Episode 15 – Cram Session

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. Billy'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 and welcome everybody to Spout Lore. That was definitely the first episode of Spout Lore. The least we've paid attention during a theme song, maybe, ever. Um, I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Raspberry mouse Sean O'Hara. And joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian Abdulaziz.

Why would you put food in your mouth right before you started talking? I don't know man, we're like on, we're in like day three of a recording retreat, this is just kind of the vibe. Okay. Hi. And playing Ving, the half elf druid, Paul Oppers. Paul, are you fucking serious? Paul, sorry, I forgot. I am serious, I'm always Paul. Hi. Hi. Hey everyone. Paul, can I have a raspberry? Yeah man. And playing Fabulous, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Hi, I have no food to eat.

That sound that you heard was a real- I think Abdul's got an audio aversion to eating sounds. No, I've just, Paul makes so many- So many micro noises as part of his process, I guess. My process of being alive, bro. He has to. I've never called you bro before, I felt weird and I like it. When last we left our heroes, they had entered the wall sections of the fortress that makes up the hearth.

Had a conversation about whether or not they wanted to go deeper into the hearth to recover their equipment, including Tuck's wand. One of a kind, spiritually imbued, stone-smasher axe, Teri, Larry, and Chad, which remains in the hearth. Yeah. Because they decided to escape with the escapees that they rescued in the form of Ama, Margani, their primary target, Uma, Shusha, a vessel for the icon of punishment, and a young man named Zane, vessel for the icon of wrath.

And during their escape, they were left alone. They were left alone. They were left alone. Led astray by Ama, Margani, who totally missed the completely safe secret passage, which leads out of the hearth, and instead ended up going in the direction of the broken shores, opening into a salt cavern that contained a rat king style mass of writhing, desiccated bodies. Salt zombies. And after a bit of tussling between Ving and the pile of bodies, everybody escaped, mostly unscathed.

Ving got his ass kicked a little bit. And you ended up on the broken shores. Like, on the broken shores, but like maybe it really did feel kind of like mostly just before the edge of the broken shores. You know what I mean? Yeah. You were still with inside of the wall in the hearth, which is probably within the material realm, not in the reality bending portion fully, which is great because that means that Tuck was able to lead everybody up the cliffs that ring the lower ward. Mm-hmm.

Billy in his scouting, unfortunately, thundered. Mm-hmm. And you were unfortunately fucked up a little bit, and you were ambushed by members of the light guard who had been tracking you. But thanks to Billy's command over his fairy powers, you were able to set up an ambush with the help of an illusion. Mm-hmm. And then you just fucking whooped their asses. Pretty cool fight. Yeah. I like that fight. And at the end of that fight, which was successful, you climbed the rest of the cliffs. Mm-hmm.

And at the top, you found a sand boat containing many members of the library, including Billy. Yeah. And then you found a sand boat containing many members of the library, including master librarian Farah Margani, who came out here personally to rescue you. And that is where we find our heroes now, in transit, in medias res. I think that there would probably be a let's wait to talk after we're safe kind of thing. Yeah. Tuck's been trying to dump exposition on everybody. Yeah.

And Farah's like, please, I'm driving. And then this one time. Yeah. And she's kind of caught up in the situation. Yeah. And she's like, I'm going to go to the library. And then she's like, I'm going to go to the library. And then she's like, I'm going to go to the library. And then she's like, I'm going to go to the library. And then she's kind of caught up in the situation. Yeah. And Farah's like, please, I'm driving. And then this one time. Yeah.

And she's kind of, she's quietly, she's being quiet. Yeah. And Farah's like, please, I'm driving. Yeah. And Farah's like, please, I'm driving. Yeah. And Farah's like, please, I'm driving. Yeah. And Farah's like, please, I'm driving. And then this one time. Yeah. And she's kind of, she's quietly, she's being quiet. Yeah. And Farah's like, please, I'm driving. Yeah. And Farah's like, please, I'm driving. Yeah. And Farah's like, please, I'm driving. Yeah. And he gives her a wiggly thumbs up.

A shaky thumbs up. She's going to take you to the main entrance of the library. So my initial thought for where it was located, not exactly like what it takes the form of, is an oasis town to the north of McCall called Elaine Springs. I think this is the kind of place where it's like a stop off for trade caravans, people that like, you know, hunt sandworms or whatever. Oh, cool. Yeah. So it's kind of a small trade town. Cool. Yeah.

And the entrance to the library is hidden somewhere in this town. So you come over like, Farah takes you into deep desert for a while. It's like rolling dunes. And you cross over a dune in the sand boat and you see trees springing out of the ground. And you see like the glitter of water and a collection of buildings. It's not a huge place, but it's, you know, there's a decent amount of people here. Yeah.

I was thinking like, what if all the inhabitants actually work for the library, but it's like secret. So like they have their regular lives, regular jobs, but everyone who lives there knows about, like they are basically protectors of the library. It's a support town. Yeah. Like there are like grocery workers, but everybody is employed by the library. Yeah. And so, yeah, they keep trade going to make it like a legit place where people would go. And they also maybe trade for.

Or the library, like they trade in food. And there's the people that do all the different things that are contained within the library. Yeah. So you roll into Elaine Springs. Farah docks the boat, quote unquote, in a place that's full of like the incoming merchants and stuff like that. In a packing warehouse. Yeah. Okay. In a packing warehouse. And gets out. Like it's a big barn kind of thing. Yeah. Like big bay doors open and we run into it. Yeah. And maybe there's like a ramp down.

Oh, we're doing it. We're not even right. Right down in the library. Okay, cool. So, yeah, it's you pull into this packing warehouse. The doors close behind you. And then the whole floor tilts. And the sand boat, like the sails tip back, fold in. And then you start descending. And it'd be cool if it was like into the water. That's what I was thinking. In the water. Oh, so cool. I like the idea of a land boat that then when it's going off the land, it goes into water. Yeah. Oh, cool.

So it goes into water. And it's like this, like, you know, underground stream or river. Yeah. That takes us to basically the library. Great. And that's where they get all the fresh water. Totally. That's really cool. That is so cool. So, yes, that is what happens. You sail along an underground river for a little bit. And then the boat very gently comes to a halt. And Farah, you know, she turns to you and says, we are here. We are safe. Please follow me. Oh, God. Oh, God. My arm is falling off.

And she leads you out of the boat. You hear a grinding and you look behind you in the direction of the river and you see like a stone door coming down, sealing the library off fully from the surface. Cool. Yeah. What is what is like the entrance to the library look like? Probably like cavernous and semi mined out like the rest of it. Right. With stuff built onto it. And crystal windows, round windows that look into what? Into a big. A big staging area, Bay Area. Oh, cool.

Like a big rose window with little ones around it. What do you see when you look out? When you're looking out? No, when we're looking into the library. Oh, you can see like people moving around, monks moving around, different layers of shelving and. Cool. Stuff like that. Cool. Yeah. Looks in on like the first chamber of the library that you enter. So she takes you into the library. People come and grab Uma and Zane and take them away to be looked after. And a person follows you.

And we've told them that they should keep feeding them saffron. I think that they know. Yeah. I think like Farah sees them and is like, okay. Yeah. And everybody on the boat is like, ah, yes. Also, we told them all the stuff. And that's why they're like, shut the fuck up. Yeah. We said it. We've repeated it a few times. Yeah. It's like, and then Billy fucking slice this dude's neck. Like, yeah. And I was like, I regret it. But it was really cool. I thought I could talk to the pile of bones guy.

And then he punched me. And I was so thirsty. And my hair got so big. Look at it. And I haven't had a snack since yesterday. They didn't feed us at all. Billy is a pro the size of himself. Yeah. Billy's hair is just straight out in all directions, basically. Now he's just, yeah. Two identically sized circles on top of each other. And, uh, okay. Yeah. So you enter the first chamber of the first level of the Margani library, which is very well constructed. There's so much to look at in this place.

There's many different levels of tracks and catwalks. Cool. So it's a lot of people moving around. Is this the kind of the heart? Like where it's like, okay, here's what I'm imagining. Like, uh, it's one of the flares of sunstone that they dug out. Yeah. And it's like almost shaped like a cocoon, like this, like a football shaped room kind of. So it's this massive atrium with like shelves coming up on all sides and like shelves suspended through it.

And at the bottom is like a group study area, basically like tables and stuff. So there's like a lot of traffic. There's a lot of people walking around. This is like the central zone of the library. Main corridors coming off like ventricles. Totally. To go to like the different flares to go to the more specific. Yeah. Kind of like a roundhouse zone for the different tram carts. Totally. So they can spin and then go somewhere else. You're allowed to talk at a regular indoor speaking voice here.

Yeah. There's a lot of talking. Oh boy. Billy's very excited. To talk. Wow. I run, I run up to a shelf. Yeah. Uh, yeah. There's a ton of books. Billy. I touch. What are you rolling? I don't know. I touch. I touch. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. What are you rolling? Uh. Dexterity. I don't know. To do what? Oh. I just. I don't know. To. I want to roll. To touch and be dexterous. Okay. So plus your dexterity. What's this? Um. I want. I just.

I don't even. What's your dexterity? Honestly. I. What's your dexterity? Is two. So. What did you get? I got 11. Okay. Billy extends his hand and his fingers touch a book. Yeah. Successful. Very exciting. Guys. Heal. Heal some health because that fulfills. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Actually. Billy levels up. Unexpectedly. I turned to a ride to. Holy shit. Okay. Sorry. I think I just like. I think Jessica. I. Me. Got excited. Yeah. About this library. Because I was like. Wow.

Beauty and the Beast library. Yeah. Totally. And I just wanted to touch it. Yeah. I get it. I totally understand. And there are an absolute metric shit ton of books in here. Like. They're everywhere. Every surface. Is covered in books. This place is a little less cluttered than the levels that you've seen. Because it's this atrium. Like this huge open space. The books are mostly in very tall stacks. Along the. Like inside the middle of the atrium. And then.

Curved bookshelves that have been set into the walls. Yeah. I pull out the pink book. Yeah. It's big. It is. And it's pink. And there are words in here. Yeah. Guys. Look. I run back with it. And I'm like. Pink book. Billy. Yeah. Did you touch that yourself? Yeah. I did. Amazing. You did such a good job touching it. I did. I carried it for you guys. Amazing. Thank you. He's got his arms all the way around the book. Waddling over. He's a big one. Look what I found. A book. And Farah says.

I would like to speak to. Myself. For a moment. Feel free to. Explore. If you choose. But. And I will return later. Where's. Where's. Where's Perel? I believe that you will find your friend. On the second level. Third chamber. Kind of offend. He's not here right now. He is currently. Indisposed. With. Lessons. Oh. Oh. He's getting his fuck on. Indisposed only means sex. Yeah. I know. He is. He is currently attending a lesson. A lesson. Cut to. Yeah.

You enter the third chamber of the second level. Before you get there. You hear. A bunch of voices going like. Ha. Ha. Ha. And then you walk in. And you see. Like. A square shape. Of. Kids between. Five and seven years old. Wearing initiates. Robes. And practicing some sort of martial arts form. And in the middle is Perel. Towering over these kids. He is way too short. Yeah. Exactly. It's. It looks really uncomfortable. And he's easily.

Two to two and a half feet taller than everybody else that's here. And he's going through the same forms. Going. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. He's got a yellow belt. Exactly. Yeah. And that. And he looks over. And he sees you. And he waves for a second. And then he goes back to what he's doing. We sit. There's a sitting area at the front of the room. And there are a bunch of librarian parents watching their kids. So we. Yeah. Walk. I'm sitting. With the rest. Which one's yours? Yeah. Exactly.

A couple of them are so excited. They're like. This is such a wonderful time. Tell us. But it seems like only yesterday. He was getting a new mustache. I take it. You're with him. Yeah. That one's ours. Right there. I brought him this book to look at after. Billy's just been carting around this huge. So heavy. I regret it. And after a few. You know. Like 10 minutes past. And the instructor does whatever their version of like a salute kind of thing is. Like it's over.

I don't know what it would look like. It's the open book. Oh. Oh. It's. It's two. It's two open hands. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a prayer. Yeah. I'm breathing in. From above your head to your chest. Out. And then an open book. I like that a lot. Cool. Yeah. Pretty cool. And all the kids do that. And Perel does that. And then the kids scatter towards their parents. Like laughing. And being like. Look what I. Look at what I learned. High fiving each other. High fives Perel. Yeah. And Perel runs.

Kind of jogs over to you guys a little bit. Like. Hey. What's up? How's it going? You're really out of breath there pal. I am. That was a very short run that you just did. No. It's from the other stuff I was doing. You look pretty cool. I could. Thank you. You did look cool. Thank you. Thank you. They were very kind to help me out a little bit here. How. How. How's everything with you? What happened? I hold up my arm. Oh. Oh. That. Like he sees that the. Underneath he can see like the pinching.

Where the metal digs into your flesh. And is like. Oh. Yeah. No. Ving. What happened? You don't want to know. It's not important. We got Ama. Wow. We also got two more demons. Oh yeah. There were more of them? Yeah. There's three. Mercy. Who we had to leave behind. And. Wrath. And punishment. Came with us. Wow. I. This is so far outside of my wheelhouse. That I. I honestly am not even. I'm not familiar with anybody that's ever even seen this wheelhouse. Wait. You've never met like.

I've never met a demon. But what about like warlocks? They were pretty common back in the day. Right? I don't know about common. I've never. I've never seen. I've never met one. Huh. I would hope that I never have to personally. Why? Are you familiar with the concept of a warlock? Didn't they? Like they just do magic by like connecting with like an icon or whatever. They're kind of just like demons, right? I. I wish that were true. So. As far as I'm familiar.

A demon is the McCollum term for someone that is forcibly possessed. Right. And they are compelled to enact that icons purview against their will. A warlock is an individual who actively seeks to engineer situations in which that icons purview flourishes. Billy doesn't understand what any of this means. So he's just like flipping through. Okay. Let me put it like this. A fire. A flame. In a forest. A fire. Will burn uncontrollably. A warlock. Would fill that forest with tinder. And grass.

And accelerants. To make sure that that flame is. Burns brighter. And hotter. And more destructively than it could have otherwise. So they're just trying to bring icons into the world. Why? What's the point? Power. They get more powerful when they do that? Presumably. Again. I've never met one. This is all theoretical. Uh. So. So. Did you get your magic back yet? Oh yeah. Sorry. I should have mentioned. I recovered my magical energy while you were away. No, of course not.

Well, we gave you so much time and it's not like, like, what are you doing? Just like diddling around your time here. Like here we are. Oh, we just have to put ourselves in mortal danger and just go into like the, the God of the flames house. Like no big deal. And fight a genie and almost die. Kill a husband. Some salt zombies. Yeah. Fight. Fight light guards. And here you are just like doing karate. Yeah. Billy cut his hand on some salt. Look at it. Oh, that looks bad, pal.

We gave you one job, Perel. I, I, you're okay. It's to become a wizard again. How hard is that? Yes, I can see. I can see what you mean. And I can understand how this would look like. I am not taking the gravity of your situation into consideration, but I am. I, what I am attempting to do to my knowledge has never been done. And it's going to be very difficult and I'm trying really hard. Has he learned anything?

Uh, I think he has learned some stuff cause he said that he found some accounts of people that had been given magical power, some people that had had it forced on them, like that kind of stuff, but he hasn't been able to find too many accounts of a person that has had it taken away from them and then gotten it back. Can we, I want to do it together. Yeah.

Spout Lore I guess yeah roll a Spout Lore yeah great 2d6 plus and oh wisdom yeah my sage my sage nice 11 okay so it's it's gonna be something interesting and useful so let's say that he has heard one story of a person that did do this how did they do it so they lost their magic and got it back yeah my mind keeps coming back to the fay yeah so the here's what I'm thinking is like the axe was like a shadow axe and we've kind of talked about how tlc are maybe becoming fairies because they're getting individuality so it was like an aspect of fairy magic that severed him from the thalmic realm and then it's like fairies also have the ability to kind of like yeah true pop between yeah yeah they float very easily through stuff that so that that would be interesting in that like it sounds like it would be him having a!

Tap into fairy stuff instead of like magic stuff like having to settle for a different kind of power I do like that though what if like magic like fairy stuff spirit stuff magic stuff all kind of like interconnected and it's really just like the way that you choose to use it yeah so it's kind of like the like water taking the shape of a glass yeah like spirit is like the the neutral lawful being just like the way that you choose to use it yes um um thing like that but like old journals from um a small group of people who kind of like the kelts were like really connected to like this whole thing of fairies yeah you know like I think it'd be cool if perel was just going about it so wrong oh yeah he was trying to he was trying to solve the problem like a wizard with man's magical yeah yeah like academic magic knowledge thinking that he needs to like find it yeah like or exercise it in some way but really it's like old old language old old rituals um so that you invite the fairies yeah to basically like guide you or play with you I really like that yeah maybe they like how they can possess a rock or a shoe they can also possess a mind yeah cool that's really cool yeah perel tells you all that I found a book about this kind of stuff I'm pretty sure that this has happened before okay yeah I just yeah in the book can some of these old texts and maybe even tablets be carved out of coral totally yeah thank you that's cool as hell yeah because if they're an island folk like the kelts oh I see what you mean yeah it's an island folk yeah the kelts are from the british isles that's not an island that's ireland the british isles those are islands but it's like that's like saying africa's an island no england england's an island smaller than vancouver island this is the conspiracy that I'm starting right now england's a continent england is a continent it's not an island it's bigger than australia it's bigger than the dual is doing donald trump hand motions right now what are they hiding why do they tell us it's so small that'd be so cool if it was like an island that was between like mccall and the principalities but way up north yeah tiny island and the people could have maybe there's still people but maybe there was also a mass migration of those people to the principalities and to different places yeah like the polynesians they the frozen north where the elves live maybe yeah yeah some of the druid magic is could toss there's like fairy roots oh yeah totally and it's like what if like from the fairy roots it those powers evolved into like druidism magic oh can I tell you guys one thing that I remembered from a while ago that I thought was really cool yeah that might relate to this okay remember a few years ago when I was like oh it'd be cool if there was like a type of druid magic that like uh it's done by carving into trees and the remnant of it is when people like carve a heart with like two people's initials in it and that's like like the forgotten long ago version of a love spell and that's the only thing that's left over maybe a lot of this information is carved into trees but it's like you said the coral thing so like only coral so there's only anything no no no no no no no shut up shut up because I think I think maybe jessica and I maybe I'm we might have hit the same thing because that to me would suggest that there are trees that still exist that are repositories of ancient magic knowledge yeah that's what I was like yeah perfect okay all right wow I like this I like where this is driving so the trees are books and ways of doing magic maybe which is or drew like druid spirit magic it's like druid groves yeah or maybe there's like fey elements to it or like you said it's like the root of all three it's like true like that's what I was imagining cool yeah the old stuff like the idea that sometimes a tree will grow that hasn't been carved but it will still have these runes like if it's in the the body of that tree or in the that spirit of that grove oh so it's like deep in the tree in the ground and in the earth cool so that is related to you by well in a variety of ways uh through like him showing you different books being like this is piece that I learned here this is an account I learned here here's a journal from somebody that was on a boat for a long time billy's excited because he can read some of it yeah there's definitely some accounts like pieces of bark that had words carved into them that billy's like oh I know what this says cool okay um yeah what's everybody what was everybody doing for the last like hour let's say we're we're in the atrium I would assume just like sitting at a table sitting at a table reading yeah because he was showing us all that stuff yeah yeah things reading and getting his artwork done nice oh yeah there's like a librarian like with a screwdriver trying to get him off yeah great yeah and farah approaches you about an hour later and is just so happy she seems serene at peace like a great weight has been lifted she says you have done an immeasurable service to this library and to me personally you have saved lives that have been in danger for millennia in some cases thank you you are friends of this library nice sorry that's the exact billy reaction we all start high-fiving she's she's smiling while you're high-fiving each other so um how's alma doing he is resting cool so how did you get the truth demon out for now it remains within him as does the icon of punishment and wrath remain in the others but we have texts and accounts that will allow us to eventually free them of that burden cool um and that and then what happens with them um and then what happens with them um you are welcome to stay within the library for as long as you need and have free reign.

First of all, thank you. Thanks. Yeah, that would be great. You could really use that. I will accept no thanks from you. My thanks are for you. Well, I mean, thank you. I will accept no thanks from you. My thanks are for you. Thank you for your graciousness. First of all, I really appreciate that. She just stops talking. So wait, we should start living here, right? Because we can't live in the city anymore. And I think Shia should stay with us too. Can we, is it okay if we have a roommate here?

Of course. If you vouch for them, they must be of sound character. Yeah. Yeah. Ving's sister used to live in the city. Cash. He's a wanted man. Cash is. Yeah. Text just like, oh. I thought you were talking about your sister. No, I mean, we kind of owe it to the guy. I don't. Can't he just go live with his dads or something? He'll be fine, right? Should we at least check in with the guy? Yeah, he's at the, she's still at Shia's place. He's kind of traumatized and we did that to him.

And Shia, you can presume, is back at her place. Once you were, once the journey, began back to the library, she just was gone at one point. Oh, what? You look, you were like, she was there and then you looked again and you're like, ah, well. She jumped off the boat. Yeah. She just disappeared. Yeah. Classic garden snake. Classic snake sister. Yeah. So we probably have to go back to the Siddell mansion. We have to send word at least. You can send word easily. You can send Oman.

You can send whatever. Yeah. Right. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. What is the most pressing thing that we have to deal with? I do want my ax back. I kind of want to beat Fatim up again. Yeah. That'd be cool. I mean, there's a physical pressing, like we do need to rest. We need to rest. Get ax. Kick Fatim's ass. The light guard. Do we have any more beef with them? They're going to try and kill us now forever. Yeah. They're for sure going to kill us.

And the torch, I feel like has like a vendetta against us just because of Perel and now because we like beat up his gin. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. And we and freed and stole his Dean stole all of his demons and let some of them go. Right. We let his slaves go. Oh, we killed a couple of his guys. Yeah. At least one of them. It almost begs the question. Did he maybe have people watching you as you were fleeing? Did you maybe get followed? Are there maybe people on your trail right now? We should. Yeah.

Is there maybe a force being armed to mobilize? Yeah. Yeah. And march on the library. Farrah, is there by chance, like, do you have like spies or like lookouts? Because like, we really mess stuff up with the torch. And I don't know if he followed us. Yeah. Do you have a book on turf war? I look at her. I'm like, be honest with us. What are the chances that you think that the torch is going to cut his losses right now and call it evens? Evens. Even Stevens. Yeah.

There are tomes contained within the walls of this library, which speak of numbers lower than zero. Oh, wow. Whoa. I will have to consult with my text. Yeah, don't bother. It sounds not good. She basically says, like, the library has informants across the world. I will hold counsel and I will. I will determine what the next steps of the light guard are likely to be. And if I were to have to guess based on past history, you should prepare yourselves for a confrontation.

Are you going to kick us out if they try and invade the library? After what you have done for me, I would lay down my life for the three of you. Yeah. And we high five again. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. We do the three way high five. We are always. Oh, yeah. And we never do. A good job. We never do. Rarely. Rarely have I ever seen such a boisterous celebration as the proffered death of another. But I mean, like, you're not going to die for sure. We're going to be done.

So first, if you die, we've been dead for hours. You're fine. When we die, then it's even Steven. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great. So. Are you sending word to Shia being like, hey, do you want to come chill in the library? Yeah. Just be like you and cash can come to the library. It's safe here. The light guard are gunning for us. PPS. You don't have to bring cash. Yeah. You could drop him off at his parents. Wow. You guys are really throwing cash to the dogs. It's up to cash. That guy fucking sucks.

But does he? I think we fucking suck. We suck. No, Billy. No. I refuse. I refuse to confront that idea that I'm not the coolest person in the world. Classic shitty roommate. I mean, remember when we moved in and he was really nice at first and he made us a welcome brunch and we just demolished it immediately and we didn't help him clean up and then we made so many messes. We took advantage of him being lonely to bulldoze our life on him. Exactly. We're not bad people. Okay. We. I will say.

Dennis is going in for another three way high five. We're like. No. No. As far as fantasy RPG adventurers go, you're sort of inherently bad people. Like you travel from place to place, killing wantonly, looting tombs. Like we kill with purpose. One. Two. Okay. Let's just play out a quick conversation between you guys and Shia. Like it's a text thread. Like it's just Oman going back and forth. Okay. You should be in charge of the communication.

I don't think I should be in charge of any communication. You're her brother. Okay. Hey, sis, you up. Yeah. You. Yeah. Hey, we're all at the library. And how are you doing? Well enough. Resting. Cash. Eating a lot. So he's in a bulk phase for him. We've been welcome into the library, into their folds. If you would into the folds, the beautiful beef curtains of the library. Oh, Jesus. What? Nothing. Nothing. Now you're writing is so much more. They responses are so this is how I text.

Well, because when Paul said you up, I was like, okay, we're doing it like this. You're sending a worm back and forth. The worm had to get like some warm friends. Yeah. The moths. The moths are coming back with this response is just a cloud of war. Yeah. If there's anything that's going to tip the light guard off, it's the number of bookworms flying back and forth. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Keep going. You and cash have been also welcome here.

We have cleared space and we're going to be here for some time. And with the light guard out there gunning for us, it's not safe for you and cash and Florina. Who's Florina? Her wolf? No, it was slippers. Slippers. Slippers. Slippers three. Oh yeah. I forgot that you people call her slippers. Oh. Yeah. And she sends back cash wants to stay might be too risky for me. Question mark. Don't want to blow my cover.

And then in the next response, there's a handwriting change and it's there's a bunch of backwards bees and ease and stuff. Yeah. And it says, I'll blow your cover. I knew you were going to fucking say that. I knew it. I was like, wow, I can't wait for Abdul to like, I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

They call it shape I mean shapeshifters shapeshifters let go of that yeah they know about shapeshifters and about um talking uh communion I mean it's just you're not safe and you're putting the dells at danger and we're family now he's really trying to sum things up because uh it's a text plus they've got a lot of different books here a lot of people with a lot of knowledge I just think that for your shapeshifting and for everything that you and I can spend some time together and really get to know each other this is important time for us as a family please come send and she replies k colon close bracket and I say dope and then the semi-colon and a uh open bracket by accident and when you write all of that oman's like what the fuck are you doing I have to fly the whole way you yeah oman's just sweating like give me like a minute before you send this frivolous message the last one he like he's like I'm not not leaving it's not necessary I don't need yeah phones should do that decide not to send a text message I can't wait till we have pocket ai that are like this is a bad idea yeah great okay so yeah shia of course the k colon close bracket shia has agreed yeah I'm gonna come and stay at the library with you guys and I'll see you next time um um um um there is a scene where she has a very touching and tearful goodbye with a member of the Siddal family.

Man. And the Siddals, the Vizier family is very tied to the light guard. Like there's great entanglement. Yeah. A lot of danger there. So yeah, you guys have this opportunity to rest for a day and get all your hit points back. Everybody's got all their hit points. Yeah. Any debilities too, probably you you're being tended by healers and stuff like that.

So, so I've studied the essence of this strange metal, ancient metal, which I think to me means that you get to use elemental mastery on, on this type of metal. Yeah. This is an old iron. Can you get rid of it from your body? Yeah, it's gone. Uh, and you guys have the run of the library. Basically. Cool. What does everybody want to do? Like I said, I'll give you a, a 10 plus Spout Lore of your, of your choice. I'm going to the unknown zone. Yeah. What, what information is Billy looking for?

I don't know. He's not looking for anything. He's just like been popping into his head into like different rooms and hallways. And, uh, he doesn't know where he is, but he does come into a room that's, he stops and he's like, whoa, cause it's a mess. Like not just piles of books, but actual paper is just spread out all over the floor. Stuff. Like a few people are in there working, studying things and they don't really pay any attention to me.

But Bill, goes in there and he just starts rifling through some stuff. I mean like quietly. Cause he, he notices they're working. I should be respectful. So he respectfully rifles through a bunch of stuff and they're really old. So he's being very careful, but, um, yeah, he stumbles across some drawings of very ancient, very language. It's drawings of trees with the carvings in them. Ooh la la. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what does Billy learn from these drawings that is useful to him?

Um, there's six of them and they are old drawings, but they're dated and, um, the location is given. Ooh. Okay. And there are two locations. Ooh. And one is, what's the name of the island? Oh yeah. Nice. It's called the island of the island. Oh, yeah. Nice. Nice. I mean, the name Hibernia is really cool. Yeah, it is called Hibernia. Yeah. It's called Hibernia. That's what the Romans called Ireland. It means land of eternal winter. Fuck. Yeah. Cool. This would be called. All right.

We're going to use the ancient name for Ireland. So Hibernia is the one location, one location. And the other one is Everwood Valley. That makes total sense. Ooh. Yeah. So there's some of these trees in the Everwood. Yeah. So there's a lot of old growths. Yeah. There's some ancient growths in and around the Everwood Valley. Does Billy know what kind of tree it is? Like the name of the tree? One of them is an oak tree because Billy had had that carved into him. Oh. Ooh. I like it. Cool. Okay.

Great. That's awesome. So we know for sure that a place that we could follow up on the things that Perel learned is Hibernia and the Everwood Valley. Tight. I imagine because it's like the names of places that Billy arrives at some point to tuck and vang and is like, look at this. Look what I found. Wow. What is that? It's a drawing of the trees. This one is in the Everwood. Whoa. Where I'm from. Cool. Do you know that tree? I do. Haven't seen it in a long time. What's its name?

I'm not supposed to tell you guys. You're a very good secret keeper, Billy. Thank you. Appreciate that. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I appreciate that. I like that fairies get so suspicious when you ask what something's name is. Like, why do you want to know? Yeah. He's sleeping. I'm surprised someone drew a picture of him. That's really rude. Oh, and also there's this tree from a place called Hibernia. Hibernia? Yeah.

It's the island where the fairy folk and the druids first came from. That's very cool. I can't know this guy's name either. Okay, we won't. I didn't ask. Well, I just knew you would. Awesome. Okay, so what are Tuck and Ving looking for? Tuck wants to talk to Ama. About? It's kind of been rattling around in his head why he couldn't see the truth demon. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Usually, he brushes it off pretty aggressively, any of this kind of shit, but he's like, what the fuck? He's like so quiet.

He's so quiet in here that he can't ignore it anymore. Does that make sense? It does, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you can talk to Ama. He's slept for a whole day before you can talk to him. And I ask Farah first. I'm just like, hey, Ama and I have kind of a past. We had some stuff happen between us, and I need to ask him some questions about that. And I think I tell her, I'm like, when I met him the first time. On the deck of the purifier, everyone else saw their truth, but I didn't see anything.

She furrows her brow and says, oh, that is most interesting. Of course, you can speak to Ama. Try not to excite him. He's an old man. Okay. And she lets you into, he's been sleeping in her chambers, which is identical to the chambers of everybody else in the library. So, there's like a Spartan bed in the corner. There's a bunch of books hanging out. There's a bunch of books everywhere, a lamp for reading, and Ama is sleeping on the bed. There's a slight scent of saffron in the air.

And Tuck, he comes in, and you hear rattling a tray of food, and there's two feet of a party sub. I think a sub is a very common food maybe in the library. Well, it's just a sandwich, right? It's bread with stuff. Yeah. Yeah. The McCollin Delicacy Sandwich. Yeah. All right. And he puts it next to Ama, and then he sits next to his bed, and then he leans in pretty close, and he's like, can you wake up, please? I brought you food. His eyes flutter open. Hi. Hello. I brought you a party sub.

He looks over at the sandwich, and then looks back at you like, what can I help you with? I brought two feet so we could share if you wanted. I am not currently hungry. Thank you. Okay. And then Tuck double fists, takes a foot in each hand. It's party flavor. If that changes anything. Is there something that you'd like to speak about? Okay. He takes a big bite. I'm not going to talk you through- It's like a party in my mouth. Yeah. And everybody's invited. Yeah. Everybody's invited.

Why did you come here? I wanted to ask if you remember meeting me and my friends on the Purifier. Yes, I do recall. I was still aware of every encounter and every situation I was placed in as a vessel. So you remember. You remember when we saw each other. I remember when the truck came. I remember when the truth demon looked on you. Yes. And I remember- You remember when he looked at my friends. Yes. I remember a great disturbance and pain and confusion on the demon's part. And- When he saw me?

Whatever interference happened. I'm trying to think because the reason that that happened was Larry, Terry, and Chad. Oh, Larry, Terry, and Chad. That's what you said. You said that the axe helped you see what was underneath. Yeah. When I saw him. So that was when I saw him, but not when he looked at me. When he looked at me, I didn't see anything. Yeah. And then I used Terry, Larry, and Chad to see the real guy inside. Yeah. So he remembers that as like pain. Yeah.

He does remember that as pain. That's interesting. He remembers it as feeling similar to the suppression and separation that- That the rituals the light guard used to contain him felt like. Like that kind of tearing. Tearing of like the icon from his like physical form? Yeah. Like removing the shell from a clam. You know what I mean? Like this like forcible separation. He remembers a similar feeling. I guess that kind of makes sense because TLC, they do everything through spirit energy. Mm-hmm.

And spirit energy can like force wedges between like- The material plane and like other realms. Mm-hmm. So maybe it was like kind of prying out the icon. Yeah. When I did for the blood god. Mm-hmm. So what do we think that that means? What useful tidbit does Tuck get from that? Well, I think that's just more about the acts. And the thing that I'm really interested in- Yeah. Is why before I looked at you- Mm-hmm. Why couldn't you see me?

There have been individuals that have been exposed to a demon of truth and have lived in their truest self. And in that case, their own form is reflected back on them. In my time as a vessel, I have never encountered another individual who was unable to perceive truth. So if the demon was unable to perceive you and you unable to perceive it, then you are unable to perceive it. Perhaps there is no truth within you.

Perhaps you were obscured from truth, or perhaps there is a power in you that rivals that of truth. And Tuck's like, okay. Party sub. Two party subs smashed together, being jammed into his mouth. Yeah. The camera cuts back to me and I've turned it into a quad sandwich. And he goes, all right, party time. I'm like, okay. I'm like, okay. I'm like, okay. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. Cool. Ving. What's Ving been looking into?

He's been wrestling with having less of a connection with the Spear Realm. Losing that connection with his shapeshifting and he being static. And losing that connection with his mom. So something that I can't get with this would be finding out about how wizards that weren't on the Wizards Reign are or something. Does that make sense? Or witches. Finding out about witches rather than wizards which are like wizards that aren't within the the like the conclave that structure. Yeah. Yeah.

They're not part of the group of wizardry. Totally. They don't have towers. Yeah. Witches are wizards of the wild. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So tell me about the wizards of the wild. You tell me. That's how we've been doing this bro. Okay. So these would be magicians that rejected the the structure that wizards had created or weren't afforded the privilege. Oh yeah. Because we've totally talked about people that were like chosen somehow to become magicians.

The people that weren't found and trained. Yeah. The people that had to figure it out on their own. I imagine some of them are also people who are like kicked out too. Yeah. Yeah. Which is why they have a negative connotation. Oh yeah. If they're kicked out for a fucked up reason. Yeah. People like oh you're probably one of the witches out there but some of the witches are just. They were never trained formally. Yeah. Or they rejected the formal structure. Rejected by an authoritative thing.

Doesn't necessarily make them bad. Cool. Is there prevalence of witches of the north? I can't see why not. There's probably an accounting of them. Yeah. Yeah. At the very least. Because there's less structure up there right? In general there's less people. There's less like there's enclaves of people but there's less Yeah. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Witches that would be like wow this is actionable we can go learn more about this maybe my mom was a ancient descendant of the people of hibernia yeah maybe you find a family name or my mom's family name yeah I like that you have the staff right yeah no yes yes well I will when um oh right staffs at the shia and shia I should have fucking left the axe with shia I fucked up so bad this would not be an issue if you had and I think part way through this day is shia does show up like because this has been hours and hours and hours of you guys studying and resting and all that so she shows up with slippers three uh in much more simple clothes than she usually wears in her disguise and she's just like wow she's walking around wide-eyed this is incredible she gives everybody the stuff that you left with her uh so you get the spear um I left my little backpack there you get your tiny backpack what did billy leave um his uh hammock full of his belongings which is like a backpack now yeah I imagine billy has a bindle yeah a bindle made out of a hammock here's your little string bag billy thank you there's a lot of old bread in here but there you go uh yeah so it's not old you can still eat this yeah um so yeah if that is what ving wanted to do then you have the spear for reference and you also have your sister and she can try she can read it better totally yeah well family uh like you know ancestry.com moment yeah my sister yeah that's the section ancestry.com do we want to figure out your mom's druidic name or do we want to hold on to that what if the family name is ilia oh he finds out that she's been going by her family last name yeah so cool yeah okay that's great all right fuck yeah so you find out that that you realize that iliana is a druidic family line ancient druidic family name from hibernia be cool if like I go to say hi to shia and you two are reading yeah and I'm like oh iliana like to a really old family name and I'm like oh iliana is like a really old one of the really old runes like yeah yeah yeah yeah I like that a lot and you're like billy just walks by he's like oh that one had your mom's name in it yeah what's she doing in there what billy a meatball falls out of the sub that he's holding anyways see you later yeah would you get that parties up oh tuckhead half of one he was sadly walking around the atrium be like fucking ama didn't want this it's kind of old but like not really there's a meatball rolling on the floor catching a lot of dust and I eat that they're like no food in here sorry some library and we all are sitting at the same table and we put the subs under the table as she walks by and we're like yeah no food no food like marinara sauce all around her the table's made of glass you're holding subs under the table table's glass table's glass table's glass uh cool I like yeah thanks guys yeah so it works so billy uh quest thread we found like the quest the jumping off point for the next adventure tuck a bunch of useful information about maybe himself and ving more revelations about your family line and maybe a contact once we get there yeah oh this is so this is fun I like being in a library with you guys this is where I was hope library existed yeah this is where I was hoping we could get and we're at it we're in a time crunch in terms of uh events that you have kicked off but I think this is a permanent mechanical benefit of the library the margani library if you spend a day studying you get a 10 plus on the Spout Lore sick yeah oh I love that yeah but you have to like spend the whole day studying no problem no problem party sub study party order 400 feet of parties when we're steady do we still get to recharge our hit points when we do it or is it like you choose one or the other oh in this case I already said you heal all your hit points no but in the future I think maybe it's the study is going to be a lot more effective I think it's going to be a lot more effective so rigorous that it's not the same as resting.

Yeah. Rigorous is such a funny word. Rigorous is a good word, a solid word, a respectable word. I will not hear you besmirch the word rigorous. We're all doing sex motions. Jessica's is the most confusing. No one respects language. This is the V and the P. Which one's this? I think that's two buttholes. That's two buttholes touching each other. These are buttholes that touch. Have you ever tried it? It's amazing. Pooping into each other's butts back and forth.

That's literally what I thought sex was when I was a kid. That's so funny. It was like the dad poops into the mom's butt and the poop turns into a baby. Okay, great. So yeah, that is how you pass that day. I think the next day Farah finds you all in the morning. You're having the continental breakfast, you know, kicking it in the cafeteria. Yeah, there is a mess hall. It is the it is that kind of thing. There are cooks here. And they're great because they're so well read. What are we eating?

Omelet station omelets. Yeah, there's an omelet station. Oh, fuck. Yes. Pomegranate seeds in my omelet. Please just you're just eating pomegranate seeds. Oh, no, I'm having omelet too. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of good fresh fruit that comes from a lane Springs above. Oh, cool. Yeah. Texas got a bowl full of dates and a small Turkish coffee. Nice not but this world's equivalent of Turkish McCall and coffee. French French coffee.

Great and Farah comes to find you and sits down and very casually almost seemingly not worried says the light guard will be marching upon the library very soon. Oh, no, we've withstood their aggressions before and we will do it again. They know that we're here. Why do they how do they know we're here? They must have followed us surveilled us. It was really only a matter of time before they discovered the entrance in. A lane Springs unless the one of us is a rat.

I will say that that to me seems very unlikely a perfect thing for a rat to say where have you been the last two days Farah gathering this information fair enough far enough the light guard will march on the library in a day. Perhaps two at most prepare yourselves for a siege and I think that's where we're going to end it for this week. I'm your game master Sean O'Hara. Thanks for joining us for Spout Lore.

Joining me is always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz so long playing Ving the half elf Druid Paul Oppers to you in the siege and playing fat Billy the halfling thief Jessica tie scary. I know joining thanks to Aaron Reed for our intro and outro music the genius that he is and thank you to all of you are incredible supporters for supporting us in all the ways that our hearts are supported by you. You can find us online at Spout Lore most places including patreon.com slash Spout Lore.

Thanks a lot everybody. See you next time. We will not leave you without a resume. We will not leave you without a conclusion. Return next week to hear some more whilst you commute or do your chores and for you I gladly Spout Lore.