Mausritter: Honey in the Rafters, Part 1

Oct 27

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The Dark Star Adventurecast sets the stars aside for a season break bridge episode in Mausritter — tiny knights, big danger. Jeff trades the Star Master chair for a mouse named Sir Clover Saltwick (allergic to bravery), Doja plays knighted bodyguard Sir Sneaker Nibble, and Scott's one-eyed archer Sir Martin Bellflower has strong opinions about bees. Brian takes over as Game Master for a system that fits in a teacup: three knights, one abandoned human shack, and a sunflower field crawling with bees that glow an ominous shade of purple that definitely isn't normal. There's also a skunk. The skunk's name is Shig.

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Meet the Crew:

Jeff as Sir Clover Saltwick
Scott as Sir Martin Bellflower
Doja as Sir Sneaker Nibble
Brian as Game Master

Special thanks to Brad, Holly, and Jim, our Scapegoat Syndicate members!

They're keeping the lights on, and the airlocks sealed.

[00:00:01] Thorne: Welcome to the Dark Star Adventure Cast, where the only thing standing between you and the darkness is your sword and the strength of your fellow knights. Her Majesty protect us.
[00:00:14] Star Master Jeff: I am Sir Clover Saltwick. I work for the Queen. Are you okay?
[00:00:19] Felix: Magic schmagic. Listen, we're not going to find out anything by standing out here, I'll tell you.
[00:00:25] Thorne: What do you think Prince Dandelion and I do all day? Dandelion Hey everybody, welcome Dark Star Adventure Cast crew. We're doing something a little different today. This is Game Master Brian for a change. And we're going to be trying a one shot of an adorable little critter game called Mausritter by Isaac Williams. This is a game of sword and whiskers where the players will be taking on the roles of small mice in a big world. tackling great danger and finding treasure and glory along the way. The players are probably some folks you recognize. We've got Scott here. We've got Doja. And for an exciting change, we've got Jeff on the player's side. Hey everyone. So why don't we go one by one and everybody can be introduced to the mice that will be taking on today's adventure. Jeff, since you don't normally get to play, you want to start us?
[00:01:24] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, I've been thinking about the voice for my mouse, but I'm not sure. Whatever comes out of my mouth next is going to be the voice. because I have not tried it out loud. I think the last time I tried to do an accent, it failed miserably. I think I tried to give Vera Corbin an Irish accent and then immediately backpedaled that one. So tonight I'm playing Clover Saltwick. Clover Saltwick. I'll read in Clover's voice the little bit of a description in history I've written about him. Well, hello, everyone. I am Clover Saltwick. I'm a middle-aged mouse who once served in the War of Chipmunk Aggression. As a field medic, of course. Though I saw very little actual combat. After my return to Birch Hollow, the state appointed me as the prison guard of all things in the royal palace. But due to some internal restructuring that left several knight positions open, I found myself under the sword of the queen, anointed by her blessed honor. It was the proudest day of my life, and although I found myself in this position by pure happenstance, I swear that I will serve the queen, her people, and the kingdom with my life. And that's Clover Saltwick, and he's ready to adventure. Awesome. Clover Saltwick has a heavy spear. It takes up both his main and off-paw. It's a two-paw weapon. Two paws. Yeah, I have two slots on my body. One is taken up by a torch, another by a dagger. So they are ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. And in my pack, I have two items, a six inch chain, which I can use to bludgeon people with or climb a six inch ledge, I guess. And also a little packet of rations, which is a little bit of bread and cheese, a little bit of bread and a lot of cheese. Of course, got to have that cheese.
[00:03:12] Thorne: Oh, what about your coat? Tell us about your coat.
[00:03:15] Star Master Jeff: Oh, yeah, I have these extra descriptions here. So my birth sign is the birth sign of the mother. So I'm very caring. That's why I was a field medic when I was put into the prison guard situation. I was like, what the heck? Birth sign of the mother. What are you guys doing? Knighthood protecting the kingdom makes a lot more sense to me. My disposition is nurturing and worrying, and we'll hear that come out tonight when I'm both hugging the other mice tightly and sobbing uncontrollably. My look is a beautiful face. So we got ourselves a real Jake Gyllenhaal mouse here. And the coat of Clover Saltwick is tan and patchy. Nice. So kind of like a little bit of a brindle situation, I guess. That's how I'm picturing it, at least.
[00:03:59] Thorne: Great. Let's move the spotlight over to the next mouse in our adventuring party. Scott, why don't you go?
[00:04:05] Felix: Hey, I'm Martin Bellflower. I come from a big family, as most mice do. I got five older brothers, three older sisters, and then my mom and my dad. And we, well, they run a fungus farm. You know, I've never really been into the farming style. I was always looking for a scrape, looking to get into trouble. So I've just been roaming around, trying to make my way in the world, and eventually found myself serving the kingdom, I guess. I don't know. Doing the best I can. Um... I lost one of my eyes in an early scrimmage, so I got this eye patch I wear. But it's all right. It looks good with my black patchy fur. And, you know, I'm good with a bow. I don't like to get too up close anymore since the whole eye thing. You know, I've only got one left. I've got to stay back and protect it. But I'm ready to do what needs to be done. How's your depth perception? It's all right, you know. It's all right. I shoot pretty well still.
[00:05:02] Thorne: Alright, I'll take your word for it. Thank God. Do you have a good dex? Yeah, I don't know what good is, you know. Oh, no. What is good, anyway?
[00:05:11] Star Master Jeff: What is good? Who knows? Yeah, what is... I love your voice. At first, I was, like, gonna call you out for doing a voice you've done before, but then you threw a little peppa on it. I've never heard you actually do this voice before. So it's very good.
[00:05:24] Robert: It's also, like, the least mousing voice I've ever heard. It's spectacular. Like, 100% locked that shit in. Yep.
[00:05:32] Thorne: Is your mouse a smoker? They sound like a smoker. Yeah, he is. He's definitely a smoker.
[00:05:35] Felix: I was in charge of smoking the mushrooms at the mushroom farm to make the... Of course, yeah. I was in charge. I'm getting real Boston with this now. It's the spores.
[00:05:47] Robert: It's in my throat.
[00:05:48] Felix: It's the spores. The spores. I got all the spores.
[00:05:53] Thorne: All right, let's wrap up this little crew of mouse adventurers with Doge's mouse.
[00:05:59] Robert: Yes. Well, hello. I am Sir Sneaker Nibble. I am, well, a chocolate coat mouse with little fangs. flecks here and there. I'm not originally from around these parts. I actually used to be a field mouse. My family were a group of fishers, mostly fishing insects. I mean, what else would mice really find? but uh after uh at one point i actually saw a young mouse noble um actually prince dandelion in a field getting attacked in my field of all fields getting attacked by a crow it came down and pulled away his honor guard and then another And then another. I was so scared. I popped my little head out, and luckily this was a field I knew very well, and told him to come down into my little mouse hole. I have a little tunnel that goes through the fields. Ever since then, he thinks of me as some sort of bodyguard. It's a little silly. I'm not much for any of that royalty, but he made me his shieldman, and I've been that ever since. It's honestly quite dull work, but recently we've been tasked with a quest. He says it's of the utmost importance, and I've grown quite attached to Prince Dandelion. He seems like just such a genuine folk. Well, hello. That's me. Sir Sneaker Nibble. He actually did sir me. It was quite dandy of him. Oh, I see what you did there. Sneaker Nibble.
[00:07:41] Felix: I feel like we're going to get along, kid.
[00:07:44] Robert: Oh, Martin. I like the cut of your jib.
[00:07:49] Thorne: Alright, so we have Clover Saltwick, Martin Bellflower, and Sir Sneaker Nibble. Those are our mouse adventurers.
[00:07:58] Star Master Jeff: Is Sneaker Nibble one word or two? One word. One word. Do you have a surname?
[00:08:06] Robert: It's Sir Sneaker Nibble.
[00:08:08] Star Master Jeff: Sir is his first name. Yeah, are we all sirs since we've been knighted?
[00:08:12] Thorne: I suppose you are, yeah. I'll actually go ahead and use that as a segue to say that, yes, the mice that we are following tonight are knights under the command of Prince Dandelion, heir to the throne of Birch Hollow in the Greenlands, a mouse kingdom nestled inside an old birch tree. on the edge of a forest. Tonight's adventure is going to be using the adventure site that came bundled with the Mausritter box set that I bought, which is Honey in the Rafters, also written by Isaac Williams. I've actually looked through it. I've run it before. It's pretty fun. The adventures in Mausritter are written as places, not stories. So there's no plot written here. There's no... you know, pre-planned way that this goes down. It's just a place with a few points of interest that we will explore as we go. So I guess from there, we're just about ready to jump in. Do you want to share any details on how to play with the people at home or you think they'll just figure it out? I would talk forever about rules, but we don't have to do that.
[00:09:20] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, I don't think it's necessary.
[00:09:21] Thorne: Yeah, you guys can figure it out. Read a book. Yeah. Here's the thing. The Mausritter SRD is completely available on their website. I think it's just mouseritter.com. If it's not, you can sue me. But it's somewhere around there. Yeah. I mean, the SRD is... It's free. It's free. It's free. It's even got a really cool... That's Mouse. Mouse Creator. And that's Mouse M-A-U-S. Yes, sorry. Mouse. M-A-U-S-R-I-T-T-E-R. Mausritter. As though we're from somewhere other than where we are from.
[00:09:50] Star Master Jeff: Yeah.
[00:09:50] Thorne: Mouse. Mouse. And Ritter as in Kristen Ritter. Obviously. Mausritter. I guess that's one way you could do it. Yeah.
[00:09:59] Star Master Jeff: Okay. Let's get playing. Let's do it. I'm so excited to actually play a character tonight. I can't wait for Clover Saltwick to either die immediately or become the fucking hero he knows he can be. Let's get it on.
[00:10:09] Thorne: This is definitely one of those systems. I mean, mice are... fragile right i think i feel like that's something that everybody understands going into this nope not clover buddy don't make me they're also very small so we'll be exploring a world that to them is you know way bigger than it already even is to a normal human one thing to watch out for is that in this game the mice are sort of you know personified they speak to each other they usually walk on two legs and wear clothes they use items like sometimes there will be a dagger that was crafted by a mouse blacksmith that you wield it's a mouse-sized dagger but other times a mouse might wield a human-sized needle that a human would use to sew so it's there's a mixture of sizes i like to think of it as like a Tom and Jerry style of thing. So you got once you go in your little hole in the wall, there's a whole mouse sized world. But when you come out, you're in a, you know, potentially bigger world. As the curtain draws on our quest, the group of you find yourselves emerging from a mouse tunnel in the ground, finally arriving at the location to which you've been traveling for days now. Prince Dandelion has sent you on a very important quest in order to recover a specific kind of seed. It seems that his court wizard has learned details about a seed that grows in these parts from a very peculiar sunflower. The power of those seeds a wizard could use to greatly further the cause of the kingdom of Birch Hollow. So the prince has sent you out to an old abandoned human shack, long since abandoned by any humans. But nearby is a sunflower field where it is said that there is a mysterious black sunflower that reaches high into the sky. seeds of which are said to contain great power. And as the three of you climb out of the small burrow, you see towering before you the massive, looming, menacing sight of a human shack, dilapidated, rotten, falling apart, filled with holes, but just utterly huge. Also around you is a small garden with a broken-down fence. There's a sunflower field, as you were expecting, just nearby, and it's impossible not to notice the massive black sunflower that stands three times the size of the others, towering above the rest of the field. And, I mean, you know, sunflowers are kind of a pretty big flower. To a mouse, it's even bigger. And this black sunflower seems to reach almost as high as the roof of the abandoned shack nearby. There is also a rotten log on the other side of the sunflower field that appears to have been there for quite some time, but also may be home to all sorts of creatures.
[00:13:23] Star Master Jeff: So we exit out of our mouse kingdom, and we're on sort of a little rise, and we're looking out over the sunflower field and kind of can appraise all this and see the log on the other side.
[00:13:32] Thorne: Yeah, I would say that you're on a little... You've come out of a burrow onto a little mound of dirt, probably, you know, a few inches high, and it gives you a pretty clear view of the sunflower field. Through the field, you can make out the log beyond it, and then to your other side is the huge... huge cottage or abandoned shack. You're standing in what is basically like what used to be a garden. It looks like there was a fence around it at some point, like a white picket fence. But all the paint is peeled. The wood is rotten. It's falling apart. But it was, you know, at some point this was a human's home or settlement or something like that.
[00:14:11] Robert: How far have we traveled from Birch Hollow? How far away are we at this point?
[00:14:17] Thorne: A couple miles. Which is a lot. Which is a lot. You've been traveling for a few days. Yeah. Some of it over land, some of it underground. There's lots of ways for mice to travel, but it's also quite dangerous out there.
[00:14:30] Star Master Jeff: I turn to my fellow knights in furry armor and I say, well, everyone, this is our first mission as knights. And boy, it looks like it's going to be a real doozy because if we go down there, the sunflowers are awfully tall and it could be anything in there. It could be snakes, it could be chipmunks, it could be rats, whatever. I don't know. We're going to have to be really careful. And there could be a human in that big wooden shack over there.
[00:14:56] Felix: Come on, Clover. It's going to be fine. You've been moaning and groaning about risks and danger. We're going to be fine. Look, the sunflower that we need is right there. We just climb up the thing, get the seeds, and then we're back to the kingdom.
[00:15:09] Star Master Jeff: Just to be clear, he did specifically call it the black sunflower as the one we need to get the seeds from. That is correct. Or is it just, okay, just wanted to make sure. Because otherwise I ain't touching that thing.
[00:15:18] Robert: No, that's what Prince Dandelion told us to come get was the seeds of the black sunflower.
[00:15:25] Star Master Jeff: I understand. I just wanted to make sure because the queen is the one who like knighted us. So it's weird that the prince is telling us to do something. That's all I'm going to say about that.
[00:15:35] Robert: I mean, I will always be loyal to Prince Dandelion, and he told us that that was where we needed to be. Now, my question for you is, do we beeline right for it, or do we check out the log or the shack first to see if the coast is clear?
[00:15:56] Thorne: Well, Sir Sneaker Nibble, as you ponder this and the three of you stand looking at the sunflower field, you can't help but make out a low buzzing sound coming from above.
[00:16:09] Thorne: Not now. Fuck, I say in mouse talk.
[00:16:12] Robert: We gotta hide. Jeez it all. Gotta hide, guys.
[00:16:15] Star Master Jeff: I quickly look up to this guy. Is there like a shape or is there a shadow, an ominous shadow falling over the land?
[00:16:25] Robert: excuse me Sir Clover thank you shit Hmm. Um, if I, one, I dash away to cover immediately. I don't like anything that buses. I had a... Damn right I'm gonna go back to my little hole. But, um, what, do I recognize the type of insects? I mean, I have seen a couple of bugs in my day.
[00:17:21] Felix: Oh. Yeah. Yeah, they're just out doing their pollinating.
[00:17:25] Robert: No, I don't think that those are normal bees. Look at how they're buzzing.
[00:17:32] Star Master Jeff: It does seem like their flight pattern is erratic. I don't know too much about bees, guys, but I don't think we should be going into that cabin. I don't want to get stung. I might be allergic.
[00:17:42] Felix: Our mission is not to go in the cabin. It's to go get those sunflower seeds. So we just go get the sunflower seeds.
[00:17:49] Star Master Jeff: Sir Martin, we have to get to the top of that flower. We might have to get on top of the cabin roof. That might be the easiest way. But now if we can't even approach the cabin, and this black sunflower is mighty close to it, we won't be able to use the cabin walls to climb up there. I don't see another way, unless you know of a way up the sunflower, because all I have is this six-inch chain, and... I don't think this is going to reach.
[00:18:15] Felix: But before I propose this as a mouse, I mean, I'm pretty sure a mouse could climb up a sunflower.
[00:18:19] Robert: Mice are like, I don't know if I had rats for a small time. They are like the craziest good climbers of any animal I have ever seen.
[00:18:29] Star Master Jeff: Okay, so I guess the question is for Brian. In the game Mausritter, is there even a climb skill or do we just auto succeed all the time?
[00:18:35] Thorne: Depending on how far you're trying to climb, you might just be able to do it without any kind of check. But what ends up happening is if your mice do something that puts them in a risky situation or something where there's an obvious chance of failure, that's when I would potentially call for a saving throw. And in the case of one of those regular sunflowers, you could probably climb out without issue. The black sunflower, on the other hand, is a different story.
[00:19:00] Star Master Jeff: I put a hand on each of your shoulders and I say, My fellow knights, I know we can climb that mighty sunflower. But with the bees right there, do you not think that we may be attacked by the winged insects?
[00:19:11] Robert: I would agree. I think we are going to need a distraction if we dare to approach it. I think that those bees are not going to appreciate our presence.
[00:19:23] Felix: It's also so tall. We don't have bees on the fungus farm. The bees don't really care about the mushrooms, so I'm not too experienced with those guys.
[00:19:31] Star Master Jeff: I also have not seen many bees in my time, but perhaps if we could kidnap the queen and take it somewhere? Or hit it with rocks from far away? I'm not sure what to do.
[00:19:43] Felix: Over.
[00:19:43] Robert: Okay. Well, now I know that you are just a demon child. Um... I was thinking just like a little bit of honey to distract them.
[00:19:52] Star Master Jeff: They make honey. They don't need... Honey is not their currency.
[00:19:56] Thorne: That's the one thing they don't need.
[00:19:57] Felix: Why don't we at least go see... Listen, I think we just get in there and check things out. Like, let's go in this little shack here. We'll see where these bees came from. Maybe they're going to go back soon. Now look, the walls are all rotten. We can just pop in, pop out. Just a quick peek. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. Wait a minute here. 20 minute adventure.
[00:20:20] Star Master Jeff: Sir Sneaker Nibble just said something very interesting. We could bribe them with pollen. Bees use pollen to make honey. And there's a giant corrupted sunflower right next to the shack. What if these bees are cursed magically or otherwise by the sunflower? We might be dealing with a magical or some sort of incursion upon their nest. This might be far more dangerous than we originally thought.
[00:20:43] Felix: Magic schmagic. Listen, we're not going to find out anything by standing out here all day. So we should go in there, at least take a look, and then make a decision.
[00:20:51] Robert: I actually agree with both of you, but I think that we, one, need to be very careful because these bees don't seem right to me. But two, I do think that we should, I don't know, poke our little heads into the shack and see what we can see.
[00:21:08] Star Master Jeff: Sir Martin, do you have your bionic eyes with you? Perhaps we could get a closer look.
[00:21:13] Felix: I got this. I will fit on my spore mask and take my bow and arrow and knock an arrow and say, all right, I'm going to go check this thing out.
[00:21:25] Thorne: I'm going to walk up however far it is to the shack. Martin starts to skitter over towards the shack. Do the two of you follow along, or do you wait for him to scout it out and come back?
[00:21:35] Star Master Jeff: I think it's all for one. He's making a dangerous decision for all of us, and I don't think we have a choice. We've got to have his back. So I follow.
[00:21:43] Robert: I am more than happy to follow, but I'm also more than happy to not have to be the tank.
[00:21:48] Star Master Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, you should stay back. I ready my spear and I take up second position and I follow behind Sir Martin. All right. He's called me Matty.
[00:21:59] Robert: Matty.
[00:21:59] Star Master Jeff: I will not. I do not think we know each other well enough to drop the formalities. In fact, I'll call you Sir Bellflower.
[00:22:06] Felix: Come on, Clovey. It's fine.
[00:22:09] Star Master Jeff: You can call me Sir Saltwick of the Saltwick clan.
[00:22:12] Felix: You have to say the whole thing. Big boy. Big boy.
[00:22:16] Star Master Jeff: I'll tell you what. If we are in the midst of battle and time is of the essence, you may call me Clover. Clovey's the same number of syllables. You're not saving any time at that point. How do you feel about clove? yeah clove is fine if we're in the midst of battle and your life is at risk but i will determine that after the fact so and this is as we're walking yeah so hoity-toity so the three of you continue to make your way towards the massive menacing human cabin
[00:22:44] Thorne: Martin, when you start to get close, you can see that this old human door is rotten and warped with wetness and age. And it would be no problem for mice to just easily stride right in. Well, I'm not going to stride right in.
[00:22:57] Felix: I will kind of walk up and do a little mouse poke, poke my head in and sniff, you know, not sniff because I got a mask on, but look around.
[00:23:05] Thorne: See what I see inside. So you peer inside the old cabin and have a look around. Based on what you see at first, it seems very likely that no humans have been here in quite some time. There's old, crumbled, rotten furniture laying in the middle of the floor, a collapsed table with only two legs left on it, and a chair laying on the floor on its back. There appears to be an old axe leaning up against the walls, a few shelves possibly covered with human whatsits and detritus. and in the far corner, an old rusty iron stove with a chimney that reaches up out through the roof. The inside of the cabin is dark, but it's dimly lit by beams of light that are piercing through the holes that have formed in the old rotten roof.
[00:23:57] Robert: Looking at the stove, does it appear to be rusted? Is it shut? Is there any way we could explore it through a mouse size? Mice can get through a dime size gap.
[00:24:11] Thorne: It certainly seems likely if you went inside. Don't go at the stove. What are you doing? What about these bees?
[00:24:17] Robert: That's where I think the bees are hiding. Where are these bees coming from? That's where I think the bees are.
[00:24:21] Thorne: Well, when you look around, Martin, more, you know, you saw the stove in the far end and the collapsed table and the beams of light. But where are those bees, you think to yourself. And then finally, you notice directly above your head as like right over the door of this shack. is a massive beehive dripping with honey. The honey seems to have some sort of strange, ominous, glowing aura around it. And the hive itself is covered with bees. Is it dripping onto me? No, it's like dripping onto the rafters of the shack. Okay. You could even say that there's honey in the rafters.
[00:25:05] Star Master Jeff: Martin, I poke your back and I say...
[00:25:08] Felix: sir martin what does it look like in there i slowly withdraw well fellas it's uh it's a beehive all right right above the door here and uh listen i haven't seen too many of these like i told you but something seems weird about this one it's all like glowy and shit i don't know it doesn't feel right i think you were right clovey i think there's something going on here
[00:25:31] Robert: What seems to be glowy about it? The bees are glowy?
[00:25:34] Felix: Nah, I mean, the honey, what is it? The honey that's dripping from it. I don't know, take a look. Just look for yourselves. I can't, I'm not a poet.
[00:25:42] Robert: I'd like to poke my head in there and taste the honey for THC content.
[00:25:47] UNKNOWN: Ha ha ha.
[00:25:48] Thorne: So you stick your head in, Sir Sneaker Nibble. Two mice heads poke their heads in because I do as well.
[00:25:54] Thorne: And both of you look under or around the door at the sights that Martin described. And looking straight up above the door, you see the hive. You see the weird kind of glow to the honey. And yeah, you know what? When you look at it, Sir Sneaker Nibble, you think that the bees do look odd as well. Like maybe they're even giving off a bit of a glow as well. But it's like, it's not like a light or a glow. It's sort of like an ominous dark aura. I shouldn't really describe it as glowing because it's not providing any light. But it is some sort of like black or even purple sort of dark energy that seems to radiate from the honey. Is there any of it that I can taste? You can see like it's sort of... covering the rafters up above if you could get up there you could definitely get a taste down on the floor here by the door you don't particularly see any i back out i feel like the air in there is toxic it smells bad
[00:26:54] Star Master Jeff: And I had the spore mask on, so I'm fine. I gasp for air as I go back out. Oh, yeah, since the- That place is covered in spores. I don't think it's safe to be breathing in there. We should obviously find a different way to the top of the sunflower. Maybe we just hack it down. Does it have to be alive?
[00:27:10] Robert: We just need the seeds. I don't think we have to take the whole flower.
[00:27:14] Felix: Yeah, so, I mean, you think knocking it down is not going to piss these b-boys off?
[00:27:19] Star Master Jeff: I'm just trying to think of a way to not go in there and breathe that air and be stung by what could be dozens of bees. Dozens? There's hundreds in there.
[00:27:27] Robert: Hundreds?
[00:27:28] Star Master Jeff: Easy!
[00:27:29] Robert: Oh, yes, no, that the entire rafters were covered in bees and electro-moonlight honey, that is certainly not something that we would survive.
[00:27:42] Star Master Jeff: What if we came back at night? Do bees need to sleep? We can certainly find out. If we come back at night, maybe we can just hack down the sunflower stalk and grab the seeds and book it.
[00:27:52] Felix: Listen, it's not a bad idea, but I don't know about you boys, but I don't like being out at night. That's when the OWLs are out. Be quiet. It might hear you.
[00:28:01] Robert: There are lots of creatures. That log, we want to explore the log very, very cautiously because there might be some things living in there as well that are either up to no good or we might find something well worth our time.
[00:28:19] Star Master Jeff: Don't forget, fellow knights, we are miles away from our kingdom. We don't need to be stirring up trouble anywhere that we don't need to be. I say we just wait till nightfall and figure out how to get these seeds. There might be a predator at night, an OWL, but there are maybe hundreds of predators inside that cabin right now. We can put them to sleep and then get the seeds and leave.
[00:28:44] Thorne: Just to be clear, bees are not predators.
[00:28:47] Star Master Jeff: They are to us.
[00:28:47] Thorne: They might sting the hell out of us. These are evil demon bees.
[00:28:54] Thorne: Wow. A bee glows evil ominous purple and you automatically assume that they're a bad guy.
[00:29:00] Felix: Yeah, I think these are cursed bees. I'm sorry, I'm stereotyping bees. Listen, listen, I think Nibbles, though, Nibbles here had a good idea, because if we go down to that log, we could find some locals, they know the lay of the land, they can help us out, you know, maybe we can grab a drink, you know, put our feet up for a little while. Or it could be full of snakes. It might be. A log like that, that's... That's got Vol written all over it.
[00:29:24] Star Master Jeff: Game, Mouse Master.
[00:29:25] Thorne: Yes, I like that, Mouse Master. The Mouse Master. Or Game Mouster would also be acceptable.
[00:29:31] Star Master Jeff: In the world, as mice in this world, what's our general impression of this abandoned log?
[00:29:38] Thorne: Is it sort of aligned with what Martin's saying? It's likely that something lives there.
[00:29:44] Thorne: It could easily be a whole clan of mice, but you don't know of any mice villages around here. It could be something worse than that. The best case scenario is that it's a... Small little town or village of mice that you just didn't know was there. But the more likely situation is that it's something other than that. Like other.
[00:30:09] Robert: Danke schön, Mauster. Maus Mauster.
[00:30:12] Star Master Jeff: Sir Martin, with all due respect, it's much more likely that there's something that wants to eat us in there.
[00:30:18] Felix: If I didn't go places just because something wanted to eat me, I would never have gone anywhere.
[00:30:24] Robert: i'm well into middle age can we at least approach it because i do feel it one we could as we get a little closer to the flower to see if maybe any of the seas have just fallen on the ground and two maybe we can get a better view of the log
[00:30:40] Star Master Jeff: And with all due respect to you as well, Sir Sneaker Nibble, you only have two hit points. Why are we going to that log?
[00:30:46] Felix: We're little mice. We'll just scurry over there. We'll hide in the sunflower stalks. We'll look out at it. This is what we do. We reconnoiter. Reconnaissance.
[00:31:00] Star Master Jeff: I will only say nay one more time that our job is to get the seeds in the quickest, most efficient way possible. But if both of you are in agreement that we should go, we should leave the bee's nest to poke the proverbial hornet's nest, then I can do nothing but acquiesce and I will have your back because it's all for one and one for mouse. I'm still working on that expression.
[00:31:21] Thorne: It was beautiful.
[00:31:23] Felix: Yeah, I mean, listen, I like the idea of waiting till night, but I also don't like being out at night, especially that high up, closer to the you-know-whats. So maybe there's somebody here who can help us, give us some intel on these bees, what their whole deal is, and we'll get some help from the locals.
[00:31:39] Star Master Jeff: Very well. I pick up my rucksack and grab my spear. Lead on, Sir Martin. And you do, Sir Martin?
[00:31:46] Felix: Yeah, so I want to kind of go, I want to, you know, scurry. So I'm going to be scurrying. Yep, as a mouse would do. I want to go close to under the black sunflower.
[00:31:56] Thorne: Yeah, you'll basically have to either go around the sunflower field or straight through it. So you'll be going past it more or less.
[00:32:02] Felix: Yeah, going through it's fine.
[00:32:04] Star Master Jeff: Just to get the lay of the land here, we were on this rise. Below that rise is the sunflower field. At some point in the field, there's a big black sunflower. Just next to that big black sunflower is a cabin or shack. Beyond that shack, maybe at the end of the sunflower seed or beyond, is where this rotting log is.
[00:32:27] Thorne: Yeah, so small corrections. When you were on that rise, it was a mouse-sized rise, so it was still not very high. And you were basically standing outside in the front yard of said shack. Okay. Which was, like, let's say to your left. Then off to your right from that point was the sunflower field. Where is the log in relation to that? So beyond the sunflower field is then the log.
[00:32:51] Felix: We've got to go through the field.
[00:32:53] Thorne: There's probably, like, 30 feet between the shack and the sunflowers.
[00:32:58] Thorne: So the shack and the black sunflower are not next to each other at all. We're not jumping from the shack to the sunflower. By human scale, it is very, very close.
[00:33:05] Thorne: But by mouse scale, it is not.
[00:33:07] Star Master Jeff: Even more reason to not go to the shack. What are we doing? Come on, mice. This is how mice die. Mice die every day. Mice afflicted with stupidity are dead every day. They're like, what's in that shack? Dead. What's in that log? Dead. It's called bravery, Clover. It's called bravery, not stupidity.
[00:33:27] Thorne: Well, if that's what you call bravery, then I want none of it. Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
[00:33:34] Robert: Is that how you got through the war of chipmunk aggression?
[00:33:38] Star Master Jeff: Hey, I got through that war by doing my duty, and I was mostly cleaning mouse trains. you're like andrew garfield from that you're like andrew garfield from that movie where he refuses to fight in world war ii i'm like jake joan hall from jarhead more like no he he wanted to fight but he didn't get to hey i would have fought if they told me to but i was a medic yeah so it's more like andrew garfield because he was a medic yeah okay well anyway sir martin yeah sir martin is scurrying through the sunflower field it sounds like
[00:34:08] Thorne: Very brave of you to scurry. It is, yeah. So as you move through the sunflower field with your two fellow knights in tow, now that you're actually in the field, you find it's very cool and quiet in here. The massive heads of the sunflowers sort of dampen the sound from outside of the sunflowers. field it's really hard not to have your eyes be drawn to the black sunflower itself which towers over this field like its stock is like a redwood tree's trunk would be to a human just massive all the way around and tall you can hear the bees buzzing above but the sound is sort of like dampened by the sunflowers themselves Did you want to move up close to the black stock or just passing through?
[00:34:56] Robert: I was going to ask, can we see the bees from our vantage point?
[00:35:02] Thorne: Inside of the sunflower field, it's difficult to see up that high because there's not that many, like, you got the heads of the sunflowers blocking your view. But yeah, more or less, you can see some bees.
[00:35:12] Robert: Because, guys, you can go on, but I would like to very slowly approach the black sunflower more than trying to get close to it. I'm trying to see if me getting close to it changes the pattern of the bees' flight.
[00:35:32] Thorne: Hmm. Okay, so you're just going to walk up toward it and watch the bees?
[00:35:35] Thorne: I will go with you.
[00:35:37] Felix: I'll throw up my hands.
[00:35:38] Thorne: He's watching the bees while I'm watching everything else. Okay.
[00:35:43] Thorne: As you start to move over towards the black stalk itself, the three of you moving together to check it out, suddenly your mouse senses begin to tingle. Oh, shit. Beyond what Sir Clover is constantly feeling, this sort of anxiety in his gut, you might also have a sense for imminent danger. And the hairs, the fur on the back of your necks starts to bristle as you sense danger is afoot. Guys, guys. You smell a- I feel it. a pungent, musky scent wafting in the air. And as you start to, now that you're a little bit closer to the black sunflower, you can make out the form of a mouse down on all fours, quivering behind the stalk.
[00:36:33] Star Master Jeff: Oh, I rush forward as a medic.
[00:36:36] Thorne: You run over to the mouse and they see you coming and they start waving their arms. You can't tell if they're saying, I'm over here, I'm over here, or they're saying, no, no, don't do it. But whatever the case may be, in a flash, you're at their side. And under their breath, the mouse says to you, Are you crazy?
[00:36:55] Thorne: What are you doing in here? We're all going to be killed.
[00:36:58] Star Master Jeff: I am Sir Clover Saltwick. I work for the Queen, though I was sent here on a mission by the Prince. Are you okay?
[00:37:04] Thorne: He's going to hear you. And when he says that, all four of the mice can hear a low, deep growl coming from the far end of the sunflower field. The sounds of an animal sniffing. You can hear it from here. The mouse continues, It's Shig.
[00:37:28] Thorne: The skunk. We gotta get out of here before she kills us all.
[00:37:31] Star Master Jeff: I look over at my nightly companions just a few paces away, and I grab this mouse's hand and keep myself between the civilian and where I think the skunk may be, and we slowly make our way back to the companions. And I let the two of you know what this young mouse has told me.
[00:37:50] Thorne: As you start to back away, Clover, you can see the sunflowers are starting to move, to be pushed apart by a large animal.
[00:38:00] Star Master Jeff: As you're backing away and you move... Do skunks have like a T-Rex vision? Should I be moving slowly or quickly?
[00:38:06] Thorne: I don't know.
[00:38:07] Star Master Jeff: Let's go faster.
[00:38:08] Thorne: Yeah, you go faster. Let's... Just as you move back towards where your friends are, you can see the form of the skunk move out into the small clearing around the bottom of the black sunflower and... The creature sniffs the ground and moves over towards the bottom and starts to dig around the stalk of the black sunflower, constantly checking over its shoulder where you and this mouse that you found are trying to be as silent as you can. It doesn't seem to notice you. And she just continues to burrow, scratch, claw. and look over her shoulder.
[00:38:42] Felix: Spells, there's a skunk?
[00:38:43] Thorne: The mouse that you don't know speaks up and says, Yeah, that's Shig the skunk. She lives in that old log over there. Gotta be real careful in these parts that you don't get her attention or she'll gobble you up like nothing.
[00:38:56] Star Master Jeff: Well, it's okay. You're safe with Knights of Birch Hollow now.
[00:38:59] Thorne: What is your name, young mouse? I'm called Jensen, and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.
[00:39:04] Thorne: And they hold out their paw for a shake. Shake it. Where are you from, Jensen? Well, I come from the Greenfields myself, but I came to this shack to join up with my fellow brothers. Is that why you all are here? You were sent to join?
[00:39:18] Robert: Where are your brothers now?
[00:39:20] Thorne: Oh, they're in the temple. In that old human cabin over there. And he points to the cabin. Oh, no. You are aware that it's full of bees? Of course I'm aware.
[00:39:29] Thorne: That's why we're here. Don't you know what those bees are doing? Being extremely dangerous? Well, they are dangerous. But the honey that they make? And he... Chef's kiss. I grab him and put his head back down.
[00:39:41] Star Master Jeff: No chef's kiss right now. There's a skunk right there.
[00:39:43] Robert: So you're telling me it is THC laced. Who knighted you?
[00:39:48] Star Master Jeff: They don't drug test at Bertolo. They're cool. What do you think Prince Dandelion and I do all day? Yeah, they drug tested Sir Sneaker Nibble and they just went, nice.
[00:40:01] Thorne: Damn. Drugs, yes.
[00:40:03] Star Master Jeff: Oh, dude, hell yeah. Throw up the horns. Anyway, here's your knight gear.
[00:40:07] Thorne: At least we know this one's cool.
[00:40:10] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, we got a clover and we got a sneaker nibble. They balance each other out. Right, right.
[00:40:14] Robert: You do drugs? Now, we'd love to learn more about you, but do we, by any chance, while the skunk is distracted, want to go check out the log? You mean Shig's lair? Are you crazy? Well, Shig's not in it.
[00:40:28] Thorne: Yeah, I mean, now that we know what's over there. Yep.
[00:40:30] Felix: You seen those things move? They move fast. Like.
[00:40:33] Thorne: The civilian mouse just puts his paws up, and he's like, I'm not going over there. I got to get back to the temple. And he looks back at you, Clover, and does a deep bow. Thank you so much, and be safe. And he starts to scurry away once you stop him.
[00:40:47] Felix: Yeah, hold on, hold on, hold on, kid. Let's go together. We'll meet your people. We got some questions for you. Oh, you'll meet my brothers? Yes, yes, come, come, come. Hold on, hold on.
[00:40:56] Thorne: You gonna be okay meeting a few guys? Of course, of course, the more the merrier. I mean, it's all in the honor of the great Sweet Tooth. The Cult of the Black Honey is accepting new members? Well, I mean, we don't normally go by such a name, but... Yeah, we accept new members.
[00:41:12] Star Master Jeff: My fellow knights, I do not think that this deviation from our quest is worthy of our time. And then I look at them and I'm like, they're going to kill us.
[00:41:22] Felix: Salty, salty. These mice could need our help. So we should probably go see if they need an extra hand or not. Am I salty?
[00:41:31] Star Master Jeff: My last name is Salty. I can't keep up with the nickname. This is what it's like to play opposite Scott.
[00:41:36] Robert: You can be salty, or you can be Sir Salt Dick. Whatever you prefer. Whoa, improper attitude. I'm putting that one in my back pocket for later. Oh, I was saving it, but it just kind of cropped out.
[00:41:49] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, Sir Martin Bell and... Oh, nice. That was good. And Sir Sneaker Nibble on these balls. Eh, 5 out of 10.
[00:41:59] Felix: Sneaker Nibble was right there. Sneaker Nibble was right there.
[00:42:07] Star Master Jeff: Sir Sneaker weird-shaped nibbles. Anyway.
[00:42:11] Thorne: Yeah, now it's Brian's job to get us back on track. This terrified mouse is insisting that we go back towards the shack and that we leave Shig to her digging. And he's walking away whether you follow him or not. I think this is an important plot point that we should follow through.
[00:42:27] Robert: I said there was no plot at the beginning I specifically said that I think the temple is going to be there either way that we have a limited turn set where the skunk is distracted I'm not going to the skunk slayer I want the goddamn magic spells in the skunk slayer
[00:42:45] Star Master Jeff: okay what time is it like what where's the sun in the sky almost directly overhead dude we gotta go to that log the skunk's not there right now you know what's in that fucking cabin bees that are currently awake the cabin is a nighttime thing the log is a right now thing we know where the skunk is All right, all right.
[00:43:05] Felix: Tell you what, we'll go to the log, keep watch, I'll climb up on top of it, and I'll let you know if he starts coming back.
[00:43:11] Star Master Jeff: Sounds good. See, I have some of that rare bravery that you were talking about. I just want to make sure that there's something called the certainty trap that my character has, which is, needs to be 100% certain of things before doing them. This is the Clovey that I've gotten to know and love. Classic anxiety trait. Let's do it, Clove. Okay, well, now that we have a plan, I'm all for it, and I'm leading the charge. Okay, so... I'm marching with vigor. If I go one more step, I'll be the furthest from the kingdom I've ever been. And then another step and another step.
[00:43:43] Thorne: So the three of you sneak around the black sunflower where Shig the skunk is currently digging for something, and you try not to be noticed by her, right? And Jensen's heading off to the cabin. Yeah, he's going back off to the cabin. He's like, okay, bye, I guess. I'll be there later. As you move around towards the log, the musky smell that you smelled right before Shig appeared starts to get stronger and more intense. It's almost unbearable for anyone who's not wearing some kind of mask.
[00:44:14] Felix: I got my mask on.
[00:44:15] Thorne: Your fungus mask. The log itself is old and rotten and hollowed out with some stones around it. There's just a big opening on this side and moss all over the top and sides of it. Uh, it's dark inside. Um, but it's not nothing. No, as mice, you're no strangers to the dark. Um, did I hear one of you was going to climb on top of it? Yeah. I would like to scurry up to the top and kind of set overwatch.
[00:44:39] Robert: Marty, you have, you have the mask on. You should get into that smell. I'll sit on top. What do you, what do you got?
[00:44:46] Star Master Jeff: Your second, you said, I know. He was like, no, no, no, me, me, me, me, me.
[00:44:51] Felix: You wanted to, you wanted to come here, here, here, sneaks. You borrow my mask. You go on in there and I'll keep watch.
[00:44:59] Robert: Oh, adding an inventory card of sweet ass mask.
[00:45:06] Thorne: I give a little peek into the log. Is it pitch black in there? Is there a lot of light filtering in?
[00:45:11] Thorne: There's almost no light coming in, but because of the time of day, you know, you've got like ambient light and I think my see pretty well in the dark anyway. So you can make out what is clearly a den.
[00:45:21] Star Master Jeff: Okay. I want to assess it for like multiple egress so that if we go in one way and the skunk follows the scent, is there another way out?
[00:45:30] Thorne: So there are some like holes in the rotten log where there were not holes that a mouse could fit through that a skunk certainly could not. Interesting.
[00:45:39] Star Master Jeff: Hey, uh, Sir Sneaker Nibble, it might actually be worth our while to just circle around this log one time and peek in through all these holes. One of them might be the best entrance.
[00:45:49] Robert: I'm going, I think I'm, uh, with this sweet mask, I'm feeling particularly brave, and I'm just going to dive in while we have the limited time that we can and search all around this room. Okay. If you'd like to scout around the outside, please do.
[00:46:06] Star Master Jeff: You know, with Martin up top and you going inside, I think I will do a quick loop around it just to make sure there's no other predators around or something. You know, we want like a full picture of the situation, especially with you being in there with only two hit points. So yeah, I'll do a quick loop around the log while he explores inside.
[00:46:24] Robert: And I'd like to stealth into the log. I'm not just going to swagger up in there, even though I do have this swoosh.
[00:46:31] Star Master Jeff: super sweet mask that like mostly fits me but like doesn't totally fit me yeah it's cool that you're getting like free items from people smells really strongly of mushrooms yeah does this spore mask actually help you with the skunk smell or is it just gonna make you smell mushroom overpowering i mean it helps a little it covers your nose a little bit but it's not like you know scent canceling it's not scented itself but Yeah, and I'm stuck just using my cute like mouse cape and covering my nose with that as I walk around the log.
[00:47:03] Thorne: Okay, so let's do the outside of the log first. Clover, you move your way around the outside of the log. You can see Martin from here sitting on top, I assume with his bow and arrow ready, peering out over the sunflower field. You move along the edge and you can see there's like a knot hole, like I was saying. It's basically like a small... section of the log that's poking out a little bit with a hole just the right size for a mouse to fit in. And you scurry toward it. And I assume you peer in it at least to see where it goes.
[00:47:37] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, I'm gonna peek in through every mouse sized hole to kind of get a beat on where sneaker nibbles at. I know we haven't done his part yet. So but I can just kind of keep track of him. And then I can rush in if he gets into trouble. But I'm also looking for things like hidden spiders, or like snakes that might also live in the log.
[00:47:55] Thorne: So as you're moving around, you peek in the first little hole and you can see there's a lot of like dried leaves in there. You can see the big opening that Sneaker Nibble is at now. So you can clearly see him through the little hole. You can see like a little area of matted leaves where a skunk could definitely nest. But you also see what appears to be a lot of empty sunflower seed casings, as well as you, well, I guess that, yeah, you see like some empty sunflower seeds that like they've already been eaten and digested.
[00:48:33] Star Master Jeff: Hmm. It's like in a pile of scat. Okay. I'm no expert on scat, but I'm going to assume this is the skunk scat.
[00:48:42] Thorne: Probably. Based on the amount, it's not from a mouse. Okay. I'll continue my loop of the log. Okay.
[00:48:48] Thorne: Meanwhile, we'll go back to Sir Sneaker Nibble, who is moving in the main entrance. So you sneak as carefully as you can and quietly as you can, making sure not to disturb anything that might still be inside of the skunk's lair. But it seems to be empty. There's leaves strewn about in an obvious spot where the skunk nests, like I said. It's dark in here, but there are a few little holes scattered around various parts of the log. So what are you going to do?
[00:49:17] Robert: Um... I'd like to start exploring under the leaf litter and I have to imagine that I'm going to get at least jello fist deep in that scat to try to see if I can harvest any sunflower seeds if I don't find any items.
[00:49:36] Thorne: Well, there doesn't appear to be any fecal matter inside the nest. It's on the outside where Clover is exploring. Sad. Yeah, sorry. But in here, you start to rummage through the leaves, yes? So as you're rummaging through the leaves, you're trying to see what you can find, you notice something sort of out of place. It's not just like sticks and rocks and leaves. So you start to dig there. What could this be? And it appears to be some kind of... Strange idol. Out of mouse world, it's shaped like a human tooth, but it's inlaid with silver. It's probably extremely valuable. But the other thing is, you pull it from the bony remains of a long dead mouse.
[00:50:25] Robert: Does that... Can I loot that body? Yeah.
[00:50:29] Thorne: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you look at the mouse, it's mostly bones at this point, but it was definitely a mouse once. Not much is left of whatever it was wearing or carrying other than this idol itself.
[00:50:41] Robert: No sweet light armor for me. No such luck. Damn. Maybe in the poop outside. I'm going to have to dig through that poop. But for now, I'm going to take a silver tooth idol. Yes.
[00:51:00] Thorne: Perfect.
[00:51:01] Felix: Is it the size of a human tooth?
[00:51:02] Thorne: Yes. So this is big. It is literally a human tooth. Does it take up two slots? No, it's just one.
[00:51:10] Robert: Because I have a feeling that the temple, that Jensen might be, we might be able to trade this for some favor with mice of the shack.
[00:51:25] Thorne: It's also at this point in the game that I think I will. I know this is probably a one shot or maybe just a short, you know, mouse ridder side quest that we're doing here. But in this system, it is a treasure as XP system. So that is sort of what you found is potentially like experience points.
[00:51:43] Robert: Right. Gold to XP. It's like, do you have to turn it into a mouse settlement to make it XP?
[00:51:52] Thorne: All of the money that you spend selflessly improving Birch Hollow is experience points.
[00:51:59] Star Master Jeff: Well, there's no reason we can't play this game on our off months anyway.
[00:52:05] Thorne: Just before you barter it, I'm just letting you know that you could barter it. That's also a great use for it.
[00:52:10] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, right. So guys, I know I'm not aware of the dead mouse that's inside the log, but it sort of feels like this skunk isn't just a nuisance. It's definitely like a real problem to mice. We kind of skirted it rather easily before, but we might not want to get caught by this thing.
[00:52:30] Robert: Oh no, skunks are bad news. Oh, I certainly don't want to linger here. I pocket the silver tooth idol and get the fuck out.
[00:52:42] Thorne: Have you completely searched the log? Yeah, that's most of the searching that you've done. You didn't find anything else so far. I mean, you could spend more time if you want, but you've already spent a good amount of time. I'm actually going to pivot back to Clover here in a moment, unless you tell me otherwise.
[00:52:55] Robert: Nope, I think that I do a cursory glance. I am feeling that the skunk is only going to root around for seeds for so long, so I maximum want to spend a couple of minutes searching and then skitter away.
[00:53:12] Thorne: Okay, so while that searching is all happening, Clover, you've searched one side of the log and you're coming around the back of it now. There's no opening on this side. It's like all rotted and collapsed down into nothing, so it's kind of like a one-way cave of a log. But you do see there are creatures, especially like worms and small insects, crawling all along it, like ants, termites, those kinds of things. Nothing that's particularly threatening, though. And as you start to come around the other side, peering in each individual little hole as you go, you see... Sneaker Nibble pick something up out from under the brush and start making his way out the front exit.
[00:53:54] Star Master Jeff: OK, I move over to meet Sneaker. Well, I do want to finish my loop, actually, just make sure there's nothing dangerous in the area.
[00:54:00] Thorne: Yeah, but you're going to continue around towards the front, but on the other side, right?
[00:54:03] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, but I'll catch Sir Martin's eye and I'll give him a little head maneuver to be like, hey, he's exiting. And then I'll make my way over to Sir Sneaker Nibble. Cool.
[00:54:13] Thorne: So Martin, you get the head nod. You notice Clover coming around the back and you look back over at what Shig is up to. And you can see that Sir Sneaker Nibble's instincts were correct in that she seems to be done rooting around for whatever she was doing. And she is beelining it back towards this log.
[00:54:31] Star Master Jeff: Oh, I'm going to whistle, make a sharp whistle to alert the boys. OK, I hop to I immediately start scurrying all the way over to meet sneaker nibble. I look up above the entrance because I'm expecting Sir Martin to jump down from there any second, which I do.
[00:54:48] Thorne: I do the whistle.
[00:54:49] Thorne: Then I jump down and like meet the boys. All three of you arrive at like the entrance of the log at around the same time. With the whistle from Martin, I think that is the indicator to all of you that the danger is approaching. So now that you all lock eyes, you're together, you start to make your way out of here, right? Before it's too late.
[00:55:08] Robert: Well, gentlemen, where would you like to go? Do we want to go towards the shack? Do we just run away towards our hole? I certainly don't think we want to move towards the skunk. No, we just go around.
[00:55:19] Star Master Jeff: There's something interesting we can do here. There is a place to peek in. Here, let me get into the character. Very quickly, there is a place where we can peek into the log. If we kind of go and hide off in the brush here and wait for Shig to go into her lair, we could see what she gets up to in there.
[00:55:37] Felix: What do you want to see what a skunk gets up to? Mr. Brave all of a sudden here. No, skunks can smell like nobody's business. She's going to find us and eat us.
[00:55:45] Star Master Jeff: Of course skunks smell. That's like their whole thing. But I'm saying we can see what she's doing in her lair. And we're like going off into like random brush just to hide.
[00:55:53] Thorne: And we can kind of discuss where to go. Yeah, so you're moving away from the entrance as she is quickly approaching it. All of you can see the sunflowers parting.
[00:56:01] Thorne: Yeah, I saw how fast she was going, so...
[00:56:04] Felix: So I kind of like hear what Clover is saying, I respond, and then I like bolt, I scurry.
[00:56:09] Robert: Oh, same. I'm not even listening to Clover because I'm getting the F out of there.
[00:56:16] Star Master Jeff: What? You guys started this conversation. Don't try to pretend like you wanted to just run away. Run away! So they're like, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. Then I'm like, I'm going to chat too. And then they run away and I go, hey. And then I rush after them into the brush, I assume.
[00:56:31] Thorne: Yeah, Clover, you run into the brush as the last mouse to leave the scene just as Shig bursts out from the sunflower's field. She runs towards the entrance of her lair and then stops short, turns and sticks her head so that her eyes are shooting like a beam. Not really, but it feels like her vision is directly on the spot in the brush where the three of you are hiding. She puts her nose to the ground and begins to sniff.
[00:56:59] Star Master Jeff: I take the piece of smelly cheese that I have out of my rations. Oh, yeah. And I hurl it as far as I can off into the brush. Like we're like at the entrance to the log. parallel in the brush, so I'm going to go, like, huck it towards the other end of the log.
[00:57:15] Thorne: Okay, yeah, just mark off one use of your rations, and then you hurdle the stinky cheese, its, you know, pungent smell, and also the sound of it hitting the ground on the other side of the log entrance causes Shig to suddenly, you know, swing her neck around in the other direction, nose to the ground, she moves towards the other side. She is like a T-Rex.
[00:57:37] Star Master Jeff: Okay. I think it's time that we get out of here. Now's our chance. Run. I guess we go to the cabin. That seems like the only safe spot. We can survive bees better than skunks.
[00:57:48] Felix: I know. I was worried that Clover was going to be like, we should kill the skunk for all of mouse kind. And I'm like, we are not killing that skunk.
[00:57:55] Star Master Jeff: Hell no. I ain't saying that shit. I want to go to the log when the skunk's not there. But I am interested to know what the skunk gets up to in there. That's weird. I don't think it's just a skunk. Well, there's a dead mouse in there, and Sir Sneaker Nibble found a silver inlaid tooth, and there's a lot of leaves and sticks and stones, and he didn't really have time to explore everything. So I wonder what the skunk does in there. Maybe takes out some more treasure.
[00:58:20] Felix: Question, Mouse Master. Are other animals in this world also like sentient?
[00:58:28] Thorne: So the way that it mostly works is that you'll have a range of intelligences in animals. Some of them won't be much for communicating and others will be, you know, just like talking to a regular Joe. But generally there's a language barrier. Most mice can understand other mice. Talking with other rodents is like talking to someone with a thick accent. Talking with other mammals is like talking to somebody who's got like broken English. And then beyond that, it can be hard to communicate. But sometimes you'll run into like a particularly wise bird or something like that that you can clearly communicate with. So it kind of depends. Yeah.
[00:59:12] Robert: At this point, I think that we should scurry away. That skunk seems quite formidable.
[00:59:20] Thorne: So yeah, everybody's going to scurry off back towards the shack. Let's do it.
[00:59:26] Robert: Yeah. Unless we can slather that skunk in, I don't know, bee-attracting nectar of some variety and have the bees attack it?
[00:59:40] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, it does feel like there's a puzzle element to this, doesn't it? How do we make these pieces click together?
[00:59:46] Thorne: Get the bees on that thing. Good question.
[00:59:49] Thorne: Yeah, I don't know. But unfortunately, we'll have to wait until next time to find out. That's all the time we have for our mouse adventurers. I hope you enjoyed this first episode following the knights on their quest for Prince Dandelion. Big thanks to our cast for this story. Jeff as Sir Clover Saltwick, Doja as Sir Sneaker Nibble, and Scott as Sir Martin Bellflower. And for a change of pace, I'm Game Mouser Brian as everyone and everything else. If you want to hear episodes two weeks earlier, head over to patreon.com slash darkstaradventurecast. Huge shout out to Brad, Holly, and Jim, our scapegoat syndicate supporters over there. We really appreciate you all. If you're enjoying the show, please do us a favor and leave a rating and a review wherever you're listening. It really helps new people find us. Next time, the adventures of our mouse knights continue as they finally enter the creepy human shack in search of the seeds their prince has requested. What dangers or secrets will they find? And will any dice actually hit the table? Tune in next time to find out. And as always, keep following that signal.