The Intern: Hey. Coffee Cults Empires. I'm host: Intern. Still floor. Week three. Uh, hold on. Coffee. Hmm. Bad. Coffee isn't good here. Mnumph. But uh... does the job, mostly.
Whew. Awake, now. I'm awake all the time, except when I sit down to record the intro, of course. Now I get tired. No, I can do it. Power through. Really, really haven't been sleeping well. There's weird noises at night. Actually. There's weird noises all the time, but then everyone goes home for the day and it's just the weird noises.
It's probably just the equipment, like the lab stuff, the air conditioner what ever, but sometimes hear things coming from the world. Distant voices, whispers. It's probably fine.
Episode! Last time: Victory. They fought the double food and they won. They got into the resort hotel. No problems, no traps! Tanam said: No. Traps.
Tanam: Hello, everybody.
Don: Hey, how's it going?
Vafrus: good to see you all again, So. I can currently see the destination that we've been trying to get to all this time.
Tanam: yes. looking out the window- and then this is when Hellena uncovered briefly the bottom of the bell and it shined out through the windows where, from where you're all standing in your penthouse suite. Which, remember you got because you came in the entrance that was-
Don: Yeah, we went in the wrong door.
Tanam: - through the special gate, yes.
Vafrus: Yeah, we came in the back door and that- I'm still very confused about why we have a hotel and who's watching us. But there's no traps here, I remember that for sure.
Tanam: There are specifically no physical traps that you could perceive.
Vafrus: I am- I am completely certain there's no-
Don: I'm sorry, only no physical traps?
Vafrus: No traps at all. There's no one in ambush. There's no one. It's perfect.
Tanam: Yeah. Anything that would be perceivable by perceiving in the hallway, you did such a good Perception-
Don: look, I know I'm not good at this, but I need to check for spiritual traps.
Tanam: okay. Roll a Religion check, I guess.
Don: Oh, that's not gonna be good. And now I gotta grab my dice. I wasn't quite ready for this.
Vafrus: You just see Urekas. Ha Ha ha ha
Harmony: Excuse me.
Rozafeen: No, Urekas is a financial trap.
Vafrus: Oh, yes!
Harmony: Hrrmm.
Vafrus: My mistake.
Tanam: Tell that to the followers. I mean, I guess like they are also suffering financially.
Harmony: See, ah-
Don: That'll be eleven.
Tanam: There doesn't seem to be any spiritual risks beyond, you know, what's normally around.
Don: Weird.
Vafrus: DM, I want to do something that's really pretty unusual for me.
Tanam: Sure. Yeah.
Vafrus: I can see the place we're trying to go, right?
Tanam: Yes.
Vafrus: I would like... to go there.
Rozafeen: Whaaaaat?!
Harmony: Why are you so focused?
Don: Oh, boy, roll Survival for that, I d'know...
Tanam: So are you using a spell?
Vafrus: I'm gonna walk down, I'm gonna bring anybody who will come with me.
Harmony: You're lying.
Vafrus: I'm gonna announce where I'm going, I'm like, "I'm gonna go there." And I'm gonna point...
Tanam: To the hut at the south end of the hunter's villiage?
Vafrus: Yep, and I say, "I think we should go there. Let's go!" And then I'm gonna start walking.
Harmony: I know I'm not the DM, but I call roll for Deception.
Tanam: It's not Deception, right? It's-
Vafrus: I mean, I'll roll, that's fine.
Tanam: Well, I- it's not Deception though. This is your intent. So this- is,
Don: Roll for Self Deception.
Vafrus: ha ha ha ha-
Tanam: If you want to claim that this is self, like this is Self Deception...
Rozafeen: Oh my god, can we just walk where we're going?
Don: We're actually gonna get breakfast, I swear.
Tanam: No, it's lunchtime. Anyhow. Actually it's probably still just not that long after breakfast.
Rozafeen: I will reach in there and kill you.
Tanam: okay.
Vafrus: My Persuasion and Deception are the same. I have rolled a 22 to convince, no, sorry, a 24 to convince Urekas to come with me.
Harmony: Wow!
Vafrus: Both lying and being genuine, which is kind of my whole deal.
Harmony: Okay, so I'm wearing the helm, what thoughts do I read?
Tanam: Remember this is complicated, right?
Vafrus: Is it?
Tanam: Because of the Prince.
Vafrus: oh, okay. does Urekas discover the Prince?
Tanam: Urekas has done this, but-
Vafrus: Is that what we're going to spend the next amount time doing DM instead of going to the location?
Tanam: Can Urekas maybe just... not?
Harmony: I'm starting to feel like I'm the problem.
Don: Wait, wait. Now?
Rozafeen: Can we please walk where we're going?!
Vafrus: There's this huge revelation, Urekas, you are floored. We spend like three hours figuring it out and then we walk to the place.
Harmony: It's so rare anyone ever tells me what do, I'm flabbergasted, and I decide to follow.
Don: Definitely, yeah, uh, we can discuss this while we walk, obviously. It being such a big revelation.
Tanam: Whew! Okay, are you ready to not get distracted on this place full of distractions?
Vafrus: I figure we kind of have to go back to the lift and go down it.
Tanam: So you head down, there is another- you get the impression it's not quite the same- butler construct. Very similar, but is waiting there, not like, waiting for you, but just being generally available.
Vafrus: This one is different. It's Jenk Teve table.
Don: That's way better. I was gonna call him Dumbwaiter.
Vafrus: I don't think mine's better at all. That's really good.
Tanam: you can hear people having fun back in the ground floor of the hotel, but beckoning before you is the door to the outside.
Vafrus: Alright. We spend a solid hour futzing with Jenk Teve table and then continue on our way.
Tanam: Okay. I can move you guys on the map here. Can everyone see my glaze connected with the- my extra glaze? With the map?
Don: Mm-hmm.
Harmony: Yeah, good and appropriately priced.
Tanam: Okay, so you're moving down...
Vafrus: Is Jenk Teve table part of our party now?
Tanam: No.
Vafrus: Aww.
Rozafeen: That's too bad.
Don: Can he be, though?
Rozafeen: Are you suuure? Could we roll for it?
Don: I mean, if, if Urekas gets an army of followers, can I also have an army of Dumbwaiters?
Tanam: No.
Don: I mean, smart waiters. Super-smart construct waiters, obviously.
Tanam: No!
Don: Oh.
Vafrus: this is important though. We have Tagak and Teep, right?
Tanam: Yes.
Vafrus: There's Smart Jimmy.
Tanam: smart Jimmy is on Urekas's shoulder still, yes.
Vafrus: We've got an unknown number of followers.
Harmony: Seven.
Tanam: It's been consistiently that.
Harmony: Yeah, it's not even the same people. They just kinda drift in and out.
Vafrus: Oh, this is wonderful. Urekas is the best character. Alright.
Tanam: Okay.
Vafrus: So we have this, like, parade.
Tanam: Big crowd. Yep.
Vafrus: Yep. That's why we needed leadership. Onward.
Tanam: Okay. Ruffort seems like a fastest path kind of guy.
Vafrus: Oh yeah.
Tanam: Probably gonna take the path and not go into the Spiral Gardens.
Vafrus: I am the most focused I have ever been.
Tanam: Okay-
Vafrus: I walk in a straight line through the Spiral Gardens.
Tanam: Oh no! Oh no.
Vafrus: And the lake, too, if it's in my way.
Tanam: okay, so, before we do that, let me describe the entrance to Spiral Gardens. There's a wall around it, and the wall is very desert rock themed. There's no greenery on the outside, but you can see over the edge and when you look through the entrance that it is intensely green on the inside.
Don: So do we know what these Spiral Gardens are all about?
Vafrus: No, they're just an obstacle in the way and we're gonna walk through it.
Tanam: Well, okay-
Vafrus: I try to climb up the wall.
Tanam: I mean, there's an entrance.
Vafrus: Oh, there's like a gate. Alright, we go in there.
Tanam: Okay. so, this is not technically a trap.
Harmony: Great!
Tanam: But I guess everybody, so once you're inside the gardens, everybody roll me a, visual Perception check.
Don: Sixteen.
Vafrus: Uh, two.
Rozafeen: 21.
Tanam: Oh, and I should roll... Okay. Hellena and Tagak and Teep, when you walk in through this gate where it is no greenery on the outside and lots of greenery on the inside, and the greenery seems to be spiraling around this central lake, you are suddenly intensely reminded of The Sorceress's oasis. It's not as big, and it's not the same plants necessarily, but it is very evocative.
Vafrus: There's gonna be like a tiny tower in the middle here. And we can like reach in and grab hot pebbles out of one of the rooms.
Rozafeen: Teep, does your mom have fangirls?
Tanam: Both Tagak and Teep are a little bit freaking out. They're not screaming or anything, but one of the things that you notice, Hellena, is that both of them are uncomfortable.
Vafrus: Are there small lizards running around?
Tanam: Yes! There are!
Vafrus: That we can interrogate?
Tanam: I don't know, they're just lizards, so, like...
Vafrus: Alright, well I rolled a 2 so I probably don't see them but I feel like Urekas might, you know, take issue with some of these lizards.
Tanam: ha, nope, nope, Urekas did not get high enough to notice the lizards.
Harmony: Wow, I'm so well behaved today.
Tanam: ha ha ha ha ha.
Rozafeen: From looking previously at where we were aiming, did we know then that we could choose to walk around this?
Tanam: You did see that there was a path around, and I don't think it registered that this was- cause something that you do remember from the oasis is that there was one entrance, and so there is not a through here unless, as you noted, people are planning to climb interior walls once you get to the other end.
Vafrus: Oh, there's not a door on the other side.
Tanam: No, there isn't.
Vafrus: Yeah, that's cool; I probably wouldn't remember that.
Rozafeen: So, hey everyone. Tagak and Teep- I don't know if you've noticed- are sharing my realization that this is very familiar in an uncomfortable way. And I don't really want to walk through it in order to be ambushed, only to find out there's probably not a door on the other side. How about we go around?
Vafrus: I argue about it for an hour. And then eventually give in, and then that's what we do.
Tanam: So if everything that we have glossed over like that is true, then it's getting towards evening...
Vafrus: that should be canon, but it's up to you, DM. I don't actually have the power to control time like that, but I think that's how it should be.
Rozafeen: I don't think that Hellena would stand there for an hour. I think she might argue with you for like five minutes and then she's going to just start walking.
Vafrus: Alright, we argue for an amount of time that the DM determines and then we go.
Tanam: But it feels like hours.
Tanam: Okay, so you head back out of the Spiral Gardens and down the path. As you're going down this path, on the side with the gardens it's still this piled up desert rock wall, and where it says offices here on the map.
Vafrus: Mm-hmm?
Tanam: There's some hedges so that you can't actually see that building that's labeled offices, you just see some hedges.
Vafrus: We pay all the attention to the hedges.
Tanam: As you pass through the catapult flying lanes, a catapult transport goes flying overhead-
Rozafeen: Wheee!
Tanam: But then you make it down to the sport hunters' village.
Rozafeen: Yay.
Tanam: You see a bunch of these one room, very fancy cottages. They are clearly made to appear to be rustic, or, like, give the vibes of rusticness, but they are clearly not. These are luxury cabins, that are, like, doing an impression of rusticness, trying to appeal to people who are going to be paying a lot to stay there for the experience of living in a rustic cottage and are sufficiently unfamiliar with staying in a rustic cottage that they would not realize how not realistic it is.
Harmony: I love this. I would like my followers while we're passing through to just toss out friendship bracelets so they end up on the doorknobs with my information.
Vafrus: As a real and genuine prince, this seems like a truly rustic experience. And, uh, I, I see no issue with this.
Don: Definitely.
Vafrus: Ohhhh.
Tanam: So, another feature of the sport hunters' village, is that there are dead giant spiders mounted everywhere.
Vafrus: Hmmm.
Rozafeen: Ewww!
Don: Okay. So now we're realllly rustic.
Vafrus: Shyeah! That's pretty rustic.
Don: Cuz spider blood is kind of corrosive so there's probably a lot of rust.
Vafrus: ha. eh. heh.
Tanam: Every cottage has spider heads, spider legs, complete spiders, taxidermied and mounted in various ways, there's some posed in scary looking configurations.
Don: So this is- this is what becomes the theme park, is it?
Vafrus: Alright. So, I'm gonna walk up to the particular hut that we have identified.
Tanam: So the light was shining on a particular hut. A quick little uncovering of the light will point again to the hut that is up against the- you remember the spike fence that was around the, the whole complex?
Vafrus: Mm-hmm.
Tanam: Up against that, there is a hut on the sport hunters' side of that spike fence, and that is the hut that was getting pointed at.
Vafrus: Is there, like, a door?
Tanam: yeah.
Vafrus: Okay, I will put my hand on the latch or knob or whatever is the opener of this door. And at that moment, remember that I can't remember why we're here. And so I'm going to turn to the group and just, we need a quick recap. What are we going to do? I remember there was some kind of job at a... casino?
Don: Yeahhhh, a job.
Vafrus: We were, like, skulking around, and there were spiders, and there was a guy who all the rooms in his house were different, and there was a tunnel under the ground with a mirror.
Harmony: And then there's a party for me.
Vafrus: Yeah, that was very important. I remember that pretty clearly. and then we went to the tower and that seemed like it was kind of pointless, 'cuz we had to give back the treasure. And then we really nailed Beebs. That was pretty good.
Harmony: Oooo! Do you think that Beebs would appreciate some taxidermied spiders as a present?
Vafrus: Yes! In the mail, specifically.
Tanam: One piece at a time?
Harmony: Yeah, I send one of my followers to do that right now.
Vafrus: Ha ha ha ha ha
Rozafeen: somebody sent a bunch of spiders to attack the city.
Vafrus: That's right! Okay, there was an attack. Okay, I remember that.
Rozafeen: Right. We're supposed to figure out who that was. And, I don't think it's a great sign that the garden looks so much like the Sorceress's garden, so I'm kind of thinking that I just want to see what's inside this hut and see if maybe it's the second mirror?
Vafrus: Right, the spiders came out of the mirror and there's another mysterious mirror somewhere that's the other side.
Tanam: And the bell is pointing to that.
Don: And that's where we've been going.
Rozafeen: Do you guys want go in here with Pass Without a Trace? Do you wanna sneak in here, or do you want to kick the door in?
Vafrus: How about this? This is a power I don't use very often. Can I ask the Prince to take a peek inside?
Tanam: Roll a Investigation check.
Vafrus: Natural 1.
Tanam: Wah, wah, wah.
Vafrus: The Prince is absent, which is why Urekas didn't discover anything when she read my mind earlier.
Rozafeen: Nice.
Tanam: Yeah, the Prince is for some reason, briefly absent.
Vafrus: Look, he needs a break, too, sometimes.
Harmony: Yeah, he's a prince, he has things to do.
Rozafeen: Alright, well then, Pass Without a Trace?
Don: I'm more into passing with a lot of traces, but yeah, let's do this.
Vafrus: Ooh, I at one point had thieves tools. I can't remember if I've checked or not, whether they're still there.
Tanam: Yeah, maybe check.
Vafrus: That's an eight.
Rozafeen: Aw, man.
Don: Oh, I- I actually have thieves tools, too. not actually joking. Uh, I have this boot, and it does things to doors. "Don't mind me, I'm just gonna unlock this door." And I kick it. Down, ideally.
Rozafeen: I mean, you get a plus 10 to Stealth checks, not guaranteed perfection.
Tanam: Okay. let's see. First roll me a Strength check.
Don: Oh wow, I thought that was gonna go poorly. That's a 19.
Tanam: Yeah, that's okay. That's good. Now roll me just a d20.
Don: You know, that didn't go badly either. That's a 16.
Tanam: Okay.
Don: Sixteen is the number of spiders that I annoyed?
Tanam: No, you- you were lucky and you kick near the handle, and it just opens because it wasn't locked.
Don: Sweet.
Vafrus: So you actually do kind of stealthily kick the door open!
Don: I'm really good at breaking and entering.
Vafrus: Calumn is so impressed. I believe you, like, unlocked the door with your magic special boot. Oh, DM, really quick: I put away the giant ring of keys I got from the guard, which was gonna be my backup plan, instead of thieves tools.
Rozafeen: It's not a bad back-up plan.
Tanam: Any one that you tried would've worked.
Don: The funniest part is that I do actually have thieves tools. I have artisans tools, and I can magically create any type of tools.
Tanam: ha ha ha heh hah ha ha that's fun.
Don: But I kicked it, which is a tool.
Vafrus: And I have a ring of keys from a different town.
Tanam: Hahaha. Okay, it is a lot on the inside, like it is on the outside. Obviously trying to be rustic, but, there's a bed in there, and it's very clearly, like- the mattress is not stuffed with straw, this is a nice mattress. Doesn't look like there's anyone staying in it right now. And yeah, you are in the hut with the door wide open.
Vafrus: Hellena, where does the light point?
Rozafeen: So we don't see anybody? Just the inside of a cabin?
Tanam: Yep.
Rozafeen: Alright. I Gingerly take the light out.
Tanam: It points directly at a rug.
Vafrus: We look under the rug.
Tanam: There is a trapdoor there.
Don: We look under the trap door.
Vafrus: I start rifling through my keys again, but really quietly though, 'cuz Pass Without a Trace helps me.
Don: I'll use the, my thieves tools again.
Tanam: Okay.
Don: And by that I mean I'll try to open it first, because I did learn from the first time.
Rozafeen: You gonna check for traps?
Don: I am, uh, a natural check for traps.
Rozafeen: Traps fear me.
Don: Unless somebody wants to push me aside, I definitely don't check for traps.
Vafrus: No, no. I want to see the master work again. I don't know. That was the last time was so impressive.
Tanam: He reaches down and opens the trap door.
Vafrus: Whoa.
Tanam: And behind the door, there's a set of stairs. What order are you going down in?
Vafrus: Three of the followers, first.
Harmony: Naaaaaoh.
Don: I'll go first cuz I'm large and blocky shaped.
Harmony: Do you want me to throw one of the taxidermied spiders down the stairs first?
Don: Oh! We should all get inside one of the taxidermied spiders and each control one of the legs and we can crawl down there. Nobody'll know.
Harmony: Okay!
Vafrus: We spend way too long trying to that plan work.
Don: Yeah. Way too long.
Vafrus: The next day we try to go down the-
Harmony: And one of my followers has already made me a spider outfit for later.
Vafrus: Yes!
Don: Definitely.
Harmony: Okay, so Don goes first.
Don: Yep.
Harmony: Alright, I follow. Bravely.
Rozafeen: Justice is gonna guard the door.
Vafrus: Yeah, I'll follow Urekas.
Rozafeen: I'll go last.
Tanam: Except for the followers?
Rozafeen: Are they coming or are they gonna stay with Justice?
Harmony: Yeah, four of the followers come.
Vafrus: Teep and Tagak are here too, remember.
Tanam: Oh, that's right.
Don: they can go first.
Vafrus: there's a bed. They'll be busy.
Rozafeen: Ohhhhh, dude.
Tanam: "yeah, I've, uh- not really envisioning our honeymoon involving going into creepy basements."
Don: Where did you think we were actually going?
Rozafeen: Breakfast would have been a fair guess.
Don: Beebs is miles away.
Vafrus: we, we could probably find a way.
Tanam: but then Teep is like, "I don't know, like, I think as long as they all go first, it should be fine, right?"
"Okay, uh,We'll- we'll- we'll come down too, but you guys go first."
Rozafeen: Well, I was planning to bring up the back, so how about everybody else goes, you guys go, and then I'll go last.
Tanam: "Okay."
Harmony: Okay, and four of my followers come, and two are in front of Teep and Tagak, and two are behind, and they're just being really comforting, holding hands with them, etc.
Tanam: Okay.
Tanam: So, the stairs lead down into a dank stone room with lots of cages. This is exactly as you remember seeing it before.
Vafrus: I cast Light in order to be able to see better.
Tanam: Okay.
Vafrus: And I got a nat 20 to beat weirdness. I feel like it was kind of wasted, but I guess I'll take it.
Tanam: It is now a very well lit, dank, stone room, with lots of cages that are empty of physical forms, but full of light now.
Vafrus: Would it be like, roughly the same number of cages as there were spiders that attacked a thousand years ago when we had that battle?
Tanam: Eh, you know, like some of them are kind of big. It's not like necessarily one spider per cage.
Vafrus: wow, they got spiders to share a cage without killing each other. That's- these people know what they're doing.
Don: Hey, some spiders can be good roommates.
Vafrus: So in the vision there was a mirror; is a mirror anywhere in this space?
Tanam: Yes, there is a mirror, and it is definitely... the mirror. Down by the mirror, there is a figure, in a cloak...
Vafrus: Oh! There's a person who's just been waiting here for us? Oh that poor soul!
Harmony: That lucky soul!
Tanam: Um, ... lying on their face.
Vafrus: Oh, they're dead. Okay. Well.
Harmony: Maybe they're doing yoga.
Don: IIIII... guess I will, um, you know, look at their body a bit, see what I can find.
Tanam: Okay. what kind of checks are you doing?
Don: Uh, I was thinking Investigation more than like- I'm not looking for a pulse. I assume they're dead, because, you know, if it quacks like a duck...
Rozafeen: I am gonna go do a Medicine check.
Don: okay, I won't, because I wouldn't be able to tell if they had a pulse through all this armor. Uh-
Harmony: I would like to use my helm, just in case they're saying, "I'm dead, I'm dead."
Rozafeen: Or, "help me!"
Tanam: yeah, there's no thought activity coming from the body.
Don: I'm gonna be looking around, seeing if I can find a cause of death. Uh, A, cause of unlife, Uh a motive, uhhhmm, a suspect...
Tanam: okay. Go ahead and roll an Investigation check. And, because it is well lit in here, you can have advantage.
Don: that's great, because you'll never guess this, but a 5 was not what I was looking for.
Tanam: Uh,
Don: 24.
Tanam: Okay.
Rozafeen: a 23 on Medicine.
Tanam: Cool. So you learn several things. He was stabbed to death... a lot, but in particular, there was a wound in his face. Someone stabbed this dude just right in the face.
Don: Man, maybe the 5 would have been fine.
Tanam: so other things you learn, though: he has spider guard armor under the cloak. This is that same armor that you've seen on the various guards. With the medical checks you know that he's been dead since the day of the spider attack.
Vafrus: That's really precise.
Don: Couldn't we have gotten that from the smell?
Tanam: yeah-
Vafrus: That's what a medical check is, you just-
Tanam: yeah, is a whiff. but, in addition, as you're poking through the body with your Investigation-
Rozafeen: Poking... Looting...
Vafrus: I was gonna say, after y'all are finished...
Tanam: Well, Georg gets to it first, he can decide what he wants to do with it. You find- there's a rock in the pocket.
Don: Is it particularly interesting?
Tanam: It has a vibe to it. And what was your- you got like a 24, right?
Don: Yeah,
Tanam: It's a recording rock.
Don: Oh, well, in that case, I'm gonna... I don't know... play it?
Vafrus: Yeah.
Tanam: It starts with sound of the rock obviously being in the pocket.
Vafrus: I was gonna make a joke that the way we knew that how long he'd been dead is that he had like scratched on the wall, "I am dying and the current date is:" But- But actually kind of yeah, though.
Tanam: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a voice that sounds kind of muffled because the rock is in the pocket, but close by, "Amtonit, Sir! To what do I owe the pleasure? Come to observe my work? I've just completed this mission."
Harmony: Well, at least he died experiencing pleasure.
Don: Yeah, the joy of a job well done.
Tanam: Then now there's another voice, which is coming from further away. "You've done well, thank you. Do you know the thing they say about secrets?"
"uh, secrets, Sir?"
"Yes, secrets. They say that two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead."
"Very droll, Sir."
"I'm afraid I'm sharing this not as a joke, but a little more literally."
There is a sound of a sword coming from a scabbard.
"SIR!"
And then there's a sound of what you're pretty sure is a body falling to the ground with a recording rock in its pocket.
Don: Intern's Hairy Balls, that guy's a bad monologuer. We need to find the worst monologuer ever.
Tanam: Wowww. Thanks Don, that's delightful. Thank you for bringing this into my house.
Don: I know we're in your house. Uh, I mean, you know, uh, metaphorically.
Tanam: Yeah.
Don: Sorry for, for swearing, I try not to. But I bet he does
Tanam: Okay, can we please stop?
Vafrus: By the Intern's Balls, we shall.
Rozafeen: Okay, okay, okay. the obvious question is do we recognize the voice?
Tanam: No, you do not recognize either voice.
Rozafeen: Would we have recognized the voice before the blasphemy?
Tanam: Uh, no, I am not being that vindictive.
Vafrus: Would we recognize the voice if we threatened you with more blasphemy?
Tanam: Don't push it, okay?
Rozafeen: Right, so we knew there was another mirror. We found the other mirror...
Don: one last question because I don't remember things. Do we recognize the name? What was it, like Anton? An-
Vafrus: Amtomet?
Tanam: Amtonit.
Don: Amtonit.
Vafrus: That's the dead guy, though, right?
Tanam: No, the dead guy is the one that is a guard and is saying, "Sir." it was the first voice that you heard is the one that said, "Amtonit, Sir."
Vafrus: Oh, okay, so we gotta find Amtonet... Amton-net... or, say it again?
Tanam: Amtonit.
Vafrus: Amtonit. Alright, we gotta find Amtonit.
Harmony: Okay, Smart Jimmy, go forth.
Vafrus: "Finish the puzzle, Jimmy!"
Tanam: "Solve it for me!"
Vafrus: Does, uh, deadguard have anything else of value on them?
Tanam: so you loot the body after?
Vafrus: 'course.
Tanam: okay. Roll me an Investigation?
Don: I can point out all the valuable stuff.
Tanam: Do you though? That's the question.
Don: It really depends. If there's something that is particularly-
Vafrus: I got an 11.
Don: I'll definitely help. That's some spider armor, he's got a rock in his pocket, it records stuff. Let's not overwrite that yet. Uh, I can't remember the rest of it, but I bet he's- he's got a lot of stab wounds if you want to steal those.
Tanam: he is dressed for the mission that he was on, so there's a pair of glasses frames, but not the glass themselves. They're laying on the ground by him, and they have been cut by the sword that stabbed him in the face. And, he's got a sword, but it's in his scabbard and just a normal sword.
Vafrus: Alright, I'll take a dead guy's normal sword.
Rozafeen: Does it look like the stab wounds are from just a normal sword?
Tanam: yes. there doesn't seem to be anything particularly magical about them, just a bunch of stab wounds.
Don: I like the idea of being able to be like, Hmm, I believe these stab wounds were done by a plus two dagger, uh, sword.
Rozafeen: I mean, you could probably tell the difference between, ya know...
Tanam: if it like burned on the way in or something like that.
Don: Between, uh, a normal sword and, uh, a blazing fire yeah,
Tanam: definitely
Rozafeen: Or Radiant, or, you know, dagger, general size of the sword, was it a rapier? There's things you could know, okay?
Vafrus: Our next step is we have to find the sword that was damaged in such a way that it must have stabbed someone in the face.
Tanam: Well, and through like chain mail a bunch of times too.
Vafrus: This is gonna be a little bit tricky.
Don: really, any sword with enough, uh, impetus.
Vafrus: alright. Let's ask Tagak and Teep. "Hey, do you know anyone named Amtonit? Have you ever heard that name?"
Tanam: "I feel like I've heard the name before, but I can't- I can't quite place it." but Teep is staring at something and doesn't answer.
Vafrus: Is it treasure? It's probably treasure.
Tanam: Teep is staring at the mirror.
Don: Ahhh, what's going on, Teep? "
Tanam: Hmmmm..."
Don: Teep?
Tanam: "So..."
Vafrus: We attack Teep.
Don: We don't. Attack. Teep.
Harmony: I get it; I love looking at myself in the mirror, so I start doing that, too.
Vafrus: Oh no, we attack Urekas.
Harmony: No!
Tanam: So, Urekas goes over and stands with Teep and they're both staring at the mirror, together.
Don: Probably for very different reasons.
Tanam: Teep whispers, pretty quietly, just Urekas can hear her. "I know this mirror. It's my mom's."
Harmony: Okay, I tell her-
Don: You're gonna have ta speak up if you want the rest of us to hear you; what was that?
Harmony: I look at all of you and I go, "She's telling me something in confidence, so shush!" And then I tell her, "Say that louder."
Tanam: Teep turns around and looks at everybody. Tagak is like, "Yeah, babe, what's, uh, what's up?" "The mirror. It's- it's my mom's."
Rozafeen: Any chance it was stolen? Looking back on recent history...
Vafrus: how often does your mom get burgled in a month? On average. Rough guess is fine.
Tanam: Far as I remember, y'all are the first.
Vafrus: I turn to the group and ask very seriously, "Do you think we might have stole it?"
Don: That's actually not a horrible question. we wouldn't even know. Does anybody else recognize this thing? I didn't see it. Unless I did. Did I see it?
Harmony: So, I just start leading my followers into a chant, because four of them are here, the chant goes something like, ignore Georg. Clap, clap. And they turn it into a dance, and it's actually a really interesting interpretive dance.
Don: That's great. Do I recognize it?
Tanam: the mirror?
Don: Yeah. Like, have I seen it? When I went in a weirdly inspired rampage of kleptomania.
Tanam: No, this was not-
Don: It was definitely not there?
Tanam: No, it was not in any of the rooms that you guys went to.
Vafrus: Okay.
Rozafeen: Teep, do you recognize the name?
Tanam: "No."
Harmony: I'd like to read her thoughts just to make sure.
Tanam: Her thoughts have returned to the mirror. She has a memory with her mom. You don't get the full scene. It's just like a flash of this memory of standing in front of the mirror in her mom's room, with her mom.
Harmony: Okay. And I look prettier than them, right?
Tanam: Wait, who is, like, wait, are you talking about Urekas?
Harmony: Yeah.
Tanam: So does Urekas in what context look prettier than who?
Harmony: Than both of them. Like, she has this memory and I'm reading it, but I look better.
Tanam: Neither of them are prettier than Urekas? Is this what you were saying?
Rozafeen: She's confirming with the DM.
Harmony: Yeah.
Tanam: Okay. Sure. Yeah, that's definitely how Urekas sees it.
Harmony: Okay!
Rozafeen: The Sorceress might be pretty hot, actually.
Vafrus: All right, well, mystery solved. seems like the Sorceress hired this Amtonit to, uh, get this spider thing done with this poor dead guard guy and the mirrors. Uh, yeah, let's just go through this mirror back to the Gambling Hall and collect our money. Done, done, done.
Don: I don't know if that counts as solved and irrefutable evidence.
Vafrus: awhd ond... Okay.
Don: It's a pretty nice mirror though, we should definitely keep it.
Rozafeen: So we still don't technically know that the Sorceress ordered anyone around, even if Teep doesn't remember something being stolen. It's clearly pretty easy to steal stuff from this place.
Vafrus: It's true, Sorceress might be incompetent instead of guilty. Well, we could go knock on her door and ask her- after Suggesting her- what she knows about Amtonit.
Tanam: For eight hours, for a thousand years?
Don: It does point towards her influence. We, we saw the, Spiral Garden thing, and that was a little bit like her. Or it felt like her.
Vafrus: It was? Oh, I wondered what y'all were like freaking out about.
Rozafeen: Maybe we should go look for this person who might live locally? Maybe they've been a guest at this hotel, maybe they've been a guest in the huts, and there's some record of that. Maybe they live in Klaoil.
Don: Maybe the Sorceress has an evil sister.
Vafrus: Huuuh! With, like, a smaller but worse tiny tower in the middle of this little courtyard.
Don: Ideally, yeah.
Vafrus: That's probably it.
Don: Yup.
Vafrus: I feel like we don't even need to check. Let's just go back and tell him that.
Don: this is probably it in terms of, uh- We should probably call it, cuz it's- it's, time.
Vafrus: Yep. Sorry, DM. We figured out your mystery. The twin sister approach, well done. Took us a while, but we got there.
Harmony: Yeah, we accomplished a lot.
Vafrus: Good game, everyone.
maybe the next one is like- we'll do, uh, we'll do more like a murder mystery?
Don: That seems good yeah but it could be like a real mystery this time.
Rozafeen: Are we just gonna shut the trap door and shut the door and just kind of leave the body where it is?
Vafrus: Yeah, don't tamper with the crime scene.
Rozafeen: Okay, cool.
Tanam: Except the rock, right?
Rozafeen: Except for the rock and stealing his sword?
Vafrus: Yeah, yeah, except to take what you want, obviously.
Don: Was there anything else in the area that we could, I don't know, loot? Indiscriminately, ideally?
Tanam: Okay.
Tanam: So a couple of questions along the way. One: does Ruffort take the whole sword and scabbard and belt and everything and strap it to his side?
Vafrus: Yep.
Tanam: Or is this like going into a mirror bag?
Vafrus: Nope. It goes on my side, but it vanishes into my illusion.
Tanam: Ah, okay. So as you're poking around, I'm going to let your Investigation carry over. There is a trapdoor on the ceiling enclosed by a cage.
Vafrus: It's a spider catcher.
Tanam: Yeah, that definitely seems to be what it is. I think Georg's Investigation was good enough, you suspect that it is, on the other side of the, big fence, down into the forest.
Don: So they just trapped spiders and brought them here, that's how this worked?
Tanam: Very possibly.
Vafrus: Probably some kind of bait up there. If only Beeb were here.
Don: Yeah, if Beeb were here, he could cook up some spiders for us.
Tanam: ever since you tried to summon Tagak and it happened, you've been thinking that you can do that again. And it's not going to. This is a one-time thing.
Vafrus: I really thought he might fall down the chute. I was hoping!
Tanam: Heh.
The Intern: This episode featured
Chelsea Burns as Harmony as Urekas.
Harmony: I'm impressed that we all managed to work while fasting!
The Intern: Find her on Instagram @ChelseaComedy.
Chris Grumbles as Don as Georg.
Don: I check one of the friendship bracelets to see if it's like, "need a cult estate agent? Call Urekas!"
The Intern: Find him on Instagram @ChrisGrumbles.
Desiree Phair as Rozafeen as Hellena and Justice.
Rozafeen: So we're just gonna have rations on top of this dead body?
The Intern: Sylas Silver as Vafrus as Calumn as Ruffort.
Vafrus: I can see the place we're trying to go, right? I would like to go there.
The Intern: Check out his RPG at readysetrole.org.
Mark E. Phair as Tanam the dm.
Tanam: Mhmmmm. Not relevant.
The Intern: Find him at markephair.com.
And me, Damian Lichtenstein, as the Intern.
Oh, I have a cup of water right here that I can sip for effect.
Find me on Instagram @thatdamlich.
Thank you for listening to Coffee, Cults, and Empires.
Edited by Mark and Desiree.
Music by Kevin Vitz-Wong, 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.
That's coffeecultsandempires.com.
Harmony: I would like my followers while we're passing through to just toss out friendship bracelets so they end up on the doorknobs with my information.
Don: I check one of the friendship bracelets to see if it's like, need a cult estate agent? Call Urekas.
Rozafeen: With little recipes on the side.
Don: Definitely.
Don: a heist, yeah.
Tanam: Yeah. Yeah. The casino job.
Rozafeen: Pause. Whoever's drinking the ice, the editor is going to have to edit each one of those things out.
Vafrus: Sorry.
Tanam: One second. Oh, someone's, uh, phone is, uh,
Don: Sorry, that was me.
Tanam: okay. Um, there was also a loud car driving by, so,
Vafrus: like a didgeridoo.
Don: Actually, can I redo that? I just realized, "oh god" is not a great exclamation.