Eel Pipe

[00:00:06] Hail Chaos! If you are new to our quest, go to episode 8.1, Doubt Pit. Hello, this is Kazbad the Wizard, and this is what happened last time on the Hail Chaos podcast. Let me break it down for you. I spent three months in a slime pit eating mice from my pocket and fending off slime people with a stick.

[00:00:30] When all of a sudden my chance at freedom arrived, when a boat with a caravan hitched to the back fell from the ceiling. There were three gnomes inside, and they were all arguing. The smallest gnome had the bright idea to turn all the slime into stone, which caught the attention of the slug people who came to rescue us all. Let's see what happens next.

[00:00:54] We haven't done anything. We did not do a damn thing. So mental. Could you believe it? It was her. Point for Louis. I'm just trying to work out who to make roll for this.

[00:01:24] I'll tell you what, I have Sabo Afe. And Snake Tongue. Okay, I will let you roll mastery with advantage. That's an 11. 11? A success. Is the lawyer joking? That's not funny. That's not funny. This was precious slime. This was best goo. And what a tragic accident has befallen your goo. Have you any idea how long it would take to get such a fine blend of goo?

[00:01:52] The gruser's going to be a right man. Tell you what, maybe perhaps. And I'm making no promises. We go, we meet the gruser. We meet the gruser. You feed our friend. We get to know each other. And I'm a bit of a magician myself. And perhaps I can re-slime your slime. Yes, with our combined power. You think you can re-slime our slime? Well, that would be most appreciated. Yeah. Well, good up real good.

[00:02:21] Hey, you're all right, you lot. Come on, let's get you up ramp. And we'll get you some fresh green. Okay, Cranky, Cranky. Do you want to stay by the boat and just look after it for us while we're away? I feel like that's a suicide mission. Because if you turn it back into slime... Godspeed, gruser. Louis, Louis.

[00:02:46] We have just liberated him from the chains of the oppressors and the ubermensch. He must make his own decisions. He has been given the gift of freedom and seizing the means of production. Cranky. Yeah? You've sworn your fealty, have you not? I cast my fealty off. I am no man's... He is a free gnome. I go where I choose. I refuse to be shackled by the conventions of society.

[00:03:16] And he takes all his quotes off. He is not an umper. He is a free gnome. Always wearing his little pointed red hat. Society has no place for Cranky anymore. I'm going to make my own way in the world. Thank you, Louis Smallhouse. All he's wearing is his hat? Yes. You see what happens, Xanax? You see what happens? Now we've got a naked gnome running around. We don't have anything. We don't own him. Oh, we don't.

[00:03:44] But there's just a naked gnome running around. Did you really want to see that? And that's none of our problem. What is there to see? We're all candles down there. Definitely. Perhaps it would make him feel more comfortable if we all took our clothes off. Okay, a point for Kazbad. Kazbad, you get a point for suggesting it.

[00:04:11] I'm going to give you another point if Kazbad totally strips off. By the time he's finished the sentence. As you were saying it, just pulling it closer. Another point for Kazbad now. Everyone can see his magic wand. Oh gosh, you really haven't eaten, have you? No. This is what a diet of mice gets you. I keep the hat on. That's fair, that's fair. You can be naked. How will people know you're a wizard without a hat?

[00:04:40] Well, exactly. Truly naked without my hat. That was the whole point of that famous bard song. You can leave your hat on. How else would people know if your weapon can be orgy? Okay, another one for Xanax. God. Do you guys want to go with the slug people? Yes. That's what I want to do. I'll leave it out to the board. Right, come on you lot. This is all. We hope you can fix this. Otherwise, it's a disaster for the slugs.

[00:05:10] Is Clanky just running around in the distance naked? He is running around. And you know, I said there were many pipes that come in here. Well, the slime's all solidified up that. He turns around and he raises a tiny little fist in defiance. And he goes, It's been a pleasure knowing you, but now I seek my own path. And he just gets into one of the pipes and slides up it. And he sees his little feet disappear. Well, that solves their problem. Wish I could do that. God, gnomes are weird.

[00:05:41] Mostly your fault, Tom. Yeah, internalized gnome racism. Nah, nah. You know, it's been a pretty rough day and I'm just sort of taking in everything. And, you know, when you see a little guy squeeze through a little hole, it's a bit, sometimes it's a bit much. Well, you manage to walk up the ramp and you emerge into a chamber. A room. Now, this room has a, how do I put this? There's sort of a channel through the room.

[00:06:11] So there's another ramp on the other side. And down that ramp comes a channel which has solidified slime in it. Which seems to connect to a small pool in the middle of the room. Also solidified slime. And from that, the channel goes and then goes down into the big old gunge pit. Now, here there are some tables. There are lanterns filled with fireflies. There's a kind of vaguely phosphorescent moss growing on the ceiling. So you can see relatively well in here.

[00:06:40] There is what appears to be a feasting table absolutely covered in dark green leaves. Which are being placed down by a slug wearing a chef's hat. I turn to Louis and I just say, damn, I'm really upset we lost those drugs I had. This would have been great. Oh, well, well, I'm sorry about that. But we've got some upper fork food for your dessert. Oh, then what's for the main? Fish green. You'll need to eat that before you go before the grocer.

[00:07:08] Because she'll want to talk to you to find out how we fix the slime. Seeing as, you know, you didn't cause it. But you might be able to help. I think we might be able to help, yeah. If you had done it. If you had done it. She'd slop you down a real pipe. Her what now? She'd slop you down her real pipe. Her eel pipe? They turned to Casbah and go, you're the gruser. You must surely slop bad doers down your real pipe.

[00:07:37] Oh, I slop plenty of eels down my pipe. Right, see? It's a gruser thing. You're not high born. That's your problem. Well, thank goodness we didn't do it because I'd have to have to slop her pipe. Right. Hold on a second. Dumpling! Dumpling! Have a look through the stuff, the detritus and see if you can find them, what you call them? Sweets? In one of the other slugs. There's a big pile of crap in the corner.

[00:08:06] Like, it's all sorts of weird assorted stuff. There's armor. There's arms. It's all gooey. There are musical instruments. There are several human corpses. And it goes up and he starts fishing around. And then he pulls out and holds aloft. Xanax's bag of wild magic candies. The drugs! Knew we had some. All kinds of shit washes up down here. Wait, wait.

[00:08:35] Is there a bag of chocolate buttons? And is there a very special pebble? Both of you roll maybe. Well, if stuff falls down pit, falls down chasm, it usually winds up in one of the gunge pits. Yes. That's a six. I got an eight. Chaos. Okay. Yes, you find Gorch's pebble. Yeah. Look, Louie, there it is. The very special pebble. However, it moves. Louie, what did you do to Gorch's pebble? It starts rocking.

[00:09:05] Louie? Okay, well, I'm going to take that and put it in my pocket. It's warm. How warm? There's something moving in it. And it's warm. What's in this? What's your ear to it? Does it sound like it might be an egg? Hello? There's something moving inside it. It might actually be an egg. Okay? Is this how Gorch reincarnates every time? I pop it on the ground and stamp on it. What? Oh, wow. Okay, point for Louie. What?

[00:09:36] Wow. It splats and inside is the now dead embryo. Oh, crap. Louie. Well, all I heard. I panicked. I panicked. I'm going to be honest. I panicked. There was a stone. It said it might be an egg. I was carrying that thing. It literally said it was an egg. I was carrying that thing for so long. I had no idea it was an egg. So the moment it started moving, I forgot eggs were a thing.

[00:10:07] But I said it. But I said it. You spent too much time in the pit. Yeah. I blacked out. It's pretty mashed up. Well, okay. Well. Does anyone practice healing magic? I'm not familiar. Yeah. That wasn't quite my forte when I was. Me neither. Easy come, easy go. Let's have some of this green. That's right. You come and get freshest green. If you break slime with us, that's you, friends. Right. Get around in. Get around in, lads. Get around in.

[00:10:38] Weto. Get some pints. So you sit down at the feast table. And they find some stools and a big pile of crap. They just stand around the table. They're sort of slug up on rocks. And they just lean forward. And their little mouth tendrils just start pushing the leaves into their mouths. The slug referred to as weto comes around with several pints of slime. Jeez. Can I inspect it before I drink it? Yeah, sure.

[00:11:07] Roll mastery, I guess. That's a 12. A 12. I mean, it doesn't appear to be like evidently toxic. It is a very oily liquid. It is some kind of slime. You suspect it's probably biological in origin. How does it smell? Delicious. It smells kind of sweet. I'm already halfway down my pants. Okay, I follow suit. It has the consistency of like double cream.

[00:11:35] And it's got a vaguely vanilla-ish flavour. And it's warm. It's actually kind of nice. And all the slugs start cheering. And it's like, oh, that's make slugs out of you yet. Look at that. I've never seen up a fork down a height of Groo's zone like that. This isn't actually going to turn us into slugs, is it? Yeah. It's kind of ominous, yeah. Sorry, sorry. Bit of a slug joke. Sorry.

[00:12:03] Let's just roll that one back. Groo's his own? Yeah, Groo's his own. Oh God, it is the slam situation. Surely you yourself excrete sustenance for your underlings as a Groo's. Yes. He ain't done it yet. I keep them on a tight leash here. Yes. Well, um...

[00:12:29] If you want to provide some of your own, we'll all drink it. And we'll call it cultural exchange. Yes. Xanax, I believe they want me to piss in a cup. Go on. Do it. Um... Uh... Uh... He needs a... a modicum of privacy to... All right.

[00:12:57] I'm sure your Groo's doesn't excrete in front of you. I mean... What's wrong? Is there a room that I could... You can drag your own piss for somewhere. We'll look away. And all their eye stalks just point straight up at the ceiling. I'm going to grab one of the tank hoods that they've provided, and I switch places with mine as if it's...

[00:13:21] I'm effectively using their own slime to bamboozle them into believing that it was me who produced it. Coward. I'm not pissing in a cup. I want you to roll mastery for me, please. Very well. Mr. High and Mighty over here doesn't want to piss in a cup. Um... Mastery. Eleven. Eleven? Eleven. Oh, you're quite badly dehydrated.

[00:13:50] But you re-slime the tankard and hand it to a... I take my tankard and I pour his slime into it and then... Yep. Hand it back and all their eye stalks point back down. You hand it to the one that has been called Dampling. Premium stuff there, Dampling. And he drinks and swishes up out his mouth and goes, Hey! It tastes just like our Gruzer! I'm wondering if we're related. Are you one of the royal family? Yes.

[00:14:20] Oh... Resoundingly, yes, I am that. You don't look well. Your saddles! Your saddle's barely there! Your eye stalks are short! But you've had a member of the royal family trapped on your slime for three months! Oh, Gruz is going to be... I tell you what, by way of apology, let's give them something special to go with green. All right, lads? Get the caviar! And one of them goes, Oh! The caviar!

[00:14:48] And he moves really slowly up the ramp and then about ten minutes later he comes back down with a big platter with these kind of luminous green globular eggs. And they set it down. They set it down in front of you. Oh, gentlemen, this is such a lovely gesture, but I'm honestly quite stuffed from all that slime. I freak out, pick one up, throw her on the floor, step on it. I'm going to give Blue a point for that. Kazbad, what are you doing? I'm vegetarian.

[00:15:17] Ah, so you're just going to eat the green? Yes, thank you, gentlemen. That was a very kind gesture. Okay, so just to be clear here, Xanax hasn't eaten anything. Louis took an egg and stamped on it. And Kazbad's not eating the eggs, but he's eating the green. I shall eat the green. I had some of the green. I had a little bit of green. But I'm just a little, little bit of gnome. I got a little, little bit of tummy. I'm going to give you a point for that as well. Nice job embracing the gnome-ness.

[00:15:49] Okay. Kazbad, as you start wolfing down greens and Xanax, you take a little bit. They're all kind of taken with Louis throwing the egg down and stamping on it. And they all burst out laughing. It's so much. Oh, you stood up for yourself like a good slug. We like that. No, of course we weren't going to make you eat it. It's slug... Slug egg, slug food. That's not going to be good for you. And then they notice Kazbad has eaten some of the green.

[00:16:19] And Xanax has eaten some of the green. And they all go really quiet. And one of them goes... Nobody's actually done that before. Uh, why? Well, we don't... Normally they say, no, we're not going to eat... We're not going to eat your wet leaves. And we'd just leave it at that. Look, I've not eaten anything in three months. This is such an improvement. And I was raised to be polite. Well, um...

[00:16:49] Right. We might have a problem then. Could you both roll mic for me? That's a three. Oh, fuck. Uh, eight. Three and an eight. Fantastic. Yeah, once it hits your stomach, Xanax, it starts churning. And you vomit. Three! No other ill effects. You just vomit. And one of the slugs is patting you on the back. Your back's now all slimy. Um, as a gnome, is it... Does it... Is it rainbow?

[00:17:19] Yes! A little rainbow-covered vomit comes out of you. Wow. I cannot believe there's more lore. There's more... More to be uncovered. Yeah, they're going... Oh, sorry. It was... We always tell people to eat the green. And no one's ever done it. And it kind of took us by surprise that you didn't be really sorry. We don't... We didn't... It's probably not suitable for you, little Tommy.

[00:17:47] Whereas, Kazbad, you rolled an eight, which is chaos. Weto goes... We don't know what that might do. Um, are you okay? And you know what? The answer to that is going to depend on what happens when you roll 1d6. Because you're going to roll on the fresh greens table. The fresh greens table. Wait, is that both of us? Or just... No, you vomited. Yes, okay. You rolled chaos. Which is a roll on the fresh greens table? Uh, five. Five?

[00:18:17] You start sweating. You start getting clammy. But it's not sweat. It's slime. Oh, no. You start oozing slime out of every pore in your body. I whisper... I whisper to Kazbad, I'm like, actually, this kind of works in our favour if we're trying to convince them you're a member of the family. The family royal. Well, actually, you're quite right. Quite right. I see. Where did you pull this from, gentlemen? When you've got a slime pipe, right, slime goes down the bottom and the fresh green grows along the top.

[00:18:47] Right. So we harvest it, and we eat that, and sometimes we get fancy greens from up above. A rare delicacy. In fact, since you were apparently royalty, because look at you, you've got a good chain on you now. Oh, look at that one. He's reflective. Look how reflective he is of the light. And they're all kind of holding the lanterns going... Hey, he's wet. Standing naked in the centre of the room. Look, he's even got a little slug downstairs. Stayes.

[00:19:16] We're going to get the good stuff. Someone go up and ask Grubzer if we can get the special stuff. I think that's all right. Look, if I might have a moment with my companions... Your Majesty, we'll leave. And they all move at like a mile an hour. Very good. Be gone. I think they're trying to turn us into slugs, I'll be perfectly honest with you. Yeah. I've been wondering when we're going to leave. I would quite like to go. Yeah. Do we just leave now?

[00:19:45] Are there any other exits to this chamber? The only other exit is the ramp upward that... The slugs are currently going up. Yeah. Okay. This is a weird question. Mm-hmm. So we're in the cave situation. Yeah. Do any of these rocks look salt-based? Yeah. That's fun. Roll maybe. Is there anything in the pile? No. That's an eight.

[00:20:15] An eight. I keep rolling a six and a one. So if you read. You start rummaging around in this room. And indeed, in the pile is a little bag of rocks salt. Oh, okay. This could come in handy. Because, look, it would be good to get out. But perhaps this gruser has information we could use. Like about the man in the wide-brimmed hat, Louie. Ooh.

[00:20:43] Or just how to get back on path. I think both. I think we should... Let's just go past the slugs and get to the gruser. Is there anything made of copper in this pile? Oh, interesting. Do you know what? I'm actually just going to say yes. Yeah, you will find copper coins at very least. I shall take a handful of copper coins. Absolutely. Feel free to. Is there any vinegar?

[00:21:12] You're going to roll maybe for that one. Copper coins, I can dig. Vinegar, interesting. I got an eight. I heard you can just make vinegar if you stroke it. Oh! What? Wow. Stroke what? Well, why else is it called vinegar strokes? I don't understand what she's saying. Nor do I. I heard you go blind. And grow hair and back your hands. Yes.

[00:21:42] Stroke what? That's where lycanthropes come from. I see you two were raised in the church. Wow. Do you know what? Someone brought weirals up in a previous episode. session. I was wondering what to do with them. And I think you've just answered that question. Oh, no. Anyway, before we press ahead, Louis, you rolled a chaos roll there. Yeah. You do find a little bottle of vinegar, but as you pick it up,

[00:22:11] you see a familiar face in the pile. It's me! Your mighty steed! And so the adventure continues, but that is a tale for another time. Our foolhardy dungeoneers have been... I have been Jessie Simon, playing Xenex Moonbeam. I have been Tom McGrath, and I've played Louis Smallhouse.

[00:22:39] And I've been Fraser Henderson, playing Kazbad 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 greens fresh, and your eye stalks shot. And, as ever... Hail chaos!

[00:23:08] And, whoa, some bonus content about the Dungeons & Dragons game Jesse and Alex play in. Right. Bold time to play it risky when you're in a dragon's mouth. Honestly, I think she was just tired of that fucking character. Yeah, and I don't blame her. It's often bad when the player messages you and goes, I've made a character, and I hate him, and you'll hate him too. And I'm sitting there looking at my phone going, is that a good thing? I think it's that bad. We all hated him. But it was for the bit. It was. It's for a laugh.

[00:23:38] Not as much for a laugh as this is. Some people do take D&D questions. This is just shits and giggles. She introduced her character as having a pillow girlfriend, right? And so we all assumed this was like a proper body pillow. You know, with a girl on it. Time goes on. We end up in a town, and Claire is like, oh, Uzi wants to know where the tailor is. And so we go to the tailor, and he's like, yeah, I want my girlfriend to have a new cover. And we were like, okay.

[00:24:06] At which point we find out it's not like a body pillow. It's just a pillow. There was no face drawn on it for any means. Nothing. That's sex months. We'd all assumed it was an anime girl body pillow. Or like the medieval equivalent of, you know, like sexy tapestry body pillow. It was just a pillow. I appreciate the long joke. Yeah. A pillow that could stand upright. The long gag. Yeah.

[00:24:35] Because it was not magic in any way. But the pillow could stand upright. That's all I'm going to say on that one. Interesting piece of world building though, isn't it? The body pillow made from a tapestry instead of like, yeah. You know what? I could roll with that. But when she started bringing it up and I had to do this whole role play as these like dwarven haberdashers who are getting increasingly uncomfortable with the demands that, you know, the fabric needs to be a bit more rugged.

[00:25:05] So it's like, all right, here's some nice denim. Please leave my shop. The Bay O tapestry. Oh, a point for Louis. A point already off the bat. Point for Louis. We're not even in the game. I know. I mean, how are you going to add this as extra? Yeah, yeah. They don't know about it. I'm pretty sure he got a point last time as well before we went into the session. Yeah. Yeah, he did. As long as it is recording, if it works, I'll give points

[00:25:35] and then I'll just throw on his bonus content at the end of the episode. This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got? Visit Podomity.com.