Episode 2 – Hither and Yon

Gather round friends, let me tell you a tale of three heroes noble and bold A brute, a druid, and a thief who is but nine years old You know them by name, you know them by deed, their quests are famously daring So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight Fingers have health, he shifts his shape, and wields a spear with great might Peely's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts So gather round friends, and listen close For the tale's about to start Welcome to Spellord!

Hello everybody! Everyone was doing jerk off moments Jessica was doing one that was so lewd I know, I'm sorry I've never done it in real life but Feels good don't it? It kinda does Blah, and then in the butthole too Oh my god That's the Spellord guarantee Forgive me! I am disgusting! I am mentally unstable!

That's what you can expect from your friends at Spellord Is descriptions, not visual representation of lewd hand gestures I thought you just meant reach arounds I'm your game master Shawn O'Hara, joining me as always doing a jerk off motion Abdul Aziz Hey what's up playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Paul Opbers Hey! Doing a jerk off motion How's it going? On Abdul's face playing Ving the Half Elf Druid And Jessica Tai doing a bunch of stuff Just a bunch of stuff! Jesus Christ. Hello, everyone.

We've been trying… Oh, jeez. We have to re-record this. We can't use this. Sorry, do it again. No, this is the Spell Learner Nights intro, so welcome Patreon supporters. It's like eating a baked eggplant. Look, we're in quarantine right now, and I am going nuts. Stop doing it. Sorry. She can't. She's not going to. You're doing that at us. Jessica. No. Squirter with a spray bottle. Cut it out. What are you doing with that lime broomstick? No, no. Yes, yes, no. You can't tell me what to do.

No, no. Yes, yes. Oh, fuck. Okay. Oh, God, please don't abandon us. Fans, yeah. When last we left our heroes, they had survived at least partially the Sea of Graves. After being on the West Wind, their Crystal Bay pirate vessel, the ship was thrown bodily into a rune-covered pillar and destroyed as the three of you fought for your lives to survive beneath and above the waters. Tuck and Billy were able to surface, grabbing onto a mast.

Ving was dragged under the water before being saved by his Thunderbird, diving into the water like a turn. So the bird grabs Ving in its talons, severing something in his arm, but dragging him to the surface. Had to be done. And then the group spotted a silhouette of a single-masted skiff in the distance.

Ving harpooned the piece of debris that Tuck and Billy were clinging to, dragging it towards the ship, finding it to be piloted by the Captain of the Purifier, who has revealed himself to be a man named Chimes, who is piloting his ship in a supernatural area of calm through the Sea of Graves and has allowed you respite in his boat. And he sailed you towards a pillar in the Sea of Graves, at the base of which you saw a hand-bade dock and a door set into the stone.

And that is where we find ourselves now. So we're sailing up to this door? Yeah, you're sailing up to this pillar towards the dock and the water around you continues to be supernaturally calm. You can see the water of the Sea of Graves washing over the dock in the distance in the more turbulent area of the sea. Mm-hmm. But as you get closer, as the boat gets closer, the sea calms and slows, making it easier for Chimes to pull the boat up to the side of the dock. Cool.

So Chimes pilots the boat up to the side of this dock and looks over at the three of you, who are just laying in the bottom of the boat, absolutely spent. Struggling to stay conscious. Yeah. And he goes, hey, look at this. What? And he grabs a loop of rope that's coiled up at the bottom of the boat with a little loop at the end of it and just throws it towards the dock. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And loops it right around a little post that's sticking out of the dock and goes, huh? What an uncle move that was. I've had to do that a lot. I'm pretty good at it. We don't care. We're fucking tired. Yeah. Like, in our minds, we're like, cool. But, like, also, I am so dead. We're very nice. Yeah. We give a very tepid applause. We're like, Ving just can't. Yeah, Ving is just slapping the top of a crystal stone. Rub it in, Tuck. And Chimes kind of waves you away like, you'll appreciate it later.

And he pulls the boat up to the side of the dock, ties everything off, hops out and helps all three of you out of the boat. Just rip. Gets you up on your feet. Yeah, we get out. Do you have the fanny pack? Yeah, I check. Okay. I tighten it again just to make sure. All right, loosen that a little bit. Well, I haven't eaten in a while, so I have some room. Getting a bit loose. One sec, you guys. I unzip it. You guys okay in there? Mears is like, Yeah, what is happening?

We're just in the Sea of Graves right now. What? Yeah. I think we're taking a break. Looks like we've landed at one of the… Pillars. What? How's Francis? Francis is not having a fun time. I zip it up. They're fine. What is happening in there right now? There's so much water in there. Yeah, we cut to Mears and he's like waist deep in seawater. He's bailing it? Yes, into the other room. Yeah. He's got the danger room flap open a tiny bit and he's just throwing buckets of water into it.

You could see like a claw like snapping at the bucket. Every time it gets close. He's like, ah, shush. Man, Mears is being so brave. And Francis is like standing on the couch trying not to get in the seawater. Trying not to touch the water. Yeah, but he is. Just oinking and baying. Yeah, he absolutely is. And Mears is like, shh, this could be so much worse. You can help. You could just get it down here and help me somehow. Hey, you stupid pig. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.

And Chimes walks you down to the dock to the door at the base of this pillar. And you see all of three of you for the first time in your natural lives. Like you appreciate the scale of these pillars because on either side, it stretches out like a hundred feet before it arcs around. And it just reaches up and up into the infinite storm. Yeah, it's just like I, when I look up, to try and see the top, like I, you know that thing where you like get dizzy and fall back.

When you look up, it almost looks like all the pillars that are like adjacent to it and behind you and are all like converging on the same point. Oh, confusing. It's like an MC Escher drawing. Yeah. It's a lot of different directions happening. Yeah. When you lie in the middle of a forest, all the trees point together. Yeah, totally. And now that you're up close to this door, you realize that it looks kind of shitty.

It's just kind of like an old wooden door with a simple metal lock built into it. And you see a wooden sign hanging above the door and it says hither and yawn. And chimes reaches into his beard and it's like, sorry, just a sec. And he's really jingling around and he pulls out one that has like a little dried crab on it. And he's like, no, not that. How long have you had that crab in there? There's a shampoo for that. Gross.

And he flips out another one that has like a small glass vial filled with like a golden powder in it. He goes, no, not that. What's in that powder? None of your business. Oh my God. It's okay, Bing. We'll find you one. Bing is salivating about the stuff that's in his beard. And then he, do you not have pockets? He kind of gestures to his shirtless form. Like, do you see pockets? They don't call me pockets. Yeah. And he flips out another braid and on the end of it, it has a small iron key on it.

And he goes, oh, there we go. And he unties it and he fits it into the lock and unlocks it and pushes the door open. Billy looks his head in right away. It's a very old and stately pub. Pub? Yeah. What? It's made of like rich, dark woods. There's very well-crafted, heavy tables. There's a long wooden bar at the back. So people? There's no people and there's a layer of dust on everything. Can I Spout Lore? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you could Spout Lore. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

To figure out what this fucking thing is. What the fuck is this? Plus intelligence. Seven. Okay, thank God. So something interesting, but not useful. Billy, being as long-lived, he is, has heard stories from travelers that pass through the Halfling Lands of a bar called Hither and Yon and you have heard a lot of people say that it is a bar that is in a different town. Like everyone that has talked about it has said that it's somewhere else. Oh man, I remember old Bill told me about this place.

And he looks down at you, Billy, and goes, oh yeah, old Bill and I drank here a couple times. Oh, it's like a bar of requirement. Weird. Yeah. Tuck listened to an album once called Hither and Yon that was written and recorded entirely in this bar. Oh. It was one of those like micro sessions. Yeah, it's like a live session album. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a folk duo. It was a folk duo. Named Hither and Yon. And they named themselves after the bar. Yeah.

He always thought it was just like a metaphor. Yeah. Yeah, it turns out. Real place. I turned to Vang before we walk in and I'm like, hey man, I'm not sure if we're dead, but if we are, then, you know. Yeah. We might be dead. Okay. I guess that's what I say. I turned to Vang and I'm like, hey, this might be hell. And then I walk inside. And if it's hell, it's a very boring, but pretty hell. Hell has a two drink minimum. Everybody knows that though. It's, yeah, it's a pretty nice pub.

Like there's rows of liquor bottles, behind the bar. There's a nice mirror. There's a ship's wheel hanging on the wall behind the bar. And Chimes walks behind this long wooden bar, starts pulling down liquor bottles, starts pulling things out of an ice chest, and is just like, looks at all of you like, you hungry? There's a food? In the chest? I can make something. Somebody always leaves something behind. Can I invite my friends? Who? Who? What do you mean? Unzip. Unzip.

And he looks at Billy and, he looks at Tuck and Ving. Like he looks up at Tuck and Ving like, is this a thing? Is this okay? It's cool. Let him, let him play it out. The listeners have to know, it's, Jessica's doing a motion that's like, a parent just said, do not put your hand in the cookie jar. And then a kid is like, slowly making eye contact. And then Richard, do not grab a cookie. And then I jump out the fanny pack. So you flip it out? Yeah. Yeah.

And all of a sudden, all this water comes out and Mears and Francis comes tumbling out. And a bunch, yeah, a bunch of seawater pours out. Oh, sorry about the carpet. Like ankle deep on most of you, like waist deep on Billy as it rushes out the door. It's carpeted. Oh, we fucked up this place so fast. Mears flies out of it with a bunch of seaweed and stuff and like slams in the bar like, oh no. And Francis like tumbles out like, chimes, what just washes us? All happen.

And then puts a bottle on the bar like, okay, for five. All right. And Mears gets up and is looking around, wringing water out of his clothes. His metal hand is like, creaking really loud. Oh no. What? What? What? And he turns around and he sees chimes and he goes, ah, and he starts trying to pull his sword out of his scab. Just an oar in there. His oar comes up. Mears, no. He's fine. He helped us. I'm just, I just let you out so you could dry out and have a drink and some food with us.

He looks at the three, at all of you like, for real? Mears, you're fine. Okay. We're safe here. We are in the middle of the ocean, but this is a safe place. And he looks around at the three of you and it chimes and it Francis as he's trying to extricate himself from a smash table. He's seeing for the first time that we are, like, Ving is bleeding. Uh-huh. And he goes, where's Perel? We lost him. But we're gonna find him. He says he can help, sort of. Yeah, this is Chimes.

He's the captain of the Purifier. He said he would help us find Perel. Former captain of the Purifier. Yeah. He resigned for some reason. It was contract work. And Mears takes it all in and then puts his oar on the ground and says, is there a kitchen in this place? And Chimes nods his head to the back through a doorway behind the bar and Mears just walks into the back. Billy follows him. Oh. The vase is still in the fanny pack. Yeah. Yeah. The vase would have probably tumbled out with…

No, it didn't because they… Okay. It was stashed in the drawer. Oh, wait. It's in the drawer. You just did. I told him to secure it. Put it in the drawer. You did. Right. Yeah. There was that thing where we were like, for over the course of months, you're stealing all the pieces of fat. You fucking ruined our couches, though. Like a puppy. Yeah. I was stealing towels, too, from the hotel. It was Crystal Bay. Yeah. What's left has been crushed by Francis.

That's why when Mears checked out during that montage, like, the thing that we didn't see was they charged him like 60 gold coin for incidental. Oh, my God. Damn it. Gonna have to erase those coins. Yeah. Uh, to tuck in, Bing, want to talk to Chimes about that? Yeah. We sit at the bar and, like, I grabbed the whole bottle that he pulled out and I started drinking it. Okay. Uh, and I'm like, Bing needs some, too. Yeah. And he pours some on his shoulder. What kind of alcohol do we think it is?

Screech. Just really strong, like, maritime alcohol. It tastes oddly fruity, though. Yeah, that's the, that'll be the bergam fruits. I wouldn't drink too much of that. I have already gone three quarters of the way through. It tastes like meat. Yeah. It's not satisfying. What? He said it tastes like fruit. Bergam fruit. Bergam fruit. Yeah, it tastes like, uh, ketchup and meat and pickles. Uh, you know what? Honestly, like, welcome. Right now, I'm so tired. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Uh, and he says, so we can rest here for a while. We gotta keep the place sort of in the condition that we found it. Them's the rules. And then we can try and figure out how to get closer to your friends. Do you have any idea where he might be going? No, I mean, wherever the ocean's taking him. What do you mean? Well, the way the Sea of Graves is, if we go to where he is now, we might end up somewhere he is not. You've seen the sea.

When you went under, you were in one place and when you came up, you were in another. Sea of Graves is playing a game of chess with everyone that sails its waters. What does it want from Peral? It doesn't want anything from anyone. It just wants to cause pain. Where, where have people gone before when they've gone into the Sea of Graves? Ving asked that question while he's putting a little bit of that gunpowder into the hole. Oh, yeah. He lights it with a flint.

Could you guys Spout Lore about the ocean? Yeah, I think I kind of want you guys to answer some of these questions. Spout Lore about the Sea of Graves? Okie dokie. Yeah. 2d6 plus intelligence. Uh-oh. Whoa. Holy shit. Let me tell you a few things about the Sea of Graves. Yeah, please do. I'll tell you 11 things about the Sea of Graves. So that means that it's wet, it's cold, it's angry, it's mean. It's going to be something interesting and useful. Yeah, let's, I want to talk to you guys about it.

Like, I don't have any super firm plans about the Sea of Graves. It's such a mysterious place. So what does Ving think and know about the Sea of Graves with that 11? And it's going to be, it's like, like this, it'll be true. Well, maybe it's got something to do with the fact that like, Perel is a wizard. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Yeah, water is very magical. And Perel like, generates a magic field. There could be some sort of draw happening to one of the pillars.

Maybe there's pillars that are more magical than the other. We've talked about the ones that, where the, the king of the Thunderbird live. Like, yeah, maybe there's some kind of nexus point where if Perel is like, an iron filing that is like, sensitive to like, magnetic fields, maybe he's being pulled and oriented to… Other filings. Yeah, to other filings and also to the field that the Sea of Graves is generating. To the main magnet. Yeah.

So how does, well, how does Ving know that, I think, is the, is what I want to know. I think that some of it is coming through from the bird. Oh, yeah. His connection. Sick. And some of that field is electromagnetic field that he knows he's more attuned with. And so maybe, yeah, he says there, there is a way point that things seem to grow. Yeah. And then he says that there is a way that things gravitate to where the rumor is the king of the Thunderbirds than the pillar that he occupies.

So, I mean, maybe he's being drawn there. Maybe his magical energy is bringing him to that very magical place. Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. It does. And that like, the Thunderbirds choose to live in the Sea of Graves because they're drawn there naturally. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's a main, pillar that's like, it pulls the energy from the ocean and the sky and it meets and then it just like, explodes out of it. Oh, yeah. It creates that like, convergence. Yeah.

Like a cloud, like a cumulus nimbus. Totally. Oh. Spreads it out. It's the eye of the storm. Like it's the source of the storm. The eye of the storm. And all the magical boats that have crashed and everything in the sea are all brought into that pillar and the king of the Thunderbirds has a nest built out of smashed ships. Yeah. Whoa! You guys just accidentally stumbled upon a thing I've been thinking about for like two years. Yes. It's nests made of smashed ships that the Thunderbirds live in.

Yeah. Awesome. Vindication. The- Goosebumps will never leave your mind. Like if you see it from far away, it looks like a bunch of bones like, like a jaggedy thing sticking out. Yeah. It's because they're like, they're like, they're like, the sea is like, push them all up and around this pillar. It's coming. And that pillar's called the Eye of the Storm. Yes. Yeah. And the I mean the capital letter I. Yeah. A pillar. It works. Yeah. As long as you're using courier or aerial font. Thank you.

Otherwise, you have the little hashes on the top of the book. It does not work with Comic Sans. Or other alphabets. Yeah. Wow. That's an adventure. Mm-hmm. Traveling through the Sea of Graves to the roost of the King of the Thunderbirds to save a wizard. To the Eye of the Storm. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Wow. I'm jacked. Real jacked on the adventure that you've all presented to me. So that is the information that's shared. Yeah. That's the conversation that's had. Chimes passes back and forth.

Oh, well, he's magic and the sea's magic. So maybe that does something. Goes, oh yeah, I've heard stories about, you know, I've seen some things out here. Ships getting drawn in, blah, blah, blah. The Thunderbirds, King of the Thunderbirds, Eye of the Storm, blah, blah, blah. It could be cool if Chimes does a little demo where he like, he pulls one of the like, Oh yeah. Brass beads and he's like, let me show you something.

And he like, he takes it and he like, puts it on, like on an edge and then like, he lets it go and it just starts rolling down the bar. Yeah. And he's like, that is where your friend is. Cool. That's pretty cool. Wow. And that explains partially how Chimes' beard works. Oh yeah. Like it's being pulled by the pillars in the Sea of Graves and he's so old hand at sailing these waters that it helps him know where he is and how to get there.

Like yeah, feeling the waves of like, magical energy brush through the Chimes and his beard. Cat's whisk. Yeah. An old crab for some reason. Whatever kind of shitty detritus he can jam in there. Guess well. Sounds like you all have quite an adventure ahead of you. For now, you all need to rest. You've been through it. There's some rooms in the back. You're welcome to stay for as long as you need. Cut to Billy and Mears in the kitchen. Mears is going through ice chests, lighting a little stove.

Uh-huh. I found some coleslaw that I'm just going at. Coleslaw. Billy, do you know how old that is? It tastes fine. The most painful perishable of salads. Yeah. Oh, no. It's a sauerkraut, I guess. It's like rotting as you're making it. It's definitely fermented. Yeah. I think Fing said that's a good thing, though. This is labeled coleslaw, but I think it's sauerkraut. Yeah. It certainly smells like it. How are you doing, Billy? I'm just really tired. Oh, what a mess, you know.

I'm sorry that we brought you through this. Feeling really guilty taking you so far away. From my home? Yeah. And he does think for a moment. It'll be there when I get back. Okay. Jaunter was a weird situation, but I feel like we can trust the Menders to do the right thing. They probably have things under control, right? Yeah. What are you making right now? Uh, what is he making right now? What does he find back there? Salt cod. Salt cod. What do you make with salt cod? Soup. Salt cod.

He finds, yeah, some root vegetables of strange origin, some spices, some surprisingly fresh vegetables. Found some powdered milk back here. Oh, do you want me to put that in the soup? You want to make a chowder? Oh, Billy, chowder. Chowder. And he points at Billy and starts chopping things up and is like, gonna make a chowder. Yeah. Gonna make a chowder. Chow, chow, chow, chow, chowder. I start going through the cupboards and there's like fun big bowls that I play with. That you play with?

Yeah. It make drums? It make drums and then I like sit in one of the bowls and I'm like twirling around like, you know, when you like, you're like putting all your body weight so it like wiggles around, spins around. Like when you flip a stool over, Yeah. In middle school. Yeah. And I'm just telling Mirs about like stupid things that I think about. So, before we left, I had a weird dream. My dream was that I had a big farm of chickens and you were there too. Do you want to hear all their names?

Oh, I do. Okay. So, one of them was ketchup and mustard and wapple bees and wapple tree and there was a rooster named Dan. No one liked him. No one liked him. Oh my God. What happened to Dan? Oh, shit. We cut to Dan floating on a crate. Anybody? But like in a weirdly calm part of the sea, like it's kind of sunny where he is and he's just by himself eating what looks like dried schloss meat out of a little bag. He's like, someone's going to find me. Dan's ability to just fail horizontally. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit of another okay situation. It never goes better or worse. It's always just fine. I like to think of this image of Dan like he's looking out into open water but behind him 500 feet away is land. Yes. Oh, that's so good. He's not even in the Sea of Graves. No. He was pushed out of it. Yeah. He's just looking. He's like a 20 minute swim from Crystal Bay. But he's got a little spyglass pointing out to the ocean like, I am the very model of a modern major general. Yeah.

Enjoying his naval voyage. Meanwhile, there's people on the beach like, is that guy okay? Is that fucking Dan? Yeah. A lifeguard. Yeah. There's a militia like a guard member that's just like, not this fucking guy. I hope he stays out there. And then we cut back. I start spinning again. I wouldn't worry about him. Could I, could I bring out a big bowl of soup for the people at Chimes? Yeah, totally.

We made chowder and I have, I'm carrying a big bowl over my head and then Mears follows out with the actual big pot of it. Yeah. Billy's like, dinner is served. Empty bowl. Little bowl. What Mears did was I wanted to help. Yeah. And so Mears put a little bit of chowder in the bowl and I'm slopping it around as I'm carrying it. And I push it onto the table where it slops a bit more. I'm like, enjoy. Thank you, Billy. You're welcome. So cute. Mears did all the work.

No, it was a team effort, Billy. High five. You're my little sous chef. It's funny because like whenever Mears starts to have a panic attack, Billy's like, hey, let's go cook something. Yeah. It's like when you put a donkey in a horse's stall to chill the horse out. Billy's an emotional support donkey. Yeah. And Chimes sits down and Mears pours him a bowl of chowder. Right. Like a long, long harvest table. Actually, I imagine one of those like circular pub tables. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean?

Like a big, heavy circular pub table. It's an old cabling spool. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. Anchor rope. What's that? It's a big, huge wooden spool with a big, thick anchor ropes would be they come in when you get them on the dock. Is there a bunch of anchor rope around it? No, no, that's spent. It's out and about. Okay. Just finding a use for the old spools. So cool. Yeah. Yeah. All different things carved in there from other sailors. Yeah. From around the world. Yeah.

The table's kind of like a desk in a high school where kids just carve like their names into it and then like a little thing. Yeah. Can we read some of the carvings on the table? I mean, yeah, probably. Is there a specific name that you're looking for? Because I think it would be like you would see a name and Chimes would tell you about a person. Oh, yeah. Like he knows all these people.

I was going to say like when Billy sits at the table, he's like, that's old Bill's writing because I would see it in like his like farm ledgers. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Chimes, what does it say? Chimes looks down and kind of runs his thumb along the writing that old Bill wrote and it says, it says, it says, old Bill been here. Oh, the stories I could tell. Oh, and Billy scoots close so he can sit right in front of the writing and look at it and touch it.

Oh, did you, you knew old Bill? He was, he, he found me and he took care of me. He found you? Mm-hmm. He raised you? He did. He was really nice to me. A fae raised by halflings. Damn. He's like, do you remember where you came from? Not really. I just remember, I feel like I was asleep for a long time and I woke up and old Bill had put me in a blanket in front of the fire to warm me up.

Now, I don't, no, I don't want you to take this any weird way, but do you remember having a body before that point? I guess not. That's my, that's kind of my first memory. He's like, well, you know, it's just kind of, kind of strange because any fairy I've ever met or talked to is like made their home in an orchard or a cabin or a plow. Ving is on his second bowl of soup. He's on his second bowl of soup and he is like halfway through a bottle of Crown Royal and it's Crown Royal. Yeah.

It's in the purple bag and everything. The bottle is a, is a, is a shape of a crown. You put it and it has a little spout that comes down your mouth like one of those, those beer hats. Yeah. Jim, excuse, madam. Carry on. We're all kind of half cut. Yeah. Okay. I think, I think he might actually try and force a memory out. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. So he leans in and he goes, how'd you come to be? And he reaches up a hand and very gently rubs his thumb along your temple. Whoa.

I feel like a shock that goes almost like as if it travels like a million years into my memory and I don't feel like myself.

I just, like I have a memory of being very still and like many things at once and like I feel like the sun on me and I'm alone at the top of a hill and it's the sun of like the first days of spring and the buds, it's, it's, it's, my buds are unfurling in the morning and my arms are outstretched and a family, they climb up the hill and they place a sick, small child in my arms and they're crying and they say things that I can't understand and I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, but I know that they want my help and then they leave and my leaves grow but the child doesn't and I feel the life slipping from the child and so I know it's time to leave where I've always lived and I, I take the body of the child and I put the child in the tree and I, I, I wake up in a blanket in front of a fireplace and old Bill is wiping the sweat from my face.

Oh my God. We open our eyes because we have the rings on. Oh shit, yeah. You all saw that happen. And we saw all of that. Yeah. Yeah, the child was a red-haired baby and the mother had really long, curly red hair and the father was wrapped in a wool cloak and he took her out. He took her away. Holy fuck. Billy, you're a tree. I guess so. So does that mean he's like a changeling? Yeah. Yeah, basically. Billy's kind of the classic folkloric foundling child where it's, he was replaced by a fairy.

Like a wood spirit. Yeah. But now he's sort of a melding of the child and a fairy. Oh, I love the idea that the, the wood fairy, he couldn't let a life go. Yeah, it was, it was like, I felt it against my nature. But you didn't want to let the kid die. Yeah. Whoa. That's why you saw Perel on that hill. Yeah. Remember when he first made contact with you? Totally. Wow. Yeah. Oh, wow. I didn't even, I, I, I never remembered that.

And Chimes, having looked into your mind as well to like release this memory and he goes, I'd hazard you won't remember it for long. We'll, we'll, we'll do our best, Billy. Yeah. I take the ring and I push it into his hand and I was like, if you hold onto this, we'll make sure you don't forget. Okay. And like, I, I have my ring on. Where's yours? I have my ring on. Yeah. We're like, we'll make sure you don't forget, Billy. Okay.

And Mears is looking back and forth at both of you eating a bowl of soup. His hand is creaking so much. Creak, creak, creak. Do you want some butter for that? He lifts his, he lifts the spoon halfway to his mouth and thinks, I'll be right back. And he goes up and tells us to the kitchen. Wow. So none of you knew? No. No. I mean, when I met Billy, I thought he was a 35 year old man. Understandable. Halflings are strange in that way. There's not a lot that we do know. Damn.

Well, old Bill was a good man. He was a good man. If he raised you, I'd reckon you're a good man too. I am not a man. I'm a baby boy. And he nods and smiles and is like, okay, all right. Do you want to go next? What? The table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to point to this to you. Paul is pointing to a dick that he drew on the back of his character like three months ago. So yeah, Ving points to a cock and balls that's on the table. Who's this?

He's just like tears in his eyes, looks down, sees a cock and then elbows tuck and then like and chimes looks down and goes that was me. Yeah. I'm sorry. Don't look. Sorry. It's so funny. I've been coming here a long time, long time. Oh man, I carved that ages ago. Oh man. I bet you carved this one too. Oh, that, that was, yeah, that was me too. As Ving and I are like looking at the, all the cock and balls is on the table. There's a surprising number.

Once you put one, you're like, oh, yeah, everyone's going to do it. Open invitation. But yeah, we like, we're scanning across and like, actually Ving clocks this before I do because it's, it's an Elvin script. Oh. But it's like, it is basically, he's like, he elbows me. He's like, this fucking says Shathane. This is Shathane Wick. That a friend of yours? Yeah, man. He helped us save Ving from the spirit world. Do you know what's going on with him? Yeah.

I heard what had been going on with him long time ago. What's going on? Well, I'm sure you've heard the story. Elf Ranger looking for someone he lost, cutting a bloody swath through the spirit world and failing. I haven't seen him since. Have you? We, we left him behind there. He sacrificed himself for me. He nods and nods and is looking at the inscription on the table. What does it say? Is it just his name?

I think it's, I think it says Wick and then has like the, the ranger's arrow carved next to it. Yeah. Like the symbol of the ranger core. And it says here and gone underneath here. Oh, here and gone. Sick. Yeah. It's a spirit world is not a kind place for us. If he's still there, he's still alive. He's got to be one of the most badass motherfuckers I've ever heard of. It talks like if you cross paths with them, like if you go into the spirit world, can you try and make sure he's okay?

Here, give him this. And I want to give him the wooden ranger ring. Oh, yeah. From four years ago. And I, and I'm like, and I'm like, give him this. And it's the picture of him. It's the picture of Chathain's wife that I took. Oh, like I take it out of my locket and I like put it next to the ring on the table. Roll up the, the photo and put it in the ring. Yeah. And chimes takes it and looks and nods and then tucks it into his beard. Yeah. Wow. I'll get it to him.

You got to get like a purse or something, man. You got to get a purse. Yeah. Please don't lose that. We really just have the one that things were $1,200. You gave away a ring that is extremely expensive. Yeah. Extremely valuable. Ving was like shaking and then like brings it back to him and then like looks at it and gets all cross-eyed. No. He sacrificed his life. I must pass it. But 1,200 coin is still credible. No, but his life. Oh, the croissants. I mean, it looks cool. I never wear it.

It's true. I'm hoarding this. I'm hoarding it. Yeah. And Chathain would want it. But if we sold it, we could make both the croissant dream and the gravy dream come to life. No. One of you has a gravy dream. We all look at Billy and I look around like, who? I don't know anyone with a gravy dream. I've had a gravy dream. Oh, have you? Okay. Thank God. Is that what you call it? And you just kind of, you while away the waste, the rest of dinner. Ving carves his name into here. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Maybe we all carve something. Uh-huh. Yeah. What thing? What do you carve? Uh, first of all, a dick. Ah, nice. Chimes goes, like this immature, old, immortal pirate. And he carves his full name in there. Ooh, Vang Vang Zumba? Yeah. Beautiful. And then on a knife, writes, rub-a-dub-dub in the tub of love. And he carves little music symbols around it. Great. And then he's like, Tuck, what do you carve? I'm trying to think of it. Oh, okay. Sorry. What does Billy carve? He tries to carve his name.

Oh, yeah? B. B. It's just the letter B. I don't know how many are in my name. So I do three. I'm like, I think it looks like Billy. But here's something cool. From, like, Billy's perspective, it looks like three Bs. Mm-hmm. But Tuck, who's across the table, when he looks at it, it looks like a gnarled tree. Whoa. Like, because it's just like, when you flip it upside down, it's like the way it all goes together. It looks like a sketch of a tree. Wow. Yeah. Cool.

Mears comes out from the back and is sitting and finishing his soup and idly carving a picture of Francis into the table. That looks really good. Thanks. I, uh, you know, gotta be good for something because he's using, like, the finger on his metal hand to carve this weird pig. Spent a lot of time with that pig. I call Francis over to have a look. Yeah. Francis shuffles his massive body across the room. Look, it's you.

And Francis flops his chin on the table and his huge wet tongue snakes out to lick where Billy was pointing because he thinks he was pointing to food. And then he realizes there's no food and he snuffles off to the side of the room. Well, whatever. I like it. Okay. So I know what Tuck is carving. Yeah. He spent a while carving. His tongue's out. Yeah. He's biting his tongue. It's like watching a stupid kid do, like, a fucking literacy test. He's using one edge of the axe blade so it's this way.

He's using the impenetrable bill hook. Oh. Yeah. Um, we all love that. Gotta separate you from that thing someday. He, like, finally, he, like, blows the extra wood shavings off and you see he's written. He says, I pay homage to the barkeep. He fills our cups and cooks our stew and gives us shelter for the day. From the road. Nice. It's a little, uh, prayer for the first of the barkeeps. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah, I guess they're probably, Hither and Yon would have a barkeep shrine.

Like, that's each of the tables. Like, each table is a shrine to the barkeep. Okay. And that's why people are carving the stuff into it. Like it. Because the thing that barkeeps value more than anything is stories and good time. Hot damn. Yeah. Ooh, maybe Hither and Yon is, like, the barkeep shrine. Yes. And that's why it travels around. Oh, that's kind of cool. That is cool.

And much like everybody else that has seen Tuck interact with the innumerable patrons, Chimes leans over and sees what you carved and goes, people don't really, like, pray to them. Like, it's a thing I'm trying to start, though. People don't really. Spread it around. Here, memorize this. No. Spread it around. I'm not gonna do that. Say it. Just here, memorize it. Seems weird. It's like pumping up my friend's tires. You know what I mean? You know the barkeep?

What I'm saying is people don't, people don't, people don't really, people don't really pray, but we appreciate it. Well, if you know him, tell him about this prayer. Or her. Or her. Yeah, I was gonna say the gendered language is the thing that you're gonna run up against the most because you don't really know who's the first of anything. I assume they're always men because man is normal. Because man is, man is zero and other is plus or minus on top of man. He's from the call.

So you've been saying he's from the call. He's from the call. He's from the call. He's from the call. He's from the call. He's from the call. He's from the call. Every time. Every time. All of these prayers are he. Yeah, that's good. All right, well. Because man is normal. Do you guys get it? Man is the assumed thing. This is where we all start out. It's the default. It's good because it makes it easier for all of us to think about what normal is. This chowder's great. This is a great chowder.

The guy, like, listeners, this is, this is, this is genuinely not how I think. Of course it's not. Are we sure, though? I don't think like this. Can you be sure? You kind of act like nobody picked up on a thing that Chimes said. What? Nothing. What? It's a friend of his. Is that what you said? We don't really pray. It's like pumping up my friend's tires. Yeah. Is that what you meant? No. He likes the chowder. That he said tires? Well, no, he said tires, I guess, which is weird. Wheels exist!

Wheels are real now. Do you want me to just tell you? Is he the patron saint? No. No. Not of bar keeps. Is he a patron? He said people don't really pray, but we appreciate it. Oh, we. Oh! What? But I think, but I don't think in the moment any of you pick up on it. No, we did not. They're all half drunk and Billy's on his sixth bowl of chowder. He's on his sixth bowl of chowder. And there's cream in this chowder. Billy's getting hammered. Hammered. I forgot.

It's powdered milk and he's just like, fuck. Billy, yeah. Mears is eating his chowder and looking at Billy and is like, oh, chowder. Oh, no. It flashes back to the last time they had chowder together in Little Sir. And Billy was also getting to the seventh bowl and he just fell asleep into the chowder. But somehow, when he woke up, the bowl was empty. Yeah.

He was sleep eating and then it flashes back to a time before that and Billy was eating chowder and he was trying to start a fight with a pug. Yeah. You fucking pug, don't look at me like that. You think your face is squished up now? His eyes are just going in opposite directions. Stop making fun of me. Hey, look at me when I'm talking to you. You stick out your finger and it just goes, oh, that's pretty cute. You wallop. That's pretty cute. Yeah. Okay.

Then I, I mean, I think, I think the rest of the night, like, there's carousing. There's carousing. We start a little fire in the hearth. Yeah. There's a nice little toasty peat moss fire going on. Chimes has a mug full of some steaming alcohol. Oh, he made cider. Yeah. Yeah. You can hear the like hissing and popping of the fire. He's like, he's like the mulling stone in the wine that he's drinking. And he goes, tomorrow, you're going to set sail. But tonight, we're with friends.

And that's just how the rest of the night continues until you eventually all, does anyone go to bed or do you just fall asleep where you are? I fall asleep in the chowder. In the chowder again. Chowder. Yeah. Falls asleep in a pot of chowder. Like, it's like on a low simmer. It's pretty nice. Yeah. Vic and I like walk by the kitchen. We see that. We're like, ah. Just turn it down a little bit. Like those clothes are ruined. Yeah.

And Chimes has got his feet kicked up on a chair leaning back in another chair with his pipe burning in his mouth. And you look at him and you're like, wow, he hasn't moved in a while. It looks like he's still awake though. But then you realize that he has eyes tattooed on his eyelids. Jesus. Cool. This guy's a psycho. And he's just dead asleep. You just hear him going. He's smoking. Yeah. Smoke comes out of the pipe every time he breathes out. Yeah. Yeah. It's making shapes. Yeah. And Z's.

Yeah. Z's floating up into the sky. And Mears has dozed off in a chair as well. Francis is asleep. Mears has leaned up against Francis. Cute. Texas sleep on the big leather couch by the fire. Oh, yeah. Sticky. Oh, yeah. It's going to wake up so wet. Yeah. What's Ving up to? There's a big fur on the floor. Nice. In front of the fire. Yeah. You all doze off. And after the the chaos and destruction and near death of the day, you spend a very peaceful night at Hither and Yon.

And I think that's where we're going to end it for this week. My name's Sean O'Hara. I've been your game master. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So long. Playing Ving, Vang Zumba, the half elf druid. Paul Oppers. Take care, everybody. Oh, prince of the boreal. Yeah. It's happening. And playing Fat Billy, the spring fae, Jessica Tai. Good night. Thanks to Aaron Reed for our intro and outro music. Thanks to Adam Coble and Sage Latour for Dungeon World.

And thanks to all of you for listening. You can find us on social media at Spout Lore most places, including patreon.com. Check out the Spout Lore fan club on Facebook for some pretty fun fan discussions that are exciting for me. Yeah. There have recently been quite a bit of conjecture that confirmed that Chimes is the ghost pirate. Congratulations to the listener that figured that out. Nice work. Impressed. Yeah. Someone was like, hey, I figured that I was listening to old episodes.

They figured this out. And I was like, fuck. I'm actually going to check. I'm going to. We can say a name. Yeah. Let's share the same person who was like, I have a theory message me and I really wanted to. And Sean said, no, no, because my my fear is that it'll be cooler than anything I was going to think. Well, then we choose to do that. Yeah, that's true. So, yeah, good call to listener Joe H on guessing that Chimes and the ghost pirate are the same person. Yeah. Spout Lore into the week.

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty exciting for me to see people having fan theory discussions about a thing that we're doing. There's also some conjecture about why Tuck didn't see the truth demon that is dangerously close to the reality of what we were thinking. Also, listener who had a fan theory that they were getting people to message them about. Feel free to DM that to me on Twitter. DM your DM. I want to know. Yeah. DM the GM. Because I want to know what that is. Yeah. And I want to know.

I'll make Sean tell me. Yeah. I'll tell everybody. But send it to me on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for listening, everybody. Now I'm just using this as a messaging service. Yeah. Anyone that wants to tell me what their favorite colors are, call me at Anybody that wants to remind me to pay my phone bill, please tweet at me at Sean O'Hara. You got to do it before me. April 9th or I will have forgotten. If anybody knows where I parked my car with my kids in it, my license plate's JJJ555.

Keep an eye out, everybody. And then tweet at Sean because I don't have Twitter. If anyone knows where my car with my kids in it, my license plate is Katie's boyfriend. I wanted to go back to. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. See you later. So long. Bye-bye. Bye.

So ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can Though dumb and scared and lost they be For time's abreast in revelry And though our journey may be like a conclusion We will not leave you without a resolution We will not leave you Return next week to hear some more Whilst you commute or do your chores And for you I'd gladly spout no Jessica, did you have a thing? I really wanted to ask people those dumb No, do it. No, yeah. If anyone's got Say it. Say it.

If anyone during this quarantine time is in a hurry wants to DM the GM to get to me their most favorite foods, I can guess your horoscope from that. And I will guess with 99% accuracy. Asterix, not guaranteed. What a wild carnival game there. That's not bad. I have been doing a lot of BuzzFeed quizzes. And I want to do my own. Pick your favorite brunch foods and I will tell you the time and manner of your day. Yeah. I can do that too. You just, put in a request and I will do it.

I'm a brunch fortune teller. Only brunch. Also dinner foods. Also lunch foods. Snack foods. Just food. Just food. Just food. Okay, goodbye everybody. Bye bye. Bye bye.