Dungeons of Dune (Act 2)

Summary

Gom Jabbar: A Dune Podcast - Episode Summary Title: Dungeons of Dune (Act 2)
Release Date: May 9, 2025
Hosts: Abu and Leo
Dungeon Master: Noah

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Introduction

In "Dungeons of Dune (Act 2)," Gom Jabbar: A Dune Podcast continues its immersive exploration of the Dune universe through a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) campaign. Hosted by Abu and Leo, with Noah serving as the Dungeon Master (DM), this episode delves deeper into the perilous adventures unfolding on the desert planet of Arrakis.

Setting the Scene

The episode picks up with the characters amidst a raging Coriolis storm on Arrakis. Their shuttle has crashed, leaving them stranded within the wreckage. The intense storm outside sets a tense and urgent tone for the unfolding drama.

Key Characters

• Razak (Leo): A seasoned smuggler navigating the harsh desert environment.
• Dr. Ziggy Circa (Abu): A Souk Doctor tasked with protecting Lord Benedict Borgin, a young heir embroiled in political intrigue.
• Noah: The Dungeon Master guiding the narrative and orchestrating challenges.

Survival Amidst Chaos

The characters grapple with immediate survival challenges:

• Storm Shelter: Bunkered inside a wing of the downed shuttle, they assess their situation and strategize their next moves.
• Resource Management: Abu expresses anxiety over the young lord's safety and the scarcity of resources, while Leo contemplates the balance between protecting the lord and pursuing lucrative smuggling opportunities.

Notable Quote:
Abu at [01:00]: "We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies, and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe."

Interpersonal Dynamics and Challenges

The tension between Abu and Leo surfaces as they navigate their priorities:

• Abu's Responsibility: Focused on safeguarding Lord Benedict, Dr. Circa feels unprepared and overwhelmed.
• Leo's Pragmatism: Concerned about their smuggling mission and the potential loss of his ally, KV.

Notable Quote:
Leo at [05:16]: "You want to ride the worm? Sorry. Sorry. That was fast. That was too fast."

Encounter with Deception and Danger

As the storm subsides, the characters emerge to confront new threats:

• Discovery of Fallen Allies: They find deceased members of their group, including a House Borjéan guard and smuggling allies named Red.
• Poisoning Incident: A critical moment unfolds when Lord Benedict inadvertently consumes poisoned juice boxes, incapacitating him and adding urgency to their predicament.

Notable Quote:
Leo at [11:04]: "Have fun," highlighting his frustration and concern over Abu's medical mishaps.

Strategic Decisions and Exploration

Facing dwindling resources and potential traps:

• Weapon Acquisition: Despite finding a crysknife—a sacred Fremen weapon—Leo decides against arming Abu, prioritizing diplomacy over confrontation.
• Navigational Challenges: The group meticulously maneuvers through treacherous dunes, avoiding sandworms and ensuring their path towards the shattered shield wall of Arrakeen.

Notable Quote:
Abu at [22:57]: "What's this? This looks like a weapon we could use."

Unveiling Hidden Dangers

Within the cave system:

• Trap Identification: Razak detects a concealed trap on the stairs, allowing the group to navigate safely and avoid potential pitfalls.
• Suspensor Devices: Leo ingeniously repurposes hexagonal suspensor pads from their fallen allies to maneuver through the narrow passages, showcasing his resourcefulness.

Notable Quote:
Leo at [66:01]: "How much. And I realize. I think we skipped past it a little bit. Did I take the hexagonal suspensor things?"

Cliffhanger and Ongoing Tension

The episode builds suspense as the characters delve deeper into the caves:

• Echoes of Conflict: Sounds of combat from another stairwell hint at unseen dangers and unresolved conflicts within the cave system.
• Character Development: Leo’s casual approach to danger contrasts with Abu’s cautious nature, highlighting their differing philosophies and foreshadowing future interactions.

Notable Quote:
Noah at [69:30]: "This is crazy. This is awesome. You guys are doing so good."

Conclusion and Tease for Next Episode

As the characters press forward into the unknown chambers of the caves, the episode concludes on a suspenseful note, leaving listeners eager for Act 3. Abu and Leo wrap up with reminders to support the podcast and engage with their community, maintaining the blend of in-character adventure and host interaction.

Notable Quote:
Leo at [71:56]: "What's fucking up with him?"

Final Thoughts

"Dungeons of Dune (Act 2)" masterfully intertwines the rich lore of Dune with the dynamic gameplay of D&D, offering fans an engaging and interactive storytelling experience. Through strategic decision-making, character development, and immersive narrative, Abu, Leo, and Noah continue to expand the boundaries of the Dune universe.

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Notable Quotes Overview

• Leo at [05:16]: "You want to ride the worm? Sorry. Sorry. That was fast. That was too fast."
• Abu at [01:00]: "We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies, and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe."
• Leo at [11:04]: "Have fun."
• Abu at [22:57]: "What's this? This looks like a weapon we could use."
• Leo at [66:01]: "How much. And I realize. I think we skipped past it a little bit. Did I take the hexagonal suspensor things?"
• Noah at [69:30]: "This is crazy. This is awesome. You guys are doing so good."
• Leo at [71:56]: "What's fucking up with him?"

These quotes encapsulate key moments of tension, humor, and character insight, enriching the narrative and providing listeners with memorable highlights.

Transcript

[Leo]

Today on the show, we are amidst a Coriolis storm. We're bunkered in inside of a wing of a crashed downed shuttle and we're thinking about you. Dear listener, you up?

[Abu]

It's been a while.

[Leo]

It's been a while. We feel bad about how we ended things.

[Abu]

Yeah, we just.

[Leo]

You up.

[Abu]

The wreckage of the ship just makes me think of what a wreck we left our relationship in. Dear listener, maybe we could get a coffee sometime.

[Leo]

You want to ride the worm? Sorry. Sorry. That was fast. That was too fast.

[Noah]

Too fast.

[Leo]

You up?

[Abu]

Welcome to Gom Jabbar, your guide to the iconic world of Dune. We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe, from Frank Herbert's groundbreaking novels to the adaptations on film and tv. My name's Abu.

[Leo]

My name is Leo.

[Abu]

And folks, welcome back to our ongoing Dune D and D campaign, led by our wonderful, wonderful Dungeon Master, Noah. Today is Act 2. We will be picking up exactly where we left off at the end of Act 1. That's usually how stories work. But before we dive in and continue our journey, Leo, let's take care of some quick housekeeping.

[Leo]

Yeah, let's do it. And to start off, spoiler warning. In addition to spoiling the adventure of part one, we are also going to be talking about this period that takes place between Dune and Dune Messiah. So, dear listener, the make sure you have read the first two books before you listen. Today we're talking about stuff between Dune and Dune Messiah.

[Abu]

That's right. And of course, up top, a huge shout out to our Kwisatz Haderach level patrons, Daniel dion and seth reddingrayer. Y' all rolled natural 20s on your generosity checks. And in fact, the more I look at your die, the more I'm realizing it's 20 on all sides.

[Leo]

All 20s. What the fuck? That's a 20 sided. It's cheating.

[Noah]

You're cheating.

[Abu]

It's cheating.

[Leo]

My God.

[Abu]

But we're here for it and we're grateful for it. Thank you so much for your support to our Kwisatz Haderach level patrons. But of course, our thank yous extend to all of our patrons at every single level. You all truly help make this show possible.

[Leo]

It's true. And listen, if you're not in a place right now to support us as a monthly patron of of course you can also support us with a one time tip via Buy me a coffee link is in the show notes. Every little bit helps keep the lights on here at Comcharbar.

[Abu]

It truly does. Okay, very easy game plan for today's episode. Our wonderful DM Noah will lead us as we continue our journey in our D and D campaign adventure. But before we return to the fun and games and the dice rolls, we're gonna take a quick break. Don't go anywhere, folks. When we come back, we're jumping back into our story.

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[Leo]

Welcome back, everybody. Hope you enjoyed your break. Let's do it. Let's talk about where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. Hey, Noah, how's it going?

[Noah]

Hello. Welcome back to the desert. And welcome to our two heroes. We will see, I guess. Yes. We find the two of you nestled amongst the wreckage of these fallen shuttles. As the storm continues to rage around you, Rahzog prosody, you are separated from your smuggling allies. You are one job away from the paycheck that could change your brutal life here on Arrakis. Dr. Ziggy Circa, you are shielding the young Lord Benedict Borgin, the heir to House Borgine, the one tie that you have to potentially surviving the likely assassination you will face, having uncovered his mother's plot to shelter a sandworm to break the Atreides hold on spice. What is going through both of your minds as you are hunkered down here, shielding yourself from the storm?

[Leo]

Well, I am very much worried about my. I mean, I don't care about some of the spice smugglers I was working with, but in particular, KV. I really appreciated KV's leadership. I appreciated our relationship as it had built up over the many years of working together. I'll let you all interpret what you think that means. We were close. Heavy wink. But I hope she's all right. I hope she's doing okay. I am a little on the fence here because I'm stuck in this plane wing with this dancing child who's got pocket wine and this doctor who seems so easy to ignore as he's floundering about in the sand. I just watched him take 10 hit points of damage from sand, unprotected as he is from the Coriola storm. And so I'm on the fence because I know that the big paycheck is going to come from whoever wants the exotic pet, so to speak, the little maker worm that I'm in charge now of smuggling off planet. And maybe this is my client, maybe these are my. But I'm not. I'm not sure yet. So, as we're sort of nestled in the safety of the wing, I'm kind of trying to piece together how much I should invest in trying to protect these two that I've just run into, and how much I should really focus on seeing if Kivi is okay and finding my way to where we think the little maker is going to be.

[Abu]

I, on the other hand, am feeling way out of my depth. Nothing at the Zug School of Medicine prepared me to deal with the situation I'm currently in. And in fact, even if there had been a class on what to do when your ship crashes on a dangerous planet and you have to take care of the Lord of your house, I probably skipped class that day. So I am deeply unprepared for what we are facing right now. I'm especially Nervous because the young Lord. Who's an idiot. You know, we don't need to mince words here. The young Lord is with me. I'm solely responsible for him. I haven't met any other allies from our House, and we've just barely survived this Coriolis storm. And now I'm stuck in a wing, squished next to this, to be fair, like kind of a hunk of a stranger who came out of the sands of Arrakis. And I frankly, I'm very nervous, very lost, very confused, and just hoping that someone else who has more authority will cross our paths so I can just follow what they tell me to do.

[Noah]

The storm continues to rage around you as you are hunkered down. Your mind's racing for very different reasons. At one point, you hear sipping of a juice box of one of the boxed wines for children, as advertised, stranger. Would you like some?

[Leo]

No, no, no, no.

[Noah]

It's good.

[Abu]

Oh, Lord. Stop, stop, stop. Oh, Lord.

[Noah]

I've drank three of them already.

[Leo]

Yeah, I can smell it in your breath. We're in a very closed space right now. I can smell you've been pounding that wine.

[Noah]

Is anyone else getting tired?

[Leo]

Turn so that I'm shoulder back to them cradling my baliset against the wing.

[Noah]

How about you, Doctor? You must know, there must be some study that says something about wine and extending the life like spice.

[Abu]

I. No, there isn't, milord. Can you. Can you maybe just rest? I need to speak to our friend here to figure out what we're going to do once we. Can you just finish the wine, please?

[Noah]

Don't have to tell me twice.

[Abu]

Thank you. Thank you, Milor. Just. Just hang tight. And I go. I go over to Rasak, and I'm, like, tapping him on the shoulder, like, hey, hey, man, what are we gonna do? What's the game plan?

[Leo]

We don't really need to do anything. I'm gonna be looking. I need to find a. There's a cave nearby and I'm. Oh, oh, heading that direction.

[Abu]

Okay, well, we'll go with you.

[Leo]

Don't you think this kid. Let's be honest, don't you think this kid is going to be a liability for you, your safety? You think you can survive carrying this kid around?

[Abu]

Do you know who that is?

[Leo]

Barely.

[Abu]

That is the Lord of House. We cannot leave him behind. He is super important. He's the future Duke of this planet.

[Noah]

This planet?

[Leo]

You sure about that?

[Abu]

Yes. I can't say more right now because I don't really know you and I shouldn't okay, look, man, I know you don't work for House Borjene, all right? I'm onto you. Okay?

[Leo]

Sure.

[Abu]

It's in your best interest to keep this guy alive. And I'm his doctor, so keep me alive, too, so I can keep him alive.

[Leo]

All right. I'll think about it.

[Abu]

Okay.

[Noah]

How many.

[Leo]

How many more boxes of wine is this kid gonna drink before.

[Abu]

I don't know. And as we have three on the ship over.

[Noah]

As he continues to slurp box wine. Are you sure you don't want any? It's quite good.

[Abu]

No. No, thank you. Lord, no.

[Leo]

This is gonna be a long night.

[Noah]

And with that, we allow for rest to eventually find you. The storm rages for quite some time. It rages through the evening darkness, fully falling apart upon the desert, making it even harder to see. The only thing providing any illumination being any sort of items you have on your person that glow in any sort of way. It is incredibly dark, pitch black. You cannot see the skies. And eventually that does lead you to try and force yourself to fall asleep. Now, the Lord Benedict, about two small boxes of wine later, is fully asleep as well, for different and obvious reasons. There is a classic sort of me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me sort of sleeper.

[Leo]

Good old. Hit him with the honk shoe.

[Noah]

Hit him with that honk shoe. As eventually the two of you head off to rest. Which does mean that you can click the long rest button up on top of. If you're looking at your character sheets will heal during your long rest, you can do that. But I would love to hear maybe how that manifests in bandaging your wounds and stuff like that. If there's anything. As the morning sun rises, as dawn begins to creep up and the storm has begun to fade, what do you do in this morning to prepare for this undoubtedly difficult journey? Even though you are but a few miles away from your destination, those without a stillsuit can survive less than a day out in these conditions.

[Leo]

Yeah, I'm used to Arrakis. I've been here for a while. I have my stillsuit. It's still operating, as far as I can tell. Seems to be working. Don't love sleeping in such a cramped setting, so I'm kind of straight stretching. And I'm getting used to getting ready for what I know is going to be a lot of hiking up and down dunes on the way to kind of where I think the. Where I think the cave is. But it's, it's. It feels very like this is kind of what I've been living for the last. You know, granted, not too many ornithopter crashes, but still, you know, this is the kind of harshness of the planet. And this is what I've been dealing with for the last few years.

[Noah]

And you, Doctor?

[Abu]

I, on the other hand, am wrangling the young lord into taking his morning vitamins, which are essential for his health.

[Noah]

Do you have any Ixian Tylenol?

[Abu]

No, no, no, no. Look, my lord, look. And I rummage in my pack. I pull out a couple of phials and a couple of beakers and bottles. They're full of multicolored liquids that all look somehow gross. Like, none of these look like fruit punch. They're all sort of like, viscous and thick and chunky.

[Noah]

Chunky.

[Abu]

I start taking the toppers off, and I'm like, lord, this will help with your hangover. This contains all the B12 and B7 vitamins that you need. I need you to take one cup of each of these, please, oh, Lord, please. I, too, will be taking some.

[Noah]

Oh, my God.

[Abu]

And I start pouring him huge quantities of each of these potions.

[Noah]

I trust your dosage.

[Abu]

Please take it all in one sip. Think of it like a smoothie. It's a cocktail smoothie. Just down it, sir. I also take out a different bottle for myself. Now, this one looks delicious, I will say, like, the color is like this lovely golden nectar. There's clear bubbles in there. And I go ahead and take just a quick sip of that for myself. This is a rejuvenating family recipe passed down to me by many generations of suk doctors. And this is the last vial I have left of this. And this one helps me take a bit of the edge off. I'm obviously still quite anxious and nervous, but I don't give the young lord this. This one's for me.

[Noah]

I'm gonna have the young lord roll a constitution saving throw to see if he survives.

[Leo]

Chokes down.

[Noah]

All right, with a natural eight, I'm gonna say his bonus is not very high. He only adds one, which means he does fail, which means he is poisoned, which in this case does not mean lethal poisoning. It means food poisoning. So he is like, I completely trust you. Chugs it. And then goes, oh, God. And just collapses on the ground just shuddering and shaking. Normal reaction.

[Abu]

Yes, yes, this is absolutely normal. The extra gotta work its way through your body, my lord. Yes. Oh, gosh.

[Leo]

Listen, I'm not a doctor, but. Are you sure you're a doctor? This is the same Rasik.

[Abu]

I'm a Doctor, please keep Brent's voice.

[Noah]

Doctor. How dare you.

[Leo]

Okay, thank you.

[Abu]

Thank you, Lord.

[Leo]

Okay, have fun.

[Abu]

Just give him a minute. Give him a minute. Rasik, weren't you doing something over there? Malort. There you go. If you need to. If you need to sit down, take a seat.

[Noah]

Sitting. Yes, I will sit.

[Abu]

There you go. Deep breaths, deep breaths. It's just gonna.

[Noah]

I will say this will manifest as disadvantage on any checks that he is required to do for the next few hours.

[Leo]

So that seemed really high. He seemed really overpowered. I'm glad we've docked him.

[Noah]

You need to nerf him a little bit. You know, I was hoping that you would do something like this because he's way too strong.

[Leo]

That wayfish child really seems formidable.

[Noah]

So the three of you, one of which poisoned, are standing amongst the wreckage of these transport vessels. You see that the sands have shifted quite a bit because of the storms. In fact, the wreckage that you guys were lodged in is actually mostly buried at this point. When you crawl out and turn, you see that the wing that you had crawled within is completely buried outside of the opening that you managed to survive in front of. And the rest of the ruined vehicles and bodies seem to be buried or missing or just at least not in view of this immediate surroundings. But you're welcome to do any sort of checks or anything you want to do before you head out on your journey. Or at least you could take this moment to form a true game plan about where you're headed and what you're going to do.

[Leo]

I think before we head, well, I'm heading to the cave. You can join me. You can come with me. I'm not going to let you slow me down though. We should check to see if there's anything we can bring with us, any tools. I don't know if we're going to encounter people we might have to fight. If we can find weapons, arm yourselves, that would be good. Otherwise I say we head out after we've checked for things. How does that sound to you?

[Abu]

I like that game plan. Yeah. In fact, maybe I'll take sort of a 360 look around now that there's not galeforce. Winds tearing at my skin. Maybe I can see make sense of the wreckage and perhaps see where Lady Borgine or my other allies would have crash landed.

[Noah]

Okay, so I'm going to say why don't you, Razak, you can roll investigation checks since you want to focus in on finding the right supplies or any like your items and stuff like that. And you, Doctor, can Roll. Let's see a perception check. We'll say, okay, so the D20 and then add the skill associated.

[Leo]

Okay, I rolled a 13 plus one is a 14.

[Noah]

On investigation, searching through the little debris that is exposed to the sand, you struggle to find anything still un. A lot of things are destroyed. A lot of things are just completely missing. But you do uncover the body of what you assume to be a guard of House Borjene wearing the purple and red colors of their armor and robes. They are dead at this point. And I'm going to say that you find this individual without the doctor seeing them at this moment. And you see that on them is a plasteel blade that is unsheathed.

[Leo]

Okay.

[Noah]

And I'll also say that you are still searching around as you find this blade, you find one of the smugglers not very close to this individual. Their name was Red. They are also unfortunately dead. And you see that on. On them. They do have a working still suit still. So you could in theory salvage this and give it to one of the two individuals you're with if you chose to.

[Leo]

So I'm going to take the plastio blade for sure from the guard. And the guard doesn't have anything else. Pockets, driver's license, personal medication, glasses.

[Noah]

Yeah, you know what? I'll say that they definitely have some identification on them. I'll say that they have a. I want to say like a badge, so to speak, but like an insignia sort of thing that indicates that they are aligned with House Borjene. You find like little trinkets, personal items on them, like cards, you know, like whatever, currents, a little bit of currency, maybe a few like coins they were going to maybe use in town or whatever. But the other thing, a photo of.

[Abu]

A lover perhaps tucked into a photo.

[Noah]

Of a lover with a note saying, I'll be back very soon. Yeah, kiss my boy.

[Leo]

I will be one last trip and then I'm retiring.

[Noah]

I can't wait. My retirement is so well deserved. I put in the hours and I've always respected Houseborg.

[Abu]

I'll finally be able to attend Jimmy's baseball games.

[Noah]

Hopefully this last paycheck will go through you. Also, I'll say on the. On your smuggler ally who you have found. You notice they do have these like hexagonal metal devices that you recognize to be these like suspenser pads that you can like essentially attach to things, like.

[Leo]

Make things heavy, things lighter, basically.

[Noah]

Exactly, yeah. You can create like, essentially. Did you know this to be like something that creates like a Suspensor field to levitate things of heft. And you recognize that this was probably something that you would have used to get the worm up and over somewhere.

[Leo]

Okay, so I'm going to take from the guard. If it's okay, we'll take the place plasteel blade. I'm going to take the badge identifying that he I work for Verjean, in case it might help in a disguise later, just because it seems like it could be valuable. And his currency, whatever the currency is in his pockets. And then I'm going to obscure the body so that the doctor doesn't see that I might have these items. And then I'm gonna with the smuggler, I'm gonna get Ziggy's attention, like, hey, Doctor, there's a still suit. There's an extra still suit over here. Hyper important. If you don't have this, you're very likely gonna die today. But it's up to you. There's only one. I'll cut it off of my friend and I'll give it to you.

[Abu]

Oh, what?

[Noah]

Just to help out Doctor, you were going to roll a perception check. Did you happen to roll it? And what did.

[Abu]

Seven and I have a plus three perception? So 10. Yeah, 10 total.

[Noah]

Okay, so with that 10, I'm gonna say that the two things that you gather are, one, you are indeed just a few miles from your destination. You see the shield wall, dark in the distance. You definitely can navigate there. You definitely will need some supplies to do. So I will say that you do not see this stranger obscure the body of a houseborgian guard and take their weapon and take their badge. So you see, suddenly it's like you go and turn and begin to look around. As you're looking one way, we have Razhak, like, quickly take the sword and just taking all these things, and then by the time you make your first 60.

[Leo]

Oh, you're gonna watch your boys fucking baseball games. Not in this state. You're not dead.

[Noah]

You're like, now, this is my son now. And as you finally finish that 360, you do eventually come to see him standing above this dead smuggler, who you also don't recognize, but is dressed similarly to Razak.

[Abu]

Razak.

[Noah]

Wow.

[Abu]

This dillsuit will come in handy for sure. Is this someone you knew?

[Leo]

Someone I knew would be a way to put it. Yeah. Not close to him.

[Abu]

Okay.

[Leo]

And honestly, these still suits, they're better worn, they're better used. You'll get a bit of his leftover water. It's good Kind of might help you out in the desert.

[Abu]

Yeah, like water, as like bodily fluids.

[Leo]

I really would not think too much about it, honestly. Just don't, you know, think of it as homeopathy or something. I don't know, whatever makes it easier to go down.

[Abu]

Sure. Okay, that's wonderful. Let's grab the stillsuit. Do you think it'll fit the young lord or. It appears to be more grown man sized.

[Leo]

Honestly, I'd prefer you to survive. But you seem to have some strong feelings about his survival. I'm going to leave that to you.

[Abu]

Okay, I'll take the stillsuit. With the help of Rasik, I'll help peel the stillsuit off this man. As we're doing so, I'm going to continue to make small talk. I'm a bit of a talker when I'm nervous. Rasnik, what group are you? Are you a faction from the city, out here to explore? Are you prospectors? What are you all doing out here?

[Leo]

We're freelancers. We work for whoever hires us, and in this case, not at liberty to say, but I'm starting to think we might actually be in the same. Same general vicinity of employment Bergin, you said?

[Abu]

Yeah, House Borjin.

[Leo]

Borgin.

[Abu]

Yeah, I'm the Souk Doctor. I'm employed by House Borgin. That, that is the lore, as I told you last night. Why he's so important. That's the Lord of House Borgine. And we, we were just arriving on this planet. We were headed to the city. Do you see the shield wall over there? You see? Did you see the big. You know about the shield wall, right? The Emperor blew it up famously. Yeah, maybe we should head that way. Do you think? I mean, we were originally headed toward the city.

[Leo]

That works for me. I think that's a good place. Maybe we'll find a cave or something, I don't know, somewhere.

[Abu]

Okay.

[Leo]

Long forgotten, poorly hidden. That's the hope.

[Noah]

Doctor, terrible news. All of my child. One boxes have been burst. He falls to the ground. The last remaining boxes.

[Leo]

No.

[Abu]

I'm so sorry, my Lord. That's okay.

[Noah]

Did you find any. Anything of use? Any of the boxes?

[Abu]

There were no boxes, my lord. It appears you may have either drank or. Well, you drank most of them. And really what was on your person as of last night is all that I know. This is a terrible tragedy. Our wonderful local man here, he says that Malord, it might be a good idea to head toward the city and maybe we'll link up with any other survivors.

[Leo]

There might even be box wine in the caves near the city.

[Abu]

Yes.

[Noah]

I have heard tell. Don't tell my mother, but I have heard tell of the spice wine. I have heard tell that it's quite good. It's so good that Mother says it's putting us out of business. Now, I care very little about that. What I care most about is trying it. Do you think there will be some of it there?

[Abu]

I'm Rasik. I'm sure.

[Noah]

Right?

[Abu]

Yes.

[Leo]

Yeah. I think if it gets us there quickly, we will find some spice wine for you to try, young lord.

[Abu]

There we go. There we go. We'll make it happen, Mallory.

[Noah]

Well, if I don't get to try the worms, I get to try the wine. And that's all I care about.

[Abu]

Yes. Excellent. It's gonna be a difficult journey, but we'll do it.

[Leo]

You're the. Okay.

[Noah]

I am the Lord of the house. The Lord of House Porgin. And you are?

[Leo]

We're heading out. That's what we're doing. Nice to. Nice to meet. The name is Rosic. The name is Rosic.

[Noah]

Incredibly long name. We're heading out. Nice to know you get. I will just call you Ra's.

[Leo]

You can cut. Sure you know it. Sure.

[Noah]

Rozzie, it's a pleasure to meet you. I am so excited to be your new best friend and your lord someday. So better start respecting me.

[Abu]

Rossi, can you help me into this, into the still suit? It's a little tight.

[Leo]

You've made. You've made a choice.

[Noah]

I don't wish to wear that. It's far too unfashionable. I would never put on something so ugly.

[Leo]

We wouldn't want you to. We wouldn't want you.

[Noah]

Is anyone else feeling hot and dehydrated and also sick and shaking? I don't think it's this. I have nothing to do with the medicines I drank earlier.

[Leo]

I think one of the three of us is poisonous.

[Abu]

Okay, my lord. I have a few more decoctions that will help you stay cool in this desert. And actually, I see there's a tube. There's a tube sticking out of the. I assume this is for drinking, Rossi?

[Leo]

Yeah. You can drink from that, my lord.

[Noah]

We'll share.

[Abu]

We'll share the liquids absorbed from my well. Don't think about it. It's water. It's just water.

[Noah]

Hopefully you've drank enough of the box wine that it will taste like box wine. Let's just leave it at that.

[Abu]

There we go. Excellent. Yeah. We'll share the water with you, my lord. And I have some decoctions that Will help numb, shall we say, the discomfort of our trek across the desert.

[Noah]

We know I love to numb discomfort. We know it. So the two of you now awoken, now with some supplies gathered, begin to move across the sand with the dance like movement of the sand walk. Even though you are close to Arrakeen, there is always the risk of something going wrong if you are not too careful out here in the desert. So what I want is for both of you to roll performance checks to see how well you can sand walk now.

[Abu]

Oh, no.

[Noah]

Here's what I'll tell you. This is going to be an average. We're going to average whatever number you guys roll. So it's okay if you roll low. If your ally rolls well, then you might be okay. Unfortunately for you, Ziggy, you are going to be rolling with disadvantage. Not because you don't know how to do this as you said. Like you guys did some research before you came on this trip. You're not like, where am I? What even is a sandwalk? The reason why you have it is because the young lord is very ill. And so you are trying to make sure that he and you both are doing this maneuver carefully and well. So you're gonna roll two die 2D20s and take the lower of the two to add your bonus to it.

[Abu]

Okay?

[Noah]

Whereas Razak, you are actually going to roll with advantage because obviously you are incredibly proficient with this. So you can roll with advantage. Take the higher of the two D20 rolls and then I will average your numbers and see if it beats the DC that I have written here.

[Leo]

So rolling with advantage. I first rolled a three and then you told me I was rolling with advantage and my pulse dropped considerably. I rolled a 14 and I have a plus nine performance. So that brings me to 23.

[Noah]

Excellent. All right. And Ziggy, what did you get?

[Abu]

So on my first roll, I got a seven. On my second roll, I got a five. Because I'm rolling with disadvantage, I have to choose the five. On top of that, my performance is a minus one. So I'm ending here with a four.

[Leo]

Okay, 27.

[Noah]

27 halved is gonna be 13.5, which rounds down to 13. I will tell you that the DC was 11 for this role.

[Leo]

Oh, yeah.

[Noah]

Absolutely saved by Razok's incredible knowledge of the set.

[Abu]

Truly.

[Leo]

All those dance classes on Chusik, man.

[Noah]

All those dance classes. So limber while you were the do si do that you learned on Chusik has really taught you the limberness that you need to navigate these dunes. And as you lead this party, being both the most native out of everyone here and the most experienced at the sandwalking, you look back and you see this doctor is desperately trying to hold up this very ill Victorian boy looking ass lord.

[Abu]

Step, step, slide, slide.

[Noah]

One, two, don't step again. That's a pattern. And then slide and slide and slide again. Sliding a third and fourth time.

[Abu]

My lord, look at. Look at Rasa. Look at what he's doing.

[Leo]

Oh, God.

[Noah]

At some moments, you pause in your navigating of the dunes to regain your footing and see if you sense any rumbling in the distance. And at times, or you do feel the rumble of a sandworm far off. But thankfully, with Razok in the lead, you are able to successfully maneuver through this desert without attracting the attention of Shai Hulud. So that was a very good, successful first counter. But you are navigating these incredibly high dunes. It is increasing in temperature as you go. Two of you have stillsuits. One of you is sharing said stillsuits water supply with the young lord. So he is, you know, at least going to be okay for the next few hours. Though, obviously, again, he is ill. So what I need now is a survival check. This is kind of to navigate specifically. This is not about like, do you have enough water? This is like with Prozac in the lead with. With you guys moving through this desert, are you able to actually move in the right direction or are you overwhelmed by the elements?

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Noah]

So both of you, we're going to do another group check here. You, unfortunately, are going to have disadvantage again, Ziggy, because of the young lord giving you disadvantage.

[Leo]

Thank God that first roll was so high.

[Noah]

Whereas Ra's, you're gonna roll flat for this because this is just, you know, you're on foot in the desert. This is tough. Even if you're good at what you're doing, the best you're gonna do is just to avoid sandworms. You're not necessarily gonna be able to navigate super easily.

[Leo]

Okay, I rolled a 16 with plus 2 is 18.

[Noah]

Excellent.

[Abu]

And doctor, because I rolled with disadvantage, I rolled a 5 first and a 12 second. I have to go with a 5. But I do have a plus 6 survival, so that does land me at 11.

[Noah]

The best news ever then, this difficulty class was also 11. So without even averaging, you technically both pass. So you successfully manage to make way towards the once great, now shattered shield wall, this massive rocky outcropping. And as you crest one of the dunes, you see it, the section of the old Shield wall blasted into the sands. The massive, massive rocks circling the incredible city of Arrakeen. This be again, beyond comprehension, beyond anything any of us have witnessed in our lives. This megastructure as it is rising from the dunes of Arrakis. So you are approaching from an angle. You're not like, heading straight toward the city gates, per se. Nor are you heading directly to the spaceports. You're kind of near where the rocks have not been destroyed. Like this isn't necessarily. You're not heading towards where Paul burst in with his sandworms. You're heading towards the backside of it, if that makes more sense. Where there's more rocks here, you are approaching and just honestly seeking cover. As Ra' Zach, you kind of are pioneering this journey. You're more looking for the cave that you know you're supposed to be finding here. Whereas I'm sure the young lord is constantly pestering and being like, do you think the markets are open already? I'm hoping to buy some of that spiced wine as soon as we get in.

[Leo]

Yeah, they might be. It is a. I've lost track of what day it is, but, yeah, they might be.

[Noah]

This is a secret route into the city?

[Leo]

Yeah. Yes, it is.

[Noah]

I'm seeing everything in double. My head is pounding and I believe I am ill. So I fully trust what you're saying to me. And as you are, you begin to near part of the rocky outcropping where it meets this sands of the desert, and you see something, a number of the Cielagos, lifeblood dyeing the sand dark brown and mixing with two other corpses. Stillsuits customized to the culture of the desert and the imperial House of Atreides. These are no random smugglers who opposed your gang. These are Fremen warriors of muad'dib, who were guarding something over here. And they have, before being finally taken down, slain a number of your allies. And you kind of. As you crest the dune in Cetus, you stop, the young lord runs into your back. Oh, why are we stomping? Why?

[Leo]

Just give me a moment. And I want to see. So I want to identify as many of my allies as possible. So you're saying there's two kind of Fedayken, Fremen warriors of Muad'dib.

[Noah]

Indeed. You see two Fedaykin fallen near the rocky edge, who've clearly. It's as if they came out and maybe ambushed your allies. You see six of the dead Cielagos, these smugglers lying upon the ground, clearly slain before they were able to Find whatever they were looking for.

[Leo]

Okay, I want to just immediately I want to identify as many as I can, see if Keavey is there. And just as a primary objective is.

[Noah]

To see if Keavey is there, you scan the bodies. You approach with caution and care. And I think Ziggy at this point, you catch up and come over the dune and see as he approaches.

[Abu]

Goodness.

[Noah]

You getting close to the bodies. You check each one. Kiwi is not any of these. Looks like if she made it out of the crash, she did not meet her end here. You also don't see Lishad or Chalak. It looks like.

[Leo]

Okay, unfortunately, they got out of another pickle.

[Noah]

They got out of another one. These look to be some of the, you know, like, these are. Some of these guys look to be like newbies who joined you guys recently. Others are people who you've worked with long before but weren't necessarily close with. You approach and scan them. It looks like they still have a lot of their items on them as well. So it seems like maybe they managed to slay these. Fedayken got incredibly lucky just based on having the numbers game here. Were able to deal some lethal blows before they could make it away.

[Leo]

Yeah, the weakest were picked off, and Keavey or some of the more seasoned people are able to help out perhaps. Okay, well, I'm deeply relieved that Kivi is not among the dead. I think this is a good time to the squeamish half dead Lord. If we're going to be spending any more time outside, it might not be a bad idea to get him a stealth suit from one of these smuggler bodies. If there are any intact. I suppose if they were fighting Fremen, they might have puncture holes and things.

[Noah]

That's a great point. Why don't we roll a luck check now? This is not a skill check. I just want you to roll a D20 and see if you. If you roll above 11, then I will say you find one where they managed to, like, you know, the killing blow was in, like, the face. And so, like, the actual stillsuit was not damaged.

[Leo]

Okay, so here's. Here's my luck throw. Guys, before I tell you what I rolled, I need you to understand how fucking hot it is in this desert.

[Noah]

It's so hot.

[Abu]

How is it?

[Leo]

It's so hot. God, I was. You know what, assholes? All right, I rolled a one.

[Noah]

Not only. Not only critical failure is every killing blow through a stillsuit. It's as if. Who. It's as if the vedeken were like. And just in case anyone finds these bodies before we die, we will damage them as much as we can. There's like huge like all of the points where it would like, you know, like I. I imagine that there is kind of some like essentially like little tubes of sorts throughout it, like woven into the fabric of sorts. It's just like completely slashed all the way like toe to tip. These blows are so deadly, so brutal and done with the intent of destroying anything that these attackers were trying to do.

[Leo]

Not. Not feeling particularly lucky today.

[Abu]

It doesn't look like there's anything useful here.

[Leo]

You know, that's just what I was thinking. That's just what I was thinking.

[Noah]

This is no place to take a nap.

[Leo]

That's true.

[Abu]

Young lord. Don't. Don't look. This is a terrible scene, young lord. Just please wait over there.

[Noah]

Quite right. There's nothing worse than people sleeping on the job. I hate it.

[Abu]

Exactly.

[Noah]

Get up. Kicking one of them. Get up. We're looking for wine, young lord.

[Abu]

Let him nap. Let him nap. Please wait over there patiently. Here's a sip. Here's a sip of my liquids.

[Noah]

Squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt. You know, I don't know what I love more, the wine or the sipping process.

[Abu]

Excellent. Please go wait over there. Rastik and I have to figure out what's next. What we should do next. We. I haven't forgotten. We need to get you that spice beer.

[Leo]

Spice wine?

[Abu]

Yeah, the spice wine.

[Noah]

Any sort of spice related alcohol will do. I'm not picky.

[Leo]

I think this child might have a really bad drinking problem.

[Noah]

So yes, the two of you are standing here like essentially you're at the edge of the desert. Rocks all in front of you. The bodies strewn amongst like right where the rocks and the sand. Me.

[Leo]

So we don't know if there's going to be more Fremen in the caves. We don't know. They're clearly. They're not friendly. We should. If you don't have a weapon, you should arm yourself. Let's see, you know, if there's anything useful we can bring with us. But getting into the cave system is going to be best. Keeps us protected from the sunlight. We'll not be losing as much liquid and that'll get us closer. Many of these caves connect into the city for smuggling passageways and things like that. We can make our way towards the markets if that's what your young lord wants.

[Abu]

Okay, that. That sounds like a solid plan. Rasik, how do you know smugglers use these? Oh, you must come across it in your Philips.

[Leo]

I have friends. Of course I have friends. Yeah, yeah, I have friends.

[Abu]

Understandable.

[Leo]

Can't you tell I'm a friendly guy? I make a lot of friends.

[Abu]

So, frankly, I think you are beginning to trust you more and more.

[Leo]

Good.

[Abu]

That sounds like a solid plan. I think. Let's enter. And enter the nearby cave system. I am getting a little bit nervous. These appear to be your allies, but these two, clearly there was a fight here. Are we. Do you think we're in danger?

[Leo]

How is House Borgin doing with the new emperor? Do you think the Fremen would be friendly toward a souk doctor from House Borgin?

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

Have you heard anything recently that might make you especially nervous? No.

[Noah]

All right, Ziggy, why don't you give me a deception check and Ralph's like, you can give me an insight check. Your voice is getting incredibly high.

[Leo]

No reason.

[Noah]

No reason.

[Leo]

Oh, shit. Stakes are high on this one.

[Abu]

Stakes are very high here. For my deception check, I have rolled an 18. But again, that souk loyalty makes it hard for me to lie. Minus 1. 17.

[Leo]

I rolled a nat 20.

[Noah]

Incredible.

[Leo]

Okay, I am looking into your fucking soul, and I have a plus two insight, Razak.

[Noah]

You are street or sand savvy enough to recognize when someone is lying to you. And you also, just by understanding the nature of this emperor, I mean you, of course, you're a smuggler and you're not heavily involved in the politics of what's going on in the Empire, but you are familiar with the fact that there is a lot of conflict right now amongst all of the Houses, amongst the Landsraad. And you know that this new Paul Atreides, this Muad'dib is. He's changing the game a bit. He's changing things up. And not everybody likes it. And based on this individual's reaction, you guess that House Borjene is not necessarily a fan of it. And you also are thinking about the fact that they were coming here for some reason. And you're also supposed to, like, make contact with someone from, like, the Guild ships or something to, like, work with another small house. So I think your mind starts to again, connect these dots of being like, House Borjene is not in the good graces of the Emperor. House Borjene may even be opposed to Paul. And this soup doctor's presence probably wouldn't be welcomed by any Fremen unless they can kind of pull the diplomatic immunity card of being like, we're Royal houses. We want to meet with Paul, essentially.

[Leo]

Sure. Sure, sure, sure. Listen, Doc, I don't know what you're hiding. I don't know. I'm not. It doesn't bother me. The point is, seems like we probably want to plan for the Fremen not being hospitable hosts. So I would say let's double down. If there's any way you can arm yourself. If we encounter Fremen, I don't imagine they're going to be the happiest to see you.

[Abu]

I would agree with your assessment, and I will be sure to. Maybe one of these poor souls has a weapon for me to use. I don't think we should give the young lord a weapon. To be clear.

[Leo]

I fully agree. We should not give him almost anything, probably.

[Abu]

Excellent. Let me. Let me search these bodies and see if I can find a weapon.

[Noah]

All right, you guys can both roll investigation checks to see what you can uncover. Obviously, I said that, you know, these corpses weren't picked clean, but let's see if there's anything worth taking. God. Wow.

[Leo]

It's. It's all.

[Noah]

It is.

[Leo]

So goddamn hot. So hot. What did you say? Investigation.

[Noah]

Investigation.

[Leo]

Well, I rolled a two, and I rolled an eight with a plus one. That brings me to a three. Hold your applause. And. Yeah. So there you go.

[Noah]

Whoa. An unnatural three.

[Leo]

I made all the way up to three.

[Abu]

There you go, climbing that ladder all.

[Noah]

The way to three. And Ziggy, you said you got an eight total.

[Abu]

I rolled an eight, and I have no plus or minus for investigation.

[Noah]

Okay, so I will say this. You begin to search these people for weapons. And whether it's because they were damaged in the battle, whether it's because they lost them during the crash on their way here, it looks like they are lacking anything really of use to you.

[Leo]

Okay.

[Noah]

As you begin to search the two Fedaykin that are laying on the ground, and you start to see, they don't really have a lot of things on them as well. You do see something laying near the hand of one of them. A crysknife. Beautiful blade formed from one of the teeth of Shai Hulud Rusic.

[Abu]

What's this? This looks like a weapon we could use.

[Leo]

So here's the thing. How confident are you in a fight?

[Abu]

I'm a doctor and I have been. I will fully admit, I've been conditioned to. To not take a life. I am incapable of taking life.

[Leo]

Okay, that's not great. I will say. Let's call in an audible here. Let's leave the crysknife. These are sacred to the Fremen, and we don't want to get in more hot water than we would be otherwise. I think if you're unarmed, and I won't be swinging whatever I have around, we can maybe talk our way out of it if we run into them. And that's gonna be easier to do if they don't see us carrying around sacred Fremen weapons from presumably dead Fremen.

[Abu]

I think that logic is sound. And, you know, I've talked my way out of many a final paper deadline in school, so I'm confident I can help with that.

[Leo]

This might be just like that.

[Noah]

Yeah, I can almost. It's almost an inclusion. Exact parallel.

[Leo]

I mean, your professors might be in this cave system right now for all we know.

[Noah]

How. How do we know they weren't Fedegan? Right?

[Leo]

How do we know? How do we know? Show me their IDs. Show me that they don't have the Fedaken stamp on their id.

[Abu]

They certainly acted like Fedakin.

[Leo]

Am I right?

[Abu]

Cutthroats?

[Noah]

So the two of you are going to leave the Chris knife behind?

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Okay. And I will just out of game. Say, an incredibly wise decision to avoid a powerful weapon, but one that would immediately cost you any sort of social grace that you could carry with you.

[Abu]

Ra's. Like this guy. He knows what's up.

[Noah]

The two of you. Followed by the still ill, though slowly getting better. Perhaps because he's losing so much liquid through the heat and it's causing all of the untested medicines to be forced out of his system faster. I am feeling quite better. I do feel really just, you know, lightheaded and woozy, which kind of feels like when I drink a bunch of my child wine.

[Leo]

Yeah. You're sweating purple liquid right now.

[Noah]

That's a side effect of. I actually don't know if it's the wine or the medicine, but it looks good.

[Abu]

That's normal. That's normal. You know, your body is working through. It's the B12. I mentioned the B12 vitamins earlier.

[Noah]

You did. You did. You did. You mentioned the B12.

[Abu]

This is a good sign, my Lord. And I'm glad you're feeling better.

[Noah]

Thank you. I am so grateful for your care, Doctor. You are so good to me.

[Abu]

Well, thank you, thank you. And perhaps once we're through with our little journey today, well, we'll talk compensation another time.

[Noah]

The same as always, I assume. No increase. Maybe for free.

[Abu]

Mr. Rossick, sir, I believe we should.

[Leo]

Yeah, sounds like a Good deal. You should talk to him about working for free. That sounds great.

[Noah]

And the three of you now make your way along the edge of these rocks, finally leaving the desert of Dune. Well, at least part of the desert of Dune. You eventually come upon a break in the rock. And at first you think of this as just to be, you know, partially covered in sand. But as you approach and kind of climb over, you notice that this crack goes deep. It's very thin. It's going to force you to walk sideways to get through it. But based on your analysis, Razak, of the maps, you recognize this to be at least the right area. So this could be, if not the cave you're looking for, then a cave that could provide shelter until you find the next one.

[Leo]

Yeah, let's try this one. Let's try going in and seeing. I don't think I have any form of light or illumination on me.

[Abu]

Well, actually, Russ, like in my pack, I. I do have a little. A little Ixian lighter that I use to. To boil my. My concoctions. It won't provide much light.

[Leo]

You're a heroine. What are you doing with a lighter?

[Abu]

My scientific experiments.

[Leo]

Yeah, you have a science experiment.

[Noah]

Experiment, yes. A spoonful of incredibly dark, murky liquid helps the other dark, murky liquids go down easy, especially if it's been boiled hot by an Ixian lighter.

[Leo]

You know what? I'll take it. That sounds great. Let's do that. So, yeah, so we, I guess we enter the cave sideways, shuffling with the Ixian lighter held aloft, sliding through the.

[Noah]

Darkness, dimly lighting the way ahead with this Ixian lighter. It is an immediate sense of claustrophobia washing over you. You are trapped between two thick black stones and pushing deeper and deeper. It doesn't feel like it's going to widen up at all. There's no give. You begin to worry. Are you pressing deep in here and forcing yourself to get stuck? But you trust and continue to push deeper and deeper until finally it opens a bit to a small chamber that has been carved into the stone across from you, an entrance to some sort of structure. As you see stairs descending down into the darkness above, that you see written in an unknown tongue to you, Ziggy, but something that you, Razak, would maybe kind of be able to recognize. With a history check are a few old words. You can give me a DC11 history check to try and uncover what this is.

[Leo]

Okay.

[Abu]

I wonder what that says. Rasak, do you perhaps know?

[Leo]

Well, with a 7 roll and a history of 1 8, not sure. Looks a little Familiar.

[Noah]

You recognize the language a little bit as Jokopsa, but you're not necessarily sure exactly what this indicates. It's a very short sort of phrase above, and I think that maybe you would recognize. The reason why you've recognized it is chako is you kind of see the words for Shai Hulud written in there. And so you clock that, but you're like, I don't know what that. Is it a warning? Is it just like the name of this place? Is it some sort of instruction? You're not sure?

[Leo]

Yeah, not sure. Not sure. It might be Chakopsa, the language of the Fremen. I speak some, but I'm not recognizing these words. Yeah, okay. Natives.

[Abu]

Well, this obviously isn't. I thought you were describing a cave structure, like a natural cave structure, but this appears to be. This is not natural. Is it safe to enter, do you think?

[Leo]

If we encounter Fremen, we may have some talking to do. But the fact that it's constructed means there are going to be ways in and out naturally versus if this were just a naturally occurring cave, we might be in a dead end, something like that. I'm confident with these stairs we can find a way forward.

[Abu]

Okay. Well, I certainly don't want to go back.

[Noah]

Yes, Doctor. Please move.

[Abu]

Oh, sorry.

[Noah]

The largest pushing.

[Leo]

Come through.

[Abu]

Come through, my lord. Sorry. Forgot about you for a second. I think we go ahead and enter then. Rasik, I think we. I trust your instincts on this, and I certainly don't want to go back into that. Frankly, I'm a little claustrophobic. I was having a bit of a panic attack back there, so. Onwards.

[Noah]

I suppose you should drink some of that medicine you gave me for when I had a panic attack.

[Abu]

Yeah, that's a great idea, my lord. When we stop next, I'll be certain to do that.

[Noah]

Yes, I remember. You gave it to me. And I remember immediately throwing up, which made the hyperventilating impossible.

[Abu]

Yes.

[Noah]

And then I passed out.

[Abu]

See? A natural countermeasure to anxiety, to all, many, many illnesses, right? Anxiety, hyperventilation, panic attacks, being unconscious.

[Noah]

Oof. All the symptoms gone, gone, gone.

[Abu]

Mental health. Drink one of my potions, get knocked.

[Leo]

Out, who needs therapy?

[Noah]

You know, right now we're all on the same page. Let's continue. And you see the young lord begins to just waltz towards the set of stairs heading down.

[Abu]

Oh, no.

[Noah]

Is there anything you guys do before you head deeper into the cavern?

[Leo]

I want to make sure the Lord is. I'm still not sure if House Borjean is The pliant who ultimately is going to be paying for the worm. I don't want this lord to die before I'm sure. So I'm going to try to kind of corral him back a little bit and say sort of. All right, all right, all right. Stay close to the doctor. I'm going to go ahead and I'll be sure if I find any spiced wine or spiced beer, you'll be the first one to get some. Okay.

[Noah]

I'm going to take this moment right now to deputize you into House or Jean.

[Leo]

Okay.

[Abu]

Oh, my Lord.

[Noah]

Are you sure? Yes. This is one of the best decisions I've ever made. And I didn't even do it with any wine. And you see, he looks around quickly. Give me something tonight with. Do you have any doctor things like a skapal or perhaps a niddel?

[Abu]

Yeah, let me rummage in my pocket.

[Noah]

Which is how we pronounce it in this year, thousands of years in the future for when these things were invented.

[Abu]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, here's a Nadel. Here's the Nadell I gave you. Gave you your medicines with when we got on the ship.

[Leo]

Okay. Yeah.

[Noah]

Bestow upon you the title of Sir Razzie.

[Leo]

Oh, both shoulders. Okay.

[Noah]

Both should. Shoulders. Yes, of course.

[Leo]

Okay.

[Noah]

You are now my personal God. The pay is low, but the reward is the pay. The low pay. Now take me to the wine.

[Leo]

I am so glad we got that done with. That's great. Great development for all of us. Let's forge forward, and I'm going to lead the way down the stairs with the Ixian lighter. Are there any on the walls? Are there any, like, torches or glow globes or anything that we can use for broader illumination, or is it pretty barren and just stone?

[Noah]

At least in this space? It is pretty barren. But you know what? You can give me a perception check just to take a look around while you're heading into this chamber and down these stairs. If you see anything of note.

[Leo]

Okay. I rolled a 17 with a plus two is a 19.

[Noah]

That's very good. That's very.

[Leo]

It's not as hot. It's not as hot in the caves. You know, it's. It's cooler.

[Abu]

It's cooled down in here. Right.

[Noah]

It's much cooler in the caves. Much cooler in the caves. And as you're going step by step into the darkness, this lighter barely illuminating four or five stairs before you.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Noah]

You notice, you know, there's a decent amount of sand coating these steps. I mean, sand is everywhere. That is the nature of this planet. And then as you're going down, you notice that one stair has perhaps a little bit more sand on it. And I'll tell you, with a 17 on your perception check, you are able to clock that there's less sand on these other stairs because of foot traffic. Like, it's getting moved around this next section of stairs. There's, like, these next few steps. They haven't been stepped on a lot.

[Leo]

Okay. So my thinking is we're on the stairs that are trafficked. The stand is getting pushed around, and then there are stairs that are beyond this that don't get stepped on as much. Maybe there's a trap. Maybe there's a side passage. Maybe there's like a door or something. So I'm going to check the Maybe just like. All right, let's pause for a second. A little weird. Extra stand on that stair. No time to explain. Let's check the walls, see if there's anything, like, places where, like, I don't know, darts would come. I don't know how Indiana Jones the Fremen get. But at the end of the day, just to see if there's anything, there's.

[Abu]

Wait right here, My Lord. Let your new personal bodyguard check this out.

[Noah]

Yes, my personal bodyguard, Razzie Rozzy, do your thing. I'll have you roll an investigation check. And you can roll with advantage because one, Ziggy is keeping the young Lord back, which would give you probably disadvantage. And two, I imagine you've got some eyes on this as well, Doc.

[Leo]

So, okay, first roll is a 16. Second roll is a 15. So I'll take the 16, and that's with investigation plus one. That's 17.

[Noah]

You were right to pause and check here. This set of steps, you see is set to immediately become dislodged. And this entire pathway, you would assume, kind of flattens out into a slide that would presumably head towards maybe a pit or some sort of trap waiting ahead of you. But being able to identify it, you can try and now find a way to navigate around the trigger and therefore avoid the trap. You do still have to navigate around the trigger, though, but you have essentially fully identified that this is a trap left for you guys.

[Leo]

Okay, how much. And I realize. I think we skipped past it a little bit. Did I take the hexagonal suspensor things?

[Noah]

You know what? I'll say that it's up to you if you think you would have been like, this could be helpful with the job ahead versus, you know, or if you were. Yeah. Too focused on those things, it's up to you.

[Leo]

I would have. Yeah. So we got the stillsuit onto. Onto Ziggy, I think the suspensors, because they're important for the worm, because they were part of the job, I would have taken those with us as well. Do we know how much those hold, how much weight those hold?

[Noah]

This isn't a full set, necessarily, but you would assume that they brought enough of these to carry a young Wyrm, you know, so let's say if those can be a few meters in length, the weight of a being would probably be close to what they can carry, if that makes sense.

[Leo]

Like I'm wondering, because we're away from the sand, we don't have to worry about the Holtzman effect drawing worms. Maybe we could, like MacGyver, a suspensor method to go down the stairs and not actually be stepping on the stairs, but just kind of, like hovering on them.

[Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Abu]

Like, avoid triggering it.

[Leo]

Suspenser boots.

[Noah]

Yeah, they're like these, as I said, hexagonal metal devices. And as you take a look at one of the. Let's say. I'll say you have six in total. As you take a look at them, you see that they glow with this orangish light, ever faintly. And you presume that you could maybe press them onto something and they vacuum seal to that thing because of the effect, and then that energy will just start pushing off. So you just have to be, like, aware of which way you're angling and how you're going to use it to put it on. But it should be easy enough to attach to things.

[Leo]

All right, Ziggy.

[Abu]

Yeah, talk to me.

[Leo]

I don't know. We don't know what's at the bottom of this staircase.

[Abu]

Okay.

[Leo]

If it. It appears to be a mechanism that will flatten out and drop us to wherever it goes, wherever it ends up, that could be. Okay. It could just be another room. It could be something more dangerous. I'm going to go ahead and check.

[Abu]

Okay.

[Leo]

So stay here. Keep the Lord safe. Keep my boss safe. I guess for small pay. He made very clear.

[Noah]

Very small pay. So small.

[Leo]

Yes, yes, I got that with the Niddell that you knighted me with. So I'm going to attempt to. So I have six. If I put, like, if I attach two to my hamstrings, like, the backs of my legs, and then I keep two in my hands, then I can Iron Man. Propose Iron man. So that if I need to directional control, that way I can control the direct. Yeah, I like this A lot.

[Noah]

Yes, I will 100% approve this use. No roll necessary even essentially, you put two on your legs and you grasp two in your hands and you have the knowledge of how to activate these. Just a simple press and click release. They glow with that humming orange energy, brighter now, illuminating the stairwell that you stand in. And you begin to like wobbly rise up a little bit.

[Abu]

Careful, Russell. Careful.

[Noah]

Incredible. Okay.

[Leo]

Okay. All right. No.

[Noah]

One of the strongest guards of all time.

[Leo]

It's just. We're good. We're good. It's like. It's like balancing on a ball. I've never done that, but I think it's like balancing on a ball.

[Noah]

You recall the. The clown college that some of your friends went to back on Anchisic?

[Leo]

That goddamn clown college would have been so much easier if I had gone to clown college. How many times the have I said that in my life?

[Noah]

Go to clown college, they said.

[Abu]

Clown college, they said.

[Leo]

I said. That's stupid. I'm never going to need it. In a trapped stairwell and a fucking.

[Noah]

Sietch hovering down the stairs. You continue down and it does wind for quite a bit. Oh, long enough that doctor, you begin to worry that your new ally has left you. But eventually you do arrive at the base of these stairs and find what would have been your death. A full pit filled with sharpened stone. And at the bottom, another body of a cielago.

[Leo]

Oh no. Okay. And I'm still hovering at this point.

[Noah]

Still hovering. Yes, it begins. You hear that voicing? Going, going, going. And while you're down here, why don't you give me a percentage reception check as well.

[Leo]

Okay, now, 20 natural, 20.

[Abu]

Cold.

[Noah]

You hovering there?

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Noah]

This is another one of the newer members of the Smuggler, so thankfully it is not one of your close allies. And unfortunately it is. And it's not your bullies, dammit. But what you do notice, most importantly, on the opposite side of this room, another entrance to another stairwell. And from there, you hear the sounds of combat.

[Leo]

Oh my God.

[Abu]

Oh my goodness, guys, thank you.

[Noah]

This is crazy. This is awesome. You guys are doing so good.

[Abu]

Okay, we're doing good because I was nervous that we were not doing good this time.

[Noah]

No, you've been doing excellent. Both high and low rolls yield incredible, incredible results. You guys have handled this wonderfully. I appreciate the banter that you guys have already generated between each other and with your character.

[Abu]

Well, hats off to you for the young lord bit. I mean, I'm very invested in the young lord's safety.

[Noah]

I'm so glad I knew that he would be polarizing. I knew that it was like, he's either going to be someone, we're going to try and get killed somehow, or we're going to have to try and save him. Even though, God forbid, he's.

[Leo]

As soon as I know whether his death would void my conscience, would that.

[Noah]

Make me money or would I lose money?

[Abu]

Wow, what a fun session today, Noah. Thank you so much. You'll be back in the next episode with us as we continue our journey. But let's wrap up there today. Of course, for you impatient folks out there who just can't wait to find out what happens in Act 3, what happens in the next episode. You're in luck because if you head over to Noah's podcast, try not to die. Episode three is already out over on that feed, so you can get a head start. Head over there and take a listen. We'll have a link to Noah's podcast in the show notes below, so check it out if you want to hear the next episode early. But as always, before we say goodbye, Leo and I have a couple of reminders for you, dear listener.

[Leo]

Yeah, of course. And the first up, if you want to support us and what we do here at Gom Jabbar, two best ways. One, become a patron. For as little as $2 a month, you could help us keep the lights on, help us keep putting the time into this thing that we love so much to generate more dune content for your thirsty little ears. Of course, you can also get some dune themed merchandise from our merch store. Those links are in the show notes. As always, any amount that you can help out is deeply, deeply appreciated indeed.

[Abu]

And of course, we love to hear from you. So email us gomjabbarpodcastmail.com Send us your thoughts, send us your questions, send us your cute pets, send us ideas on where you think this journey's going next and let us know your feedback. What are you enjoying about it? Would you want more adventures like this? And what's wrong with the young lord? Tell us what you think.

[Leo]

What's fucking up with him?

[Noah]

Get him some real medicine and some therapy.

[Abu]

Yeah, honestly, get him into aa is the real. Is the real first step. And then maybe some therapy and then, you know, a dose of maybe a.

[Leo]

Doctor who uses actual medicine and we're going that part.

[Noah]

Stop poisoning.

[Abu]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Leo]

Well, friends, there is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the recording. But this podcast is always one step beyond logic. So help spread the word of Muadib and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and be sure to check out the other shows on the Lord Party podcast network on LordParty.com you can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram Loraparty. We're also on YouTube. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, whoever controls the podcast controls the universe. We'll see you on the Golden Path.