Episode 13 – The Middle of the Thing

If you like Spout Lore and you want to hear Spell more of it Go to spellore.com slash money Please or patreon.com slash spellore 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 half-elf 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 there's a lot of people The tale's about to start Hello everybody God damn it Hello everybody And welcome to Spout Lore I'm your game master Sean O'Hara And joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome The barbarian Abdul Aziz Playing Ving the half-elf druid Paul Oppers Hi there And playing Fat Billy the halfling thief Jessica Tai Whoa Hello It's puked A little bit in her mouth Yeah a little bit When last we left our heroes That we were all puking in the mouths of our brains With information that was exciting To us Our erstwhile heroes Sounds a wordsmith Thank you so much This is my job We opened the last episode With a little one-on-one combo With Tuck and Fatim Which started as a 1v1 In which Tuck performed a combo On Fatim But in that conversation Fatim attempted Very earnestly and very Poorly To explain partially Why he dislikes Tuck as much as he does Yeah And how He didn't say explicitly that he still doesn't like you But he was just like I'm sorry that's all I can do Is say that goodbye Yeah It was a nice thing for him to say And Tuck understands that It's a complicated thing Yeah We'll see how the rest of that goes Because after that he ran out of the room To apologize to a guy he yelled at 40 seconds before that So who knows what he's up to And then after that we found out Ving has been in correspondence with Shia She has been telling Ving about The goings on of the criminal underworld of McCall There's a Centaur mob boss Called Tommy Supremo Who has a chain of pizza places That is giving Shia a hard time And steps up to him To get her out of the way And then we learned That Perel had never been told By any of you That Aquaria was still alive That is on us 100% There's a lot of us withholding A lot of information in that episode Agreed So Perel was given Aquaria's moss That she bestowed upon Ving All those seasons ago And before that you learned that Perel had a family Before he became a wizard When he became a wizard He allowed her to live in a house And he alluded to the fact that Unable to control his newfound abilities He flash froze a town And then he just said Everything was different after that That's all he has said so far And then you went to Pharah And attended a lecture on dragon physiology Starring everyone's favorite Metalhead dragon Blackspire Blackspire!

Blackspire!

That's the little theme tune I'm going to get Aaron to make I'm going to put it in there every time we say the word Blackspire Oh god people are going to hate it And learn some stuff about dragon physiology And after that you talked to Pharah Who during the lecture Stopped Tuck from talking about The coins and the ability of Obsidian To mitigate demonic possession Etc And then told her That Aquaria was still alive And that you had withheld from her That there was another living wizard on the planet That is on us Yeah also on us Yeah and you talked for a while about Potential Alternatives to Perel Regaining his exact abilities And Billy also shared with Pharah That he had Pinky sworn A member of the Medjay to steal The potentially one of a kind Books containing their rituals And ceremonies And she immediately said You can have whatever you want To make that happen Yeah she took everything that you've told her People that you remember Names, what exactly happened during the ritual As much as you're willing to share The stone He's in a better place with it now For sure Yeah all the stuff about like the stone bowls And the knife And whatever potentially Oh yeah the stuff in the lighthouse All that shit So she's taken that all down And she took that information And was like thank you I'm going to go gather some people And we will be moving as soon as possible Moving what?

She's gonna send She tells you she's gonna send some people To the lighthouse To the lighthouse To kind of survey Through the ways that you told her Like how you got in They're gonna do some exploration Of the inside of the lighthouse Discern those realities Exactly And they're gonna investigate in general The operations of the Medjay Yeah you might wanna try and track down A guy named Erk That's the guy who's trying to get us these books Yes Erk And we have no way to get in contact with him And get those books Yeah I really forgot that That super important part of the pinky promise Understandable It could take his entire lifetime To get us those books Yes it could But don't fuck with him once you do find him Yeah he's a good guy He's working for us Alright understood Thank you And then she heads out and takes care of that Is there stuff you wanna do now?

Perel? I think Perel Yeah Perel Okay yeah We gotta go check on him So walking back to the room Mm-hmm Is he there? His door's still closed He goes Just a second Just a second And he like Flap flap flap Wait is he masturbating in here?

No He opens the door And he's dressed exactly how he was before In his like convalescence Like house coat And like little linen outfit And his eyes are red And his face is all splotchy And covered in tears And he Hey buddy He hugs All three of you Right away Whoa Hey He just pulls all three of you into a hug Whoa It's okay Big hug I hand him a linen handkerchief He Thank you And he wipes his face And he pulls out of the hug And he slaps Ving Full on in the face Whoa He slaps Tuck Full on in the face Ow And he points at Billy And he says Do not Ever Hide anything like this from me Ever again Oh Tuck is crying Yeah Okay Okay I'm sorry That I did that I'm sorry I'm sorry You pointed at Billy so hard It was the most pointed at I've ever been I'm sorry I just don't think that I can explain The gravity Of the information that you withheld from me You just You gotta use your words Aquaria Is one of The most Two people And you have all been very kind to me I care for you very dearly I count you amongst my very close friends Aquaria is one of two people That I consider The most important people To have ever lived Whoa What?

She is As family to me She is A part of me in a way That you could never understand And knowing That she is alive Is one of the greatest reliefs I have ever experienced And I'm sorry I get it I'm sorry It's okay Thank you so much For giving me this gift He kisses us all in the cheek He kisses you all in the cheek And he puts a finger in Billy's face And he pulls it away Very deliberately Wow It is undone Before Pearl moves away I pull his face back down to me And I kiss his cheeks And I say Pearl I'm so sorry I have wronged you in a way That I can never be forgiven I've already forgiven you No It is such a betrayal of our friendship That we did not tell you And it is an ignorance That is too vast to be conveyed And he points at Tuck When he says an ignorance That's too vast to be conveyed Tuck is picking his nose Says Billy thank you Thank you for saying that Thank you Thank you But as I've said All is forgiven If it wasn't for you three I wouldn't even know That she was still alive And now I am able to communicate With one of my oldest Dearest friends Whenever I choose How was it?

What did you guys talk about?

And Tuck pulls out a bottle of ox blood That he grabbed from the cafeteria On their way back To be like Let's get fucked up And talk about it Alright Yeah he pulls out He pulls out a bottle of ox blood He pulls the chair out of the one tiny little desk That he has in his quarters And puts it out in the room For whoever that wants to sit on it Can sit on it Tuck sits on the ground cross-legged Yeah Perel sits on his bed I also sit on the ground Ving puts the chair Wedges it up against the door handle Closes it And then sits on the ground And Perel takes the ox-headed Shaped stopper on the bottle And twists it off Removing it And pours He just drinks right out of the bottle He doesn't have any cups in his room Cool I guess Give me a little bit in my hand buddy He just hands you the bottle He's just like Oh okay Yeah Have you ever shared alcohol with anyone before?

I've never shared anything Wow I believe that actually So what do you want to know? I want to know why Aquaria is there Did you put her there?

No We didn't No You guys built that place though I helped I helped her I did some of the initial excavation of the pillar I obviously designed one of the trap rooms That protected Aquaria's study Obviously Asshole But it was just to serve as Aquaria's personal study laboratory You know it was a usual wizard tower kind of situation Yeah but someone must have brought her there Because she was really injured She actually was able to We talked about it briefly We're going to talk about it more But What happened is Aquaria is from a place to the north You're from the You know the principalities It's sort of to the north and east Called Turvor Okay And there around the time the exodus was starting to ramp up Their government really turned against magic users She was able to leave before anything really terrible happened But they found her in the principalities It was a fight She was mortally injured She was mortally injured But she was able to get herself to her tower In time to Inter herself In the situation that you found her in Is the moss keeping her alive?

Yes it is It's sort of a symbiosis at this point The moss is her She is the moss Blah blah blah Is there any way that she could live a life again outside of the tower? She says no I'm not sure Honestly if I had If I had my magic I could I could get her right up and moving again Magical medicine is not something that's Not something that was outside of my capabilities So that's a real Fucking shame Where the fuck is Morris then? Morris left Wait he was part of the exodus?

He was yes unfortunately After once things started getting Really bad At what ended up Accidentally I suppose being the final gathering Of wizards That was a thing that happened once in a while Whenever there was a significantly Tense period in history Like a conference? Yeah Wizcon Yes there would be Yeah it's a wizard conference There would be a gathering We would pull as many magic users as possible And we would discuss the state of events They'd talk about the magic users as well?

They'd talk about the new World of Warcraft game We all know what happens at Wizcon Yeah and at that event At that gathering A faction I suppose Made itself known They called themselves Wizards First Yeah They were the ones that said Enough is enough We have been working towards bettering Life for all and we're treated like garbage Blah blah blah And you know what?

Honestly at first I was like Fair point Fair point But then it became a We're better than them We're more than them And you know what? I'm an old man I've heard that shit a thousand times And it always works out the same way But Morris Bought it hook, line, and sinker Was Morris always a He was born a magician? Yes And he was born a wizard? He was born a wizard as a child He had a regular childhood He aged till about 20?

I wanna say He's mid to late 50s And then he stopped And I met him I think when he was about I wanna say like 130, 140 something Yeah Fuck He's like really thinking about something What are you thinking about? I want to discern realities You can just ask me Billy You can just ask me Nope I want to use my new Move Move Move Move Move Move Move Move Move Move Move Move Oh Oh is 12. Holy shit. Three questions from discern realities. Alright. What here is not what it appears to be?

Um Perel is attempting to talk about Morris as if he is like a dear friend and a colleague and you know you can tell that he felt a different way about Morris. Alright. Uh what does Perel want most? And he says I just want to talk to Morris again. Okay. What else is hidden here? You can tell in the way that he said that I just want to talk to Morris again. You can tell that Perel loved Morris. Oh like romantic. Yes. Was in love with Morris. Oh yeah triangle.

Wait was it a love triangle or was it I don't think it was a love triangle. I think it was a three way three part relationship. So like a polyamorous relationship. Like a polyamorous. Like they were a thruple, polycule whatever you want to call it. They had they were just all kind of with each other. So did Morris leave you and Aquaria then to follow wizards first? Yeah he did. He did. Um he did.

He heard about the developments that had been made in sort of uh what we call um interplanar thaumaturgy. It's also called way walking. Um fuck fucking cool. That's sick. Yeah. Yeah. He's awesome. That's fucking rad. I'll be honest with you. The first time I heard that phrase I had the same reaction. I was like that sounds fucking cool, but I never really had the hand for it. Um, but there was a development around the time that this uh there was a breakthrough. People had been working on it.

For fucking a ons um where people had discovered a way apparently allegedly if you fucking ask me, sorry, I'm feeling some kind of way now that I'm dredging all this up. Are you sure cursing a lot? Yeah, drinking a lot of this ox blood. Somebody else take it. Please. I think it's like half empty and you two have each had like a sip. Wow. I want to be clear. Billy has had none. He brought his own apple juice and it's enjoying himself way to go. A little fucking juice box. Yeah.

Um, yeah, there was sort of a breakthrough. It was um it was a combination of work from a lot of different wizards, uh, waywalkers, uh, illusionists, conjurers, and they had allegedly discovered a way to create a reality of their own design. Oh, you mean like the fanny pack? Kind of how it existed like outside of the world or whatever? The fanny pack he he had kind of the fanny pack was more of a a trick of space. Mm hmm. Whereas this was conjuration on an unimaginable scale.

A contiguous unending infinite realm of the magicians devising and people had decided that if that if we weren't going to be treated the way we wanted to be treated given the due respect we say we deserve. Uh, we're just going to find our own paradise. So you guys built a whole another plane of existence. That's the that's the theory. Wow. And that uh that was apparently too tempting for Morris to ignore and he just uh he just left one day. Didn't even say goodbye.

I touch Perel's hand and I say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that he left you. It's hard to lose somebody you love. It sucks when they treat you like you don't matter. It does. Yeah, it does. But you know what? Fuck him. You know, if that's what he thought was the most important in his life was being a wizard, then he can take it. Yeah. Sounds like he didn't fucking deserve you. Yeah. He does. He laughs and he's like, thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. You know what? That tent wasn't that cool. Yeah.

And then right like come on. Sucks. He built a tent and then he put a fucking oil portrait of himself in the entryway. What an asshole. And then he just had like golf digest or whatever it was mud affairs. It's pretty lame. Sucks. That mud affairs was mine. Actually, he never gave it back. It's actually a really good magazine. It's a great magazine. People think that it's just smut, but the articles are really interesting. They've been doing it for a while. They've been rebranding lately.

There's t-shirts anyways. Yeah. So God, I just, you know, I just wish that I could talk to him again so I could find out why how he could justify that and borrowing all that to just tell him to fuck himself one more time. So you wait, did you get put away before the exodus in the box? I got put away after the I'm just realizing you guys have never asked me this before. Maybe Morris put him in the box. Morris put you in the box. No. Okay. Good. That was a good theory. Good thinking. Thanks guys.

Thank you. Thank you. That's a great that would have been crazy dramatic glasses on sage glasses. Yeah, I do also in my head. Imagine that Ving he had his glasses on. He had his back turned away from everyone. He was looking at a portrait, an oil portrait of the sea. And he was like Morris put you in the box, didn't he? And then he made seagull noises with his uncanny yeah. Yeah, that would have been so dramatic, right? But no, unfortunately that's not what happened.

Honestly, the time frame I remember a lot of my life, but the details are hard to nail down. Why? Because I've been alive for 250 years. Okay, it's think about like how old are you tuck like late twenties at this point. Probably yeah, it's that right there that right there. That's why I can't remember the details because you don't even know exactly how old you are. Yeah, but I don't know when I was born. Yeah. So what happened to you in the second month of your fifteenth year? My dog died.

This happens to be the month that all the bad shit. Wow, you really hit you hit on a month. There yeah, and tuck walks to the oil portrait of the sea. I don't even know where that portrait came from. That's not mine. I was like, did you guys bring that up in my room and then tuck like leans up against? He's like, oh, the month of darkness. Oh man, I really fucked up that night. This could take a while. Let me tell you about it. That was the month that my dog died. Dog, was his name? Dog died.

I'm really sad. My dog dog died and you know, I thought it couldn't get any worse than that. And then that was when Fatim stole my locket. I hadn't looked in there for years. I wish I had maybe one last time. Maybe now I'd remember what my mom looked like. Holy shit. I'm so sorry, tech. And that's only the beginning. Oh God. Slow fade clock on the wall goes forward spinning around and that was when the falafel place shut down. My favorite my favorite falafel place.

The falafel place where you had your first crying. He's got his blue blanket. I was just such an emotional day. What do you guys think happened to all the old falafels? Where did they go when no one wants them anymore? What about the recipes? Wow. So sorry, tuck. That was a horrible thing to do to you to make you dredge all that up. The point was the details in anybody's life get fuzzy over time. Oh yeah. Without a doubt. I don't remember anything else about my life. Shit.

I really nailed the one month. You remember everything. Damn. Yeah. So basically what I mean is that I'm really old and that it's hard to keep everything organized. Yeah. Billy has that problem too. Well, it's more. I don't forget what I do. It's just, you know, it's like a big blob of stuff that comes in and out of focus but I still remember everything clearly if I try hard enough or if it comes back in my brain and Pearl's kind of hooking his thumb at Billy like yeah like that. Exactly.

Well then Pearl what helps is when you have a really long nap and you get really comfortable and all those memories just come back and you can play with them in your head. And if you miss other memories, you can pull them out from their little blanket hiding spots. And if they're really far away, just like grow your roots. You stretch really hard and then oh, there it is.

And Pearl looks at the two of you and we just shake our head understanding the implicit question, which is did you know this is how Billy's brain works? I'll try that Billy. Thank you. So you don't remember the Exodus? Yeah. Kind of a memory. You don't remember the Exodus? Yeah. A blanket like disappearing of people? No, not strictly. The idea of the Exodus is an event is a misnomer. It was like a slow rolling avalanche. The starting of an era. Yeah. It was an era.

Yes, that is a good way to describe it. If I mean, according to Aquaria, it was over a period of like 10 to 15 years. Whoa. Political tensions rising, wars being fought, people disappearing, news getting out, this breakthrough happening, wizards leaving this, a plane of reality. It was sort of a thing that once it got to a certain point, there was no stopping it. But it was the Exodus happened and then the world fell apart, right? That's my, yeah, that's part of the rhyme.

Isn't it part of the story? Yeah, that's kind of what I've put together since you released me. It was a lot of civil wars and wars between smaller cities and small collections of villages. It was like a blanket being, you know, ripped apart and that's where all these people went. Sorry, I just think it's so funny that all of your metaphors are blankets. I don't have a lot of objects. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

From what I understand, something about the actual presence of wizards on this plane, on this planet. It's apparently very important to the balance of the ecosystem and the balance of, um, various other things. And without those wizards here, a lot of their works started to break down, some of them very dangerous, some of them vital to life. But I was put in the box a few years after Morris left.

Aquaria had went to her tower in the Sea of Graves and we were in contact but I was working on my own things and, um, you know, they came for me. Didn't you say you once said that you knew the Exodus would ruin the world? Um, I did, didn't I? I was trying to stop it. Yeah, you were trying to stop that. That's what I initially said to you. Yeah. I may have been overplaying my, uh, my role in world events a little bit in an attempt to get you to release me from my box.

Oh, let's all be honest with each other. How dare you not tell us? Oh, we slapped. Yeah. Slap Pearl's shin because that's all I have access to. Ow, Billy. Well, shame on you for lying to us. You know what? Fair, fair point, Billy. I shouldn't have lied to you. I'm not going to say that I didn't do anything. I did try. I certainly did try. I was part of a sort of another quote-unquote faction. We weren't as organized.

But we were attempting to convince wizards that were intent on leaving to stay, to stabilize things. Because as people disappeared and as the wizard population dwindled, there were parts of the world that started getting, you know, torn apart. Yeah. Like the fabric of reality, and this is just me asking, the fabric of reality just started to break down, right? Yeah.

When the magic leaking through, the rifts left when wizards went to whatever this realm is or realms, because they basically created a whole reality out of thalmic energy. So it was like a hose of raw magic, and that was fucking with everything. It's like corrosive to the substructure of what it like. Yeah, exactly.

Like, you know, there would be a town, and then for half a second, there would be a mountain range where that town was, and then the mountains would go away, and the town would be obliterated. Whoa, fuck. Yeah, it's like that kind of shit. Like, reality was just fucked. Is it still like that? In some places, yeah. You guys have been, like, into hotspots, and that of, like, the environment around you has changed rapidly. Like, that forest that turned into, like, the winter landscape and all that.

When we were going to the pool, right. Yeah. To get that dick monster out of your body. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, so that was a mild, frankly, that was a mild example of what a hotspot can do. Wow. Yeah. You guys fucked everything up. You guys. Sorry. You people. You people. Wow. Wow. Didn't know we were going to do this today. I didn't do fucking anything. Well, that's not true, but I didn't do that. Well, I didn't. I almost did, but I didn't.

After Morris left, I was really, I was, I was tempted to go after him. Yeah, but I didn't ultimately. Where would you have gone? Wherever the hell he went. Where did he go? What do you mean? How would you find him? I don't know. You don't know. No one that had gone through a hotspot after they started forming while I was alive came back. Every hotspot is the ones that we know of that you like. Aren't they terribly dangerous?

If there's like a potential for a mountain range to obliterate us, then they're insanely unpredictably dangerous. He starts nodding while Ving is saying that and is like, yeah, exactly. That's the thing. Like even getting to a hotspot. Oh, there's definitely a hotspot in the sea of graves. Oh, yeah. The eye of the storm is the eye of the storm. Is it? I mean, I assumed. Yeah. Yeah. Hypothesized. Yeah. It's the middle of the thing.

Middle is always the most important part, except for donuts and bagels. But is true for things like Tootsie Pops and grilled cheese sandwich. That is the best part of a grilled cheese sandwich is the middle. That's a good point, Billy. More of a crust, man. Well, I can understand that. I suppose I respect your decisions. It's just the cheese and the butter is all in the middle. Yeah, that's a good that's an interesting hypothesis that the middle of the storm is a hotspot.

There's a ton of atomic energy there coming down from the sky. Is the sky the hotspot? Then if there's anything more important than the middle of the thing, it's the top of the middle of the thing. It's like, let me just explain this to you. And he wheels in. A whiteboard. A whiteboard. And he draws like a circle. He's like all of this circle looks the same as the rest of the circle. But one of the parts of the circle is in the middle. And you needed a whole whiteboard for that.

I'd wanted to draw the circle as big as I could. And that's pretty big. But, you know, I was there. Well, I mean, I was kind of there. It was Pellar, but I was at the eye of the storm and I slash Pellar couldn't work magic there. What are the hotspots that we have been to? Possibly the eye of the storm. Maybe the eye of the storm. I think personally me, Perel thinks the vault might have been one. Oh, right. It is a hotspot. There was a lot of magic fuckery going on in there. Yeah.

That's why they wanted us to put it there was because because the magic leaking through was reinforcing enchantments. Yes. Okay. Well, at the vault we know where that is. We also know the pool where we first fought the peepee monster. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's hotspots in the spirit world to why what do you mean? I don't know. I said it. What do you mean? Oh, well well, no, hold on. I guess that would make sense if a way Walker was able to get through to the spirit world. So wait, hold on.

There's a spirit realm in the iconic realm and there's our realm. Did did the wizards make their own like version of that? I mean, that's the theory because there's also the Faye to the fairy realm fairy realm. So is there a wizard realm now where all the wizards live? That's the again theory. I don't know if it's one realm or if it's many realms or if it's like a bunch of water balloons inside of a larger balloon kind of thing.

But if like if if can go to the spirit realm and Billy can go to the fairy realm, we can we can get you to the wizard realm. Yeah, that is very logical. I guy go to realm. No, no, no, no, no, no. I figured it out. I think we can all agree. I figured this thing out. It's a cool name for us who can like the realm travelers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The the the Perel takes his glasses off ghost pirate boy realm helm boys the realm sliders.

I feel like Stargate The discoverers of new realms The orbs of the sky I thought you were going to say the discovery channel The discovery channel What I, Billy, will do Is create a channel from here To the other realms To discover other realms A discovery channel If you will Oh my god, there's so many sharks in here Oh fuck But only for a week I feel like you might have all This is a very exciting idea I feel like you all instantly forgot about All of the dangers I just told you about And tuck points at the circle again Get that god damn whiteboard Out of my room You knocked over my ficus See, pick it up And he points with the ox blood bottle And one tiny little drop comes out Because it is empty Pick up my ficus He's pointing at a pair Of boots I'll pick up your ficus He's so shit-faced now So, yeah, great hypothesis Billy can apparently travel between realms Nobody told me that What?

You saw You saw him do it It's common knowledge What I saw was tuck pick me up Like a beanbag And throw me at a person Then, nothing Listen, it wasn't my fault that you didn't pay attention To what I was doing I guess you're right I guess today is Don't listen to Perel Day Oh, wait, that's every day He gets so saucy when he's drunk He's freaking out of his boot now I'm just saying That I already told you That even if there is a hot spot In the fairy or the spirit realm It's going to be massively dangerous Okay, we just need to find The closest hot spot And then what?

Fucking jump in and say Hey, cop Cosmos, don't obliterate us Yeah I guess so Do you think that'll work? You know, you just have to jump in With confidence in yourself Billy's going to go into like a Self-love sort of Does he go to the painting?

Yeah, he goes to the painting It's four feet above him Yeah, so he's leaning on the wall Screech Yeah, under the painting If you believe in yourself It makes the world believe in you When you look into the sky The stars And you think of All the possibilities That exist You realize that Nothing is impossible Perel, you are like one star in the sky There are so many other stars Out there waiting To greet you And if you shoot for those stars You will land amongst the moon Billy's just remembering Every motivational poster he's ever seen Yeah, and Live, love, laugh Live, laugh, love Hang in there There's no I in team But you can't spell it without me Can't spell it without me I hate Mondays And just TGIF So hang in there, kitty This family runs on coffee and love I cook with wine And sometimes I put it in the food Guys I really needed to hear that I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I think you're right I think I do just need to believe in myself And I still think this is a bad idea But I'm willing to die for this idea And that's what I want to say to you I am really happy that you're all here I'm really happy Aquarius here She's been listening to this whole thing, by the way Oh, Aquarius, what's up, girl?

She says, she says, hey Hey Hey, Aquarius, I miss you I loved looking at all of your stuff I miss you Oh Oh Oh need to sleep and he lays his head down on his pillow and snores immediately. I tuck him in with my little blue blanket. Sleep well, Prince. Mm-hmm. Tuck rubs his back for one minute. He throws up a little bit. Tuck lays him on his stomach. Oh, he's on his stomach. He's on his stomach.

It's just he's laying there and you're rubbing his back and he goes, and a little bit comes out of his mouth. Oh, God. Recovery position? Yeah. I push a bucket next to his bed and I'm just like, all right, hopefully he's fine. And yeah, Perel snoozes away. But so that's we got to a lot of stuff there. Hell yeah. So what's your plan now? Because now like Farah's out there. She's saying if you want to do stuff, go do stuff and I can pay for it. Before we go anywhere.

Today has taught us that we should probably tell Farah everything that happened in this room. We should include her on everything that we've learned. Yeah. Okay. We cut to Farah's office as she puts down her notebook and closes it and goes, oh my Lord. There's a whiteboard in the background with a circle on it and the middle is indicated. It says slash the top of the middle. She's like, this is just, you know what? I have been a librarian. Oh, we're longer than some of you have been alive.

And I have learned too much today. My brain is full. This is all wonderful information. You just again let me know. We've got a team almost ready to go. They will be heading to the lighthouse under cover of darkness to begin preliminary investigations. And once we learn the location of this irk or perhaps another magi hold safe house, then we will inform you. Would you like to be informed? Yes. Heck yes. Yeah. Would the three of you like to take point on any of these investigations?

I know that I'm going to regret asking this, but three are uniquely, unfortunately uniquely suited to this sort of operation who point. I feel like we've investigated the dark church so much. I'm like bored of it. I don't want the dark church. I want nothing more and tuck leans into a billion thing and he's like, I think our listeners might be bored of it too at this point. And Farrah goes, wow. Okay. All right. That's fine. We have agreed to farm out the dark church.

We will subcontract our quests yet again. What is we get? We point take point. What is that? Yeah, we lead it. Oh, we go. We go and do the investigations with like, oh, lead. Oh, well, actually now that you mention it and he, he reaches into a shirt and unfolds a collar that's been there the whole time. It puts a little time was from when you guys made me be a mayor all the time. Oh, we're wearing that for two years. I don't know how to take off a tie. I can't untie it.

It gets tighter every time. Let me let me lose that. Oh, that's so fucking funny. Okay. So kind of what is being presented to you right now is do you guys want to go do? Something else? Is there anything else that you want to do? So can I can we take one step back and just be like, what is the thing we figured out with Perel? Yeah. And then what is the thing that Farrah just offered us? And then also, what are the things that we might want to do? Uh-huh.

Here's everything that I am currently aware of. Okay. Perel just now told you that if you can find a hotspot, you might be able to poke through into whatever realm or realms the Wizards created during the Exodus potentially using that as a venue to get Perel's powers back or reconnect him with Morris or talk to someone that might be able to get Perel's yeah. Talk to fucking Wizards. We don't know what's going to happen when he gets near a hotspot. The hotspot thing is big. Yeah.

Then there is the Clearwater stuff is happening right now. Oh, the Clearwater is in town. Um, the all the Medjay stuff, the knife, the books, all that can be undertaken by the library. We've taken so much. Yeah. But she's also saying if you want to be a part of these operations, you can be. Yeah. Yeah. It's just we have resources and people that might be better at it. Thank you. The Clearwater is hoving back in. The Menders are hoving back.

I think it'd be kind of fun to either like go spy or seek out some stuff about the Clearwater. Oh, man, a stakeout. Costume change. We got to go north to the town where the Clearwater will land. Springs. No, that's late. Springs is where we are now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Springs. That's where the library is at. Yeah. It's like the book. Yeah. So you guys could always go to the port town that Billy saw the Clearwater dock at and get information there.

And then you could have a little port town adventure. Yeah, we can have a crystal bay part to don't want to find the mayor. No mayors this time. Sorry, just like I need one break kind of one. The second you get to the town there, somebody's like hi, I'm the mayor. You look important. Get away from us. Anyone else even just like a nosy mom, just like the mailman. I don't know like a milk person, a subway sandwich artist, a farmer, a market lady, just anybody else. How do you feel about that?

Like going spy on the Clearwater? Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, and this is also a thing we haven't told fairy and I think, oh no, she sits down and goes, what is it? So you know about the vendors? Oh, we have had this conversation actually. Yeah. Oh good. Yeah, I'm familiar with the organization. Yeah, we let you know last time we came back to the library that they're coming back to this continent.

There's a good chance they've kind of got it out for us because of some light fecal based disrespect. We might have shown a a a a a! Okay, interesting unfleshed toilet, if you will aka a box. I don't need to know anything else. It's it's like a floater, but of a friendship. I you said that after I said I don't need to know anything else. Well, I guess here's the thing. Farrah is like, I think we're curious, but what's going on?

Like I know I'm like when are the vendors going to show up and we need to get the drop on them this time because they've gotten us the drop on us a hundred percent. Of the time in the past. I think getting the drop on them is confronting them face on. Yeah, we could just go say, hey, you're looking for us. Cool. Yeah, that's a that's a bold plan. Yeah, so fair. We have like plans a strong word. So yeah, it's a good idea. Bold good idea. We have this like opportunity to go be cool.

Do you think you could spare us for a couple days? Unquestionably anytime. Thank you for all the information that you've provided me. The library remains open to you. Well, we would maybe like to ask for one thing. Smash cut to Bulko us in Bulko Bulko's putting his goggles on. He goes, hold on little brother. We're on Black Spire on running through the yeah, it took Black Spire. Are we taking Black Spire with us? I want you to I want you to guys. I want you to so badly. Okay. He is a dragon.

What if we disguise him as a pile of hay or a fat horse, a bunch of hugs. He's a great pig. He could do a big pig. I actually think that there is a reality in which as long as you get him to suppress certain things about himself like don't use your breath weapon that kind of shit. Yeah, you might be able to pass him off as some sort of weird lizard. You know what I mean? Because he's not as big as dragons usually are. He doesn't look like he's very unique in terms of dragons.

Yeah, so I bet you could pass him off as some sort of weird beast of burden. Like if we covered up his wings and yeah, the wings would be key, but don't do we want? Okay, let me ask you guys. Do you guys want bulker with us on the next adventure? Would that be fun? Yeah, I like him, but I don't know if I want him on the whole thing. Yeah, I think Black Spire and you guys all riding him like through the desert totally makes sense. Yeah, maybe not the fastest thing in the world, but he's sturdy.

Yeah, I like that. We're all like where it shows from the side. He's like it's just like an unhealthy team. Yeah, yeah, he's been video gaming for you. Yeah. Okay. Are we taking Perel? I guess is the other question. We're leaving Perel. Yeah, I think he probably is down to stay. He's going to start looking for hot spots. He's going to research things. Yeah, he'll be pouring over books trying to trying to connect the dots like phenomena. Yeah, totally.

And he's got Aquaria so he can get Aquaria to help him out. Yeah. He wants to have like private conversations with her. He's more than excited to have like a quiet peaceful safe place to just talk to. Yeah, I know what that means. And also the mosque can do a lot of different things. Yeah. Oh my God. Gross gross. Whoa gross. Also, I was thinking about this. I think you guys have noticed that Perel is going gray. Oh, whoa, because he's aging now. Yeah, he's got to be.

He's got a bit more grain is mustache than you guys remember him having eyebrows. His eyebrows are a little gray too. Yeah, but besides that, that's all the hair. Yeah, so it doesn't really matter. Yeah. Yeah. So he started to age. He's probably yeah. Anyways. Yeah. So Perel is going to stay behind. Okay, great. Do you guys want to go talk to Black Spire? It'd be fun to do the smash cut, but you just go talk to him. Yeah. We're going on a road trip, buddy. Yeah.

And he's sitting there on his butt with his little legs sticking out in front of him and his two big paws on the ground. He's like, hell yeah. Yeah. What does that mean? It means we're going for a really long walk for several hold on in the hold on in the hot desert. Oh, great with very little black crunch. You know what? Thanks, but no thanks, but Black Spire. This means so much to us. We got a parlay with this guy. Oh, yeah. I don't know guys. This place sounds pretty lame and by this place.

I mean upstairs. My cave is pretty tight smells like shit, which means nobody bothers me. I get to eat all the black crunch and I have not been eating the shiny crunch. Oh, sick. You've been saving it. Yeah sick. We should take that so that we're, you know, rich again. Oh, just a second. And he runs, he gallops into the cave and you see in the darkness. You see light start to like kind of a shimmering shake down the walls. Whoa. And he rolls a huge huge fucking boulder. Jesus fuck.

He's like, you guys want to take all of this? Oh my God. And he's like nosing it along. Look at this. That thing is huge and I want to eat it so bad. So you guys got to decide what you want to do with it. Get this out of my cave because I am gonna eat it. I think we might have to get the librarians to help us get it out of here. Can we maybe take a couple shavings off before we give it a hand? Oh, yeah, let's embezzle a little bit of this. Yes, embezzle. Yeah.

Yeah, Billy's already going out with his little pocket knife. Yeah. Oh, tuck has an axe that breaks rock. Oh, right. That'll do. Fuck. Okay. He turns it around and he clips a bit off with the spike. What are you doing with that? Are you gonna eat it? No. Oh, okay. We're just gonna put it in our pockets. What if we bring like a lot of food? What if we bring like a lot of food? What if we bring like a lot of food? A little bit. Yeah, for me. Okay. Okay. I'll slice off a little bit for you.

All right. I slice off like a dinner plate size thing for him and you like put it into his mouth on the axe like a pizza and a pizza. Oh, no, this is for like later. These are treats for later. Come on, man. Come on. I put in my backpack. All right, whatever we just I'm just saying if we're gonna be gone for a while, we got to bring enough crunch. We will. We'll bring crunch for you. So I bring this like a dinner plate for us to sell a huge glob of drool as you're holding it.

I mean, like I'll bring this. Yeah, huge glob of burning red drool drips out of his mouth and burns on the ground. Oh, I'm sorry. You gotta watch that drool buddy. I'm so sorry. Yeah, watch where it's landing man. Ma redo that Jessica said that and looks so confused with herself. I'm so tired. I'm so sorry. I just want to hear so bad, but okay. All right. So this is black spires this is ours. We got two dinner plates. I put in my bag. Okay, that's all we need. I think okay, fine.

I'll bring another dinner. I want to take that with my spear. I take like a skittles bag worth okay in a flap black spires. Huge eyes are like like laser focused every time somebody moves some sunstone. He's like holy fuck being to does it really purposefully like when you take a dog for a walk like these treats are going in here. He puts in his pocket. Billy, do you want any before we tell Farrah about this? My pockets are full. I already got enough.

You see black spire Billy black spire gives you a huge exaggerated wink. I wink back one of these is for you big boy secret and what he says dude be quiet because he's a dragon your minds that aren't hearing it in a language you understand here like so now we could do a smash cut to Farrah's office where we're explaining that we found a fortune in her house and Bolko's standing behind us like pretty heavy.

Yeah, Balco who I was I was thinking about this and I decided he's the head of like mechanical engineering in the library. Yeah, like yeah, I can get a couple people down there and we're going to chop it up and we're going to bring it. He's he puts his arms out like full wide. He's like yeah, it's like this and then he brings him in a little bit. This big to make it smaller every person who interacts with it. It bezels she gets it's going to be like a great fruit. What is this?

Yeah, we can get a little people out there. It's like this big and yeah, it should be pretty easy. Once we chop it up. We'll just bring it to to the material sciences lab. Yeah, that sounds great fucking cool use of material sciences. Thank you and Farrah. I promised Black Spire that we would give him 10 times the amount of obsidian you what so that's I think a thing that we all have to honor because we're all about honoring our promises.

You realize that he's eating bones right like the bones of things that were a sentient beings. You're so obsessed with the past down man. Open your eyes man. Look at the present. There's a fucking dragon who found a boulder of diamond light in your building. I don't let go of the past bro. I gotta let go of the past and focus on money. She closes her eyes. I cannot believe that I didn't realize this before, but I will have people locating an alternate source of obsidian.

That would be a brilliant idea on my part. Okay, wonderful. So you're going to be taking Black Spire from the library. Yeah, I think so. He's cool with it. He seemed cool with it. Do you believe that it is wise to take a dragon to the surface and just kind of walk around with him? Do you believe that we think anything is wise or that we think about much at all? That's a great point. I have my wisdom is zero. So I believe most people are wiser than me.

I suppose considering he's such a unique specimen that with certain modifications, you could pass him off as some sort of large reptile. Cool. Put some people on it. Don't tell me what to do. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm a little testy today. I have learned four to five earth shattering facts in the last 24 hours. I believe we can whip something up. I thought we were going to do another smash cut, but to a makeover. Yeah, I like that a lot.

It is kind of a makeover scene, but it's mostly back Black Spire being fitted with a saddle harness. So he's got like a huge leather strap like around his his massive chest and it goes to like a a point that is over his wings. The saddle covers his wings. I just want to we put flaps but where his wings are so that if we need to we can pull these flaps and then let his wings out, let him stretch him out a little bit. Yeah, totally cool. And yeah, there's just a saddle on the back.

That's pretty long. It's big enough for all three of you to kind of sit one in front of the other and has attachments for like saddlebags and stuff. Cool. Yeah, this thing's sick. Thanks, Bulko. I didn't do it. I'm here for something else. What are you here for? I just kind of like this place. He's got the sunstone. It's like in his one hand. I got to take this thing to the bank. Wink. His pockets are just glowing.

Yeah, it's actually the zoologist guy that you met a while ago who's like, actually I designed the saddle. I don't know why you think Bulko would have anything to do with it, but whatever. Well, thank you. You're welcome. Looks so comfy. It is. It is extremely comfortable and considering I made it in less than six hours, I'd say. Pretty impressive. It is. I love the flaps. And the nice decorations on it. And the canopy over top is a nice touch. It's collapsible. Cool. Pretty cool. It is cool.

Alright, I still don't like you. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you. I'll see you probably next week. And yeah, so what else? We're ready to go. Right? Yeah. I guess. We've let Farrah know where we're going. Perel knows. We've got our supplies. I went to the cafeteria to get a bunch of protein shakes and like a bunch of like nuts and seeds and water and small cakes like cups of soup bread. So much food. I'm looking through all my bags. He's emptied the saddlebags and just filled it with food.

Yeah. Once you guys are out in the desert, you'll be like, where's all our clothes and water? I like the idea that Billy's in the cafeteria like stealing stuff and he's looking at a little shopping list. That's just drawings of food. Great. Then I guess you're all I guess you're ready to go. Yeah. Okay. Black Spires in the loading bay.

They've moved aside one of the sandboats so he can get on the funicular and a couple of the mechanical engineering students are reinforcing it before send him up and far as here and Perel and Perel. Yeah, Perel's here. Yeah, and they're all kind of seeing you off like in Empire Strikes Back when everybody's in the window waving. Yeah, as the Millennium Falcon flies away. Yeah. So Perel's like, all right, be careful.

I suppose are you okay with me with me staying here while you confront the menders? Oh, yeah. I mean, you're getting a lot stronger, but I mean really like what are you gonna do? Well, I mean, I'm kind of the reason that you have to confront them in the first place. Well, it's mostly the poo. And actually because they want you back it's probably better. You're not there. Yeah, I mean, yeah, good toy. Of course that makes sense. All right.

Well, I hope that you're all safe and he very awkwardly gives you all a hug. We very awkwardly pull him lift him off the ground. Yeah, he goes as you all kind of crush him and I discreetly like slip the wizard notebook because I swipe this from Farrah's desk. So I discreetly slip that into his pocket and I'm like hey, I think this belongs to you buddy.

And he touches it and he goes thank you and you saddle up on black spire and the funicular engages and click click click grind click click click grind heading out Vingos Perel. I think these are yours to from the thing and throws him a bag and he catches it and he opens it up and it's a bag full of mustaches and he looks up tears glittering in his eyes. Go nuts pal. Thank you.

And the security door slides shut midway up the funicular and then you get to the top and the bay doors open and black spire trundles out into the sand ducks down to get out of the barn and he like sniffs at the air and he kind of squints at the light. He's like, oh, put away pair of wayfarer sunglasses. He's got big goggles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The zoologist made him goggles. We slide the goggles over his eyes and he's like, oh, they're made of obsidian. They're kind of like a carrot dangling.

They've got to be. They tried to make them out of obsidian and he ate them. Yeah, they made them out of just regular smoked glass and he just imagine his like the fitting and he is tongue just thank you and he trundles through town. A few of the quote unquote citizens of Elaine Springs watch him wide eyed as he walks by. I imagine you guys all give them like a cowboy style tip of the hat and he gets to the edge of town and he sees kind of the desert spread out in front of him.

He's like, all right, I guess it's time to go and he starts walking and then he starts walking a little bit faster and then he starts get it. He starts moving and then he's galloping. And then he's going so fast and he goes, whoa, hell yeah. And the last thing we see for this episode of Spout Lore is black spire going as he hauls ass through the Alcoly desert takes a huge leap off the top of a sand dune with his like powerful legs and the camera underneath.

Yeah, pass over blocking out the sun for a moment before he lands on the other side. And that is where we're going to end it for this week. I'm your game master. Sean O'Hara joining me is always playing Tacoma Dome. The Barbarian Abdulaziz so long everybody playing being the half elf druid Paul offers. Take care guys and playing fat Billy the halfling thief Jessica tie by everyone.

Thank you to Aaron read for our amazing intro and outro music, which is a delight to hear every single time and thank you to you are supporters from around the world. We love you so dearly.

If you want to support the show in other ways, you can find us at patreon.com slash Spout Lore where you'll get access to depending on the tier, you know, hours and hours and hours of bonus audio content live streams every month merchandise postcards original art by this point probably the Spout Lore almanac, which is supplementary world building material, which has a, a new entry every single month and a variety of other fun things.

You can find more about us online at Spout Lore most places and we'll catch you next time. And so ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can dumb and scared and lost baby for times abreast in revelry and though hard 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! I miss anything. No, no, we just started right.

Cause Paul referenced a rhyme while we were talking to pearl. And then we're all like, let's write that rhyme down so we can like kind of reference it and passing conversation. But I think we're all writing different versions of it. Mm-hmm. So I modeled it off of yours. So read yours first. Okay. Yeah. The children of the inner light were made to suffer, die and fight the world. They rot to aid their flight brought brightest day to darkest night. Okay. So this is the one I wrote. Based on that.

The wizards came in dark of night, but strength of men did stop their blight. A treaty struck, but then betrayed. So men and elves had courage weighed with blood and bone and wizards. Bane. We finally did break our chains. Needs a little bit of good. No, that's good, man. Okay. So I tried to write an anti one starts. They stole from us the inner light to forge our chains, our world ignite for wizard kind, the walking blight. We take up arms. We find our might. Nice. Yeah. I wrote a kid's game.

It's like red Rover that they would play a circle circle round and round. We are wizards can't be found to going around the circle. You go around when you lose us, all is lost. So stay together at all costs. And then whoever's the designated the wizard, they have to try and break through the circle. Oh my God. That's kids game. That's really cool, man. Holy shit. I like that. Yeah. That's fucking cool as hell. That's so good. That's also a pretty fun game. Yeah. Can you read the rhyme again?

Circle circle round and round. We are wizards can't be found when you lose us. All is lost. So stay together at all costs.