Episode 16 – Bad People Eat Gumbo Too

Spout Lore is made possible by contributions from our listeners if you'd like to support us go to patreon.com Spout Lore okay does anyone have a request for a song spice girls spice girls it's the same vein yeah we came to town we went and saw the boat that was the clear water we saw some guys unloading food and that's when we came up with a stupid plan we dressed up as a kid and another horse better dress up as horse you could be the back end I will be the front if you want to be a disguise you have got to be you've got to be you could be two kids about that you and you met that guy greg he came down the boat gangplank and said who are you you said I'm the son of this town's mayor and he said you're not and stop lying to me then he gave you a nothing meet him at a bar then he went to the bar and he saw a centaur then you fought the centaurs in the alley and yeah but he stole the pouches full of money we also found a thing like a potion we found something else it was a diary and also ving a tom corn yep oh god this is a rap part now I gotta be really fast a guy that gave you some sauce his name is rasmus and he's really really old and greg came back and he said hey who the fuck who the fuck are you god somebody fucking help me made a storm and we're really really mad and we're gonna arrest you maggie's gonna talk to you guys over here here in the clam show at the break of dawn you guys meet the menders you gotta you gotta you gotta you gotta you gotta guys meet the menders maggie's coming down she's gonna be mad she's gonna be real mad maggie's coming down she's gonna be real mad maggie's coming down and she's gonna talk another plate of sauces please right away and bring me some more popcorn shrimp my good man all right man this these recap songs are really helping me out they're pretty good okay should we do the opening theme or go straight into it right into the theme baby okay now the 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 tucker's the brute he knows not his home he loves to sing and fight fingers half healthy shifts his shape and wields a spear with great pride 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 everybody and welcome to Spout Lore I'm your game master Sean O'Hara joining me as always playing tacoma dome the barbara barbarian abdulaziz hello everybody playing ving the half-elf druid Paul Oppers hey how are ya and playing fat billy the halfling thief jessica tie hello my friends when last we left our heroes in the city of wickport they were spying upon the vessel known as the clear water in an attempt to gain some information about their erstwhile pursuers the menders billy through the use of his magical binoculars saw that indeed menders cell leader maggie cole is in town and has taken control of some sort of menders owned warehouse and then they enacted a plan which involved tuck disguising himself as two kids in a trench coat and billy and ving each being one half of a magical horse named chauncey uh to try and trick information out of one of the menders who happened to be greg old friend dear old friend from I think episode two uh greg agreed to meet you at the clamshell pub so you went to this pub and uh in attempting to plan for an ambush were yourselves ambushed by fabio the centaur and his centaur cronies and that was the guy who he tried to sell sunstone to that first time right yes and you turned him down and he uh didn't forget okay he wanted that sunstone and instead uh was immediately faced with the reality of having to fight three fantasy adventurers and turn tail and ram upon returning to the clamshell with some stolen pouches that billy cut off one of the centaurs you rifled through a man's belongings finding his lucky coins a vial of truth serum and a diary that was gifted to him by his child you made close friends with rasmus the uh proprietor of the clamshell and asked him to seat greg at your table when he arrived for a clandestine meeting that he agreed to and upon arrival greg proceeded to explain to the three of you that you have caused a real shit show in the principalities due to your actions uh above the sea of graves and in just kind of generally ignoring the wishes of the menders in general but he agreed to bring maggie cole here at sunrise for a meeting with you and that is where we find ourselves now waiting for this sunrise meeting we have would have stayed there right like the whole night probably well I think we uh went back and got black spire oh shit to come back with us fuck black spire totally fucking forgot about it how could you because I've been drinking weak sauce like crazy and it's messing with my head so did you guys forget or did you go back and get him no we went back and got him yeah after the meeting with greg okay yeah uh rasmus our dear friend I guess now uh he let us uh host black spire up in his apartment above the clamshell he's hosting black spire behind the clamshell because black spire is an enormous dragon you know there's stairs uh yeah like we get a quick shot of you guys returning to the cave on the kelp beds that you left black spire in and the second he even hears your voices he comes charging out of the cave he's like oh my god I'm so fucking glad to see you thank you so much for being here and I'm so happy to be here with you guys I'm so happy to be here with you I hate this cave I hate this hole I like most holes don't like this one why what's going on it's just full of fish man oh my god they're so creepy they swim and they look at me with their little googly eyes I hate them well we have somewhere kind of like a hole that you could hide in but it's not fishy oh word let's go okay man and you take him you take him to a seafood restaurant you!

He gets he gets within a block and you guys have figured out you know as long as you get him to wear that saddle that covers his wings and most people don't recognize him as a dragon so he walks through town he gets a bunch of looks because they're like what the fuck is this thing yeah uh and you get him within a block of the clamshell and he lifts his big like arrowhead shaped head to the sky goes no way I can smell him where are the fish fish are uh in our tummies and in the in the oven they're not alive okay it's pretty yummy when they're dead dude I swear yummy huh it's no black crunch but it is fish crunch okay yeah wait they have like bones yeah you guys didn't tell me fish had bones dude everything has bones we have bones you have bones bones I like I like bones bones are like black crunch yeah and shrimp have shells pal yeah uh worms have shells don't like shells okay shells are like the bones of the outside oh my god I've never thought about it like that take me to these bones okay well I lead him to the to the bone yeah so I guess we we cut back to the inside of the clam shell and we know that black spire is out back just eating barrel after barrel of fish bones yeah rasmus stopped paying for trash pickup so he's going to have to pay for trash pickups seven years ago.

Oh, so he is just going nuts on these perfectly aged bones. We don't have to worry about anyone coming to find or steal Black Spire because everyone stays away from this zone. Yeah, because Rasmus stopped paying for trash pickup seven years ago. But he did have to fight off a pretty aggressive pack of seagulls just snapping at him. Get out of here. My bones. What does a seagull say? Fuck you. That was perfect. That was really good. My bones. Okay, so we cut inside and it's just before sunrise.

I like the idea that there's going to be a small background war happening between Black Spire and the seagulls of Wickport. It's like pretty loud. You can definitely hear it while we're waiting. You see him go by the window like, Get out of my back. Get out. His little club tail is swishing around. One seagull is like grabbed onto it with its little flippers and it's just like, It's like when you take a dog to the beach. Yeah, yeah.

He's walking like through a whole bunch and they're all just like sitting there really quiet, like giving that sideways glance and it's like echoing and he's like tiptoeing trying not to. I just want the bones. It's so quiet. Okay, great. So you see a line of sunlight start to course through the window at the front of the clamshell. Billy. What? Quick, do your magic stuff. Oh, yeah. Oh, right. So I think really hard, I guess. Yeah, how do you do this?

I basically just have to go deep in my memory every morning. So open every morning when I wake up, I have to wake up my memory. So I have to take off its blanket and I have to say good morning memories and then I and then I have to look through them, make sure they're all there. Whoa. Holy shit. What? And then my memories go super deep and it's like they have to zoom through down to their root zone. Okay, so yeah, roll it. 2d6 plus charisma for fairy child. Seven plus two is nine. Okay.

Okay, cool. So nine. So but you still get three. That's pretty good. Three today. Yeah. And Billy immediately spends it to change a seven to nine into a ten and gets five whole. I would like to make three wishes. My first wish is three more wishes. No, I should have put that in the room. I've been out foxed. So yeah, are you guys just like watching the door? Are you trying to be dramatic? I'm really I feel like I'm going to meet an old family member or old friend. I'm like, do I look okay?

You know, do we look okay? Yeah. Do we look tough but also kind? Yeah. Yeah. Tuck really he put a lot of gel in his beard. Okay. He's like, this is hair gel. I shouldn't have done this. So spiked. Okay. Any other thing that you guys? Want to do? Are you letting them come to you? Are you going to be like inside of the door? Billy is coloring on one of like the kid things that they give out. Yeah, well the kid drawing pads and I'm trying to make a drawing for Maggie. Oh fuck. That's cute.

Ving is communed with the spirits like in the last few hours. He got up before the dawn and went out early and on the beach in front of the the clamshell. Oh, yeah, you still. Have communion of whispers. Yeah, so I'm going to spend time and place making noise of its resident spirits and role plus wisdom and be granted a vision of significance. Cool. Okay. Okay. Yep. Two D six plus wisdom. All right, let's see it. 13 Wow. How's there's two sixes? Holy shit.

I haven't seen two sixes in a while while he was commuting with the whispers as he did. He did a meditative action. He dressed up the doll with like a linen shirt and leather. Pants. He wanted to be like present Maggie Cole with this like lovely little you know, you doll that you made of her. He didn't. I don't know. Maybe not. I made an effigy Maggie. Yeah, basically. Yeah, what are the pins for? Don't ask about the pins with these and what's a 10 plus on communion of whispers.

The vision will be clear and helpful to you.

Okay, so you attempt to reach out to the spirit world through your meditative techniques that are centuries old practiced passed down generation to generation back until the forging of the world and the thing that strikes you soonest as you attempt to reach out in that way is that when you think about the material in terms of the principalities and the spirit in terms of the storm, they feel like they are so much closer than you're used to them being like they're basically butting up against one another whereas they used to have a separation there's some sort of grinding that's taking place and a thinning and the vision that you receive is like you see a vision of the pack like the spirit of the pack and you see them move from the fantastical archetypical cosmic representation of the planes and then you see the spirit of the pack sprinting along a grassland like a true material grassland the pack from the spirit realm.

Yeah, like the spirit of the wolf pack. Oh, the wolf pack. Thank you. Yeah, so that is what you see is you see an actual vision of the spirit of the wolf pack moving from spirit realm into the material. This is all from above from the eyes of Cloudpiercer. The eyes of something who knows some kind of bird.

Yeah, you see through the eyes of Cloudpiercer he's been sailing above the principalities I suppose upon the orders of Stonebreaker King of all Thunderbirds and you you come to in the middle of the night and you realize I got a meeting sick. Yeah, anything else you guys want to do into like what is anything tuck preparing in any way Billy's drawing thing is pondering. I guess tucks just doing push up just okay.

So tuck is the first person to see them because he's in the middle of the floor doing push up and then as soon as he hears the door open he does that cat bounce off the ground. And then like lands on his feet and the first person you see is Greg and he's looking grim. He's got his hand on his knife again as he walks and he looks around sees that it's only you three here's Rasmus clanging around in the sauce zone.

Yeah, all right and he looks back behind him any nods and striding through the door full armor spear in hand shield on back. Holy shit is Maggie Cole. Wow, you look like a painting. I saw one time she doesn't respond. I drew this for you Maggie and you just run up to her. Yeah, I hand her a drawing of her boat. She looks at it for a long moment. I'm like do you want it? She reaches down and she takes it from your hand. I thought you didn't like it for a second.

Yeah, when she reaches at first like things like well he kind of gets ready in the fighting stands like what are you gonna do? Yeah, and tuck goes to read like up because he's put Terry Larry and Chad on a beam above his head. Oh, yeah, that's really cool. And then he sees that she's just takes it and then he just like stretches out. He's like bleaks are getting pretty good. Not bad. A lot of people call these side apps.

She looks she looks at the picture that Billy drew of the clear water, which I assume is the very classic like half circle looking boat. Yeah with a stick and a triangle. Yeah, a little like red hair stick figure that's like that's you yeah, and she looks at it and she looks you in the eye glowering and then she folds up the picture and she puts it in her belt. Oh, she likes it. I understand you wanted to talk. I understand you're looking for us.

I am well, maybe we can order brunch and then discuss that perhaps we can and you hear a squeak from behind you and a voice that goes drag and out and clump clump clump behind you. What wait, what did you just do? She says hey, we just made sure that your friend isn't going to be trouble for us. We said neutral ground. You brought a dragon. What what dragon he's just a dog. He's just taking a little nap. Okay, what do you mean out? What'd you do to him?

You turn and you see the figure that spoke to you removes the hood from on top their head. Hey, that's our move. I and you're looking into the face of sweet Caroline New York. Where'd you put Black Spire? He's out there. He's just taking a little nap. He'll be fine. Maggie says anyways, shall we take a seat? All right, no weapons. She puts her spear leans it up against the door like the next to the door and then tuck purposefully unflexes his biceps. She smiles at that. She smiles a little bit.

He sits down being has to his fingers up and like guns and he puts them into his pockets. Billy has his hands up in like a little kind of karate chop by stance knee put some straight down just next to yeah at his side. She sits down in a chair. She's leaning back. So why did you track us down? How did you find us? I mean the point to the boat and this is the clear water. Pretty bold of you to come find us. Well, we don't have a lot to hide. Then why'd you run?

Why'd you run all the way to McCall? Run? I gave you a task. Yeah, we did it. You know, Greg, did you not fill Maggie in? She says he oh, he filled me and I'm well aware of the situation. I'm well aware of the sequence of events. I am aware of the fact that you left Mudlark under my orders. I am aware of the fact that you arrived at the vault and you conquered the vault. You compromised my golem and you destroyed the box somehow. What? What?

Tuck's just like is is like half lidded shaking his head. I'm aware of the fact that we received reports of a wizard operating in Crystal Bay. Hold on. Can we get some more sauce? Can we get some breakfast menu, please? He goes right away. And he comes out with his arms laden in trays like when you see pictures of Cobra Fest like beer servers like he's just got the trays all the way up his arms covered in glasses of sauce and he lays them out on the table and he scurries back into the back.

Go on. I'm aware of the fact that a storm that has been as far as anyone can tell contained to the Sea of Graves for eternity was loosed upon the world and then I was I was informed of the fact that it was revealed that the torch of McCall was some sort of demon and that three individuals matching your descriptions were involved in the battle. What? Well that could be anybody. Yeah. It just could be coincidences. Mm-hmm. Could be a trick. Could be a joke, a prank played on us. The innocent ones.

You know what I heard, Maggie? I heard it all that stuff was mirrors. Oh and that's another thing. What happened to mirrors? Don't tell her. It's none of your business, Maggie. You leave him out of this. So you're telling me that the whereabouts of a 14-year-old boy that was in your companionship are now unknown. He is safe and happy and it is once again none of your business. You're aware of the fact that I am able to track people through the use of mender pins, right? Oh.

And uh, I will say that the tracking of mirrors has been a baffling experience. Well yeah, how? I am not at liberty to say. Hmm. Then, then we are not at liberty to say. Yeah, maybe all we can say is perhaps your pin tracking technology doesn't work when someone's following their dreams, Maggie. She closes her eyes and rubs the bridge of her nose. Maybe the power of self actualization fucks with your weird blood magic or whatever.

And here's the thing that I'll say to you, Maggie, and he kind of pokes her a little bit. Oh, she does not respond well to that. Is you, for all your high and mighty bullshit about, I don't like wizards, magic is dangerous, using a fucking golem, like putting your shit on a hotspot, like using Magic pins. Magic pins to track innocent fantasy adventurers. And also, like who does your hair? There's no, that's not natural. That looks amazing, so shiny, the curls. That's out of this world.

Are you finished? Yeah, you're a hypocrite, is what I'm saying. And, and clearly your pins really don't work, cause you know what, there's not even a wizard out in Crystal Bay anymore. That's all done. What do you mean anymore? Don't try and change the subject, you hypocrite. Yeah. Okay. Hypothetically, Maggie, if the wizard wasn't in the box, and he hypothetically was out in the world, he definitely lost his powers somehow, in some way. Hypothetically.

And then Tuck leans into Vang and he's like, so like, just holding nothing back, I guess. No one said, I can't say it. Maggie, Maggie puts her hands on the table and says, uh, Greg led me to believe that you had something you could offer and so far you have not told me anything that I do not know. Ask us a question. Uh, I suppose my first question is why? Why would you do this? Why would you release one of the most dangerous beings in history?

Why would you attempt to channel and leash a storm legendary for its destructive nature? And why would you release that storm and then believe, just allowing it to cause whatever devastation it would cause? Have you ever heard of family? A lot of people have made a lot of bad decisions for family. Decisions that have caused more harm than good. And I am beginning to believe that you three, are prime examples of that motivation. Maggie, we made the best decisions that we could at the time. Hmm.

You asked us to put a guy in solitary confinement for eternity. I asked you to put a weapon in safe keeping. That weapon is a person, Maggie. Look what he hath wrought. He hath wrought nothing. Yeah, this is Rasmus' joint. Yeah. And if you're talking about the storm, I mean, that was an accident. I wrought that. And everything else, the torch of McCall, that wasn't the wizard because he lost all of his powers at that point. That's other stuff. Yeah. The storm was to deal with the torch.

I feel like it would have gone way worse if Ving hadn't done that. What would have gone way worse? Well, who knows what destruction he would have wrought on the world. He was the demon of… Zealotry. Zealotry. He was gonna spread like a religious fervor across the land. Ten times worse than any storm, even a spiritual mega storm. And you're all holed up in the principalities, all comfy and cozy in your muddy houses, and you're not paying attention.

You don't see what's happening here, McCall, in other areas. I mean, McCall was in shambles when we got here. What if I were to say I don't believe you? I want proof. What proof do we have? Proof of what? Proof that what you say about the tortured McCall is true. Proof that he was some sort of demon. The rings. That's just proof that we fucked up Chamberlain. I mean… What else do we have? Yeah, but you could… I meant you could show her the memories that we went through. Oh, yeah.

Can we do that? Just show her the shit we stole from her. We could… Try that. It's a good idea. It's not a bad idea. Okay, Maggie. We have a way to show you. And it is definitely… When you see them, there is no connection to anything that you might be familiar with. We found these on our own. So, I'll give Maggie my ring. She picks it up and she looks at the glass and she goes, You're wearing them? Well, yeah, because they help us understand that dragon back there. What? Try it.

How do I know this isn't a trick? You don't. You just have to trust us. And barring that, you have to assume that we're not smart enough to trick you. You also have sweet Caroline and Greg sitting next to you and all our weapons are down. I show her my hand and put them back down again. She slides the ring on her finger. She just hears, like, Oh, sir! The Grudge! What do you show her?

I think, like, we start with the memories of the plea that Perel made in the vault where it's just, like, a guy being like, Don't leave me here. Begging not to be left in solitary confinement, basically. I think there's a moment where Bing was watching as the Torch McCall was, like, lobbing fire and was like, you guys were both in terrible, horrible trouble. It was like the end of the line. Death was on all of our doorsteps. And he summons the storm out of no other options.

Just grasps onto any power that he can find to try and save his family. Billy remembers in Lillian's Tower when we're all fighting with Pilar and Perel and that's when Perel loses his magic. And Perel just, like, dealing with that aftermath. Tuck remembers Chimes saving them and saying, you guys seem to me like a group worth saving. Um, Bing throws in, um, Billy eating so much baklava.

Just mounds of baklava around him and, um, falafel balls and all of us sitting around and just laughing and having a good time. Yeah. And across from him is Perel eating the falafel sandwiches and drinking the fancy coffee. Yeah. And then immediately we go for a walk after to the hat store where Perel's trying on mustache combos with new hats and he's asking for feathers and he's, like, putting it in just right in the hat and he's like, what do you think?

If you were to look out, you are all in this trance. Maggie's brow is starting to furrow. Billy thinks about when we were in that jail, uh, looking for Alma. We meet all the other imprisoned people who were possessed by demons. Right. Are you guys gonna share anything about the Torch of McCall? Yeah, so I go back to, like, the final confrontation with the Torch of McCall and it's like, it's Billy in the mist and flashes of the Winter War coming back in. Uh. Fire on either side. Yeah.

And, like, yeah, this, like, malevolent force being, like, I will end this world. Uh, and you come out of this trance and Maggie takes, like, a shaky breath in through her nose. Should we also show her the thing about the Dark Guard? Mm-hmm. So you come out of the trance and you go, no, no, wait, one more thing. One more thing, sorry. Yeah. And then it's, like, Farhan laying in his bed being, like, I can't remember everything, but what have you heard of the Dark Guard? Yeah.

Then you come out of the trance for the last time. Yeah. And you go, wait, one more time. And then you go in and it's just Tuck dancing. Like, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. We, uh, it's Billy at the bear in the chair and we're, like, and we're chanting, like, the whole bar is chanting and they're, like, chair, chair, chair. Everyone's chanting chair for some reason. And the bear is wobbling back and forth, like, rawr. Billy is, like, uh, like, poker-faced, just shoveling food after food.

Just making eye contact with the bear. Yeah, but not mean, just, like, how's it going? But in the bear's eye, you see real fear. Yeah. And we're back. And Maggie takes a shaky breath in through her nose and steadies herself and she kind of looks over her shoulder a little bit at Caroline and she nods. And she takes the ring off, puts it on the table, slides it toward Billy. I put it back on. Thank you for being honest with me. I won't say that this changes things. I…

Tuck does a what the fuck motion. She holds her hand up and she says, I want you to understand. Your actions have had consequences. Just because you have not experienced them doesn't mean that they haven't happened. Yeah, what the fuck? Greg said we destroyed the world. Greg! And she turns over and he's like, well, I was trying to just get him on the hook. She says, oh, he's so dramatic.

I will say it is not perhaps an end of the world scenario, but the storm that has been sweeping across the principalities is a real problem. There is some sort of transgression happening between the spirit world and the material in the principalities. It's not a constant thing, but you know, a massive and near mystical pack of wolves arriving in a grassland suddenly or a tree deciding to gather all trees in a forest and march on a town is of some concern to us. Understandable?

Yeah, I mean, for sure. Yeah, where you're coming from for sure. Do you think that maybe you might have some sort of responsibility in this? That's responsibility is an extreme term that we take umbrage to. Yeah, we are never responsible. Oh, I know. I am well aware. Thank you. You interrupted me for anything. Uh, she she seems almost at a loss for words. Um, if anybody wants to rule anything, you might be able to determine a little bit of how she's feeling right now. Sure.

Uh, discern realities about her emotions and thoughts. Wisdom? Wisdom? Wisdom. Uh, ten. Oh, shit. Yes. Nice. Three questions off the list. What here is not what it appears to be? Okay, yeah. So, uh, something that you have been thinking about, uh, after she like looked over at Sweet Caroline and nodded, she knew a lot of what you showed her already. She was hoping that you wouldn't lie to her about it. Oh. Hmm. So she had a lot of this information. Not all of it, but a lot of it.

And the question is how? Oh. What the fuck? Okay. Have we been telling on ourselves somehow the whole time? The pin that I had? Flashback to us, just like blah blah blah-ing to a bunch of people. Like a guy's picking his teeth with a copper pin and then… We're just talking to menders in every town. Playing scribbles and like, you won't believe what they said after that. Everyone that's ever gotten us drunk… Oh my gosh. …has been a mender. That's so funny.

Well, you won't hear but loose lips. We'll take over this town we sunk those ships. Okay, what happened here recently then? Okay. Who told her recently? Sweet. Thanks. What happened here recently? I'll give you a twofer on this one. You, Billy, your memories align in a way that is rare for you, but they all kind of you know, slap into place for a second and you connect a bunch of dots all at once. Maggie knows some stuff that you've only told some people. Like you've only told…

You've been in the library for months now. You have a lot of confidants in the library that you don't hide things from, including Farah. Farah has mentioned that an old apprentice of hers has been sighted in the town and she was going to be doing more research on that because she was worried that she was working against the library. The library…

Er, the Medjai had been contracted by an orc who was looking to get more information on you and perhaps take Ving off the board in terms of his life-shifting. And Maggie confirmed with Sweet Caroline that what you told her lined up. Was Sweet Caroline the person who contracted the Medjai? Sweet Caroline is a former librarian. And she must have gotten into the library because she knows how and she's been watching you. Oh no! Oh my! What? And Caroline has her…

You're now realizing extremely ripped arms crossed over her extremely ripped chest. Oh my god, she's the speaker of the silent word. She is indeed. Not to be fucked with. Like, Ving, actually, you recognize in her stance the way she's standing. You're like, of course, how did I not see this before? Yeah. Yeah, she's put a finger to her lips and went, shhh. Yeah, so Caroline has been spying on you. Wow. Fucking… Balls. That's shitty, Caroline. We could have been hanging out.

We thought you were attempting to destroy everything. When? When we were like all eating gumbo in the cafeteria? Yeah, during one of our many foot-long pizza subs. Bad people eat gumbo too. That's not true. You take that back, you anti-cajunist. It is the most joyful of foods. Maggie is… Oh, and I was gonna say, I was gonna give you a twofer on this one. Oh yeah. You also, Billy, are looking… The sun has come up quite a lot. So I'm squinting.

You're squinting and you kinda look out the window and you see a particular shorn-haired individual leaned up against the wall outside the clamshell. Oh my god. Shorn hair. He's got kinda jaggedy cut, like it looks like it was cut with a knife. Dark hair. Maybe a hint of elf in the ear. Fucking Dan, are you fucking kidding me? Dan? I slam my little hands on the table and I go, Dan! Traitor! Dan looks over and he waves. And I flip him off.

And he's chewing on what you think is a toothpick and you realize is a copper pin. The shot of the scene shifts to an outside shot of Dan standing there with a shit-eating grit on his face and the side, the wall caves in as Tuck, like, fucking Hulk runs through to tackle Dan. Give me a defy danger. No, you know what? You do it. I can do a defy danger. Okay, this might mean you don't get through the wall. Yeah, that would be pretty funny too. Okay, 2d6 plus strike. Shit. You got it.

Wait, yeah, I, no, I got nine. Six. Oh! I aid. Yes! Yeah, totally. Oh, yes! Okay, I will say that the aid could be as Tuck gets up to run, Ving stops Greg and Caroline from stopping Tuck. Yeah, and I'm finished. Let him see this through this. This has been coming for a long time and Tuck just barrels through the wall. Yeah, just through the like it's not even just shitty clapboard. It's like it's a wall. It's a wall and like Tuck just goes straight through the side.

There's a door right next to it just straight directly through the wall and like pins Dan to the ground and he's like you fucking asshole. He's literally everything you do sucks. Hey Tuck. What's up, buddy? What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you do this? What do you mean? Why would I do? Why would I do what you fucking ratted us out to the menders? Why they asked me to look? I just they offered me a gig. I say yes, you know me. How long have you been a mender?

Were you a mender before we went to mudlark? Oh, I was a mender after we got to mudlark. After Maggie and them. I shouldn't be telling you this, but after Maggie and them realized y'all might be up to something, you know, when did we part ways? Sorry, you hit me so hard. I went with you to High Spear, right? Yeah, left you in high spirit. Okay. Okay. So after Maggie gave you all the task of taking the box to the place, she inducted me into the menders. Have you been following us since? Yeah.

Have you seen me? How many times have you seen me? Not a lot, right? No. Yeah, you're very good at blending into crowd. Yeah, no shit Sherlock. That's a guy that I used to know who said a lot of obvious shit and yeah, so what I'm good at it. I'm great at it for reasons. I'll never tell you. I hope you feel I was in the army. Which army doesn't matter. You hit me too hard for me to remember. I have been following you and I don't feel bad about it. So kill me. I don't care.

I'm not gonna fucking kill you man. Then let me up. Yeah, sneaky Dan. That's what you guys call me, right? No, not anymore. You are dead to me and I spit on Billy. My boot. I need to sit down. You can sit on your own stupid butt outside and I kick him. Oh Maggie. I did it wink. Ugh, wait what? What was that? Hey Maggie, what was that? Why do you wink at you all gross like that? I don't know. He's a he has been one of my most confusing assets.

He is exceptionally stealthy exceptionally good at espionage. I know it's so hard. What is his deal? I don't know. It's we thought we knew. I'm just gonna I mean, yeah, he's I don't know. He seems like a anyways. So you weren't lying to me. You weren't lying. No, I appreciate that and now I just suppose I want to know some things. Billy has one more question. Oh, you do. I gave you so much information. I know it's pretty awesome. I want to know Maggie. What do you want most?

Just a way out of this away out of this storm business away to just make things the way they used to be safe. I'm gonna be honest. I'm scared and there was a long time where I was afraid of the U3 and I'm afraid of what you're capable of and I'm afraid of what Perel I suppose was capable of and I don't know what to do. I think you're also afraid that it was some how your fault. It is my fault if I didn't give the box to you three none of this would have happened. No, that's not true.

It was already happening. Yeah, Perel didn't actually make any of this happen. She like looks up as she's still, you know, her brain is still shuffling through the deck of cards that you gave her. Yeah, she's trying to make sense of it. Yeah, like the Perel's like negative aspect went into the waters, but it wasn't causing the floods. It was coming after us to get Perel's body back like the floods were something else. No.

And the torture McCall was coming to the principalities to like spread his influence. So you're telling me after a year of thinking that the three of you were the cause of this problem that you might be the solution to it. Well, solution is a very strong word that we take umbrage to. We do not solution anything. We're kind of just around for a lot of stuff. Like you think that we're cogs in the machine. We're more just spokes in a wheel.

Yeah, or like tape that you might put over a leak or like while you like get the supplies that you need to like actually fix it. A garbage bag in the window of your cart. Just a garbage bag blowing around in the wind. Just showing you how much beauty there is in the world. You know what Maggie? You're not the only one who's trying to be anything other than what you've been trying to be lately. We've been trying to be that too. I just I don't think I know what to do anymore.

Hey welcome to the another round of popcorn shrimp with hollandaise sauce. I'm comfortable doing a little bit of a time jump as she's as you guys just kind of hang and talk for a bit more. Yeah, I think we're like this conversation is like us sorting through sequences of events basically. Okay, so the morning continues as you all explain what you've done since you left and the research that we've been doing. Yeah, like trying to figure out. Oh, you're just giving it up. I'd at this point.

Why why not? Yeah, the only person who's not on our team is Dan. Yeah, Dan is outside still Dan dead to us to clot. Yeah, Dan is outside, but he is taking a concussion nap, which is not a great idea. We should not have let him do that Caroline goes outside and wakes him up and brings him back inside. No get that guy fucking out of here. Caroline might die if I leave him out there. Don't just take him somewhere else. He literally ruins everything. I'm going to take him back to the boat.

Don't yell at me. Okay, fuck you're not the fuck you know she points in your face. You spied on me careful and she leaves. I'm sorry and she leaves with dead. She goes back to the clear water, but you just explain to Maggie kind of what's going on and your research.

There's just like soft music playing like piles of hollandaise and shrimp are just coming to the camera circles around the table as you guys emphatically talk to her showing her is like a little sprout of a tree of wisdom and like describing all Billy's doing little little illusions.

Oh, yeah out scenes and then tuck is trying to do the same thing, but he's doing crude drawing and then it there's like a picture of him and Ruby and then underneath it says sex happen during that Billy covered his eyes for that part of the story I blinders. Yeah, I but not ears. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't look I had to choose one. So you chose not looking at the stick drug Jessica did one eye in one year.

Yeah, the the meal transitions from like breakfast to lunch very obviously point things got to bake potatoes on the bottoms of forks and they're dancing. He's like like this it was like this just like Benny and June. And tuck wheels in a giant whiteboard and he draws a huge circle on it and then he indicates the middle and then he writes the middle of the thing slash the top of the middle and then there's an asterisk and then at the bottom of it says except for bagels and doughnuts.

There's a lamp in the corner that being takes the shade off and it's his spear. He's like pointing to different because he hit his weapon there as a lamp to go weird. Hell yeah, yeah, and she had that like, you know, at some point during this montage, she takes off her armor and Greg packs it away and takes it away. So now she's just in her like civilian clothes. Yeah, she ties her hair up in a big red bun that sits on the top of her head cool.

So cool Billy's a little jealous and he wants to do the same thing. So he's also trying to like push all his hair up in a bun. He puts a bun on the top of his head to roll a dinner roll. We cut away from that montage to a Billy montage inside of the montage where he's doing his hair and it's going. So we're going to do the same thing. So we're going to do the same thing. So we're going to do the same thing. We're going to do the same thing. So we're going to do the same thing.

And something actually that you guys do notice is since you've seen Maggie last her hair has a lot more gray in it than it used to. She's like a middle school teacher that got assigned to the bad class. She's had a she's had a bad year and yeah, at the end of you explaining it's now early afternoon and I want to kind of want to talk to you guys about it because she doesn't know what to do. This is kind of like like a dog chasing a car. I don't know what I do if I ever caught one.

She was like right. She was gunning for you and now she's like shit. They're the only thing she knew like the only things the she thought she had control over was I just have to find them. I just have to find them and like during this this whole morning. She's not been like jovial having a great time. She's been very troubled and she's just she feels listless now.

So she doesn't really know what to do because if you can't fix the principalities like she hoped you somehow could then what does she do? Well, what do you know that we don't know yet because we tried to figure this shit out and it's hard and there's so many pieces of it and it all is really just like crunching in my brain all the time.

It's crunching up against each other and it's so hard to make it all fit and I just want it to fit and so tell me give me my pieces so it'll fit more pieces shit. Okay, let me think that's an appropriate question ask right guys. Yeah. Yeah, what do you know that we don't know? I thought that that was a dual asking shot. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And now I'm like, what do I know that you don't know?

Well, I mean the things the parts that were missing how to get perl is magic back the druid stuff the book that from why it seems like the walls of the worlds are falling apart and shits moving across the dark guard because it's not just the spirit stuff. It's fucking demons are coming through too. Yeah. All right. Okay. All right. Yeah, I can feel some of this in a suppose we have access of course to a lot of caches of information across the principalities.

I haven't really explained to you a lot of the structure of the have I literally not even once. No. Okay. Well, we're kind of like it's kind of like a decentralized sort of system. So not every other mender knows the identity of every other mender. I'm a little bit higher up.

I leave my own cell and I know a few other leaders of other cells, but Caroline Greg Mears definitely Dan don't really know anything outside of their cell, but I've been in contact with some of my colleagues and I've been doing some research and from what we can tell the lack of magic in the world is what kind of started this whole thing with the box and all that whatever the payments were breaking down on the prison and we are now thinking especially now that the storm has been sweeping across the lands and spirit creatures have been crossing over to the material that that lack of magic is also causing the realms, spheres, planes to butt up against each other.

So if that's happening with the spirit realm, it stands to reason that it's happening with the demons as well. Wait, are the fairies coming through too then, Billy? You know, that would make sense. That's why I could probably move into it so easily in the tower. And I've been seeing them so much more. Yeah, you have been. I've been talking to so many shoes. I haven't talked to a shoe for years before that. This spoon. This spoon. He doesn't like being held there. I'm sorry. Billy's a fairy?

Oh yeah, put the ring back on. Put the ring on. Take the ring off. Wow. Caroline didn't tell me that for some reason. Yeah. Did she know? I mean, we don't talk about it that often. I was doing a lot of fairy stuff in the library. Oh, right. Interesting. I'm gonna have to talk to her about that. What else do I know? So that is a potential, that might be a challenge outside the scope of our operation. Kind of fits in if there's a vacuum in the world from the lack of magic.

Yeah, I mean, it's causing an imbalance in stuff everywhere else, and we're trying to just bring a little bit of magic back. Yeah. If the lack of magic is what's causing all this, would bringing all the wizards back fix it? If we could just have what they produced without the individuals, we'd be golden. But it is the individuals, it's ego, it's ambition, it's greed. That's what caused the problems. People. It's the people. But there's always gonna be people.

Not everybody can rewrite reality on a fundamental level at will. Can I… I feel like I want to Spout Lore about this. Yeah, totally. Would this be a time to use the sounding board move to help his Spout Lore? What is it again? I forget how to use it. Dude, I don't know. Yeah. If someone comes to you and just needs to bounce an idea off of you. That's kind of what it was. Is it? Yeah. They get plus two forward when Spout Lore advice. Yeah, so I think that's what it is.

Is that if you come to Ving and you talk to Ving about a thing you're thinking about, you would get a plus two on your Spout Lore. Okay. Maybe you two go outside to check on Black Spire and you talk to Ving about it. Yeah. Like, you seem upset. Let's go take some air. Oh. Fucking fine. And then Tuck like tosses a tray of shrimp at Billy and he's like, can you finish that for me? I'm not hungry anymore. No problem. And we cut out back. You find Black Spire still asleep.

It's been hours and he is still dead asleep next to a pile of shattered barrels. Did he shatter those? I mean, there's no way to tell. He's asleep. Hmm. Yeah. I just I feel like there's no like given everything that Perel told us about wizards, it still feels like the story is one sided. And trying to bring back their magic without them feels like it'll cause more problems. Well, I don't think that it can be done. Yeah, cause Perel told us that magic seeks out a consciousness.

Like it either they're born a wizard, so it latches onto them when they're like little like whatever they are before their babies. Becoming. Yeah, or it gets them later. At a very delicate time in their life. Or it can't find someone and then it just turns into a person. You can't have one without a person. You need a mind. So wizards are magic. Magic is the wizard too. Yeah. Roll. Okay. 2d6 plus intelligence plus your plus two from talking to Ving. Ten. Okay. Something interesting and useful.

So I've all but told you guys kind of what a wizard is, right? Well, kind of. Tell us again, but in very clear terms. As if we're stupid people. We are three years old. Yeah. So basically what it is, is the material plane is a confluence of the spheres. Like I've tried to explain this via like if you had all of the stuff that made bread falling into a sieve, eventually underneath the sieve would be bread dough. That's a worse way to explain it.

I think I was trying to find a way to describe it in like real terms, but it's the material plane, the place that we live. It's a tide pool. Okay. Material plane is a tide pool. Go back to the bread. Back to the bread. But if you think about like the ocean as like the the outer dark it washes in and it leaves water in the pool. Yeah.

Eventually if you think about like crabs and shit as the spirit realm, they come in here and eventually it's like its own thing, but it is a confluence of many other things. The bread. The bread. Let's go back to the bread again. Okay. Back to the bread. But okay. So the realms are being, they were being kept separate by a field that was created by the presence of wizards. In the material plane. In the material plane. They are in the material for whatever reason.

That I can't just give you that information because I don't really, it's like why do fucking stars act the way they do? You know what I mean? It's like magic is like the keystone in the bridge of the universe. Like you know how like you have the middle stone that keeps everything else up. So like all the other planes like pushing in on each other, they like form this central like mush like dough that Jessica just nodded like uh huh. I am really stupid.

So it's like one of this like this spirit world is flour and then over here you've got yeast and that's the fairy realm and then over here you've got uh water and then that's the spiritual realm and then all of those things like like congeal together and then they make the dough of bread that is the material realm. Then that starts to rise and it pushes all the realms apart from one another and the act of rising is the magic. Hmm. Magic is the meniscus.

If you're missing one of them then it doesn't turn out properly. Yeah, exactly. And if you're missing magic then they all kind of like collapse. Collapse like a bridge like a keystone of like the keystone of a bridge. Back to the bread. Back to the bread. The bread was working. Yeah. But like I do imagine like the keystone of a bridge like once you take that out everything starts to collapse towards one another.

And in the meantime before the collapse there's tension so that would be like wars and stuff. Totally. Yeah. It's like a tectonic plate. It's like very unstable. Hmm. And so Yeah. So when they start falling on each other they just fall into each other and throughout. Yeah. And that is probably what's happening in the principalities and will probably start happening in other places eventually. Hmm. But the storm might be pushing it along in the principalities.

And this kind of makes sense because the principalities always felt like it was closer to the spiritual realm because that's mostly where druids are. And like McCall feels like it's closer to the iconic realm because that's where giants used to live. Hmm. So it is attached to individuals. The magic is attached to people too. Yeah. The spirit is attached to the druids. Yeah. Like it can't be a little bit of that. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. So does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

And in that way the idea of the wizard and this is not necessarily a satisfying answer was an accident. Like wizards are just the physical embodiment of that force and they're able to work it the way they want to work it. It's an emergent property. It was a huge it's like consciousness in the brain. Yeah. Exactly. It's just kind of a like it's a necessity of existence but they just also happen to be sentient beings. Well yeah that much like power it kind of congeals into an alive thing. Yeah.

Exactly. I always thought about them as crystals. Yeah. Like they crystallize within magic and that's what the wizard is. And in this in this in the material plane in this timeline in this cycle like if this kind of stuff happens other places at other times you know if this is the only material realm there was something that eventually tipped the individuals where it just the tension became too much and people tipped that first domino and it became this huge unraveling thing.

So what is the useful actionable information there? May's not stupid. So what if we just tell her this? What if we're just like look we talked about it and this is what we think it is. Like this is what magic is this is how it works. She can be part of this conversation too. Yeah.

Oh it's the kind of it's like that Canadian history thing where some politicians at a hotel were having a midnight snack and started talking about an issue and then they started waking up other politicians and they all met in the kitchen. Totally yeah. Yeah it's like Ving and Tuck are talking about this and they're like we should fucking get Maggie we should get her out here and then Billy comes out and Greg is like I have nothing to contribute but I want to see your dragon. Yeah. It's so cute.

Are they all this cute? Yes. Are they? Yes. You've seen more than one dragon. Ving shows him the mother of pearl scale. Turns out Greg has been obsessed with dragons since he was a little kid. He lifts up his shirt and then turns around and there's like a back plate of like the biggest tattoo of a dragon you've ever seen. It's like the airbrushing on the side of a van from the 80s. Totally.

And yeah so you tell Maggie all this and she's involved in this conversation as well and it's like ah well I don't know about y'all but it kind of sounds like the answer is there is no solution and that we are doomed. What if we got the wizards back? What if we got the wizards? How? We're not going to get all the wizards back. That's impossible. We're just saying some of the wizardry. Yeah and we know that not all of them were on board with the fucking Exodus.

And we know there's two around that are trying to bring magic back. Hmm hmm. Okay. I have some information. You remember the box of course. The box that I gave you that you all decided to destroy secretly. Hmm hmm. 100%. Kind of over it. Not really. That is not the only box. Oh fuck. How many do you have? Last I heard the menders were that I'm aware of, the cells I'm aware of, are in possession of two additional boxes. And that's where we're going to end it for this week.

I'm your Game Master Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz. So long. Playing Ving the Half Elf Druid Paul Oppers. Take care. And playing Vat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai. Bye everyone. Thank you as always to Aaron Reid for the intro and outro music that we listen to every time we record. It's just amazing. And thank you to our Patreon supporters around the world. We love and adore you if you would like to Patreon support us.

You can find us at patreon.com slash speltlore where there is hours upon hours of additional bonus content including our Blades in the Dark slash World of Blade game. Speltmore Mall Brats. There is monthly streams. There is postcards and the speltlore almanac and an absolute ton of shit. So check that out. And if you want to find us online we're at speltlore most places. See you next time. And so ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can.

Though dumb and scared and lost they be. For time's abreast in revelry. And though our journey may be light. We will find 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 gladly speltlore.