Episode 9 – The Breaking of the Chains

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 Hello everyone, and welcome to Spout Lore, coming to you live from sunny California I'm your game master Sean O'Hara, and playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai Good morning As always is usually what I say, and as always playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers Hello there And as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdul Aziz Hi everybody When last we left our heroes, they had undertaken the challenge of the Green Pillar Guys help me out I'm just, trouble Yep Lots of stones and rock, frog Yep We solved a bunch of puzzles Yeah Yeah It was a way of gaining the trust of the bedridden wizard Aquaria And after completing a series of puzzles, one quote unquote designed by Aquaria One designed by master of arcane architecture Morris Wadge Can't wait to meet that guy honestly And one designed by our very own Perel The party undertook what might be the most difficult fight they've ever had But the challenges were overcome and you arrived at Aquaria's personal study Retrieving a ball of magical moss from a terrarium that is supposedly supposed to aid you in finding Perel Is supposed to contain an aspect of Aquaria's knowledge and also do something to help make Ving whole again she said She gave us like the little crystal Yes, a crystal necklace Yeah In which to house the moss And Ving put it in his like chest geode Yeah Yeah And put the moss in there Yeah So now it is the chest geode and the moss are integrated Tony Stark right in there Yeah exactly Yeah Iron Man 1 and 2 Yep And a curtain of moss pulled back from a window in Aquaria's study revealing the eye of the storm far in the distance A tunnel of dark clouds being pulled towards the top of a pillar in the distance Hmm That's where we find our heroes now That's the place That's it Guess that's where we're headed Yeah I feel like really strong tugging Wow On the ring in the in his beard that Chimes gave us Mm-hmm It's like on an angle now It's like really Sticking out of your beard Not horizontally quite yet but yeah it's like you really tugging Yeah Yeah That looks annoying are you okay You want to take that off I mean we can see it now you don't have to wear that anymore It's good yeah I still like it it feels nice Okay You're not gonna have to fight your way back through the tower like if you want to get back to Aquaria you'll be able to But do you want to look around at all?

Or are you just gonna bounce? Willow wants to sleep Oh yeah We yeah we probably need to rest to charge back up our hit points Mm-hmm I'd like to study the essence of the moss while we rest Oh yeah that's good Which moss? Blue moss The one that's in your chest? Yeah Oh I see I think that's where the complication comes from right?

Because the moss is magical and spirit energy and magical energy are antithesis of each other Ving can't traditionally communicate with it Ving can't traditionally communicate with things that are purely magical Yeah Yeah Okay It's like when you have a limp penis and you're trying to get it When who has a limp penis?

When you know sometimes sometimes Some I don't know Pete some Sometimes you just have anxiety and you're Yeah it's not like a thing it's not like a It's not like the vagina is too hard Sometimes it's just like you're thinking about Why can't they both be so mushy?

Other stuff and it just doesn't go in no matter how much you try and shoehorn it in with you I have a big company to run probably maybe Yeah exactly Sometimes you're just thinking well I hope it stays hard Yeah And then when you feel something you're like is that it getting soft and then it's a fucking feedback map Man you start thinking about all your hopes and dreams I want a dog someday that's not making me horny Shit So and then that's sort of what Ving is going at in Ving's head as he's trying to commune with He's trying to get this essence down But you all want to rest Yeah When you do nothing but rest in comfort and safety after a day of rest you recover all of your hit points I would like to stay here for 24 hours what do you guys think?

That's fine Okay Do you have food? You have to eat Um How sustaining is this puzzle artichoke? Great question Do you guys have anything you can eat? Did we give them all the pomegranates? Yeah Did we give them the cheese? Yeah Okay I mean I could try and make food Oh yeah Billy can make food Yeah Alright so what are you trying to turn into food? Um that teacup Okay Mmm I'm gonna look through the books too when you're done Yeah What are you trying to turn it into?

Oh um hey Tuck what do you feel like eating? Um oh wow I don't usually get a choice I'm gonna need some time to think about it He walks to the window and just like One hand on it Puts his hand on it and he stares out at the waves Ah And he comes back to you and he's like Bread Great So what's what's switcheroo to do six plus charisma? Yeah Fuck six Oh I will uh I would like to aid Yeah How? Do you want to I could aid too cause it's for me right?

Sure yeah Yeah Ving's busy browsing through piles of books Okay And I just described the kind of bread that I want Yeah Like I want like uh Italian urban cheese baguette Like you can't put it some way Yeah and I and I'm like I've never had that Yeah So I'm trying to figure it out And I'm trying to describe it to him I was like Sometimes it smells like a fart and tastes like it but it's good It smells like an air freshener and tastes like paper towels And it's so soft it's almost liquid And the fucked up thing is literally everybody wants to eat it all the time It's so good Plus Bond Through I can't I can't see We failed Five Okay Oh fuck I think the I think the problem is is that I think Billy does turn something into food Uh huh But it's something valuable that he owns Okay so I had like my hand on my hip and one hand on the cup cause I was like Cause you were doing a tea cup Doing a tea cup I guess I meant to make it seem like he was thinking really hard but yeah basically I'm a tea cup short and spout But oops Jordan stop Oh oh stout lawyer Can I can I make an executive decision and tell you what you turn to food Yeah All of your weapons What oh fuck Your sword and your knives turn to food So all this like weird fart bread like falls out of my bag No you're just like well that didn't work something happened though and you like pull your little short sword out and it smells like fresh baked bread Ah shit Fuck Is this what you wanted Oh yeah am I gross Oh yeah and I grab it and I eat his dagger Exactly So you and uh you and Tuck can sustain yourselves for the day on all of Billy's weapons but now you are weaponless If you wanna deal good damage up close you're gonna have to find new weapons Okay But yeah so you'll be able to rest for today Okay I'm gonna make Billy some weapons too If you do that that will be strenuous and it will not count as rest I think I can do it in a way that's like pretty chill though I'm willing to let you pitch me on this And I take the egg I take the egg to the wall and I'm just like click click click click click No Just chipping pieces off You're literally mining That's not restful It's just like chill mining It's like some casual quarry work No absolutely not Well I'm gonna say you can do that but you will not rest I do it for ten minutes and then I get bored And you just hand Billy a rock like I tried What are you trying to make it's just rocks Are any of these useful Just throw these at a guy if you get in trouble bud Okay It's not bad you got a handful of rocks Yeah put that in your inventory Pile of rocks Honestly well handful of rocks Handful of rocks weight one Yeah I mean but like I'm in the ocean I can find rocks anywhere It's true this is really good This is like when your dad gives you a gift that he didn't think through at all You know hey here's some scuba lessons What the fuck What the fuck are you doing When did I ever express interest in scuba lessons?

I don't have any scuba gear let alone the ability to go on a lesson And it means so much to him that you at least accept it So like put it in your inventory it's useful right Yeah I do thank you Tuck These will be really good when we fight the storm He's trying to make him feel good But also be a kind of a bit of a shit Yeah by accident Also something that we never talked about Is Billy's racial trait as a halfling Is that he's really good at throwing stuff Billy gets a plus one whenever he rolls to throw things Why don't you tell me that?

Because it's on your sheet written down in front of you I don't look at it For literally hours every time we play I don't look Sean we are barely literate I am fully aware I'd hoped after four years though you'd at least recognize like symbols We're so unliterate that when I'm like You said unliterate I didn't question it This is a rare opportunity where the nerd in the group gets to bully the jocks Jocks I mean you might as well all be jocks at this point Ving's licking some slime mold off the wall like you poor bastards Man Must be rough Hey Ving you told me I should never do that Yeah don't do as I do There's a lot of shit you're gonna see me do that I don't want you to ever do pal Looks so good though It isn't Just like scraping dust off a table and licking your hand This is edible dust For me edible for me There's good rust in here This is daddy's special dust Okay yeah so Low You guys do like low impact stuff Okay Discern realities Yeah discern realities about the room Nice Two to six plus wisdom Ten Holy shit Fuck yeah Yes You get three questions That's a small room guys thanks though And we're gonna come up with these together Okay Because like I don't know Sure This is a wizard study that's pretty cool Yeah There could be some cool stuff in here So what are you gonna ask There's a book Yeah Magical meteorology book Ooh Yeah Cool What is that It's the myths and lores around magical weather systems Cool Cool Like weather mages Yeah Sick And you have that book and you can Spout Lore about it or flip through it at your leisure But you've got a book on magical meteorology So we don't have to do questions for these That would be what here is useful or valuable to me Oh I see Yeah What's the next question What here is not what it appears to be Jessica Jessica Uh Billy's trying to have a nap And he's like rolling himself into a corner He lies down in the middle of the floor and then rolls into a corner Yeah basically Me so sleepy Yeah And that's how Billy takes naps traditionally He just lays down where he is and then rolls until he finds a comfortable place And you know when like kids are like kinda like kicking around like on the floor Yeah You know Yeah Um Yeah His foot slides on the bottom of one of the bookshelves and it's a panel that opens up Yeah Oh shit What's in the panel Abdul Um oh like there's a little notebook Oh okay Yeah Yeah What's in the notebook It is a bunch of notes like rough notes Mm-hmm In three different handwritings Mm-hmm One is like very neat and orderly and it's got a bunch of like diagrams and stuff in it One is like very flowing it's like clearly a woman's handwriting Hashtag yes all women Oh I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go Oh woman Oh woman Oh woman Oh woman Oh woman I might be using that not totally accurately but I'm sure I got close wow and then yeah the other one is like kind of cramped kind of messy sort of like all over the place and that one has like a lot of like biological drawings and stuff in it it goes from cursive to block letters to cursive yeah he's like very disorderly in how this third handwriting is and you can see that he's tried to smudge a bunch of stuff out with his hand there's a lot of mud stains on it so is this like a sisterhood of the traveling notebook situation?

I think so it's a notebook that the three of them share that have notes on like things that they were researching independently cool and they would just like deliver it to each other maybe every once in a while through probably magical means I think the subject matter would have been something that they were all invested in and interested in and we will discover what that is at a later date yeah cool Paul what's your last question? I'm gonna want to know what should I be on the lookout for?

Abdul a way out that will get us on our way to the pillar so you don't want to have to go back so we don't have to go back up through all those traps Jessica is there one? Yes what is it? When Billy kicks aside that panel grabs that book and is excited about it and Billy's still like rummaging not rummaging that's not the word scrubbling scrubbling?

Yeah no that is the word rummaging's not the word scrubbling that's what I meant sorry I misspoke oh I've had too much coffee scrubbling so Billy's scrubbling around in there he's scrubbling he's in the corner of like the wall in the bookshelf and like still kicking around and he's like and he actually like nudges the bookshelf away from the wall and there is a tunnel oh cool yeah alright it's a small tunnel tuck may barely fit sick that's great yeah so I guess unless there's anything in particular that everybody else wants to do you just pass the next day and rest yeah I'm reading this old copy of Love and Lust out loud go chapter three chapter three oh it's a dated copy yeah yeah Brazilda the Older One the orc walks into the tavern she's wait this book is in the second person present tense yes Brazilda the orc walks into the tavern she is heaving and huffing filled with so much anxiety and fear that her lust is blooming wait sorry third person second person is you isn't it that's how they all are written Sean have you ever read like 500 romance novels like I did once yeah summer no but parts of it are second present tense yeah you see Brazilda walk in huffing and puffing so hard that her glasses are fogging up like some nerd if you buy her drink go to page 17 if you go to the bathroom go to page 44 so romance choose your own adventure choose your own romance oh wow yeah so which one do you guys pick I'm sitting on the chair I'm like which one do you guys pick oh I'm fast asleep I asked you to read it like a bedtime story 17 17 so he goes to the bathroom get her a drink oh get her a drink so I flipped to page 17 what does page 17 say Brazilda says I would love a drink and asks you for a hot hogwash I was gonna say a hot dog forget the drink make it a hot dog she says sitting down at the bar and patting the stool next to her you walk over she gazes at you with a smoldering fire in her eyes if you keep eye contact turn to page 25 if you turn away coyly go to page 28 which one do we do coy okay Jessica we've turned away coyly what's the next no Jessica the person not Billy what's the next segment wait what was it again turn away coyly yeah so Brazilda's an orc holding a hot dog and what's the dude's name just you just you oh just you you turn away coyly you turn away coyly you turn away coyly you feel your face start to flush as you feel Brazilda Brazilda Brazilda's gaze upon you you ask you turn to the waiter and you say one hot dog please actually and you turn back make it two and then she's already holding one those look delicious I'll have two of those the waiter brings you the hot dogs and do you slop it with condiments first or do you eat it dry pick page 24 and 83 okay wow that's a wide range of pages this book is 400 pages I love choose your own adventures okay so is it 20 do you slop it with condiments or do you eat it dry you I go to page 83 no you don't eat it dry eat it dry eat it dry yeah yeah yeah so then the next segment is you you push aside the condiments and the waiter and grab a hot dog in either end of your hands and you at this point it is umming and ahhing this much no wonder this book's fucking 400 pages long you bring the hot dogs towards each other and let them touch softly in front of your lips as you take a bite of both the hot dogs at the same time and uh um ask her what does your dad do yeah yeah um it doesn't even have a choice this is hard yeah turn to page one turn to page one to find out what happens next so uh turn to page one she says you're my dad in the end fuck uh I think we ruined it you ruined it yeah you got the bad ending turns out you're her dad damn it I'm gonna I'm gonna keep this book try and find the right ending and I'm gonna count that as an outlander move take a point of experience what I don't know actually everybody take a point of experience alright I didn't do anything but sure oh no everybody took part in love and lust I enjoyed that a lot and so you all heal back up to your maximum midpoints after a day of rest there's also a copy of golf digest and a copy of mud affairs in here yeah seems like she was subscribed to some mailing service must have been really hard to get it there like based on current understanding of the postal service yeah how would it even get here there's a small carving of a bird it looks like stone but it's carved out of wood really dense hard wood uh huh it's a small like stylized carving that like things like that kind of looks like underbird I'm gonna do you think she would can I take this can I can I do you think I can have this guys do you think she would mind if I I mean she can't do anything I guess I could put it what's that you want me to have it she wants me to have it oh okay I didn't hear that but that's thank you the moss in my chest said I should take it the moss in my chest said I should take it and my spirit ears heard her want me to have it I feel guilty I'm gonna take it what's this bird carving I don't know somebody somebody fucking spell Laura oh fuck I have six plus wisdom intelligence intelligence six so!

Get off me okay yeah so Ving is like I don't I don't fucking know and uh Tuck remembers hearing stories like books written like you know pulp adventure novels basically written about the golden age of wooden birds delivering messages oh cool and you're like this seems kind of familiar and in the stories there's always like an activation phrase and then you're like oh I'm not but you don't remember what any of them would be so it's a little wooden bird figurine kind of looks like the hood of a of a firebird from the 80s with a like a like a V shaped thing so it's a flat carving uh no it's a little yeah it's a little it's embossed okay it's got some meat to it okay cool that's the kind of game this is you guys can tell me that you find loot and I go okay cool that sounds cool well I want to find a loot now well what does Billy find a loot he finds a loot yeah yeah he's sitting on the floor with a loot bigger than him like look what I found jang jang jang jang jang jang and Vig and I are like absolutely not where the fuck did he find that thing oh it was just down in the tunnel yeah it was behind Billy can I have that loot you lost mine when you no you lost mine no I found this one fuck oh that's so fucking funny but I mean it's bigger than Billy so he's not gonna be able to carry it Billy do you want me to carry your loot no I know it's a trap Billy's getting to that age where he's real recalcitrant to do anything fuck yeah terrible twos nines terrible two thousands yeah it's also it's a very pretty loot there's a lot of like uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh ornate like gold inlay yeah so I'm just rubbing it not grossly just I don't know it just feels nice sometimes what Billy thinks isn't gross transfers over to to gross again uh but yeah the sun has come up over the sea of graves as far as you can tell it's quite overcast today there's actually there's rain lashing against the crystal window yeah can I do one more thing before we leave depends on what it is I there's that tapestry that I described last time that had a battle a battle on it and we didn't get to oh yeah look at the one that was in the clear water mhm could we inspect this one the Spout Lore uh yeah sure oh I gotta roll for a Spout Lore ooh a ten holy shit sick I've never succeeded in Spout Lore this is amazing you were meant to do this yeah holy fuck I think the reason why I can is because this artwork and this style of artwork is like commonly like not just adapted and aped but like copied for album covers because uh copyright law in the principalities is dog shit well but it's also a very old tapestry mhm so it's got that kind of medieval style totally where perspective is really weird everything's flat yeah and everyone just kind of looks like a like a paper doll mhm what this one that you're looking at is is in the center of the tapestry at the top is a a robed figure with a halo like behind their head um with their arms outstretched and surrounding them is a very dense detailed army so the robed figure is a wizard I'm assuming you're assuming yeah yeah it looks like there's three distinct groups with different styles of armor and weaponry but they're all converging on this robed figure at the top oh what are the three groups tell me about the three groups uh there is one group that is entirely mounted like they're all riding horses uh huh and they're all cavalrous yeah in a cavalrous manner but they're very they look very lightly armored they have a lot of pelts and leathers like for hats of interesting shapes and styles and they're all holding swords there's another group that is very heavily armored people on foot mhm like you can't see faces you just see the shape of armor mhm and the last group is uh entirely on foot as well and most of them are holding bows pulled back with arrows knocked mhm yeah are they like segregated by race the last group certainly looks like they're elves the bow people yeah the armored group can't tell yeah and the uh the mounted group there's they're wearing too many clothes like it's not like you see pointed ears or short people like again like the last group is definitely elves the other two you couldn't say of the armor can we tell like the make like do we know if it's yeah what dwarvish or man what's the make and model in year bing you remember in your time as a young noble yeah going to a lot of museums outside of the forest occasionally which is strange so you recognize the armor as being a style of armor that was worn in the principalities when it was still a monarchy uh like three or four hundred years ago in uh is there anything past the armies I think that'd be cool that's usually what happens yeah uh it would be cool if it's like the army and then like either the land or some more people or like creatures I was thinking of in the army of the elves yeah on their side in their corner it would be lots of animals animals and tons of animals gathered like the army of the woods and all that sort of stuff and they're coming behind and they're coming behind and they're sort of like protect us which is cause that they would see them as like protectors of the forest so that would be nice if there was like forest forest and animals coming out maybe that's the dark forest dark yeah moving up into the light yeah oh I like that the armored army with the darkness they are very heavily armored on front uh huh but they all have their shields on their back oh shields on the back yeah because of the mistrustful nature of the warlock army oh yeah I actually really want to draw this yes yeah please do can I say something yeah can I put Billy in this yes I was thinking it would be cool if like some secret was peeking out of the woods or something and that's a great one I think even if it was instead of like only Billy if it was like a few types of fairy yeah and then Billy was just in there yeah there's a very round fairy yeah there's a bunch of like yeah yeah yeah there's a fairy there that has like a striped horizontal red and white shirt glasses and a toque he's got a cane there's another guy with a wizard and there's a dog cool yeah sick and I have one I have two more questions for you about this painting uh huh one what is the color of the wizard's robes um like goldenrod kind of like a burnt yellow yeah sort of so it's not a wizard we know like it's not Perel no something that you realize because this is such a fucking grab bag of like iconography cultures is this is not representative of a single event this is representative of a time in history and what is the name of this tapestry the fall cool I think it's one of those you remember seeing the name it's not written on the tapestry or anything like that I think it's one of those old school painting names too where it's called like the fall or but how about it's it's got two names then one is like from the wizard's perspective the rise and yeah and one is from the perspective like the breaking of chains or something like that oh yeah where people yeah there was like a movement where people saw themselves as freeing themselves from like dependence on the wizards it's not the exodus because that came after the breaking of the chains this is this not the exodus uh no this is the war oh yeah this is when when when globally the cultures turned against wizards okay so yeah the breaking of the chains is what non-magic users called it and then the fall is what wizards called it and there's a secret third name also what is important to think is like who uh was this tapestry made for yeah because it'll affect like like the bias of it yeah I think if you had to think about why Aquaria would have this and why Maggie would have this based on what you know about them you think that Maggie would have this to be like that's what we had to do to make things better before it's a reminder and Aquaria has it because that's what happened yeah this is what we had to go through yeah this is like a reminder of what happened when we pushed them too far but they're not they're not the same though I imagine they are the same I imagine slightly different actually yeah slightly slightly different yeah because tapestries are all handmade anyway and yeah that's good just like how history is made sounds different yeah but the layout is generally the same yeah so this is the one that is for the wizards so what about that is useful or is it just the information I don't know I don't know that we have to make it useful right now okay we'll find a way to make it useful in the future sure yeah yeah sweet anything else anybody wants to do in this place are we taking it it's a huge tapestry fucking little little roll it up I thought of it too though I was also thinking about it well actually I want to come up behind you while you're like studying it and I'm like oh I remember that can we take it oh man I'll give you the loot and then you hear a loud ripping noise yeah takes it off the wall and then he also he takes he grabs a piece of paper just rips a page out of a random book and he's he writes I know you want to I owe you one tapestry Tacoma Dome and then takes one of the shards of rock he knocked off the wall and just jams it into where the tapestry was great fuck actually oh wait no can I rewind I'm sorry no wait I shouldn't take it okay I feel like that is uncool of me I really want to put it back tuck put it back okay yeah I take it and I just like drape it close to the place where it was I just wanted to I really just mostly wanted to touch it but I know it's heavy it'd be like carrying around an enormous carpet for the rest of the adventure and I'm just like snuggling the corner right of that of that tapestry where the halfling lands are yeah and it's at this point the light from the crystal window in the study is obscured by the massive avian form of the thunderbird Philly the window and he's like desperately flapping to stay level with the window like oh shit can let's get down these stairs where do they lead let's go oh yeah let's go Billy's just walking dragging a loot behind him let's go be careful be careful with the loot I am and after a period of time you see light at the end of the tunnel sick so it's just like it's just an open door basically again like obscured by moss and it opens up to like just the rocks beneath us in the ocean crashing up against it awesome yeah yeah so you're just hanging out standing above the sea of graves thunderbird flapping around in front of you I can go get the boat I guess yeah please do hop onto the bird yeah and you just flap over to the boat yeah yeah round around go around the thing go for a little toot so you come back to where the gilded lily and chimes of skiff were chopped into the side of the tower on his hands and knees in the skiff you see chimes oh whoa he's just like come on ooh he's like rubbing like he's rubbing runes with his thumb like come on look at this oh dad looks pissed oh hey chimes you made it hey hey how'd you get here me and this boat have an understanding no wait I decided I decided something about I decided something about chimes based on one of the runes that he has so you say how did you get here how did you get here me and this boat can always find each other no matter what cross any distance cool what happened the sea of graves eh what a son of a bitch anyways we can tell you all about it our friend's on the other side of the pillar okay let's go get him okay and he just like sits down in his skiff and starts he just grabs the tiller yeah you notice he's not touching runes when he's doing this and the sails just go whoop and he putters around to the other side I go up front I'm like guys I'm guys chimes is here he's coming around with the boat right now pretty upset oh no oh no you can hear in the distance god damn it son of a bitch come on where do we hide how do we what lie we can't okay whose fault do we say this is it got stolen it Tuck puts his finger on his nose put my finger on my nose what's the nose thing mean what's the nose thing mean okay so we're saying it's Ving's fault I can do that kinda is Ving's fault look at me I'm a monster kinda my fault too though Billy I'll take this one okay oh hi hello oh he heard us talking imagine imagine finding you morons here what who are you talking to who are you look alright alright let me cool off for a second I'm sorry I'm not angry at you I'm just angry in general about the situation oh shit what the fuck happened to your bow what'd you do what I did was lend it to a bunch of yahoos without giving them proper instruction on how to utilize the otherworldly nature of the vessel I will take ownership of the fact that you just fucking fucked this thing okay thank god yeah yeah yeah yeah okay it was the storm I know you didn't engage the right protective ruins because I didn't tell you how to so Metaqueria I take it yes oh you're no Aquaria yeah we go back a ways I kinda I helped her get out here huh she's really nice nice yes she is she's a nice lady but gross the moss yeah the moss yeah the moss yeah the moss yeah the moss yeah the moss yeah it's a little much so what's up oh yeah we did we find Perel no but we have an idea of where he is we know where to go yeah we saw where the eye of the storm is so we have to go there over there well he points his arm out and you can see the funnel of clouds coming down over the horizon yes and Aquaria kinda gave us away oh yeah yeah and he looks around and he goes oh yeah yeah and he points a few meters off the side you see a trail of algae along the top of the water that sweeps around the entrance of the pillar mhm and past you and off into the distance in the direction of the eye of the storm uhm we got word from a dragon that Perel might be in danger can you come help us find him he pats his thigh a couple times looks up at the sky the sky spits yeah all right oh thank you thank fuck god I don't I I didn't know if we would be able to like use your boat again or anything like that so I can use my boat he's like just wait hold on and he puts his pinkies in his mouth and goes like tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet and uh the gilded lily comes around the corner of the pillar and is just sailing towards you oh my god I didn't know we could do that you can't oh and says you hop on here I'll lead the way I've had trouble getting to the ice storm before but with aquarius help I think we got a pretty straight shot cool thank you sick thanks chimes and I'm sorry about your boat it was definitely my fault no I know that it wasn't your fault it was a storm's fault it's not my fault he narrows his eyes in what way I just I don't know right now billy just feels really guilty yeah oh billy's just apologizing yeah uh all right let's uh hit the road yeah so to speak okay so with aquarius help and chimes's help you're not going to have to roll a uh navigate that's just going to succeed you'll get there you're going to get there you're going to get there you're going to get there you're going to get there you're going to get there you're going to get there you're going to get there you're going to but you might still want to think about scouting just in case there's anything between here and there I'll follow the blue line on the bird all right so it's 2d6 plus wisdom shit seven okay great uh on a seven you choose one from this list you get the drop on whatever lies ahead you discern a beneficial aspect of the terrain you make a discovery or you notice sign of a nearby danger uh I think getting the drop on whatever's ahead getting the drop on whatever's ahead bing is flying ahead on the road and you're going to get there you're going to get on the thunderbird pretty high up uh high enough that it's you think it's a little bit harder for anyone to spot you on the bottom because the bird's camouflaged against the gray clouds and as you sail a good distance ahead of the boats you see what looks like a bunch of people floating on their backs in the water oh geez is it like a long distance swimming team or something we have gone way too far they're all moving in sequence they're all doing backstroke they do it so they flip over where the fuck are we where did these pillars come from that's why I said we should have done the butterfly can I check them out or maybe I stay camouflaged you could make a roll to get closer without being noticed uh it'd be a defy danger dexterity with your birds help I guess I can't camouflage I'm using my camouflage yeah go check them out so I think it's plus cunning so five uh okay so you're going to get a drop on whatever lies ahead of you and you try you're like what the fuck people and you dive down on the bird and you dive down pretty quick maybe too quick so you the bird tips so much that you're so clearly visible your hair's like flapping in the wind and you see the people look up at you and then dive under the water and you see what looks like fins as they pass underneath mermaids merpeople they definitely saw me shit okay go back to the boat I saw a herd or swarm or uh an unkindness of merpeople what merpeople merpeople live in the sea billy cool and this guy's binoculars looking in the sky when ving says merpeople chimes stands up in his boat and goes what I saw merpeople not that far ahead maybe about a league a league and a half everybody keep your eyes open I sure will I can't wait did they see you no did they maybe did they I'm camouflaged I waved at them one of them wave back and then this way I'm under the water but yeah chimes is just visibly shaken uh he's like everybody keep your eyes open if one of them starts singing clamp your hands over your ears and do not take them off until I say so why would I do that I want to hear them sing no you do not I think I do billy you shut the hell up oh my god old man.

And I kind of clock how serious this seems. And I'm like, Billy, I think this is like… We have a code phrase with Billy that it's like, no games are happening right now. And we're like, Billy, this is gravy right now. It's super serious. This is serious gravy. This is really serious gravy. This is serious gravy right now. We know that we're very excited. Yeah. And we can maybe see them and we can talk about them and we can draw them and we can maybe get you a small statue when this is over.

But he's saying that the actual mermaids could be very dangerous to us. Okay, so not playtime. Okay. I understand. I'm sorry, Chimes. It's okay. You're new to the sea. I've been here for a while. I've been here for a while. But they're okay to look at? In short bursts. What does that mean? You know what? I was gonna say he was gonna avoid answering that question, but I've decided that he can't do that. They are pretty attractive, but they will kill you.

And I have enjoyed looking at them from time to time briefly. Okay, so Tuck is practicing how he's gonna look at them. He's like closing, alternating eyes to be like, is this what you mean by short burst? You know what? That actually might work. I love it. You gotta make sure both of them are closed for a second, though. Do you want one of my binocs? I mime taking a half a binoc from Billy, and it actually is doing so. For a second. For a second it works. You mime it.

Okay, thanks a lot, but what the fuck? But it's like when soap covers a bubble stick for a second, then it pops, and you're like, what the fuck was that? Well, you can hold it. Oh, yeah. Tuck has used Billy's hands before. I've used Billy's hands before, but I've never held it in my hand. That's very exciting. We know they can do it. Yeah, cool. Can I ask something of all of you? Can we roll a spout, Laura, and determine together why mermaids are dangerous? Sure. Who's gonna roll it? Oh.

Jessica? Yeah, I guess I'll do it, because I have the binoculars. Okay, great. Seven. Okay. So something interesting, but not useful. It means that you will know why mermaids are dangerous, but not how to avoid them. They'll be something that you don't expect that even Chimes doesn't know. Yeah, Tuck is like, I don't know. I feel like I've learned how to avoid this. He's doing the blink wink. I call this the blink wink. It's pretty good.

I'm gonna use the sight of the bird so I don't have to directly look at them. Yeah, pretty smart. Okay, so let's talk about mermaids. Let's just describe them. Describe what they look like so we all know. Jessica, take the lead. You're the artist? No, it's just because I was upset if they wouldn't be. It would be so beautiful. Exactly. I'm sorry. Don't be sorry. Just give us the world's most beautiful description of a mermaid. Of the people at this table, Jessica Tai loves mermaids the most.

I know, but it's such high pressure. Such high stakes. Because you love mermaids so much. But here's the thing. Whatever you say, we'll find a way to fuck it up. No, that's great. And if it's not beautiful enough or cool enough, you tell me. Yeah. So the mermaids, mermaids are just stunning. Like full lips, big beautiful eyes. Their eyes vary from color to color. And they come in different sizes, but they are all shapely, lovely women. And their skin is sometimes silvery white.

And sometimes it's like dark and almost like opalescent. Like they're shimmery. And they'll have like ornate little like, like stones sometimes in like their forehead. Just as like decoration and along their collarbones. And they all have long hair. And in the hair, they've decorated with like pearls. Cool. Oh, yeah. Sick. Can you see their boobs? Some of them wear some of them wear shells like what Ving saw. Some of them will have like kelp wrapped around, but some of them are bare chested.

Tuck coughs a little bit. He pulls an algebra book out of his back. It's been literally years since Tuck has seen human breasts. What years? What are you talking about? I had sex with Ruby. You didn't see them. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. She literally was naked. Oh, right. She was. You're right. I forgot. I forgot. Okay. So Tuck has seen boobs recently. I'm glad somebody's tracking the boobs in this podcast. No problem. Thank you. Okay. So yeah, their song is dangerous. You don't want to hear it.

You don't want to look at them for very long. Yeah. You do a blink wink. Yeah. I think they're just like, not in an ugly way, purely in an analogy way. It's like cuttlefish almost. When you look at them, looking at them is so hypnotic and distracting that they're able to get way too close to you. And the song I think is similar. The song is just so overwhelming that even if it's not beautiful, you can't help but listen to it. Can I add something? Yes. We can keep adding. All day.

I'm so excited about this shit. You can't see it because they're so glossy, but their mouth actually extends all the way to their jawbone. Oh, yeah. So when they're singing, it's just their human mouth. And then when they're coming to eat you, it just opens this massive piranha thing. And it's like… Sharp teeth. Yeah. That's so cool. Have you guys seen the things that fish have so prey doesn't swim back out of their mouth? Yeah. It's those backwards facing spikes. Yeah, they have that.

It's like that. Yeah. So once they get your hand in their mouth, you got to work real hard to get that hand back. Sorry. How many of them are there? Oh, they haven't appeared yet. Okay. Oh, I saw… I mean, I saw some. Oh, you saw… 14. 14. Maybe let him say a lower number. No, 14. Yeah, it was weird. It was weird. It was weird. It was weird. It was weird. There were… I saw it say there's a dozen. 26? Yeah, 14. And Chimes is like, oh, God damn it. Is that too many? One is too many, frankly.

And you're sailing along for 20, 30 minutes following this… I want to give everybody like flaps, pieces of merino. Can we stuff stuff in our ears? Yeah, probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah, we take merino. We'll from Ving. Yeah. Thank you, Ving. What's that? What? Sorry. What? Thank you. God bless you. That's you. Thank you. You're welcome. Oh, my God. That's Chimes. Bless you. So, okay. That's… Here's… That's the trade-off.

You won't be affected by the siren song, but you also can't fucking hear anything. What? I turned all our headphones down to mimic the… No. …tubility that we have. I promise that you didn't. This is as loud as it's ever been. You just turned his down. And yeah, you're sailing along for 20, 30 minutes following the trail… The algae bloom that Aquaria left for you. And Chimes is looking all over the place, swinging his head around. Are we… Who's on what boat and who's on the bird?

Chimes is on a skiff. Ving is on the bird or is the bird landed? I'm on the bird. Okay. Ving's on the bird. Oh, we're on the lily. Yeah, we're on the gilded lily. Which is sailing without your control. Yeah. Yeah. And every once in a while, Chimes puts his pinky back in his mouth and goes like… He whistles a little signal back there? His skiff's behind you, actually. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He whistles a signal up to us. Yeah.

And I've noticed that he put four runes on the sides of the boat. Just really quick carvings. No, you know what? No? He didn't. Oh. That's the thing, is he didn't. What? He wasn't able to control this boat. That's weird. You could maybe find out later. I mean… Because if you fucking asked him, he would tell you. Yeah. Hey, Chimes. Not important. No, don't say a word. How are you a boat whisperer? Don't say a word. No, everybody's… Boxcar! He got two sixes. What were you rolling?

He was rolling, how are you a boat whisperer? And you know what? Chimes says something and he goes for a while and you can see tears in his eyes, but you got Marina willing ears and you didn't hear it. All you hear is… And he's pounding his chest and he's pointing at the sky. You look like Celine Dion. And he falls to his knees and he screams. Oh, we all hear that. We're like, what? Yeah.

And you turn around to listen to Chimes screaming about something and you see a beautiful, just midnight black skinned woman with bright white hair swimming alongside your boat, waving. I instinctively wave back. I instinctively wave back. And you know what? Actually, Billy, you instinctively wave back before you realize your hand's coming up, you're waving. Oh no, close my eyes. Defy danger charisma. Okay. You get a plus one because of this. All these dice are hot. Shit. Forget it.

You don't get a plus one. Fuck you, I get a plus one. You get a minus six. Fuck you. What did you roll? I got 14 plus the plus one is 15, which is my record. That's the record for the podcast. Wow. That's pretty high. And you jam your hand back down. You're like, I didn't do that. And you look away. I swoop down and land on the boat. Yeah. As you start swooping down, you see the one with the midnight black skin and then you see like three other on the other side of the boat near tuck.

And there's one with like a shining metallic red hair, like bright red and sort of a pale green skin. Wow. And I'm gonna have to describe all these fucking things, aren't I? No, I won't. Imagine. Imagine a kaleidoscope of colors, a rainbow connection of mermaids. Tuck, you look over and you see three banging hot women. Yeah. There are three close to me because they've identified me as the weakest. The weak one. Go for the one with the elevator book in front of his crotch.

Go for the one that already has a boner. Yeah. For fear, I guess. One of them, when Ving flew back to the boat, one of them peeked their eyes just above the water. And as Ving was describing the mermaids, she saw your loincloth. And he saw his loincloth quivering. I imagine his loincloth is actually horizontal. Just the end of it. Yeah. Yeah. My, because we're so close to the eye of the storm now. My beard is horizontal. Yes. So there's two parallel lines. One in my face and one in my way.

I guess we go that way. Decide whether or not that's canon for yourselves, listeners. It is. Yeah. So, Tuck, you see these women swimming up to the side of the boat. What do you do? They're swimming alongside. They're not trying to swim up yet. I start, like, blink, doing the wink blink. And I'm like, oh, wow. It's so flattering that you are talking to me. But I have a girlfriend back home. I kind of have two. Yeah. Depending on what season you're thinking. I don't know if you've ever met her.

Her name is Rubsy. Ruby. Can you roll a. Okay. Because the wink blink. Chime. Chime said the wink blink might work. So if you give me. Oh, what is it? I guess dexterity to keep, like, the coordination going. And Tuck's vibe right now is nerd at a party who a drunk girl started talking to. A sexually confident. Who is uncomfortable with the conversation that is happening and slowly realizing that he does not want to be in it. 36 plus dexterity. Seven. Okay.

So the wink blink is going to make it so you can look at the mermaids. But. But I take a minus one to four where dexterity rolls because the boners getting in the way. So you're asking to willingly take a debility or just. No debility work makes sense. Minus one. Minus one to dexterity. But now you are able to both look at the mermaids semi safely with the exception of dexterity. Not necessarily because of a boner. Yes. No. No.

It's a combination of having an uncomfortable boner, but you feel your body being affected in some way. Yeah. Like your coordination is being affected. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about that. It's your dick. It's your rock hard pipe. Yeah. And it's also like I'm having feeling. Yeah. Exactly. You're feeling the compulsions try to take hold, but you're forcing them away. Through the wink blink technique. And I yell real loud. The wink blink I think is working. Hi. I'm Tacoma dome.

And with my patented wink blink technology, you can kind of hang out with a mermaid for a bit. Thirty minutes or less. I figured out the upward limit. Yeah. So the wink blink is going to work. You're taking a minus one to dexterity until you can sort that shit out. Yeah. Great. I wish I still had that boner bond with tech. Oh, yeah. That would come in handy. We resolved the boner behind. Sorry. Remind me of the boner bond. We would stab each other. If one of us. We're getting horny. Yeah.

Allison. Allison. We, we, we very briefly became false. Wow. I think you can just call that celibate. Wow. We have a lot of horny monsters on our show. Yeah. Yeah. The horniest monster of them all. Man. The monster of them all was inside of our hearts the whole time. Okay. So Ving. Yeah. What's Ving doing? Oh, you're looking through the bird's eyes. I'm looking through the bird's eyes, so I don't have to wink blink, but the bird's getting pretty horny. I think, you know what?

I think evolutionarily, weirdly, their magic only affects humans, humanoids, people. So it is through magic? It is a magical effect. Okay. That they, that is biological for them. What I'm saying is the bird is seeing the bird. It's like, oh, I'm going to go to the zoo. I'm going to take a picture of them. What I'm saying is the bird is safe. Anybody chimes, Billy, halfling, elf, dwarf, whatever, orcs doesn't matter. They're affected by it. Animals are not. So you got, you got lucky there.

Oh, animals are not shape-shift. Oh, fuck. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. That son of a bitch. Ving's going to get laid. Okay.

A true- A true- A true- A true- A true- A true- A true- A true- A true- fish has 14 dicks oh my god the arctic char in this world is 14 dirt turn into school I actually genuinely fucked myself just no but you know what honestly great problem solving everybody I like that a lot what if I turn into a dragon mermaid well we started talking about the animal thing because I just asked you're looking through the bird's eyes right but I was going to tell you what ving saw great uh and what you see is like eight more up in front of the boat like it's they're slowly surrounding the vessel and the ones in the front are like backstroking in the front so they're keeping an eye on the boat and the ones on the sides are swimming alongside and yeah and he can recognize pack hunting yeah you notice the ones on the side dive down oh shit I don't know where they went what do you do I hop on the bird I fly up in the air about 55 56 feet and through the bird's eyes with their uh what's that thing that they what's it called they can see through the glare on top of water oh yeah yeah um you see blue blockers sure you see the mermaids on the side of the boat have dove and swam away and now they've turned and they're swimming back up at an angle very quickly what do you do I take the sea dragon scale and I hold it aloft above my head and uh jump up in the air and then face first I put it so it's like a scoop and I dive into the water as I'm falling into the water I'm gonna try and shape shift into sea dragon and we're watching this happen and we're like great form billy and tuck hold up tens we have no idea what the mermaids are doing plus wisdom 10 10 yeah so what does ving's sea dragon form look like um he slowly turns opalescent uh mother of pearl first his body goes oh mother of pearl and as as it's going up it in scales folding out from underneath his skin and his crystals his hair drapes long grows long long long down his back and out into the sides into big skin uh long long long long long long light wings and they connect at his shoulder they grow down sort of like from the top the bottom of his under under under belly becomes blue and echoes the the water turns aqua blue his spear on his back turns into a big long tail with a little fin on the end very strong sleek long slender super cool fish dragon man fuck yeah so about how big from from from nose to tip I'd say about 12 14 feet okay yeah so pretty big but not like gargantuan more long yeah sinewy serpentine uh okay so the thing that I was gonna say about sea dragons they still have breath weapons but it is a jet of superheated air so when they're underwater it's a beam of like boiling water oh cool or when they're above water it's a jet of steam like burning hot steam cool like a teapot yeah like a teapot I'm a little teapot yeah like when you when you're making tea and you open the kettle and it's right after it boils and it touches your face you're like fuck it's one of those but it'll kill you yeah yeah so you have a little like jet breath weapon you're really fucking fast in the water that's the first thing you notice is you're fast as hell oh yeah and I've been a bird in the air before yeah this feels like more like a jet of steam yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah more natural than flying in the air sick billy and tuck you watch ving turn into this beautiful serpentine dragon and dive into the ocean in front of the boat and tuck you are distracted enough doing your wink blink that you turn you turn oceanward from your side of the boat and you see a um a golden skinned mermaid shoot out of the water coming right for you what do you I do bullet time from the matrix where I like I lean back and then instinctively grab the axe and like try and slice through her sick yeah so you're gonna do a defy danger dexterity for that coordination and if you get this you can hack and slash yeah so like I'm like leaning back grabbing the axe and then like letting myself fall while I'm push like pulling the axe over my head forward slice great so what is it defy danger dexterity fuck okay two this mermaid hits you like a fucking cannonball and you stumble all the way across the gilded lily backwards with this mermaid and you tip right into the water and that's where we're gonna end it for this week I'm your game master Sean O'Hara joining me as always playing fat billy the halfling thief jessica tie bye everyone playing the half dragon druid Paul Oppers oh no and playing tacoma dome the fucked abdulaziz thank you to aaron reed for our intro and outro music thanks to all of our amazing supporters across the internet our patreon supporters our social media supporters our listeners supporters we love you so dearly so deeply uh if you want to find us online we're at Spout Lore most places and there's a fan club on facebook you could check out it's fun r slash Spout Lore on reddit check us out on twitter it's jessica just a whole fun time and we'll catch you next time bye bye and so ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can though dumb and scared and lost they be for times of rest in revelry and though our journey may be like a conclusion we will not leave you without a resolution return next week to hear some more whilst you commute or do your chores and for you I'd gladly Spout Lore