten back to her home, found it robbed. Since she didn't come over here and ascertain where we're staying and immediately kill us, I'm guessing that the next time we bump into anyone in any position of authority, there's gonna be arms crossed and toe tapping?
Tanam: Are you asking me?
Vafrus: We're pretty good at getting out of arms cross situations, aren't we, Urekas?
Harmony: Yeahhhh.
Vafrus: Worst comes to worst, we can just like, bribe a few people with the gold that we took.
Harmony: It'll be fine. I'll just smile at them. We didn't do anything wrong.
Tanam: Besides all the things that you did. Oh, that's, that's true. Do... do Georg and Hellena know everything that Ruffort and Urekas got up to?
Harmony: Oh, we can tell them. We were walking home and we saw smoke inside Beeb's place, and we put out a fire.
Vafrus: That is also my memory what occurred.
Rozafeen: You saw smoke and you put out a fire.
Vafrus: Yeah!
Harmony: Yeah.
Tanam: Okay, so Urekas, I'm gonna have you roll Deception.
Vafrus: we're great at putting out fires.
Don: Is this uh, contested?
Tanam: Yeah, it's contested by both Georg and Hellena. Their Insight.
Vafrus: Can she have advantage because I'm assisting?
Tanam: Oh, because you said "yeah, that's what happened." Sure.
Vafrus: Say in character I said it more convincingly, because I'm actually a pretty good liar.
Harmony: I rolled a 19.
Tanam: Okay.
Rozafeen: 22
Don: 16
Harmony: ooo
Tanam: Okay, so, Hellena understands that Urekas is maybe not being entirely truthful.
Vafrus: While I'm demonstrating my fire extinguishing powers, I use Prestidigitation to, like, light my hand on fire and then extinguish it.
Don: Wait, does that make it less or more convincing?
Rozafeen: I'd go with less.
Tanam: For Georg it does. For Hellena, it does not.
Don: Don't know, I think you should give her disadvantage instead.
Vafrus: As I'm like, look, extinguishing fires is easy. I light something on fire.
Rozafeen: Just for funsies, after he said that, I rolled again and it was a nat 20.
Vafrus: Okay, so what really happened was I lit some sheets on fire. Let's say the ones I was sleeping in, because I know I can get more. Oh, and that's two more spells, I just remembered.
Harmony: Oh wait, wouldn't Georg know the truth because we gave him waffles last night?
Vafrus: Oh yeah, the waffles came from somewhere.
Don: I don't know if I would know the truth. I would know that you gave me waffles that were incredibly bad.
Rozafeen: So somebody is going to be tapping their toe because of a bunch of stolen goods and we'll just say "some sort of fire incident."
Don: Uh, did did anyone see you?
Harmony: I mean...
Rozafeen: "Put out" the fire?
Don: Put out- Yeah, exactly that.
Harmony: Uh, yeah
Vafrus: We can definitely convince some people to remember us putting out that fire, that's fine.
Harmony: I was really heroic and loud the way I shouted "fire, fire," and everybody was watching.
Vafrus: We're basically heroes.
Don: I can't tell, is she lying? She's lying isn't she?
Tanam: No, I mean that's true.
Rozafeen: Okay, so one thing at a time, I suppose. I at least wasn't personally involved in the "fire incident" that I'm going with as a label, so I won't be getting any heroic rewards, but I was unfortunately part of looting a sorceress's castle, and in the light of day, I'm thinking maybe we didn't need to leave with her silverware and her bed curtains.
Don: We definitely did discuss those possibly not being valid as "evidence," you know, to the guard that we were gonna kind of pass it off as. It seemed, um, sketchy.
Vafrus: Wait, are you saying you, you wanna, like... yeah, so we gotta hide it, obviously. Alright, yeah, we're on the same page.
Harmony: You can hide it under the bed.
Don: No, we were sorta thinking that we hide it back at her place, you know, but not hide at all, like, give it back.
Rozafeen: Or, alternatively, we could give it to her daughter.
Don: Yeah, yeah, we give it to Teep that's also a good plan.
Harmony: Okay. I keep the dress, though.
Don: You did already ruin those bedsheets, so...
Harmony: Ruin?!
Rozafeen: Improve, improve.
Don: Sure, improve. I mean, you look great. You look fantastic.
Harmony: Thank you. And I think her daughter will think so too. So me wearing her mom's old sheets will, I mean, because she really looks up to me, right? So if I wear it while we're giving her back the sorcerer's stuff, then she's going to listen to us. Even more.
Rozafeen: Is there any of this stuff that could legitimately be evidence slash that we could get away with at least temporarily keeping without it breaking the law too badly?
Tanam: Are you guys pulling the stuff out?
Harmony: Okay, I wake up my followers, except my followers are outside sleeping, and they have some of the sorcerer's items too. You might want to bring them in and make them coffee.
Don: They just sleep in the hallway?
Harmony: yeah
Don: Your followers are freakin weird.
Tanam: Are they in the hallway or are they outside? Because before you described them as sleeping outside the window.
Harmony: oh, oh, I forgot, it's been a long night. I'm, I'm delirious, you know, sewing. Yes, never mind, they're outside the window.
Rozafeen: I think maybe we can inventory their stuff later once we figure out how to exit the room.
Harmony: Ruffort could headbutt the door.
Don: You don't want it to be webbed and roped. Okay, okay. Uh, I start taking down- well, I take down the webs really easily. Um, with my patented web cleaner.
Rozafeen: I mean, well, I guess if you already did it, you already did it, but I was gonna say, like, we could leave them up while we dump out our bags. In this solidly fortified room, we're safer.
Don: Oh, yeah, yeah, no, that seems reasonable. Sure, sure. That way nobody comes and asks us if we want room service and it turns out to be the Sorceress. Yeah, yeah. On it. So I don't do that, then.
Tanam: Are you dumping out your haul?
Rozafeen: Honestly, at this point it's been enough time has passed that I don't remember what's in my bag.
Tanam: I wrote it down. So-
Rozafeen: I remember that I took books. I remember that there were rings, but I don't remember how many I ended up with.
Tanam: Is everybody dumping their stuff out entirely and sharing with the group what they have?
Vafrus: Yeah. Uh, so Ruffort's gonna just be quiet for a minute. His bag's like in the middle of the floor, so, you know, somebody can go through that if they want, but, uh, he's just gonna be pretty quiet for this part.
Tanam: Hmm.
Vafrus: Which is super uncharacteristic for him.
Tanam: yeah. Well, and, and somebody notices. Callum, hears the Prince. " Uh, hey there. What's, uh- how you doing?"
Don: I like that the Prince
Harmony: Yeah, the dark lord doesn't want to impose.
Vafrus: It doesn't wanna be rude. Well, Calumn obviously assumes that the dark lord is not like checking into gauge his feelings. Like that would be nonsense. Um. So he's pretty sure what this question is, is it's, he's asking for a status report.
Uh, so still being completely silent, Calumn's
Don: is
Vafrus: really straight, like in the room suddenly, and, uh, internally just be like, "Oh, yes, uh, Lord, I have, I have procured this, this gold that- They're like gold- I've procured these plates for the Legion of darkness, but I'm worried my friends might take them, but, I got 'em man. Just what you wanted. Did I do good? that, is that what-
Don: very
Tanam: uh, yeah. Yeah. You're-"
Vafrus: Oh!
Tanam: "Well, well done. My, my best minion."
Vafrus: Ooh. Best minion. Oh, I'm, I'm so happy. Probably no one's paying attention but whole like, er, emotional journey. I'm like, "ah!"
Tanam: So, uh, yeah. So they were gold plates. It wasn't coded in gold. They were-
Vafrus: Oh, even better. Even better. These, these hefty golden plates for my lord. Gold plates for
legion of darkness.
Harmony: My character is feeling empathy and she doesn't know why.
Don: awkward.
Vafrus: What does this weird thing come over me?
Tanam: So that's what Ruffort does. Does everybody else empty their bags?
Harmony: Yeah, I empty mine. I don't remember if I had anything else besides the sheets though.
Vafrus: Sheets and empathy.
Harmony: I don't like this feeling; it's disgusting, like Don's sheets.
Don: Hey!
Vafrus: Yeah, it feels bad.
Don: My sheets are not like empathy.
Harmony: No, they're not.
Tanam: I just, no more discussion of Don's sheets.
Harmony: Yeah, Don.
Don: Yeah, Don. Oh.
Vafrus: You potato.
Tanam: Okay, moving on. So you had the pillows.
Harmony: Oh, the pillows!
Tanam: So presumably you got the curtains-
Don: Bed sheets.
Tanam: I don't actually have bedsheets listed here.
Harmony: Oh!
Don: Yeah, that's because it's listed under "dress."
Tanam: What I wrote down was, Urekas took pillows, and then her followers took a tapestry, three rugs, and curtains.
Harmony: So nobody took her sheets?
Rozafeen: I think Urekas took her sheets. I think we should say she took her sheets.
Vafrus: If nobody else did Ruffort would have, like, I was determined to leave room bare. There was not enough treasure for how much I thought there was going to be, so I was taking what I could get.
Tanam: Okay if you would like to retcon this we can say that Ruffort took the sheets, and when you threw your bag down, the sheets fell out, and that's what Urekas used to, uh, make the dress. You dodged an arrow there because if the sheets were from your bag, you were not carrying the hot rocks in the bag with the other stuff. I think one of them got into one of the followers bags? I can't remember if it was one or two.
Vafrus: I hot rocked three of the followers. Each of the, there's three different followers has a hot rock in their-
Tanam: did you hot rock all three ?
Vafrus: Uh huh. on my second try, I got a nat 20, you let me do two of them.
Tanam: Oh, okay. Okay, then in that case, yes, nobody in the party knows this, but the tapestry, the three rugs, and the curtains, which are still in the followers' mirror bags, will have effects, but that's all outside and something to worry about later.
Harmony: you're saying I don't yell "Friends, empty your bags" out the window?
Tanam: No.
Vafrus: "Empty your bags and then pass it all in here. But you stay out there, though."
Harmony: " Just throw them up the window."
Vafrus: "Just give us everything you have. Yes, very good."
Tanam: So Urekas dumps pillows on the floor. Georg, do you dump out your bag?
Don: I mean, what am I going to dump out? The stuff that Ruffort previously had in his bag?
Tanam: Yep, yep, so I'm listing this out, bad leather armor.
Don: yup
Tanam: it almost falls apart when it drops on the the ground.
Don: Yeah, I'll be like, hey, do you want this back?
Tanam: Crowbar, hammer, ten pittons, eight rations, a tinderbox, and ten torches.
Don: Yep. I was going to make something cool out of all that.
Tanam: Vafrus, is your character looking at...
Vafrus: So, Ruffort had nightmares all night of being beat up by former groups that he had tried to join, and he's having just a lot of feelings right now. Everyone's talking about giving back the stuff and he wants that gold, but like, this is usually the part where he gets kicked out of the group and they're not kicking him out yet. So he's like, "I don't know, maybe,"
Tanam: just kind of confused and-
Vafrus: Yeah, you're offering him his stuff back. He's like, "Yeah, okay, sure. Thank you."
Tanam: Roll me a Perception.
Vafrus: All right.
Tanam: And you don't have the minus one from the , the, from the tiara-
Vafrus: I, I've lost my tiara bonus. Uh, luckily I still have my Ruffort bonus. All right, well, I rolled a 15, so that's a total of 13.
Tanam: You notice that included in the stuff that you had, in a rush, dumped on the floor in order to take things like apparently the sheets, there were things that you figured that you could replace, like the bad leather armor easily, but you had forgotten about the deck of cards. And this deck of cards you've had with you for a while, and while you were still ramping up in your magical abilities, the deck of cards was there for you as a means of scamming some folks.
Vafrus: Yeah...
Tanam: And they are not there.
Vafrus: Oh, that's little bit sad, but you know, whatever. I can get more cards. Yeah, I probably just lost them in the Sorceress's room or something. Did kind of scatter my things to the wind.
Tanam: Do you say anything about this?
Vafrus: No, I, I lose things all the time. You know, I'm not a very organized person.
Harmony: You lose cards. You lose friends.
Tanam: Ouch.
Vafrus: Lose my ability to speak in full sentences. Wanna make something of it, Urekas? I'm certainly not in a mood to, like... yeah, my mind is on so many other things. I'll make note of the missing deck of cards, but I won't say anything about it.
Rozafeen: Seeing the sad leather armor actually reminds me that I should check how Ruffort is doing, because that was quite the head bump last night.
Vafrus: Oh, yeah, I hit my head pretty bad.
Rozafeen: Yeah, let me, let me take a look
Vafrus: was because Urekas told me to headbutt the door.
Rozafeen: mmm-hmm.
Don: Oh, I forgot about this.
Rozafeen: I push aside some hair.
Vafrus: What a good day it was. Alright, uh yeah, especially in the morning light, it's like pretty clear that there's illusory hair going on. Like, you...
Rozafeen: Yup, I'm not going to say anything about it. I'm just gonna be professional and do my medicine. a 16.
Tanam: Oh, that's an interesting question. Can one roll to see through your...
Rozafeen: I mean, I assume that since it's illusory, it doesn't change the feeling of things like a bump, right?
Vafrus: Yeah, yeah, you, you, you,
Tanam: but you can't look, you can't see can't see if it's like, looking bad, or, but you could feel it. Yeah, you know what, I think it's gonna be not a usual thing, but I think because she is there, with her hands on your head, like, really looking-
Rozafeen: Any chance it's a sight based perception?
Tanam: yeah, it's, it's definitely a sight based Perception, go ahead and roll sight-based Perception check.
Rozafeen: Okay, that's a 22.
Tanam: I think that would not normally be enough, but because of how close you are, and I think Calumn at least, is maybe partially letting you see through as well.
Vafrus: Does, she see my actual face?
Tanam: Yes.
Vafrus: You see: totally different dude. Very gaunt.
Tanam: With a big bump.
Vafrus: yeah, big, big bump on my head. Calumn looks considerably younger than Ruffort does too.
Rozafeen: I'm gonna go with, she finds Ruffort and all of the pomp and everything annoying as hell, but she actually thinks Calumn's kinda hot.
Vafrus: Aww,
Rozafeen: But she's gonna keep a straight face and just not say anything and just be like, "Ooh, that's still quite the bump you've got there, let's get some more ice on that." And she makes another little snow thing.
Vafrus: Aww, nobody has been this nice to Calumn for, like ever.
Harmony: Excuse me?
Vafrus: Sorry, except of course Urekas,
Rozafeen: she ate your waffles, and she liked them.
Vafrus: Yeah, at least smiled and convinced me she did. But yeah, no, this is something a little bit different. This is like, I, I haven't really, like, tried to beguile you into doing this, this is just, you're doing it, and so, yeah, I'm stunned and don't know how to react.
Harmony: Awww.
Tanam: And there's a very loud knock on the door.
Rozafeen: I was gonna say, I think that's a pretty cool pause moment.
Tanam: There being a loud knock on the door, I think, is a, uh-
Vafrus: Yeah I, I-
Rozafeen: Quick, get all the shit back in the bags!
Vafrus: Put all the- I, I cast Sea of Tentacles outside the door. I don't have a spell called Sea of Tentacles, but I thought that was funny.
Tanam: But you cast it anyway!
Vafrus: I think really hard about casting a sea of tentacles and actually cast major image. So it looks like there's a sea of tentacles and I think it works.
Don: So you went to cast Sea of Tentacles, but what you instead cast was effectively They Can See Tentacles?
Vafrus: Yeah, But I see them harder than anybody, so I'm like, Oh man, I'm so powerful!
The Intern: This episode featured
Chelsea Burns as Harmony as Urekas.
Harmony: excruciating detail."
The Intern: Find her on Instagram @ChelseaComedy.
Chris Grumbles as Don as Georg.
Don: Georg's shit-cannon, TM.
The Intern: Find him on Instagram @ChrisGrumbles.
Desiree Phair as Rozafeen as Hellena and Justice.
Rozafeen: Good job potato, or do you want it meaner like Good job potato.
The Intern: Sylas Silver as Vafrus as Calumn as Ruffort.
Vafrus: that's gonna be a weird transition.
The Intern: Check out his RPG where you get the good parts of roleplay faster at readysetrole.org.
Mark E. Phair as Tanam the dm.
Tanam: how are you doing?
The Intern: Find him at markephair.com.
And me, Damian Lichtenstein, as the Intern.
Okay, so we're getting the tea.
Find me on Instagram @thatdamlich, or check out my drag king account @woody.banter.
Thank you for listening to Coffee, Cults, and Empires.
Edited by Mark and Desiree.
Music by Kevin Vitz-Wong, rhymes with hit song. Hear more music at kevinvitzwong.bandcamp.com.
Character art and logo design by Carmanda. Find her at carmandaartsthings.com.
Sensitivity consulting by Dominique Dickey. Find links to more of their work at dominiquedickey.com.
Support us on Patreon for access to outtakes, worldbuilding, and more!
Find all these links in the episode notes or at coffeecultsandempires.com, where you can also find transcripts, art, actor and character bios, and more.
That's coffeecultsandempires.com.
The Intern: I keep saying what was- I was trying to say, like, Ruffort and Urekas, but I said, like, Rufikus or some like- I started saying, like, um, like, Rufikus or something like that. I think we have a new ship name. Rufikus.
I feel like Rufikus sounds better than Eurefert or something like that.
Just call both of us Urekas. Just call everyone Urekas. We are all Urekas.