In which books are read, smoke is fought, deals are struck, and someone goes blind.

Our DM is Sasha Rose Hansen

The players, in alphabetical order:

Carbry - Bryn Ziegler

Gary - Rebecca Michelson

Renora - Tori Chancellor

Spencer Charlemagne - Jacob Earl

Tongs - Grayson Abele

We’re produced by Jacob Earl

Our theme music is “Rathgars Theme” and is available through LateMoonRecords.com

Tune in next week at RathgarsHorde.com and as always, try not to die

Spencer’s Diary, two

We were now in a library, but one only half organized, dark.

The organized books were arranged by the parts of the body of a dragon? A system I’d never seen before. It was a pretty boring library, not one story book just manuals and technical stuff and one book on keys (all themselves lost and magic). The Golem, The Monk, and I looked out into the hallway (the door was unlocked) but saw nothing except magic smoke. I walked back to the group to look at the book on keys but once I pulled it off the shelves everyone kept grabbing it from me to look at themselves so I waved it above my head and said “I thought I’d be real smart & open a book on keys and inside would be the key we are looking for“ the boss-monks had told us psychically to ‘find the key‘ when we first arrived “but instead it’s just *pictures* of keys!” Everyone still wanted to read it but there were no clues.

We left the library and walked into the smoke. I tried covering my mouth with my scarf but it wasn’t real smoke and it did nothing. We came upon a small servants kitchen, full of trash, with a gross-looking soup bubbling on the stove, like someone had just left. The cabinets were full of trash and no food that I could see. Before I forget! Back in the library when we first climbed in I had the grand idea to grab some of the poison-food and feed it to the stair-guard beast, thereby shrinking it or driving it mad or to stone. So The Demon helped me to grab some with her magic-hand and as soon as it was close I put it in one of the empty potion vials - but that didn’t contain the magic and The Demon went crazy trying to grab it! I knew there were only moments to preserve my own safety so I poured the food out back down the hole, but the vial was glowing so I dropped it down too. There doesn’t seem to be any way to get the poison-food out even though it seems really valuable and powerful.

In the smoke hallway I got bit on the ankle by a snake, it was hard to see but when I hit it with my sword it turned to dust in my hands. Acting fast, I poured it into one of my vials. At the time I didn’t think any more of it but, turns out, it was a clue. Once the snakes showed up everyone got really scared and The Demon climbed up onto The Golem’s back and we started running blindly into the smoke. As we ran, The Demons horns scraped along the ceiling, making sparks, and then she got caught up in a low-hanging disused chandelier and I laughed because It looked really funny. The Demon is good to tease because she takes herself so seriously! The running turned out not to be a bad idea because The Giant’s terrible footfalls frightened the snakes off — but as we ran through the dark The Giant met with a creature they could not see, and bonked it on the head, the thing fell and they picked it up as if it weighed nothing.

The smoke briefly parted and we came across two goblins: a pair, and angry. The thing The Giant had bonked was their daughter! She was unconscious and bleeding. I stepped forward to try and impress and talk to them, and while they understood common my goblinish is a little rusty, or perhaps non-existent, and I could not make any real headway. I should have tried thieve’s cant signs. The Monk gave them her toast and they became, if not friendly, not vicious.

We left them and went on, down this endless hallway, and presently came to a door. There was a tripwire (that I fixed) and then we all took turns trying to pick the lock, to no success. Though teamwork and a little hammer The Demon took the door off of its hinges & The Golem and The Giant knocked it down. I think The Demon is a thief, or a forger of artifacts.She is anyway handy with small tools and the making of small things, in contrast to The Golem’s power of large metal and weapons. Inside the room (a trophy room of traps) was a great big snake made of smoke, the clear parent of the miniature snakes we encountered in the corridor. The Demon threw lights at it and I tried to scare it with my lantern, but we realized too late that it was totally blind. I tried to hit it with my sword but I barely scratched it before suffering the brunt of The Giants forest-magic vine attack that restrained me but missed the snake completely. We are largely not amazing warriors. I keep calling it a snake, but it was more like an eel or a giant leech made of smoke. I’ve never seen anything like it before! I’m going to call it a Sneel. (see attached drawing)

Our attacks kept missing or barely doing anything until The Monk, with her BARE FISTS! jumped up and hammered the Sneel into a glittering black powder. She is very strong, I was impressed. Now, here is the problem. I had been teasing The Demon all day, but like in a friendly way? I thought? Because right off we had like this rapport like we sort of got each other? You know? Even though she isn’t very friendly and actually kind of mean there seemed to be an underlying friendliness. But maybe I went too hard too fast. That’s on me. Anyway The Demon reached down and made a snowball out of the Sneel’s glittering black ashes and hit me square in the kisser with it. That would have been funny, but I couldn’t breathe for minute and then I definitely swallowed some and I tried to open my eyes but they were open and I couldn’t see. I washed out my mouth and eyes with water like you’re supposed to but nothing happened. Good news, though, was that all of a sudden The Demon started being REALLY nice to me and apologizing and I got her to steal some gems out of one of those multiplying thieves cups (and I didn’t even have to do anything!) and she gave them to me and helped me up to the next room. The next room was at the top of these spiral stairs so I’m pretty turned around. There is, here, reportedly a glittering dragon with dragonfly wings? I have never seen a dragon before, and I guess I still haven’t.

I tried to appeal to her vanity but

1. I can’t see her and

2. She’s vain about her MIND - bet on the wrong horse

Her story is that she was discarded too and wants to escape but can’t? She is suspicious of us so I offered that we (the group) could be her friends but the group didn’t back me up and The Monk offered herself up as a SLAVE? Which is NUTS! Did none of these people’s DADS ever TALK TO THEM ABOUT DRAGONS??

“Don’t FUCK WITH DRAGONS!” — Every Book with a Dragon / Every Dad, I Thought

Anyway the dragon knows where the key is but is unable to escape so is trepidatious about telling US. Which is fair. At this point I am unconvinced the key is a literal key, because the dragon has put some scholarship into investigating that avenue and has not yet escaped, and she is a dragon not an animal so she should be able to escape.

Also footnote; I don’t know how big this dragon is exactly, the dragonfly wing thing makes me think she is tiny? But she sounds big when she talks. She can see right through our bullshit and seems like a nerd who reads a lot so maybe I can take her if she isn’t too big. I am writing this in my mind because I cannot see to write. This is really not as good as actually writing things down but if I don’t record this it’ll just play over and over in my mind until it drives me nuts. Maybe one of these people speaks elvish and can write this down for me.

POST: The Monk wrote it down which is why this is in the ugly common tongue

Also this place is full of trash so either:

1. The place is built *out of* or *on top of* the dragon’s soul so that’s why she can’t escape

2. You have to let something go to leave. But if she didn’t come with anything then she may have to give up something more metaphysical. Like her greed, or guardedness.

Anyway either way I think the key is getting the dragon to ‘let it go’.