Greetings Invisible Ears! Me, Sully and Nix are on our way to my stash. As you know I'm
a kobold so my stash is very important to me. In my village we each need to get a stash
together so we can get our wings from Bathanax the dragon. It's not just about being able
to fly. Without wings we can't get home. I haven't told the others this yet. They probably
just think I'm a greedy guts or that I'm like a nabber and just like collecting shiny things.
It's not that at all. If I don't have wings then I can't get back to my home and see my
family again. But even though Sully and Nix don't know the truth they've still agreed
to come along and protect me. And that means a lot. It certainly makes me feel a little
bit braver about whatever we might meet on the road. We've got as far as the river at
the edge of Sully's base. First things first we need to cross it. So who's going to cross
the bridge first? Me I guess. Yeah I reckon. Do you want to make a wisdom roll? Three.
Plus one is four. So for you Sully, maybe it's because you're leaving your bit of land
where your base is. You have a real sense of stepping out into the unknown. Very exciting.
I wonder over. Going to meet Sully on the other side. 19. Wow. I'm all eyes and ears today.
Well this is very interesting because when Nix, when you put your foot onto the bridge
you feel the shiver rippling up the back of your neck making the hair stand on end. And
you lift your foot up. That's electrifying. And it passes. Right. You put your foot down
again and up it comes again. I'm getting some vibes kid. And you know Nix that there is
some magical vibes. I'm doing a little goblin dance on the bridge. Getting down with the
vibes. Oh I feel that magical beat. So I don't know how much you want to share Nix. I have
an open book. Someone or something has placed a sanctuary. It's not so much that the magical
effect is on the bridge. What it is is that the moment you step onto the bridge you leave
a magical effect. OK. Do I know about it? What does he tell me about it? I'll tell you
right about it. So kid there's a very calming haven like energy surrounding your territory.
Have you heard about that before? The thing that we should have placed here is a vibe
stadium. You all have a bit of a vibe. What I'm thinking. Throw it around. What I'm thinking.
Big fish little fish. Whopper dingle whopper dingle. I think I might know what it could
be to do it. The snow sprites. Could be something to do with them. Maybe. Maybe we should bring
the globe with us then and bring their protection. I tried that. Did you? It wouldn't budge at
all. I'd have to remove the entire manhole piece. Tempting. We've only got a bit of
a faff. We've only got a little bit. We've got two pit ponies and a donkey. I don't think
that's going to work. Nah we need an elephant or something. I was thinking like yeah I do
really not have many bad occurrences there but always when I go out I have quite a few
bad occurrences. When I'm inside my base I don't have as many. Yeah I completely agree.
I was very surprised about the nabba because I was like oh I haven't had this before. I
think that like nabba's are just part of nature aren't they. See a shiny thing. They're more
mischievous. They're more mischief makers than dangerous. They've got no malicious intent.
Just want to steal something nice and shiny. Yeah. Goblin like I'd say. So I'm imagining
that we're having this conversation as we're trotting along and you make some excellent
headway for the next few hours. You cover lots of ground. Maybe you stop for a little
bite of lunch. A bite of the head of the fish. That's for tea. It's just the head bit. It's
crunchy. I love the texture. Here kid do you want a bit? I think Sully should look after
the fish if we're going to have any left by tea time. Yeah. I'll go with that. I can get
some fish. Yeah. Do you want to look after this lot? Yeah. So like we're going to put
it all on and then we continue going dillons dillons dillons. You're a good cook. You're
very handy. So after lunch you travel along this quite a light dirt track. It doesn't
have much traffic at all. But after about 45 minutes your little track converges with
another wider track and this wider track looks like it definitely gets more traffic. More
like a trade route or something. More like a trade route. Exactly. It's a minor sign
of civilisation anyway. So then I say we should zoom down there. Oh yeah. Go full power. Okay.
Okay well so you know this wide track runs from east to west. Sully you don't actually
know much about this road because you tend to stay normally on your side of the river
or just a little bit over. So you're not quite sure where this road leads to. Excited. So.
Well you can always just follow your footsteps. So I'm like charged. Okay so which way are
you going? The way. The way. Shall we find out from tech which way this gets some directions
off. Hang on hang on Sully. Which way are we heading off? Yeah. Well you watch him he
has a little rummage and he pulls out a little purse of deep blue silky material and he keeps
it tied to his waist normally. You've seen it on him and he takes something out. Nix
you might like this. I think this is right up your street. And what he's got is a little
crystal that's been worked into the shape is like half an egg and then it's been set
in a fitting of beautifully carved copper coloured wood and you notice that the way
he's holding it he's tipped the gem out and then he's put the purse on his hand and he's
put the gem on top of the purse so the gem is not touching his skin. That's a gorgeous
bit of apparatus. It's a hide and seeker gem have you heard of that? A hide and seeker
gem yes. Well how it works is they come in pairs. There's another one that this is paired
to. Originally it was one bigger gem and then the smiths that have got the skill they can
divide it up into two separate gems. That is marvellous. How small can they make this
gem? I've seen ones that are a little bit smaller but the smaller they get the less
powerful they are the less distance they can cover. Yeah makes sense. Because this one
is paired with another gem that I've put with my stash and they can talk to each other.
What a marvellous concept. So the smaller it is you can find things that are quite close
by but if you're going travelling a little bit you can get a larger one and yeah my mums
gave me this one before I left it was one of my going away presents. It was that in
a parachute but that's another story. Where's your parachute? A parachute? Yeah. A parachute
you got it? Yeah it's very good actually and this rucksack is actually a parachute that
you fold in a certain way and you can put other things in it to carry them. It's a very
clever little thing it's a cobalt design you know we're very good with textiles. I can
see. I really hope that works. Right kid let's check this gem. How does it work? So the other
half of this one is with my stash and this one knows where it's other half is so watch
this. He gently takes the gem and actually places it on the palm of his hand this time
and you see as if it's drawing in the warmth of Taks body which it can't be that because
Taks cold blooded you expect but you can see a misty light starts to gather and swirl within
the gem until the gem begins to pulse. It's faint and uneven at first but then it settles
into a steady beat. He says right okay so now it's that's our starting beat and Taks
looks up and down the road he says so we can go this way and he walks east down the road
holding out the gem on his hand. I keep following right behind him. I'm hypnotised to this scene
it's really cool. Watch the gem. Yeah I'm watching. And the rate of the pulse gets slower
okay and he stops he goes oh no stop this way okay let's try that way and he turns
round to go west along the road and as you watch this time the gem starts to pulse a
little faster. Ah that's it do you see it's this way. Okay and then he puts the gem back
in his little purse and attaches it to his belt. Let's head west then. Right. I'm very
impressed with your mechanism there Taks. Oh thank you. Your hide and seeker gem. Right
no there's no time to lose we can talk about this while we're at the horses. Go go go go
go. This is all human charles wants a race. Okay. You got it. Well yeah the rain starts
to get a little bit heavier and the road suddenly gets a lot steeper as you head into some mudland
and it gets rocky on either side and it gets much more slow going because you've got to
kind of pick your way up round the stones. The ponies and the donkeys don't like it you're
just trying to figure out whether to get off and lead rather than ride them but at least
the tree canopy is giving you a bit of shelter from the rain. Suddenly you hear what sounds
like a medium sized animal startle nearby in the undergrowth. Again. What is it? Did
you hear something? It sounded like a medium sized animal startling in the undergrowth.
That's exactly what I thought. Rolling. Roll for perception. Do you want to go first? Five.
You don't see what it is I'm afraid sorely. Eleven. You've got eleven let's see what
Taka gets. Five. Doesn't see anything. That was the sound of Dungeon Mummy eating her
own hair. Yeah it wafted down my throat. Sorry. So Nix it looks like something has dislodged
a rock. That's what that noise is. I think something's just dislodged a rock. Let's
go and check it out. We want to make sure we don't get any ambush or. Maybe it was a
rustle. It was a rustle in the bushes. Is that you Russell? I'm getting slightly creeped
out now Russell. Hello. Right well let's go and investigate. So yeah you're going to where
the rock got dislodged. Yeah. OK so that takes you to the crest of the hill and from that
point the track rolls down the other side and the rocky area settles back into mossy
woodland and you hear another odd noise. It's a low bubbling coming from a dip at the bottom
of the hill and the track that you've been riding along runs directly through it. It
looks like this is a sunken spot of land where all the water runoff gathers so it gets really
quite boggy here and probably only rarely dries out you know just at the very hottest
points of the summer it's probably always a bit boggy and the low bubbling sound is
coming from there. Suddenly from the cover of the ferns something bursts out and piles
into the mud. Immediately the mud swells up in tall glondola tendrils and they're the
height and depth of really thick ropes of mud and they seem so... I just stare at it
just expressionless. So something has piled into the mud. Does it look like it's a thing
from the swamp or does it look like the water's moving by itself as tentacles? OK well would
you like to roll perception? Roll yes please. It's 12 plus 1. 13. And then yeah go on you
roll as well. 18. 18? Plus your perception which is plus 1. So you've got 19, you've
got 13. Oh 19. Got two 19s. 19, 20, 21. OK so Nix it doesn't make sense what you can
see it's like there's some kind of fight going on in this mud but you can't make out what's
fighting what. Soley as the mud tendrils lift up and then pound down you can see that the
mud is directing itself at whatever it was that just burst out of the ferns and piled
into the mud. Tack he got 21. It's a big chunk of stone and the mud's fighting a big stone.
And you look and the scene starts making sense of itself and you can see that yes the mud
is rising up and pounding down against this chunk of what looks like limestone which is
rapidly getting covered in mud itself. It's trying to get through the mud to the other
side of the track but the mud keeps swelling up like a like a wave to keep bringing it
back in and then it starts pounding it again. We'll have to leave it there for this week
but join us next time when it looks like we might be in for a bit of a scrap. It's very
strange indeed when things like mud and rock start biffing each other about don't you think?
What's going on there? What about Tack's hide and seeker gem? That is one marvellous
bit of kit and no mistaking. I wonder if we'll let me have a go on it next time we need to
check our progress. Thanks for listening. I can't see ya but I know you're there. Call
it me 16th sense or is it me 17th? I can never keep track. Don't forget you can catch us
on Insta or by writing to dnddoodoo at gmail.com. It's nice to have something to read around
the campfire in the evenings. I've heard mutterings on cfax about the creation of a web page one
day too. I've never seen paper made out of webs before but if anyone can do it a spider
could. Anyway have a great week podlins. Whatever ya dnd do do. Laters.