Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey Al Hey there,
Speaker 1 00:00:03 What do you call a retired wizard, A wizard it's time for a compelled dual bonus episode.
Speaker 1 00:00:25 Hello everybody. And welcome to a very special bonus episode of compelled dual I'm buried and I'm out and blah, blah, blah, de blah, blah, blah podcast. You know what we're about. If you're listening to this, we're going to be taking things in a little bit of a different direction today. We're not going to be playing Leo or fi in fact, we're going to, well, why don't you just stick around and see what happens?
Speaker 1 00:00:57 Our camera zooms in on the bustling city of GIM Tara, it is early in the morning on a Saturday. Nobody involved in this knows that it is the day of the season. One finale of D and D podcast compelled duel, but regardless, the city is waking up. There's lots of traffic clogging the roads already. The steam trains are running around the inside of this big subterranean cavern, where the city is built as the people inside them, commute back and forth to work our camera zooms in on a narrow street, in the middle of the city, further and further into the gated front yard of a small, but cozy looking row house up to the second floor and into the window, Al, please describe your character.
Speaker 0 00:01:52 Courage is an infernal Elvin girl of about the human equivalent of eight years old. She has long curly black hair curling, black horns, deep purple skin. She's probably wearing something very flouncy because that tends to be her style. And she is sitting in the window, sill absently, petting a little black kitten.
Speaker 1 00:02:27 You're sitting there petting, smoky your cat. And after a minute, he sits up squints out the window and then whips his little furry head around to look at you. And in the voice of like a guy sitting in a bar, watching a red Sox game says, ah, he comes trouble to anybody else that would happen to be in the room right now. Smokey is just meowing, but courage has beast speech as her pact of the chain feature for her warlock stuff. So she to the cat,
Speaker 0 00:03:01 She's gonna try to look out the window where smokey is looking,
Speaker 1 00:03:04 Okay. Roll perception for me real quick,
Speaker 0 00:03:08 17,
Speaker 1 00:03:09 You look out the window and see two people you've never seen before walking down the street, your neighborhood's pretty tight knit and you're pretty far from the city centers. So you know, most of your neighbors, you know, pretty much everybody that would be walking around out there right now, but headed up the street and in through your front gate, you see an Austrian Elvin woman that looks to be in her early thirties, brown skin, long slate, gray hair dressed in armor, which is weird. And she is leading a younger Australia and Elvin girl, long, straight black hair, big Coke bottle glasses looks to be a teenager by the elbow, up towards your door. Smokey tilts his little cat head and goes, never seen the kid before, but the other one was he had talked to your uncle a couple of days ago.
Speaker 0 00:04:05 Oh. Um, courage has had a very trying couple of days. So she frowns and her eyebrows pinch together for a second. And she goes, well, I mean, she kind of looks too old to be any of his students. So
Speaker 1 00:04:21 What tipped you off kid? The age of the army,
Speaker 0 00:04:25 Smokey or being very rude. We've talked about this,
Speaker 1 00:04:29 Whatever he bats at you with his paw and then jumps down out of the window seat onto the floor to start making his way out of your room and down the stairs. As these two people come and the lady in the armor knocks on your door, you see Smokey's tails, swish out around your doorframe and hear loud complaining meowing. As he walks down the hallway, I got a nap in the sunshine scheduled for 12 o'clock shop. And if this interrupts it, I swear to God,
Speaker 0 00:04:56 Smoky. Kurt is going to head out the hallway and try to like eavesdrop from the top of the stairs.
Speaker 1 00:05:02 Okay? Roll stealth.
Speaker 0 00:05:04 Sick.
Speaker 1 00:05:06 Okay. That's not going to do it. You move down the hallway and hear voices from the front room. Your mom's at work. So you're just at home with your uncle today because you're off school. This woman in the doorway is apparently pleading with him to do something. She sounds really stressed out. Look, I know this isn't an ideal situation, but I just need you to watch her for a couple hours. Okay. We can't take her where we're going. And there's nowhere else in the city. That's safe for her to stay right now. You hear your uncle adore side. Very huffily well, some of us have jobs Sabine, and didn't ask to get roped into a succession crisis. In fact, some of us, I mean, me, someone is me would like to stay as far away from it as possible. What am I supposed to do? Take her to work with me. The younger girl, the doorway goes I'm right here. And at that point, you're trying to be sneaky, but you're not watching where your footing is because you're trying to peek over the railing. You step on Smokey's tail and he lets out a massive he owl, Hey, watch the merchandise.
Speaker 0 00:06:18 So many treats later, just be quiet.
Speaker 1 00:06:21 It's too late. The damage is done. Everybody looks up at the top of the stairs where you are trying to peek over the railing, your uncle, this tall infernal elf man with similar curly, black hair and horns and purple skin. Very nicely trimmed, goatee dressed. Very flamboyantly just has his head in his hands, but then he looks up size, courage. Guess you have an unscheduled play date today. The girl in the doorway raises an eyebrow at him. I'm 73, but okay.
Speaker 0 00:06:59 Yeah. Courage is going to not making eye contact with anybody slink down the stairs. Hi, I'm courage.
Speaker 1 00:07:08 The lady in the armor kind of gets down on your level and smiles at you. Hi, you've never met me before. My name is Sabine. Um, you met Ferrara yesterday, right?
Speaker 0 00:07:20 Yeah. For like a second. She seemed weird.
Speaker 1 00:07:24 This lady Sabine apparently presses her lips together and snorts. Yeah. Well that's one way to put it anyway. I'm her friend and I need to go help her out with something really quick. So I need you and your uncle to entertain my friend, Laura lie over here. She's really nice. She looks back up at your uncle. She won't be any trouble. She likes to read this younger teenage girl. Laura lie apparently looks supremely perturbed at being piloted into this situation, but just says nothing.
Speaker 0 00:08:04 Okay. I guess
Speaker 1 00:08:05 Laura looks a little offended at your reaction, but continues to say nothing. And then Sabine stands back up and turns over to her. Okay. I will be back as soon as possible. We have talked about why you need to stay in the house, right? Because Laura, I size because it's dangerous. If anybody sees me, I get it. Just be careful. Okay. And then rolling her eyes. She leans in and gives to be in a big hug. Sabine turns back to your uncle, hands up in front of her in a pleading gesture and goes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will be back as soon as I can. Thank you. And then turns around and fully leaves. The house walks out of the garden back up the street. And you are standing in your front room. This strange girl you've never met before smokey comes hopping down off the bottom steps and walks over to her sniffs at her foot and then sneezes and shakes his head. Hey, the smell of the magic on this one, she smells like a fireball waiting to happen.
Speaker 0 00:09:13 Courage, squints, and tilts her head at Lorelei and says, are you a super spy?
Speaker 1 00:09:22 Laurel? I pushes her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and blinks down at you. Um, no, technically I'm an internationally wanted criminal, but I don't get to do any of the cool spy stuff, which is why I'm stuck here with you. Your uncle has gone back to fully having his head in his hands. Okay? Okay. So I have a lecture in 30 minutes that I need to leave for 10 minutes ago. You apparently can't go out of the house. Usually I just take courage with me when I go to school, but you shouldn't be here alone, but I, I can't just cancel class this late. Oh, okay. Um, you're old enough to babysit, right? And Laura Legos. What?
Speaker 0 00:10:11 I'm not a baby. And she's mean why can't I just go
Speaker 1 00:10:14 'cause I said, so he looks a little bit manic, big fake smile on his face. Okay. So I'm going to go to work. I will be back as fast as I can. I will swing by the tea shop and tell your mom what's going on and see if she can come home. I don't know. I don't know. At this point, here's what's going to happen. Girls. We are going to lock all the doors, lock all the windows. We are not going to answer the door. We are not going to talk to anybody. And you are going to sit quietly and wait till I come back.
Speaker 0 00:10:49 But uncle adore, that sounds boring.
Speaker 1 00:10:53 He puts one hand on his hip and nods his head at you. It sounds boring. I know this. Isn't an optimal situation. Okay. I'll make it up to you. Later.
Speaker 0 00:11:04 Courage crosses her arms over her chest and he goes, I want to go to the tour duty and bakery downtown.
Speaker 1 00:11:11 Fine, fine. All the pastry you want just stay in the house please. We can not have a repeat of last time.
Speaker 0 00:11:21 Nobody got hurt. Last time
Speaker 1 00:11:26 He just walks out of the house, shuts the front door behind him. And you hear all of the locks on the front door, click, everything in the front room is silent for a second. And then Laura looks over at you and goes, so are we going to stay in the house and sit quietly until he gets back?
Speaker 0 00:11:45 Well, I'm not, I don't know what you're going to do.
Speaker 1 00:11:48 I don't know what I'm going to do either. I've never been a babysitter. I'm supposed to watch you, right?
Speaker 0 00:11:58 Yes. You're supposed to watch me. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go upstairs where I have a sash of hush money because my uncle doesn't want me to tell my mom stuff and I'm going to go get brownies on the sheet.
Speaker 1 00:12:13 Oh, okay. So I have to watch you do that sounds easy enough. Smokey looks up at Laura, lie from the floor and squints at her. It was that she for real right now,
Speaker 0 00:12:27 I don't know, but it gets me brownie. So I don't care.
Speaker 1 00:12:31 Why are you meowing at your cat?
Speaker 0 00:12:33 Because he's a magic cat. Keep up.
Speaker 1 00:12:37 Oh, okay. I get it. My brother had a magic tour Angela, one time, but then my mom's cat ate it. And she's just going to follow you up the stairs. If you're going.
Speaker 0 00:12:45 Yes. Courage is going back up to her room and digging through the pile of stuffed animals under her bed to find her money stash. It is a plastic Tupperware container fantasy Tupperware that has courage to savings written on it in sparkly purple ink, and a bunch of sequins and glitter, stuck to it. Uh, and there is about 20 gold inside of it.
Speaker 1 00:13:11 Lorelei is standing kind of uncomfortably in the middle of your room, just watching all of the stuffed animals go flying through the air. As you fling them out of the way and her eyes get a little big wood. She sees all the money in the box. That's a lot of money for a kid to have. How much stuff does your uncle have that he doesn't want your mom to know about?
Speaker 0 00:13:32 I dunno. He says he doesn't want mom to know about the bear that he brings into the house after 3:00 AM. But that's kind of weird because the only animal I've ever seen him bring it to the house. As a cat,
Speaker 1 00:13:42 Laura lies, eyes go even bigger and you get the impression that she knows something about what you just told her, but she is not going to tell you about it. Understandable. Let's go get those brownies. So I don't have to be in this conversation anymore.
Speaker 0 00:14:00 Okay. Courage is going to lead her down the stairs and down the street to the bakery that her mom takes her to. As a treat for fudgy brownies,
Speaker 1 00:14:11 Smokey runs out of the house after you, and in a slightly painful way, does climb up your back to sit on your shoulder. He kind of had butts you and meows into your ear. What did I say about interrupt in the nap plan? You're getting me a salmon croquette
Speaker 0 00:14:31 Lorelei. You're having a weird day. You were woken up way too early by Sabine. And now she has dropped you off at this weird house with this weird man that did not stay to watch you. And you are babysitting a child of what looks to be about 40 years. And now she is taking you on a Merry jaunt through the city against Sabine's express wishes to a bakery where she is sitting at a table by the window and kicking her feet. As she eats a brownie,
Speaker 1 00:15:05 Lorelei doesn't have any money. So she's just going to sit at the table with no food and take out a book.
Speaker 0 00:15:14 Courage pulls out her fantasy, top of where container of coins with a jingle. It is very sparkly. Her sense of style seems to be even for a 40 year old, a lot. Her room was very roughly and sparkly. And there were a lot of stuffed animals and this Tupperware containers, a whole thing. She pops the lid, pulls out one coin with the flourish of a blackjack dealer. And with two fingers, slide that across the table at you and says, get yourself something nice.
Speaker 1 00:15:51 Oh man, this is the weirdest day of Laura lies life. She had to watch Sabine stumble out of a nightclub last night. And now she's babysitting Jojo Siwa. Okay, here we go. She goes and buys herself a chocolate croissant and a cup of coffee because Savine is not here to tell her she can't have it. And then comes back and sits down, gives courage or change back. There's probably a really long awkward silence as Laura light. Just kind of fiddles with the croissant and takes a big drink of her coffee. So I'm talking to people I'm not good at talking to people. Uh, what do you do for a living?
Speaker 0 00:16:39 Courage stops in the middle of picking up brownie, crumbs with her thumb and goes, I am a kid. I go to school.
Speaker 1 00:16:48 Oh, fascinating. What is school like?
Speaker 0 00:16:53 You've never been to school.
Speaker 1 00:16:55 Uh, no. I stayed at home and my mom taught me, but my mom used to teach at a school. So I guess it was kind of like going to school just without the friends, but I wasn't allowed to go to school because sometimes I blow things up with my mind and they said that I was a danger to public safety. She says with air quotes are on the last couple of words.
Speaker 0 00:17:17 Oh, okay. I wish my mom could teach me because my teacher is really mean and she keeps yelling at me cause I don't get long division and it's not my fault. Cause numbers just kind of, don't make sense to me. And I'm better at art. I like drawing and I like music and I like dancing and I like horses and I like my cat and sometimes I like reading, but um, only like the fun books that we don't get to read at school because we have to read boring books at school and they're all about like interpersonal conflict. And we have to analyze them for meaning or whatever. And I prefer to read books about supersize and princesses and fun stuff and not boring people.
Speaker 1 00:18:02 Laura, I looks at her like she is the most fascinating specimen she's ever seen in her life. I like to read books about bugs, especially butterflies. I have one in my bag right now. Would you like to see it?
Speaker 0 00:18:18 Yeah. I like butterflies.
Speaker 1 00:18:21 Lorelei takes her book out and goes on a 25 minute info dumping session about every butterfly in the book and feels much more at ease and comfortable with courage as a friend, by the end of it,
Speaker 0 00:18:36 Courage listens in relative silence and just eats her brownie. She paused in the middle to go and get hot chocolate and a salmon croquette for her cat who may, I was very loudly. She is listening. She does not seem like she gets a lot of what you were talking about because she's eight and not a, uh, you know, entomologist, bushy listens, which is nice.
Speaker 1 00:19:05 Okay. I'm going to finish Microsoft and my coffee and wait for whatever this tiny child is going to instruct me to do next.
Speaker 0 00:19:15 Ah, yes. Beholden to the whims of a third grader. She waits for you to finish your croissant and also your info dump about butterflies and then hops off the chair and says, um, that was interesting. You seem like you like museums.
Speaker 1 00:19:33 I love museums. How did you know
Speaker 0 00:19:36 Just the vibe? Um, There's the museum of magical history. That's like, um, three streets down and there's a big statue of a tourist in front of it, which is fun. And we can go to that if you don't want to go out to the house.
Speaker 1 00:19:53 Uh, I, uh, weren't we supposed to stay inside the house. I mean, I get just walking down the street for a brownie, but I'm really not supposed to be out where people can see me because they might try to kill me. I realized that I said I wasn't a super spy. And I also realized that I keep saying things that make me sound like I'm a super spy. I just want to take this moment to assure you that I'm not a super spy, but I don't know if we should go out into the city. I'm not familiar with it. And large groups of people make me very uneasy.
Speaker 0 00:20:32 Don't worry. There's not going to be large groups of people inside the museum of magical history.
Speaker 1 00:20:36 Huh? That's weird. I feel extremely insulted. And I don't know why
Speaker 0 00:20:41 Don't think about it too much. The house is boring. And the only thing to do there until my mom gets home is board games. And I've played all the board games. We have, um, a lot and they're mostly only fun. Now, if I can get my uncle to gamble on them, which I can, but he's at work and you don't have any money. So let's go to the museum. We'll be fine. Besides I have a bat and from the folds of her, very flouncy skirt, courage just pulls out a softball bat and says, monkeys, this in the broom closet. She says it's for killing anybody that tries to break into the house.
Speaker 1 00:21:12 Okay? Laurel is going to follow her.
Speaker 0 00:21:17 Encourage leads you through the streets of like a pro. There are a lot of people on the streets.
Speaker 1 00:21:23 Uh, Laura is keeping her arms very close to herself and kind of just shuffling along. Okay. There are a lot of people here. This is yep. This is fine.
Speaker 0 00:21:36 Courage is walking in front of you. And she turns around and starts walking backwards and says, no, see, it's fine. All you have to do is this. And then she clears her throat and in common, which you don't understand super well. She yells, Hey, watch it yet. Putts at a guy who was walking too close to her and the guy heard Lee shuffled away.
Speaker 1 00:21:57 It's still an Elvish. Laura Legos. I don't know this word putt.
Speaker 0 00:22:02 It's like a Yahoo, but worse.
Speaker 1 00:22:06 Oh, okay. In very halted. Common Laura lie. Quietly goes, Hey, watch it. You put
Speaker 0 00:22:16 The louder.
Speaker 1 00:22:18 Hey, watch it. You put,
Speaker 0 00:22:21 Say it with your chest. Flora lie. Come on.
Speaker 1 00:22:23 Hey, watch it. Your putts.
Speaker 0 00:22:26 Yeah. Like that. Some of the people around you, a shuffled to the side a little bit,
Speaker 1 00:22:31 It's still in very broken common Lorelei stomps her foot with a lot more confidence and goes, yes, this is the place that I am walking
Speaker 0 00:22:42 In. Much more fluent. Common courage. Enthusiastically says, yeah, she's walking in.
Speaker 1 00:22:53 Okay. I'm going to follow her to the museum.
Speaker 0 00:22:57 You keep walking for a little bit, uh, from an alleyway, a voice says, Hey kids, you looking to make a little cash,
Speaker 1 00:23:05 Courage. We should keep walking.
Speaker 0 00:23:07 No courage is already pushing past you enter this alleyway. You watch a very interesting thing happened to her demeanor, where she puts her hands behind her back and like rocks up on her toes and smiles very sweetly and says, gee, miss that, we show wood.
Speaker 1 00:23:25 Can I roll insight to see if I can figure out if she's hustling this guy,
Speaker 0 00:23:30 Earl insight,
Speaker 1 00:23:32 13
Speaker 0 00:23:34 100%, absolutely courage sees an opportunity and she is taking it. There's a no mish guy in this alleyway wearing a kind of drab suit on like a folding chair in front of a card table. And he's got a bunch of cups on the card table. And he grins as courage, walks into the alleyway and like waves at the two of you and says, give me a Comea you won't play a game. It's going to test your powers of observation.
Speaker 1 00:24:08 Lorelei tries to cover up her very thick Australian accent as well as she can. And just repeats after courage. G Mr. Would we, I'm trying to be a good wing man.
Speaker 0 00:24:22 This guy is squint a little bit and says, alright, kid. And then he holds up a little, looks like a ping pong ball. So he has our gun plate. I'm going to put this in one of these cups here and I'm going to shuffle the cups around. And then if you can find the ball, then you win. And if he's can't, then I went, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:24:47 Yes. I understand this.
Speaker 0 00:24:51 All right, let's go. And he puts the ball. And one of these cups and just starts shuffling them around Lorelei role perception,
Speaker 1 00:25:01 18.
Speaker 0 00:25:02 Absolutely. You managed to track these cuffs as he shuffles them around. And you think the ball's in the middle one,
Speaker 1 00:25:09 I touch the middle one.
Speaker 0 00:25:12 This guy goes, ah, good. One kid. And he lifts the cup and the balls under it. And he says, what do you say best two out of three, before you can say anything, courage goes, you haven't missed that. And she walks up to the table and you watch her cat hop off of her shoulder and circle around behind the guy at the card table and like hop up on a box. That's just sitting in this alleyway and just Meow very loudly. Um, and I'm not even gonna roll for courage to figure this out. This guy, shuffles the cups around and the cat keeps me outing behind him. He stops moving in the cups and he says, I write kid, where is it? Courage pauses puts a finger up to her chin like, Hmm, you could tell she's playing up the cutesy kid thing. And she says, gee, I don't know. Um, I think maybe, and then she reaches out and touches the leftmost cup. The guy goes, ah, good shy kid. But, and then he lifts the cup and the balls under it. There's a long pause. And then courage has, wow, guess we win. Thanks. And she grabs the bag of money that he put on the table. As he looks dumbfounded at this ball and says, I am never going to financially recover from this.
Speaker 1 00:26:33 Laura Lee has to pause and frown for a second to try to find the words in common in her head. How good are you at this game? If losing twice makes you forget, lose your money. And also you are the one who tried to, um, um, and then she turns back around to courage and an Elvish goes courage. How do you say extort in common graft? You are the one who tried to grift two small girls of their money. Hey, watch it. You putz
Speaker 0 00:27:20 Courage holding this guy's bag of money. He says, yeah, what she said. And then she grabs your elbow and says, I, now we run. And just stares off
Speaker 1 00:27:33 Courage. You grab Laura lie by the hand and just tear out of this alleyway. You're running down the street towards the museum next to you, Laura light with an uncharacteristic. You feel like smile on her face yells. I'm having fun. I'm
Speaker 0 00:27:49 Glad run faster.
Speaker 1 00:27:51 Lorelei obliges and runs as fast as she can. You pull her down through this mess of alleyways and side streets, just in case, you know, the guy you drifted decides to come after you. And as you're running down an alley that spits out onto the big main street where you know, the museum is a voice from behind a pile of boxes goes well, well, well, what have we got here, boys?
Speaker 0 00:28:20 Not these losers
Speaker 1 00:28:24 From around the piles of boxes at the mouth of this alley come for about middle schoolers, like sixth graders, three dwarves, one gnome. They're your bullies. The leader of this Motley crew is known by the name Dropkick Murphy, because he has a bad habit of drop kicking people. He's a stocky dwarfish kid has a little bit of peach fuzz on his chin and flanking. Him are two equally stocky dwarfish middle schoolers known as lookout, Lenny and Jimmy, the kid. And then out from behind another pile of boxes. Skitters their fourth friend. A little, no mish kid. His name's Kevin. You're still holding the bag of money in your hands that you just got from your very successful grift and Dropkick Murphy. Ambles over to you and kind of shoved you in the shoulder. Look, boys coverages. Mom gave us some lunch money. Think we'll be taken that.
Speaker 0 00:29:29 Aw, why don't you just ask your mommy for some after I sent a crying home to Tila
Speaker 1 00:29:34 Next to you in Elvish, Laura Legos, uh, courage, what's going on
Speaker 0 00:29:41 In Elvish. Courage says these guys. Aren't very nice when they're going to try to steal our money, but, um, that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1 00:29:50 Look out Lenny, this other little dwarfish kid with like a shitty rat stash crosses his arms over his chest and goes, Hey, what kind of gobbledygook are you to say it to each other? And Laura Lee turns around the glare at him. Hello? My name is Laura lie. You are small and rude Dropkick. Murphys stopped shoving you long enough to turn over to Laura lie and go. Who are you calling? Small and rude. Get 'em boys roll initiative. Fucking Laura lie rolled a 14
Speaker 0 00:30:37 At the nine.
Speaker 1 00:30:39 Okay. And now I'm going to roll for the hooligans drop kick Murphy got 21. Look out. Lenny gets a nine. Jimmy, the kid gets a 14 and Kevin rolled a seven. All four of these hoodlums pull out improvised weapons, baseball bats, and the like Kevin has a golf club and advance on you. Dropkick Murphys going to go first. He's right up on you. Courage. He's going to try to swing a baseball bat at you. So he gets three attacks, only one of which is going to hit, but you do take eight bludgeoning damage as he smacks you in the shoulder with this baseball bat real hard. And now it is Laura lies turn. She sees this kid hit you with a baseball bat, totally unprovoked, and her eyebrows knit up. She looks very confused for a second and then shifts to pissed off her hand, shoots down to her belt where she has kind of a Voltaren belt bag combo that straps to her leg and out of it, she pulls out a wand. She points it at Dropkick Murphy and says in halted common, my idioms are not good, but I think what I want to say is pick on someone your own size. And she casts reduce on him.
Speaker 1 00:32:13 So his size is reduced by half for the duration of the spell and also his weapons shrink. And he does one D four less damage on every weapon attack. So he has to roll a con save to see if he can, uh, beat this, but no, he can not courage. You see him wind back up with a baseball bat to smack you again. And there's just this. And he shrinks, he goes up into the air because his body got small so fast and then crashes to the ground from the ground. He scrambles back up with his tiny little baseball bat and turns around to his friends and goes, ah,
Speaker 0 00:32:56 The big one's got wicked magic courage. Laughs. And in common says, yeah, take that you Jack.
Speaker 1 00:33:03 Okay. Now it's the next hooligans turn. And he's going to make all three attacks on Laura lie. Only one of which is going to hit. He does four damage. So Lorelei is going to have to make a DC 10, uh, concentration, save to maintain concentration on that reduce spell. Oh yeah, she does it easily. And also I forgot to have her roll on her turn for her wild magic surge. So I'm just going to roll this and hope I don't roll it out one. Nope, she's good. But the DC is now up to a one or a two. The next time she casts a spell for a wild magic surge. So yeah, this kid comes up, tries to swing the bat at Laura, like barely even Knicks her. She kind of just ducks out of the way. Cause she's way bigger than him and courage. Now it is your turn.
Speaker 0 00:33:48 Okay. So with my action, I'm going to cast major armor to raise my AC to 17. And then as a bonus action, I'm going to cast magic stone, Kirsha scoops of a handful of pebbles off the ground and just chucks one at Lenny, the lookout I get plus six to hit. She's going to Chuck this rock and yell, eat this but face. Um, and I roll a 22 to hit. So I'm going to roll one D six plus four, damage nine damage on this child as I just beat him with a rock.
Speaker 1 00:34:31 Okay. You beat him in the head with a rock real good, but it's his turn next. So he's going to roll three attacks on you, but with your major armor, none of them hits. And then Kevin is going to go take his golf club and try to swing at Lorelei three times only one of them hits that's another four damage. So Lorelei has to make a DC 10 constitution check, which she just barely makes. But she's holding that concentration on that reduced spell. And we're back at the top of the order with Dropkick Murphy. Who's going to take his tiny little baseball bat and try to hit you with it some more courage. Okay. One of those is going to hit and he rolled a four, but I get to roll a D four and take away that many damage three. So he does one damage on the die plus three.
Speaker 1 00:35:31 So you only take four damage. He's at like the perfect height to swing this bat and just get you in the cap with it. So it hurts, but it doesn't do a lot of damage. Cause he's tiny. Now it's Laura lies. Turnagain Lorelei observes this scene of this tiny, tiny little boy hitting you in the knee with a baseball bat while his friends flail wildly at her and mostly don't hit in Elvis. She says, oh, this is getting fucking ridiculous. And she casts scatter. So what's going to have to happen is all of them are going to have to make wisdom saving throws. And if they don't make them, she can teleport them anywhere. She wants within 120 feet. So let me just roll for all of them.
Speaker 1 00:36:18 Failure, failure, failure, success. So what she's going to do is she's going to teleport Dropkick, Murphy, look out Lenny and Kevin all the way down to the end of the alleyway. And then with her movement, she's going to run away from the hoodlum that she is engaged with right now, which is going to make her take an opportunity attack. And that is going to hit her nine damage. So let me roll her concentration for that reduce natural 19. She totally keeps concentration. She's going to grab courage and try to haul her back. Using courage is movement as well. She's just trying to get distance from these guys. She looks down at courage and goes, stay behind me. I've got an idea and I'm going to roll on her wild magic surge. She's fine. But the DC just went up again. Now it's a three or lower and she surges it is Jimmy. The kids turn now. But given that he just saw all of his friends get zapped very far away from him. I don't know man. He is 12. I don't think he would bull rush a very powerful magic user. I'm just going to roll a whiz, save for him to maybe overcome his fear. Now he rolled a six. He turns tail and runs after his friends to try to group up with them for safety and numbers and courage. Now it is your turn
Speaker 0 00:38:02 With everybody's full movements. Jimmy, the kid is 60 feet away from courage. She is going to throw both of her other magic rocks at him as a 21 and a 24.
Speaker 1 00:38:15 Those are going to hit roll damage.
Speaker 0 00:38:17 14 damage for Jimmy, the kid as courage yells that's right, run away.
Speaker 1 00:38:23 So the thing is with being teleported 120 feet away to the end of the alley, Dropkick Murphy, lookout, Lenny and Kevin are going to have to all dash to come close to being an attack range of you and they won't make it all the way. So they're all burning their turns to dash to sort of meet Jimmy, the kid in the middle of the alley with a horrible chorus of puberty, crackled battle cries. They run now it's Laura lies turn. She looks down at courage and goes, are they usually this persistent?
Speaker 0 00:38:59 Unfortunately, yes.
Speaker 1 00:39:01 Okay. I've had just about enough of this. She casts reverse gravity centered on the hooligans. So the thing about reverse gravity is that they don't even get to save. They're caught in this 50 foot wide by a hundred foot tall cylinder where the gravity just reverses. Unfortunately this is probably going to affect people in the buildings on either side of the alley as well. But that's a problem for later. All four of these kids shoot up a hundred feet in the air with screams of terror and are just bobbing around slowly in the air, a hundred feet above the ground. You hear screams from the street. As people look up and see these, these four middle schoolers just floating in the air. Lorelei stands under them with her wand, pointed up at them and goes, are we done
Speaker 0 00:40:02 Courage with the vindictive glee of an eight year old girl yells in common? Yeah, take that. Fuckheads
Speaker 1 00:40:10 They are all still just screaming. Dropkick. Murphys starts crying for his mommy. There's a lot of ruckus going on out in the street right now. As everybody stops to look at these floating children and then from the mouth of the alleyway, you hear the clanking of armored boots on the pavement and Hey you kids
Speaker 0 00:40:35 Shit. It's the cops G then
Speaker 1 00:40:38 Laura light blinks.
Speaker 0 00:40:40 What? I don't know. It's something my uncle adore says run
Speaker 1 00:40:48 Smokey had jumped off your shoulder and kind of run off during the combat. But he's back now and right in your ear, you hear him, he owl and go, ah, shit, not the cops. I can't go back to jail. And then poof, he's gone. He just disappears at the thin air. Laura is not dropping that spell by the way, she lets you grab her and pull her off. You take off through the alleys, running down the side streets again. And she goes, um, okay, where are we running?
Speaker 0 00:41:16 I don't know. I'm a kid. You figure something out.
Speaker 1 00:41:20 Um, okay, I'm going to roll perception for Lorelei really quick. Woof, natural 19. You're running down a dark alley right up against the wall of the cavern that can Tara has built in. Lorelei pulls you to a halt outside of a door. There's a big sign on it that says rail tunnel access. She rattles the knob of the door and it's locked. Curses pulls out her wand again and casts disintegrate on the door and it just evaporates into dust. Gonna roll to save on her wild magic surge. She's fine. But the DC went up again.
Speaker 1 00:42:09 She gets you by the back of your dress and goes, we need to hide. Come on in here. Okay. I go with her. The two of you outrun your pursuers and disappear into the subterranean train tunnels of . There's a big staircase down for a while that you're running on. And then it spits you out directly on to a set of train tracks. It's pitch black dark down here. You're relying a hundred percent on your dark vision to see. And your ragged breaths from running through the city. Bounce off this cold stone around you. Lorelei has both hands braced on her knees and is wheezing for breath. As soon as we can get out of here, we are going back to your house. Okay? Okay. Okay. Everything's fine. I'm calm. Everything's fine. Everything's good. Lorelei has both hands kind of hovering up around her head and there's reality, warping magic sort of glimmering between her fingers, but she reins it back in and is able to calm herself down. We'll just wait down here until whoever's looking for us stops. And then we'll go back up and go back to the house and everything's going to be fun. What's that
Speaker 1 00:43:43 Under your feet, you feel a rumbling Laura life frowns and takes a step back. What the hell? And then a massive boom echoes throughout this tunnel. A bellette which you have only seen before in your school books, but you know that they live in the tunnels under Jim Tara shoots up through the rock, this massive stone gray creature with a gaping mosh shoots up through the stone floor of this tunnel. Completely collapses the door. You just walked through behind it and takes a chomp at Lorelei 16. That's going to hit her. So she takes four D 12 plus four damage. So Laura light takes 32 damage. As this monstrous creature comes up through the rock takes a huge bite at her arm opens up like big gash down through her shirt. She screams at the top of her lungs. I'm going to actually have her roll for a wild magic surge again, that just because she doesn't do well with surprises and that freaked her out. Oh my God, She rolled a three. And with her elevated DC for that, she's going to surge. So I need to roll a D 100 and see what happens.
Speaker 1 00:45:29 Okay. So let me check the wild magic surge table, illusory, butterflies and flower pedals flutter in the air within 10 feet of you for the next minute. Well thematically. That's great, but you know, it doesn't do anything cool, like kill the monster. So courage, you see this thing, take a bite out of her. And she shrieks. There's a pulse of that reality warping magic that just erupts out of her. And then there are pretty butterflies and flower pedals floating in the air around her. For some reason, Laura likes scrambles back from this thing, looks at the butterflies and the flower pedals hovering in the air around her and goes, ah, shit, roll initiative,
Speaker 0 00:46:22 19
Speaker 1 00:46:24 Laurel, I got a 10 and the bled got a 10 as well, but Laura has higher decks. So she's going to go before it courage. You are up first
Speaker 0 00:46:37 Courage says don't kill it. They're really very peaceful creatures. They're just hungry. Cause we're enriching on their natural ecosystem and we've wiped out all of their natural prey sources.
Speaker 1 00:46:46 It just tried to eat me
Speaker 0 00:46:49 Well. Yeah, but just knock it out. Um, and then I'm going to cast a guiding bolt. I'm going to roll to hit 24. So that's five D six damage has, I only have second level spell slots as a third level warlock 14 damage. And the next roll to hit attack made on it has advantage.
Speaker 1 00:47:11 And then it is the bullets turn. It is going to roar as you blast it with this guiding bolt and charge up. Try to take a bite out of you. That's a 21 it's going to hit. So that's 40 12 plus four damage. Okay. Well, lucky for you. I rolled a four, a three and two ones. Plus four is 13. So you're still up. That didn't feel good.
Speaker 0 00:47:43 Can I get the bullet to make me a deck safe
Speaker 1 00:47:46 For?
Speaker 0 00:47:47 Okay. So it's going to take 3d 10 damage. As I held, it should be a good, that's going to be 23 damage,
Speaker 1 00:47:57 But now it's your turn.
Speaker 0 00:47:59 Courage is going to yell. Nevermind. You can kill it. And then she's going to roll. First of all, cure wounds on herself to heal up 10 hip points. And then she's going to use her 46 healing from celestial warlock as a bonus action. She gets back another 15 hip points.
Speaker 1 00:48:23 And then we're back down to Lorelei. Lorelei is going to cast a fifth level chaos bolt at this thing. She's going to roll to hit with advantage, which she needed because that is just barely going to hit. And then chaos bolt is funky. So I have to roll 2d eight first to determine what kind of damage it is. Okay. So that's going to be cold damage, which is cool. Cause that's kind of localized bag anyway. So I'm going to roll four more D eight plus a D six.
Speaker 1 00:48:57 She swings her wand out at this bled and a bolt of frosty energy comes out and hits it for 27 damage. I'm going to go ahead and roll for her wild magic surge, but her DC is back down to a one Sheryl deten. She's fine. But now if she rolls a two or lower, she surging again and we're back down to the bullet, who's going to try to take another trumpet, Laura lie, and doesn't hit it, rolled it to so that's only a nine Laurel. I jumps back out of the way cursing, colorfully, and then it is backup to you. Courage.
Speaker 0 00:49:35 I'm at a spell slot. So I'm gonna try to hit it with an Eldritch blast seven.
Speaker 1 00:49:44 No, but that's not going to do it back down to Lorelei. Who's going to cast a fifth level ice knife at the bullet. That's a 25 to hit. So she's definitely going to hit a shard of ice shoots out of her wand and stabs this thing in the shoulder. And a second later explodes into IC shrapnel that blasts it. I'm going to use empowered, spelled a reroll, a couple of those one. Yes. 2, 3, 4.
Speaker 1 00:50:31 Can I roll another six? Cause I, I just did almost max damage. Do I? I don't. I think, I think I should let it ride. So with that usage of empowered spell, she ended up with one below max damage. Lorelei does 39 damage with this ice knife as it explodes in the blitz face. And it just drops to the ground. I'm going to roll a wild magic surge for her. So just let's make sure she's okay. Not 20. She's fine. Her chest is heaving as she keeps her wand leveled at this dead bullet's body and goes, okay. Okay. Everything is fine. Oh, I don't have the juice in me for another disintegrate spell and trying to blast that door back open would probably bring the tunnel down on both of our heads. So let's start walking.
Speaker 0 00:51:36 Um, okay. Courage is going to meekly follow after Lorelei Lorelei. You're walking down this tunnel for a while after a couple of minutes, courage says, so are you sure you're not a super spy? Cause that was really cool. And that seems like something that somebody who's, um, a spy would do.
Speaker 1 00:52:04 I'm not a super spy. I'm just a kid Lorelei snaps before she can kind of regulate how she responds to that. And then stops takes a deep breath, sorry. I'm I'm not a spy. I'm not a hero. I'm not somebody that goes on big fancy adventures. I barely even left my house for most of my life. And then a few years ago, the person, my big brother was supposed to marry left Australia and there was a big deal about it. And my brother got involved with the actual super spice. You know, you don't know Sabine who dropped me off today. She's got a bunch of friends that do all these big, fancy secret missions. And one of them went wrong and my brother died and apparently the Archduke of Australia wanted to kill me. So Sabine had to bring me here. I'm not a super spy and I don't want to be, I'm just a kid and I just want to go home and have things get back to normal. And I know that nothing's ever to be normal again. So what I am is dealing with it, I guess.
Speaker 0 00:53:32 Um, there's a long pause. Courage kind of like wraps her arms around herself. Like she's giving herself a hug. I'm sorry that happened. And I'm sorry I ask and I'm sorry about your brother. I don't know what that would be like, but my, um, and she like winces and she goes, my dad died a couple of years ago and that was really hard. So I'm really sorry that you're sad.
Speaker 1 00:54:14 You don't have to be sorry. Courage. It's not your fault. Let's just get you home. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:54:20 Okay. And you keep walking for a few minutes. Roll perception for me,
Speaker 1 00:54:31 14.
Speaker 0 00:54:33 There's a light coming from further down in this tunnel and there's kind of a weird rumbling in the ground under your feet. Again,
Speaker 1 00:54:44 You know, I've heard about the light at the end of the tunnel before, but this is getting fucking ridiculous run
Speaker 0 00:54:52 Ran where
Speaker 1 00:54:54 I don't know. There's gotta be another door, right? Maybe, maybe we just go back the way we came.
Speaker 0 00:55:02 You hear the slow long whistle of a steam engine down the tunnel and courage says, I, I don't know. I don't know. Shit.
Speaker 1 00:55:15 Fuck dammit.
Speaker 0 00:55:18 Roll wild magic surge for me
Speaker 1 00:55:21 12. She's fine. But her DC's now up to three. There's no way we can just try to flatten ourselves against the wall or anything. Is there
Speaker 0 00:55:32 You don't think so. It's a very narrow tunnel and you've seen the trains that run along the wall around and they're pretty big. If you had to estimate, you could maybe do it, but it would be risky
Speaker 1 00:55:45 And there's no like damaged saver anything. It will kill us. Right? It's
Speaker 0 00:55:51 The train. So yes.
Speaker 1 00:55:52 Okay. I'm going to grab courage and point at the light. That's coming closer. How long is one of those trains? I
Speaker 0 00:56:02 Don't know. I told you I'm not good at math.
Speaker 1 00:56:06 Could I roll something? Just like a history check or something from having seen the trains before? Is this thing shorter than 500 feet long?
Speaker 0 00:56:14 Well, history
Speaker 1 00:56:16 21.
Speaker 0 00:56:18 If you had to estimate. Yeah, you'd say they tend to be shorter than 500 feet.
Speaker 1 00:56:23 Laura like gets courage by her shoulders and squeezes really hard. This is going to be really scary, but I need you to trust me. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:56:32 What are you going to
Speaker 1 00:56:33 Just trust me? I am going to hold her in front of me and wait for the train to get closer.
Speaker 0 00:56:43 There's another long slow whistle. The light turns the tunnel. You see the steam engine bearing down on you. It's getting closer and closer and closer
Speaker 1 00:56:58 Right before it hits us. I cast dimension door.
Speaker 0 00:57:03 Hell yeah.
Speaker 1 00:57:06 I can take up to one willing creature with me. And the range is 500 feet. I'm just going to dimension toward the both of us, the full 500 feet and hope that that gets us behind the train.
Speaker 0 00:57:18 You cast dimension door. The train is bearing down on you. You can feel it getting close to you like the heat of it. Courage, shrieks. And then you are standing in the tunnel unharmed as the train goes the other way.
Speaker 1 00:57:38 Okay. I'm going to roll another wild magic surge 10 fine. But my DC raised again. Okay. DOR DOR. Our next job is to find a door.
Speaker 0 00:57:52 Yeah, romance survival check.
Speaker 1 00:57:56 Uh, that will be a 17.
Speaker 0 00:57:58 You keep walking for a couple minutes and eventually find another one of those rail access doors. And you exit out into the streets of I'm. Again,
Speaker 1 00:58:11 It takes you a while to get back to your house. Courage because you and Lorelei are both a little banged up from that fight with the Boulet and moving pretty slowly, but make it back. You do. And as soon as you set foot through the door, your uncle descends on you like flies on shit. Just yelling one job. I gave you one job. Your one job was to stay in the house. Oh my God. Do you know how worried I have been about you? I thought that you had gotten kidnapped or that Sabine's spy friends had come and spirited you away or, or killed you. I almost had to call your mother from the doorway into the living room behind him. You see a stranger standing there. This really beefy dwarfish dude with a long magnificently, braided ginger beard, all kinds of charms and shit hanging out of it. He's got knuckle tattoos and like really cool ink up one side of his neck, way more wallet chains than any one person needs he over and pats your uncle on the back and goes sweet. Hot kids. Don't respond well to yelling. She's delicate right now. Be gentle. Can't you see she's freaked out.
Speaker 0 00:59:32 Me and Lorelei went on an adventure and almost got eaten by a bullet.
Speaker 1 00:59:36 This guy pauses in the middle of patting your uncle on the back, his eyebrows shoot up almost to his hairline and he goes, all right, you can keep yelling at him,
Speaker 0 00:59:46 Please. Don't um, and then courage looks past the door at this guy and says, hi, I'm courage. Who are you,
Speaker 1 00:59:54 Lorelei. Next to you leans down to whisper in your ear. I'm not the best at reading situations, but remember all that hush money you got paid to not tell your mom about the bear that your uncle brings into the house.
Speaker 0 01:00:07 Yeah, I think that's the bear. Oh, uh, um, and then courage looks at this guy and then says, are you aware, bear
Speaker 1 01:00:24 This guy blinks with a big, awkward, open mouth to smile and goes in different kinds of bags. Uh, my name's Tiberius. I'm a friend of your uncles. He called me cause he was in a little bit of a tough spot, panic and over losing you and needed a little bit of emotional support. And I work with him. I'm a therapist over at the university next to you. Laura lie, snorts under her breath and goes bare Type areas. Pretends. He didn't hear that. And just kind of pats you on the head and stands back up. Your uncle looks like he's been tearing his hair out for the past hour. He's a mess. He just whips around and glares at you. You have stepped in it this time. Courage. When your mother gets home, you are going to know wrath, the likes of which you have never seen before.
Speaker 0 01:01:27 Courage points, that type of areas and says the jig is up old, man. If you rat me out, I'll sing like a tour Dunia and Canary
Speaker 1 01:01:38 Your uncle clams up real quick. He runs a hand back through his hair and kind of stammers a little bit courage. Look, it's not that your mother would have any moral objections to Tiberius and night beating together, but it's just that we've both made some pretty bad dating decisions in our life. So after everything happened with your dad, we sort of made a blood pact to be miserable together forever. And, uh, I didn't do that and I just really don't want to deal with the death glares. So how much do you want?
Speaker 0 01:02:19 She keeps squinting at them for a long moment and then says, just don't tell her about today and we'll call it. Even
Speaker 1 01:02:27 You drive a hard bargain, he sticks a handout,
Speaker 0 01:02:31 Courage shakes it. And then she says, also I still want pastry. I might start crying like any second.
Speaker 1 01:02:39 Okay. You know what I know Sabine asked me to keep you in the house, Lorelei, but apparently that seal has been broken. Who wants muffins?
Speaker 0 01:02:52 I do.
Speaker 1 01:02:54 Laurel. I looks over at you and kind of grins a little bit. Yeah. I could go for a muffin. I'm pretty hungry. Your work up a big appetite, being a super spy And our camera zooms out through the front door of the house as courage, Lorelei adore and Tiberius all walked down the street to go get some baked goods. Courage is going to be a problem when she grows up. Oh yeah, undoubtedly, this was fantastic. I had so much fun and we hope that you guys had fun too. Thanks for tuning into our bonus episode and rest assured we have much cooler things to come
Speaker 0 01:03:44 On. Compelled dog
Speaker 1 01:04:01 Hey, everybody Barry here with the postscript, just clearing up a couple of housekeeping things here at the end of the episode, as always, I'm going to go ahead and plug our social medias. You can find us on Twitter, Tumblr, and Tech-Talk at compel dual. We have a lot of other cool stuff like an official Spotify profile and official website. You could find all of that linked on our various social media profiles. We also host a Q and a live stream every week on our YouTube channels. So if you want to head on over to YouTube and search compelled, dual and subscribed to us over there, we'd love to see you come hang out for that. It's a lot of fun. If you like what you're hearing so far on the podcast and are interested in supporting us. We ask that you consider heading over to patrion.com/compelled dual, where starting at just $2 a month, you get access to all kinds of cool patron perks, including, but not limited to early access to episodes, access to bonus content and exclusive Spotify playlist, and even handwritten letters from your favorite character every month.
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