Down t'Pit

[00:00:07] Welcome, traveler, to the Dungeon of Degeneracy, that pit of pendulums, the Black Fortress. Who dares pit the wits and steel against the dread of the dungeon? If our adventurers face a challenge, they must put their fates in a roll of the dice. Two to six is failure. Ten or greater is triumph. But seven, eight, or nine, that is where chaos lies. Points are given for clever roleplay, ingenious solutions are simply being funny.

[00:00:34] When last we left our heroes, Xanax Moonbeam the Gnome Illusionist and Louis Smallhouse the Gnome Warrior had faced the gladiators in their arena. Having convinced the fighters to rise up against their oppressor and convinced the orcs to kill Lord Bloodbucket, they escaped to the archery contest's bullseye. Unleashing a fearsome minotaur, they won a magic bolt with a caravan attached, which took them to the closest body of liquid, a slime pit far below.

[00:01:01] Now they are mired in the ooze, but they are not alone. Let us tell you a tale of high adventure! Adventurer, introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Jessie Simon, I'll be playing Xanax Moonbeam. Hi, I'm Tom McGrath and I'll be playing Louis Smallhouse. And our guest for this session. Adventurer, introduce yourself. Hello, I'm Fraser Henderson and I'll be playing Kasbad the Wizard.

[00:01:38] So you find yourself in a large dark chamber, a cistern of sorts. It's a stone wall pit slick with ooze. It's a massive chamber. Their little boat is floating on this lake of foul-smelling, viscous, oily, dark green ooze. All around the pit are drainage in, I guess.

[00:02:04] Circular holes from which more of the stuff kind of snotters in. There's the sound of drips echoing. Your caravan begins to sink. Okay, everybody make it... Climb through to the boat end of the caravan boat situation. Oh, this place... This place does not smell good at all. Yeah, thanks for that. Yeah. Wait, you say get onto the boat? If the caravan bit is sinking, hopefully the boat bit will float. That's kind of their whole thing.

[00:02:33] I wanna see what this caravan's got in. Okay. I'll look through the window. How fast are we sinking? Oh, the boat's fine. It's just the caravan's sinking relatively quickly. It's not an aquatic caravan. It's just a caravan. It's made of wood. It's nicely painted. It's now about halfway up. How viscous are we talking? Nineties toy slime. Viscous. Not like modern slime. It's just slicker than that. Tom, you're nodding your head. I know what I'm talking about right here.

[00:03:03] Like Gunshroom, get your own back. Yeah. Louis, I believe we're in the swamp of Nickelodeon. Ha! Fuck! I wish I'd thought that up. You get a point. Thank you. Yeah, but like if I... Like there's some stuff in there. There's some ceramic dogs. There's like some really bad... There's nothing in here. There's just a lot of ceramic dogs and like terrible, terrible furniture.

[00:03:32] So just bad game show prizes. Do you think that's where they dump people to put things that people don't win? Just finish it with weird beige upholstery. Tell you what, Louis, give me a mastery just to see how much you can see. Ah, that's an eight. Eight. Chaos. Fantastic. You look in and yeah, you can see an odd number of Wally Dugs, which seems unusual.

[00:03:58] There is a collection of encyclopedias that are outdated and slightly racist. I can tell that from here, Cap. Yeah, the picture on the front, not good, not good and dwarves would get real upset if they saw it. Yeah, they were released by the Jim Crow Publishing House. It was a real crow, I'll have you know. Oh my God. Oh my God. Do you have to cut that one too now? No.

[00:04:28] And it stays. There are little figurines. There is a little stove that's not very good quality. Nothing's very good quality. But the weight of your tiny little helium filled body pressing on the window just starts sinking even further. Okay, I do think we should hurry. Have you heard your feel of the bad cat prize aquarium? Yeah, nothing good in there. Just, uh, little racist books and trash. Uh, yeah, it's just-

[00:04:55] It's a bunch of crap in there, says Felicity Fishwick Jones. You, you are the little old boy. Uh, come along. Can you help us get into the boat section of this caravan boat? Yeah, okay. I- you just, uh, I- I tell you what, I'll form a bridge with my tiny body. And he just, like, holds onto the back of the boat with his hands and then he holds onto like the window of the caravan with his feet so you can walk across him. He is small enough that you could have just stepped across. Such chivalrous behaviour.

[00:05:24] You don't really see it anymore. Sorry, you couldn't. He's taller than you, Xanax. He's still only about a foot tall, but you're five inches and you just scuttle along his back. I have to ask you, Louie. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I have to ask Louie a question. Louie, am I considered short for a gnome? Uh, there is no short or tall. It's just- Well, you're clearly tall for a gnome. You're the gnomey priant of the gnome world. I'm like, how big am I?

[00:05:53] Like two, three foot? Yeah. And I'm five inches. Doesn't that feel like a huge height disparity? Who cares? Oh, okay. I just- I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing. I was just wondering if I was some of the- Who cares? You're on a sinking caravan. Can we just get on the fucking boat? Wow, okay. I've never seen this side of you before. The get shit done side of Louie. You know, it's just been a long day.

[00:06:22] Like, I had to throw that rock away. I realize now. Yeah, poor- Poor Gort. Yeah, probably shouldn't have thrown that rock. You met that elf? Yeah. I- Bit of a bitch actually. Yeah, I had to bring up my orc law degree. It's been a day. A long day. Not many days are filled with gladiatorial arenas. Well, only in the day before was filled with us getting baked into a giant pie. And that was awesome.

[00:06:52] Today has not been a good day. A point for Louie. Okay, I do understand. I do understand. As you're climbing into the boat, there's a fourth person in here. There are no good days in the slime pit. Oh! Hello! What the fuck? Don't mind me. Just hitching a ride. I turn to the little gnome we brought with us and I say, Did he always come with the boat? Were we blind before?

[00:07:21] I just turn cranks and-and help people out of boats. Don't ask me nothing. Yeah, I'm gonna call you, uh, Cranky, because I care not for the life of me remember your name. Or if we even gave you a name. I'm just happy to go with Cranky for the-for the rest of this adventure, if that's okay. Ah, good, good. Where's that voice coming from? In here. From the side of the-

[00:07:43] From the side of the caravan I'll emerge a tall and sort of extremely gaunt, thin, hunger-starved wizard, covered in slime. Wonderful. Oh my god! It's the creature from the slime lagoon! Do you know Slippy Jilly? The rain passes me by, I'm afraid. It's all a bit foggy down here. It's just that the only other person we've met in the pool of slime. Oh, I don't even know if that was slime. Wait a minute. It was very dark.

[00:08:13] There's a guy underneath that slime? What, did you think we were talking to sentient slime? Yeah, yeah. Hold on, hold on. Not the weirdest thing we'd talk to. Wipe the slime out of my eyes. Oh look, there's a man! Ah, yeah, yeah. How do you do? That guy has a soul. Are you saying sentient slime doesn't have a soul? Oh yeah, yeah, but like I can see into his eyes. Almost like they're a window to that soul. Eyes pointing in different directions.

[00:08:41] Yes, many slime creatures down here, none with souls. How do two gnomes such as yourselves, three gnomes such as yourselves, find yourselves down here in the pit? It's been quite some time since I've seen another friendly face. So you don't happen to have any food on you, do you? Oh, rather peckish. Uh, let's, let's have a look here. If you have any chocolate buttons, please give them to him. I can't stand the sight of them anymore.

[00:09:11] I ran out of chocolate buttons. Chocolate buttons? It's been eons since I've had a chocolate button. I'm just giving you a point, because I'm enjoying this voice so much. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha. Nope. No buttons. No buttons. Well, perhaps you would care for a mouse? To eat? Or as like a pet? Up to you really, to be honest. They're, they're, it's about all the roost down here. Excellent conversation, but they are quite nourishing.

[00:09:40] Oh, I didn't realise you spoke mouse. I don't, they're just sort of gesture really. Um, it's been a, it's been a very long time since somebody's been down here. I'll be totally, totally honest with you. And yet your, your facilities are impeccable. Thank you. Impeccable, right? That's what you get when you talk to mice for 12 hours a day for the last three months. Oh gosh, three months, how did you end up down here? Well actually, well you are sorry, I'm very rude. You asked us how we arrived.

[00:10:09] Yes, what are your names? Oh yes, sorry, I'm, I'm Xenix. Xanax Moonbeam. And this is my- I'm Louis Smallhouse. Louie. Pleased to meet you. Good to meet you, Louie. And you? And I'm Cranky. Cranky. Yes, he's Cranky. Apparently. I'm still not entirely sure how, but we ended up in a game show and now we're here. Hence the boat caravan, which I won. Yes, a tale as old as time. A common occurrence, I'm sure.

[00:10:39] Dreadful business, really. But how did you- What, three months? It's been some time, yes. I went over on my ankle. Fell down a crack and now we're here. So the walls are quite hard to scale. Three months, so you've kind of been trapped due to an injury for almost 127 deaths. Yes. Quite some time. Listen, shall we maybe leave this caravan? The slime's coming in the windows. Yeah, I think the boat. The boat. Let's do the boat.

[00:11:08] I'm already on the boat. Like, come on. Get over. Are we fine? I tell you what, can Xanax and Kasbad please both roll mastery for me? Uh, that's a seven. Chaos. That is a seven. Two chaos rolls. Wonderful. As you clamber out, there's a disturbance in the slime. A churning. A movement.

[00:11:34] Louie, the boat moves and it's not because of people climbing into it. Something has bumped the hull from below. No. Oh bugger. Kasbad? Uh, do you know what this is? What's doing that? It's the slime people. We must go. The slime people? Oh boy, I want to hear more about that. Mmm. Well, you don't need to hear necessarily.

[00:12:02] Why, are they in one of the racist encyclopedias? Almost certainly and I bet they're called slimies. The gunge sort of rises up out of itself with this vaguely humanoid shape. And then another, and another, and another. There's about a dozen of them now that you can see. What would you like to do? Is there anything on this, anything on this boat? Is it a power boat? Is it powered by magic or something? No, it's got a sail.

[00:12:33] A sail? Yep. Is there any wind? No. Oh. Quick, Louie, get out and push. Uh, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I think you should get out and push. Are you telling me that on this game show, they were giving away a sailboat to people who dwell in a place that has no wind? Yep.

[00:13:00] Famously underground, no wind. Hey, Louie, Louie, do you remember the other prizes? um do you remember them being any good? No. Well, what did we expect? I'm just annoyed that maybe some form of engine or something like that could really help us out now. Look, don't pick it apart. You've got a sailboat for God's sake. Well, I do. Beggars can't be choosers, Louie. And I'll have you, I'll have, I'll remind you that I won the prize, not you.

[00:13:29] And it was your doing that ended up here. What are you expecting to do with this sail? Blow on it? Like, how are we meant to get out of this one? Is, is, are there any, um, rocks or, like, coast or anything that we can see nearby? In fact, how well lit is the entire, is there light? Are we in the dark? There are two points of light.

[00:13:52] One of them is the hole that you fell down, which is, it's really, really hard to judge distance, but it's maybe a hundred foot above you. And while there are many, many circular openings, quite small, definitely not human sized, that is sloughing fresh slime of some kind into the cistern. There is one large opening, human sized.

[00:14:19] It's a kind of ramp with a little river of gunge running down it, the heads up. And there is a light at the top of that, very, very dim. And as you're looking, all the slime things turn in unison and follow your gaze and then they all turn back. They don't have any facial features, but you get the sense they're looking at you. One of them goes, You will be lost!

[00:14:48] Louis, I believe that was asked to you. What? Sorry, I was, I was looking at the light at the end of the tone. Joke the slime! No, we must go. Please. Joke the slime! For the last three months floating on barrels to leave. How deep is this slime? You have no idea, but how tall are you? Six foot something, I suppose. It's steeper than seven foot something. Oh god.

[00:15:17] Oh, oh. Hmm, no. Okay. If I wanted to change, like, use magic to transform the nature of the slime, what level spell would that be? I'm gonna say probably crushing. I'm trying to find something that isn't going to kill us all. So, slime people! Yes? Yeah, yeah. You say, join the slime. Join the slime!

[00:15:46] How, how is it down there? All are one in the slime. All are one. All are one. Like, like, that's not an adjective as to how, how good it is. Slick! Slick? Would you describe yourself as happy? There is no joy in the slime. Would you like to be happy? There's no joy in this boat either, I'll tell you that.

[00:16:14] Uh, but, uh, in all seriousness, I think we should probably get out. No! That slime is not like fun. No! You won't like the slime! And they start rocking the boat. Okay, fine. Fuck it. I am going to see if I can solidify the slime. Yay! Please, roll magic. That is a ten. A ten.

[00:16:42] Now that's crushing levels, so I'm guessing you're going for permanent? Yeah. Okay. As they are starting to reach towards you... Would that be too cruel? No! I don't want to go for like an hour. No! Fuck the slime people! Let's go! Okay, permanently. You nailed the spell! What sol... Are you just solidifying the slime or are you turning them into...

[00:17:09] Uh, I'm thinking it's kind of almost like a ripple effect from where I am, as if it was Medusa-y, where it all just kind of turns into slime stone. Okay, fantastic. Yes! In a matter of moments, as they start reaching towards you, one of the long, tendril-like, wet hands reaches out and Justice is about to grab you. It solidifies.

[00:17:38] You can see the solidification moving up the arm, the body. It spreads out. They begin to look at each other. They begin to panic. There is nowhere to run. It continues out. It starts to continue up the walls, up the pipes, up the ramp. Within a matter of about a minute. I'm gonna get out of the boat and tap my fist on the... Yes, I think we can just walk there. That's some plumbing job.

[00:18:07] You'll have a real, real hard time taking a poo. Do you know what? Because Xanax passed that, Xanax is the one that's gonna notice the light at the top of the ramp starts moving. Moving how? Imagine if a lantern was in a table, it's static, and suddenly someone picked it up and started moving around. Ah. But the strength of the light starts becoming quite erratic. You can hear movement, you can hear voices. Oh.

[00:18:37] Like, uh... kind of like when astronomers spot exoplanets and the light sort of shifts. Yes. Yes, it is exactly like exoplanets. That's something I studied at Nome University. I do not doubt that. Was it an elective to the Orc Law course? Yeah, there was advanced astronomy and Orc Law. Looking for...

[00:19:06] rich moons on which to find more moons. Yes. That is a fringe theory. Not yet proven. There are voices getting louder. And they don't sound happy. Hmm. Well, they don't sound happy. Hello up there! Hello! Oh God, Louie, every time. Is there someone down in Slime Pit? No. Well, it's not really a slime pit anymore, it's just a sort of... Cabin. Stone pit. Yeah, cavern.

[00:19:36] Stone pit. Oh, it's a bloody disaster! Are you alright? Yes, whatever happened? That was... so insane. Hold on, hold on! We'll come and get yous! Guys, do not tell them that I did this. Right, so a solid five minutes later, you see the shapes coming down the tunnel. Imagine an eight-foot-long slug. They're sort of... Some of them are kind of brownish, mortal, dark green, some of them are jet black.

[00:20:03] They have two eye stalks on the top of their head with big eyes. Their mouths have kind of feeding tendrils either side, and a lot of sharp teeth inside. They have two little kind of pseudopods sticking directly out the front of them, and they wear a belt around their... Well, not a waist, just midway down. They have sparrows around them, just around the sort of midsection of the slug. And they are moving... Some of them are on the walls, some of them are coming down the ceiling.

[00:20:32] But they're moving very fucking slowly. One of them's got a rope. It's covered in slime. And they're just... They're slowly moving down the ramp, and they're looking around. They've got lanterns. They're in a state of distress. Um, do they look mundane other than the fact that they're giant slugs? By mundane. Do you mean they don't have magic? They're not like a fire slug or an earth slug or a...

[00:21:01] Right. Right, I get you. Slime slugs, I guess. No, they're just... Slug. Regular slugs. Slug. Yes, slug. Uh, have I, um... Uh, met these slugs before, have I? Probably not. I've maybe not made enough of a ruckus down here to attract their attention. All the slime turning to stone, however, has immediately caught their attention. And they seem... they seem quite upset. Hello boyos!

[00:21:29] Uh, thanks for coming down to, uh, to rescue us. Don't worry about it, mate. Here's some rope. You can just keep it. Oh, thank you for the... Keep the rope? In event of an emergency, we'd throw some rope down to anyone that was caught in slime. But... but... You can just walk out now, so you can just keep the rope. No more slime. No more slime. It's a disaster! Wait, if you do that in case of emergency if somebody's caught in the slime, this gentleman here was stuck on the slime for three months before it's solidified.

[00:21:57] Three months, my good man. What? I have shouted for days until my voice went hoarse. Oh! We thought that was the slimies. Right, oh, we're real... Sorry mate. The slimies. What's their deal, man? Well, they're statues now. What was their deal? They're now dead. The gruser says. The whomst, sorry? The gruser. Again, I have no idea. The gruser. Gruser. That's right. A gruser.

[00:22:25] You, you, you yourselves must surely have a gruser. You know, important person. In charge. Tells you what to do. Like me! You the gruser! I'm the gruser, yeah. He's not the gruser. No, he's not the gruser. He's absolutely not the gruser. Oh, lads, lads, we've got a gruser! Hello, I'm the gruser. No, he's not a gruser. He's not the gruser. He doesn't speak for the group. Well, the gruser has to speak for the group. Who's gonna be the gruser then? I don't see you stepping forward.

[00:22:53] Oh, you don't think I'm more in charge of the two of us than you are? I am the tallest and therefore I am the gruser. I ain't gonna argue with that. He does have a valid point there. Right, lads, that one's the tall one's gruser. We're sorry, gruser. We didn't mean to leave you down here. But our gruser says when things die in the slime, the souls become trapped in it and become part of it. Oh, fuck. I bet you feel really silly now.

[00:23:24] Well, sometimes they try and trick us and they shout, Hell, am I not falling for it again? So, um, just out of interest... But you have the rope just in case. Yes, how many times have you used the rope? Well, frankly, normally when people fall in, right? Normally when they fall in, they're dead before we get there. Even on rapid response. Are you telling me this is the first time you've used the rope and you don't even need it? That's why we let you keep it. It's proved useless.

[00:23:52] Normally all we do is fish the corpses out. And that's alright. If a corpse were to degrade in slime, right? It would ruin it. It would be contaminated. So we just fish the corpses out, really. Well, I'll take the rope. You can keep me a slick rope. Why, that looks about a hundred feet. Oh! You think I'm going back up top? That's not gonna work. What? You're gonna have to come with us. Come on. Up you go.

[00:24:20] As I said, you gentlemen know a way out. Or perhaps some... You have maybe a morsel of food. Oh! Oh, we do, we do. He had been here for three months. Three months? And you didn't rescue him. I've been eating mice. Mice? Little bastards. Little bastards. And I'll have you know my friend here, Mr. Louis Smallhouse, is an actual factual lawyer. Yes. A lawyer? Yes.

[00:24:48] I specialize in Orc law, but have known... have been known to do other cases. What I'm saying is, is that our... you know, our friend here was trapped down for three months, and you didn't rescue him, despite his calls for help, and we now have a lawyer as you're taking us to see your cruiser. Well, that's right. But obviously, if you, if you're famished, we can provide you with freshest green. When you say green. When you say green.

[00:25:18] Green. Green, that's right. Freshest green. Soylent green? No, a feast. Oh, oh. A feast. It'll put, it'll put slime on your chest. You're, you're big fans of slime, are you not? Oh, it's, it's our entire economy, it is. So, sorry. So, sorry, it's your economy. So, have we just frozen your treasury?

[00:25:47] We haven't done anything. We did not do it anyway. I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, the, uh, sudden magical phenomena have rendered your treasury unusable. Could you believe it? I? It was her. And so the adventure continues, but that is a tale for another time. Our foolhardy Dungeoneers of Beam.

[00:26:15] I have been Jessie Sy playing Xenix Moonbeam. I have been Tomograph and I've played Louie Smallhouse. And I've been Fraser Henderson playing Kazbat the wizard. The dungeon was mastered by Alex Garrick-Wright. The master of orcs was Russell Arthur. What madness lies ahead? Only time may tell. Remember travelers to keep your ropes slick and your pits slimy. And, as ever. Hail, Hail, Hail, Hail.

[00:26:45] Oh, and what was the name of the, the, was it a door for a gnome who, uh, we, we took with us? I honestly don't remember. Okay. Cause we did take a character with us. I'm just, I'm telling you this now that there is another character and I think it's a gnome. Thanks. There was a, there was a radicalized gnome. Fuck. I have no idea what that character's name is. Right. Nobody addressed this.

[00:27:14] Nobody addressed this gnome by name. Okay. I think I asked you to name him last session. Yep. So I don't know if you want to double check if you have that anywhere in your notes. I absolutely fucking do not know. I'd have to literally listen to, it was the last two minutes. So, you find yourselves, Louie and Xanax, and I'm going to dub the gnome's name in here when I find it out, okay? And I'm going to... So if we call them by name... I will dub my... You can dub it every time. I will dub... Don't you fucking dare.

[00:27:44] Don't you fucking dare. I'd rather ask up front so they don't give you too much work. I will, but it'll be my voice and it will be a different sound quality. That's so funny though. That's really funny. It'll be like, hey, what do you... Sean. I might even get someone else to do it. This podcast is part of Podomedy, the UK's Podcast Comedy Network.

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