Episode 28 – The Tunnel

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It's good bonus content I work really fucking hard on it 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 Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight Fingers have health, he shifts his shape and wields a spear with great might Billy's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts So gather up Still doing duolingo Oh, you're still doing duolingo?

No, I'm not, okay The hill'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 barbarian, Abdul Aziz Hello Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers Hola Playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai Hi everyone Paul is still doing his duolingo Stop doing it I will Once he finishes this lesson When last we left our heroes, they took to shore Meeting the goblins of Goblin's Bath During their mating season, aka spring break To the…

2006 Uh, we met the… He's actively doing duolingo You gotta stop doing it I am stopped doing it I'm next to you I haven't heard the… Which means he's doing poorly No This means this lesson's gonna take fucking forever Yay Well done, Paul Uh, we met Bob and Midge Arctic goblin elders Crowned as they were With the salts of…

The goblin bath Mm-hmm Due to the, uh, unusual physiology of the, uh, arctic goblins Which involves them expelling excess salt through their noses Which, uh, crowns their skulls over time So cool And that leads us to the next revelation After being asked if they can help hide the boat Goblin elder Bob got up from his deck chair next to the pool Yeah And with a wave of his hands and much grunting Caused the clear water to vanish Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah!

Uh, it turns out that the goblins here have some sort of limited mastery over magic Due to their lifestyle living deep, deep in those magical arctic waters Pretty cool Consuming them, consuming the salt and, uh, wreathing themselves in it So cool The party was then informed via Billy having a conversation with a skimboarder That, uh, their intense, intense kindness and hospitality Is primarily or exclusively Due to the fact that mating season is considered a kind of neutral time Where everybody gets together and is cool and helpful and nice But once mating season is over All bets are off They turn into monsters again They, they do their, they go back to their old feuds They start fighting and scrapping They attack, uh, people for their goods Like they live the regular old lifestyle that we have seen in goblins Uh, in the principalities at the very least So we have eight days Yeah To get, get to the townhouse To the water tower and back Look, it's hard up in the north You can't be passive You gotta take what you need up here The party hopped onto the thunderbirds And, uh, took to the skies Heading towards Adernack All Waters Tower Billy lost all the food Opened a bag and it all flew out the back Oh, right Yeah Yep It's like the marshmallow experiment But with a bag of fucking fish It's all gone The second we ascended, I asked, I asked Tuck Uh, are we there yet?

And he said no And then I was like, we may never get there I'm opening this bag right now Oh yeah, Billy, Billy collected a bunch of beach glass And found in the glass, uh, an obsidian knife So cool A small paring knife I love it Sized blade With a bronze handle I'm gonna write it down so I don't forget Uh, the party took to the skies Traveling on the backs of Cloudpiercer and Gale Uh, towards Adernack All Waters Tower Seeing on their way a jagged peak Of a man who was a man of his word Emerging from the snow And at the top of the peak A creature known as a lyre wolf A massive canine Capable of mimicking its surroundings Mm-hmm And known for their intense pride Uh, said to be a curse From an old god Forcing them to live a life of solitude Uh, Ving decided Hey, let's go see if this wolf knows what the dealio is So he, uh, fell backwards Off a bird And landed in front of the wolf Knowing that the wolf was a man of his word Knowing that their pride was their defining character trait Turned into a wolf of similar size But made of the moon Howled and rolled around on his back Showing how cool the other wolf was Yeah, really made himself a beta Yeah, and it worked Yeah, thus becoming the alpha The true alpha is the beta Yeah Of the alpha And asked if he knew of Adernack All Waters Tower To which the wolf replied I do And that is where we end up Ving Would you be willing to take me And my friends The wolf returns to his regal position Now you having proven how much of a beta you are How willing you are to cuck yourself In front of this mighty wolf Ving's eyes are darting side to side Oh god, I hope Tux ain't listening to this Yeah We all have the We all have the rings on Yeah He's looking at him just twirling the ring And he's thinking Fuck, fuck, fuck They heard all of that He says I will show you the way In return You must offer me a shame What?

Whoa Tell me Of your most shameful moment So that I may know That I am better than you So there's so few things to choose from He says twirling the ring on his finger He He holds up a paw One shame will do Ving tells the wolf the tale of Years and years ago When he was looking for his father Came upon an encampment of this They're called the Frenzy And they were like a subgroup Of his father that used them They're almost like kind of berserker types Oh And was Wanted information from them And in this time was very This is right after he found out About his death About his dad killing his mom And he turned into a polar bear And murdered Whoa I thought he was just there For intimidation They fought And he Went at them with white hot rage And killed a lot of these Frenzy warriors And it was very awful Terrifying That sucks Yeah Bloody Thing And he's always felt a lot of shame About that Because he was just trying to get information And he realized that Oh no I'm the bad guy here And the wolf listens to this And He's like I'm the bad guy here Raises himself up You see his like fur bristling a little bit And he licks his paw He says yes Pathetic Okay These wolves suck Very well I will show you The way He's done the same thing But he just didn't ever feel bad about it That's the part that he's like That's the shameful part Is that you were like regretted murdering men Exactly Totally Yeah You took the life of those lesser than you And that is why you're a bad guy That is why you shame That is your shame Shame on your shame The strong destroy the weak It is the way of life Okay Yeah But because you have cucked yourself so before me I will show you the way to the glacier Come back to us for a second Yeah Billy and I are just doing cat's cradle On the back of Gale Billy reaching out to me His little hands into the middle of the thing To go whoop Oh you did it I did it Only like after 14 tries What are you doing?

I can't see I can't see it She's turning in circles Whoa Whoa Whoa Gale is so intrusive It's hilarious I love that she's so intrusive She's able to break into mental connections She's so forceful Gale force Gale force Yeah The only thing she does is She does it for his To get attention Yeah Oh man Gale's so funny Yeah So that is what the wolf says He is willing to show you the way to the glacier Thank you Do not thank me It does not become you I am great Yes One day you may believe that I'm super top of the world Too much Reel it back a little bit I'm better than you Well Now hold on son I am the tundra come alive I am the cave made flesh I am the howling winds and the biting cold Amazing That is amazing Thank you I've been practicing I can tell You have a lot of practice time Look at my fur as it changes colors That's great And he moves back and forth and he changes colors That is one thing If you're like up against like environments It's shockingly hard to see these things Like you can see their eyes glint sometimes But that's pretty much it Wow So cool The one thing that the lyre wolf cannot mimic Is the blue sky of day Oh That is our curse Why is that?

Who cursed you? What is your shame? Our shame is that when moon came to earth And waged war on men The wolves refused to do so And cursed her call That's sick So cool Oh my god It was cool So did she like banish them to the night? Oh my god Should we warn them? Can we land so we can have this conversation with her? Tell your friends to come down here Guys it's cool I'll just say you're done with the ring That's what we're saying from above Did she banish you?

Just like Yeah So then you relay back to Cloudpiercer That the thunderbirds can bring everybody else down And they make a big Big deal of it And then you see a wide arcing turn Through the air Before alighting on the cliffside And Maggie hops down With Tuck and Billy And Perel falls onto the snow Face first And gets up rubbing both his calves really fast His calves?

Yeah he's rubbing his calves They're asleep My calves are asleep I'm gonna work on my thighs after my calves And Billy and Tuck You see Ving standing In front of the This like Huge cave mouth And It takes you a second to realize What you're looking at But he's also standing in front of A gigantic wolf Holy fuck It was a Time of blood And a time of strife So your howling is a wailing It is a call A Killing An apology Us begging the moon To allow us back into her embrace Whoa Cool But it is not to be And he turns his head away And he looks into the corner of his cave We must bear our shame Until the moon itself is destroyed The other moon There's a destroyed moon already But the other one someday Ving does his best To not look anything like the moon No I like it I have not spied the moon's light For many many months Are you guys not allowed to look at the moon?

We cannot perceive her glory What you can't see it? No It is our curse Whoa That's cool It is cool So goth Thank you We are tragic creatures I started off being like This guy's gonna be really serious But the voice is too funny It's so funny Well the guy started having like Jordan Peterson vibes Right at the beginning of the show At the gate But this is a lot more accessible And I just say cock Because it's such a funny word to say So you wish to go to the tower? Mm-hmm What seek you here?

The wizard The wizard If I could spit I would I understand that is what humans do When they are disgusted Why don't you like wizards? The fuck? Foul magics of the wizards Revolt me and my kind Magic is to flow through the earth Through the sky Through the clouds In the dark Not to be worked by mortal men Ooh Cool So can you use magic too? What thinks you make this possible? And he disappears In front of a rock wall Where'd he go? Where'd he go?

And he opens his eyes I am here Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Look at it hiding Wow I am much better than all of you at it Except you mighty birds I respect your Your Um What's the fuck? Eyes Hold on Language fella I respect your inferiority to me Because the cloud is your domain And you look like the cloud And that's pretty cool But still Pathetic What is your name?

I need not be called I need not be called I am not a name I am one and all I am thought I am action I am victory Victor Sick Yeah Paul named him instantly Victor Your name is Victor Your name is Victor now No It is not Victor Okay So There are ways To displace Many We go over land Across the desert Great white Dangerous For all but me I am the best Okay Or we go below Into the tunnels The old ice Dig through the heart of the earth Whoa Whoa That sounds cool dude Is safer For body But not for mind Well we don't have those so Yeah We're all pretty stupid Minus one mind Yeah How close are we?

How many days travel?

For me Nothing Okay For you 1.5 Maybe two Okay Okay That is a long time Kind of Two days there Two days back That's four days That only gives us Yeah I would give you Give you four days To fuck around in the tower Okay Hopefully you're not Held longer than that Okay so So either Over land Is fast But dangerous Okay Many threats In the tundra There's many threats But not many Back at the beach Yes Those goblins There's so many threats Oh the goblins Oh Yeah Oh Have you seen them?

Yes Their flesh is disgusting Yeah And they are Going at it Like crazy right now They stink of magic Ugh Don't you have magic though?

He's different He's different I'm just It's kind of hard To pin down your ideology It's kind of All over the place All over the place Oh really You meet me for first time And have five minute conversation Expect to understand Everything about Okay This is why you're pathetic Okay That's fine Your accent's All over the place too Look I'm trying okay What was It's more like this More Like right?

Am I doing kind of Oh no it's pretty It's good It's good It's static Just wanted to make sure I wasn't getting too far away From my cars Okay I'm just Okay So Across the tundra Across the great white Oh man What do you guys Let's talk Okay Underground would be kind of cool For sure Yeah Time It takes more time Yeah And then we don't get the birds We'd have to leave the birds anyway I think if we went into the tower Yeah Even if we got from air I also I think the excuse of That we could be seen Coming in By land or air Yeah Makes sense We could find other Cool magic stuff On the way If we go underground Yeah And honestly like Gail's getting Pretty handsy She is In a very confusing way I don't want to get into How she's getting handsy Okay Or why it's confusing to me And he's like He's saying this to you guys In secret He's like I just kind of want A break from Gail And it's just I know the tunnels Are more dangerous For our minds And it will take A little bit longer But like I kind of want to break From Gail Yeah let's take the tunnels Don't tell her That I said that Because she'll get weird About it She can hear you In my mind Okay To the tunnels Let's do it The tunnels Okay Say your goodbyes Your pathetic goodbyes And then meet me At Mouth of Cotano Cave Okay dude I will go Steal myself Alone Sorry That was too much I will go steal myself Alone Okay It is my curse And then he goes and walks Into the cave So I hug the birds goodbye Goodbye Small Billy Goodbye Bye Bye And I throw my bird seed On the ground And they both go Look And start pecking at it Oh my god You've had this the whole time Billy you had this the whole time Yeah It was for when you landed Oh my god There's a caraway in here Thank you so much Of course Should we meet you at the tower Or wait for you to come For your return here Oh maybe meet us there We might need a quick extraction Very well Yeah I'll call you And he nods We will fly high High above the clouds Far from any sight And we will come When you need us We will arrive When you need us And they take a couple Awkward bird steps back On the cliffs Yeah And extend their wings And woof Into the skies Yeah Billy falls over From the force of the wind Billy's rolled backwards Billy comes up Like a little bird Like a little snowball Cause he got rolled across Majestic Yeah Yeah just a hand hand foot foot Yeah I love it when they do that And you go and you meet Victor In the cave Pretty classic wolf cave Skeletons and shit Mostly animal Mostly animal Okay Scary There's like a A huge skeleton That thing you would recognize As like a rhinoceros Whoa Whoa Did you hunt that yourself I did Wow Wow The beasts of the tundra Are very dangerous But they are no match for me They're so strong And swift And invisible It is my curse This is a caribou That I also killed Cool Wow He's giving you a tour Of all his bones Yes This is about 50 to 60 Small foxes Wow There's so many furs There are I like the way It feels And this is a whale How did you kill a whale How do you think I killed a whale You drowned it I found it Yes And I brought it Back to my cave Wow You're so strong I am Did you say It was here When I got here This might have been The whale's cave first And he leads you To the back of the cave And It starts going Down Into the rock Cool Oh cool These tunnels were dug Long ago By I know not what But they connect Many places In the north Can I use Spout Lore To try and figure out Who built these tunnels Yeah totally I have a negative One intelligence But I also have Fount of knowledge So can I take a plus one Right that's the one If nobody else knows Yeah Okay then yeah Totally He literally just said I know not Who built this Cave Yeah you got me You buttonholed me on that Yeah I'll buttonhole you Tonight dude Oh man I can't wait bro Wow No wonder We're not doing A fourth episode Gotta get some Buttonholing done I gotta save some Of my energy For buttonholing Tonight Okay 26 plus Intelligence plus one Guys try and bless These dice Bless Bless Bless Here we go For smart things Five Wow Holy shit Okay So So The one thing That you do know Is that it doesn't seem Like these were carved Okay As you start to Enter the tunnels Like Like they're naturally Formed They seem to be Naturally formed They're old waterways That makes sense Oh So the tunnels As you're descending Like you basically Go through stone And then You enter into What seems to be Like ice Like solid ice Blue clear Dark Uh yeah Blue clear and dark Kind of ripply Maybe Like so it Seems like there aren't Like tool marks Or anything like that Like these were Naturally formed likely Or Some process You don't understand Yeah Maybe grown Could be Could be Uh and you begin Walking down the tunnels Vic leading the way I assume that you all Have your various light sources I was gonna say It's so dark down here But I always forget You have 50 sources of light The light goes into the ice Yeah That's what I'm thinking It like glows And bounces off Illuminating like Designs and like Lines and things Somebody goes around a corner And it's really cool To see through Yeah And you can see You can see your own reflections Like refracted Through the ice Oh cool Yeah If he stops for a second Just give him A little pep talk After all that shaming He did From the wolf Just like You know You're pretty cool dude Giving himself a pep talk You got this You got this bro Don't let that wolf get to you So yeah What do you guys do?

You're just walking along That's it Said it's gonna be 1.5 to 2 days I'd like to discern realities And see if there's any Faster way we can do this I was thinking of doing Some sort of sledge Or some slide Is there any Inclination to this? Can we sled Or can we turn this Into a giant tube ride?

That's what would be Ideal If we could take An inner tube Down this tunnel Like a sled dog Sort of situation Like dog We could make something Yeah you don't have to Roll for that necessarily If you could convince Victor to Drag you He could probably Go faster If he would It's hard to say If he would Hey Victor I bet you couldn't Pull us through here Yeah Yeah 2d6 plus charisma 9 Yeah I'll help And Tuck is like Yeah man Dude We're way too Fucking buff and big I don't I'm in a bulk phase I'm kind of huge No one could pull me And I'm a simple cuck Yeah And he's got the Fattest cuck Ever Cause Tuck doesn't know What that word means Yeah Plus bond 9 Okay Nice That makes it a 10 Woohoo So you say I bet you couldn't pull us And Vic stops And turns around And says What did you say?

I'm just saying Of course I could Uh huh Don't even finish Your sentence You're foolish To think I couldn't Pull you Could you even Pull us all the way?

I mean Oh I could pull you To the fucking stars And back No fucking way So far I don't have to Prove myself to you But just in case I had to prove myself Maybe I'd do this Maybe I say Get a rope out Rope And maybe I say Get like a bag Or something I'll lay down some furs Okay Then hold on To the rope Yeah okay And if I had to do it I would do it like this This is never gonna work guys And he takes it in his mouth There's no way Only the strongest wolf Ever would be able to do this Hold on to your ass Idiot And he starts to run And he's dragging you guys along And you're zipping down this tunnel Great Whoa Can we discern realities As like We're zipping through?

Absolutely Yeah 2d6 plus wisdom I got a six Nice Okay so Uh Oh wait Can we help?

Oh yeah Oh yeah Yeah yeah You can help Uh I like I wanna help Billy Look around While we're being ripped through it By just holding him steady Yeah Cause I was about to fly off Yeah It's really hard To look around Like a steadicam Yeah Just holding his head in place Yeah Like a GoPro Yeah Just attach him to my head Yeah Eight Eight Okay so that makes it a seven and nine Which means you get one question From the list Awesome I wanna know What here is not what it appears to be Are Maggie and Perrault with us?

Uh yeah I guess they would be Yeah Okay Perrault do you feel anything down here?

Um It feels like Like Electric Yeah that's an interesting question I guess he probably would But only a little bit Cause it like The time that he was like Oh man I'm really connected to this stuff Was when he was like Drunk on the The magic booze But he's just like Yeah I'm I feel something Just like Ugh You know Like ugh And he's just like Gripped onto Tuck's waist Like he's a terrified teenager Riding a moped with his friend So what's the orientation on this sledge?

It's me with Perrault behind me And then Maggie behind Perrault Uh huh And Ving in the front Yeah He's got one foot up on the rope That's attached to the wolf He's so extended like that So Billy on the back? Billy is wrapped around Tuck's forearm Yeah Yeah Okay Yeah!

And then Tuck is holding onto Ving's leg Yeah Perfect Perfect Yeah I can't take anything wrong with this It's like the cover of Star Wars basically Yeah Yeah exactly So yeah you are Fucking ripping ass through this tunnel And you look around into the ice And you start seeing like images And the images resolve into landscape Like you see The snowy white tundra You see this barren land And uh As you Continue through the tunnels You take quite a deep dip Like down through the ice And you see the colors and the ice change And the light refract in different ways Oh yeah He's like He's running through Yeah Yeah He's like doing like the skids up the sides Yeah I was picturing that too I mean like Whoa Yeah Yeah And you see the images around you like Shift and change You see Days, months, years pass The sun rise and set The coronet reforms into a moon And shatters again Whoa And armies march across the tundra Blood as far as the eye can see from it And it's just There's so much happening around you Look This is the history of this place Written in the ice Wow Billy's having like war flashbacks right now Yeah Whoa Steal your mind This is time itself You are but the stone in the river of ages Whoa My god This wolf comes out with some cool shit For such a weirdo Uh so everybody's gonna As you're like all looking into these Images You feel Your mind Trying to like Reckon With all of the things that you're seeing You're like fighting madness kind of Yeah exactly Yeah I was imagining almost It almost like as we were running We would get flashes It would be like tunnel And then flash to like A different time And then Flash flash flash Until it's like Just continuous like We're not really in the tunnel anymore And like we feel ourselves being stretched across The entirety of Yeah All of history This is a real Willy Wonka in the tunnel Right Yes On the boat There's no earthly way of knowing Which direction we are going Yeah Yeah That's what the wolf is saying There's no earthly The schnozberries taste like schnozberries Uh so everybody's gonna have to roll something Yeah Constitution Tell me how you're Tell me how you're trying to Yeah Deal with this Onslaught Of mental stress You have to stay like present basically So It's a lot of like Alright I can feel this I can smell this So I know I'm here I'm not actually Back then Yeah I would say that's Because it's the sensory kind of Stat I'd say that's 2d6 plus 1d6 Plus wisdom Sure Yeah cause you're dealing with Your PTSD From the war Yeah Yeah Cause yeah you see like Battles that you fought Like you immediately recognize Battlefields as like I was there You might be in The imagery here Yeah Oh maybe yeah That'd be cool 10 Oh hell yeah And yeah you do a Body scan basically I basically do a body scan What's your like Three things you can see Two things you can smell Yeah and like I can smell Corn chips And Tuck's beard And He's got a lot of perfume In his beard I think from Victoria It's beard oil It's also to cover up The corn chips Yeah I can I can I can smell Tuck's forehead And I can feel Tuck's forehead I'm on Tuck's forehead I'm on Tuck's forehead So sweaty I think it's my sweat And you Our sweats are one Yeah And you do away With these images You accept the events That you took part in And then you file them away In the infinite Memory palace Of Billy's mind Yeah Ving Yes Time Is a fleeting thing And your friends around you They'll come and go What are you gonna have When you're all alone I was thinking that Ving's Maybe just gonna give into it A little bit Ooh Ride it out Yeah This is a real This too shall pass Moment for him Yeah Absolutely wisdom Yeah 2d6 was wisdom Oh no Yeah I failed Jesus fuck I got six total So that makes sense Cause I tried to just Not fight it Yeah totally So maybe Ving gets a little Loopy in this tunnel Oh yeah Just getting overwhelmed By the isolation Of like knowing that You will be alone again One day Uh yeah Eons unfold before you Blossoming like a flower The infinite Reach of time Pupils Dilating into moons Yeah My Pupils go White As the moon Oh As the moon As the moon Has endured for millennia And will endure for millennia more So shall you Oh there's The phases Of the moon Are crossing over my eyes As the lights are changing In their Time passing And you see You see the time Going forward Forward and forward And forward Hundreds of millions Of years Till eventually The earth itself Falls away All that remains Is the moon I look down And I'm standing But not with feet With roots I'm rooted As a tree On the moon Tuck and Billy You see this As Ving is like Stock still in front of you Uh huh You see Roots Descend From his long Grey hair Whoa And start to crawl Down his body And you see them start Reaching towards the ice Whoa Uh Take my little Obsidian dagger Ooh Yeah Sick What do you do with it?

Um I hand it to Tuck It's It's miniature in your hands It looks a lot bigger In my hands Uh Can I use An ear for magic To figure out How to stop this? Yeah Yeah I think so When you hear an enemy Cast a spell The GM will Tell you the name Of the spell And it's effects Take plus one forward When acting on the answers Right so we basically just Talk about what it is Cause we don't have Named spells So what is happening To Ving right now?

What's happening is that Ving is losing it It's the effect That the tunnels Are having on him And that is causing him To react in a way That is attempting To like root himself In the right now Okay But literally My corporeal form My earth Yeah Sense is trying to The vessel of Ving Is trying to be like We are unmoored Yeah I'm trying to take root Exactly Yeah But what that would mean Is stopping this Sled dead Yeah Losing the wolf Maybe Victor's going really fast Yeah Yeah Okay That's what you do I take the obsidian knife That Billy gave me And I stab Ving So he can feel his body Okay Nice Yeah That works great Uh My boner goes away Immediately Yeah I also was thinking Of that crystal baby Yes I've got wood Uh 2d6 plus dexterity I take Billy's knife And I try and give you Like a little nick On the arm To like Wake you back up Cause I was like I was saying your name And you couldn't hear me Shaking me Doesn't do anything Yeah Ving Ving Four Shit Okay Nice Okay Uh yeah So you can roll a d10 Ten Ving Fuck I have two armor So eight Eight yeah And you take eight damage As Tuck reaches forward To give you this little cut On the arm And is jolted forward A little bit By the sled And just stabs you In the Like the tricep Shit And thankfully It's only a little Pairing knife So it's in and out But you are like Brought back To the real world So quickly Oh my god By the searing pain In your bicep And Tuck's like Sorry Sorry Sorry You stabbed me You were going crazy Dude Oh I'm going crazy You just fucking Stabbed me On the rollercoaster Yeah Ving You look down And you see these roots On your body Start to dry And wither And fall away Did I have dreads For a second What was going on Yeah I was giving it to you To cut the dreads off And Tuck's like I couldn't hear you I'm sorry I'm sorry too Why'd he stab Ving Ving It's a whole situation Up here Uh Tuck you Take this Now that you've You're dealing with Bleeding Ving You kind of Give the knife back to Billy And you start looking around And you see All this time start to pass How does Tuck Manage this I think It starts flashing Faster and faster And he feels Like the tunnel Stretch out to infinity The end of the tunnel Is just a burning tree Oh It's He can see Like The burning tree The path that he is on In time Everything Terminates at the burning tree No matter where he goes So how's he dealing with that I think he's just doing What he always does Which is Like the unencumbered Unharmed thing Oh the unbowed Unbent unbroken Right Unbowed unbent unbroken Uh When you Prepare Yourself To endure some hardship Without fighting back Roll plus con On a hit You either take half the damage Or you can completely ignore One of the Other I'll effect On a ten plus You defeat Expose Or frustrate Your oppressor With your stubbornness So I guess I I'm looking I guess I'm looking Directly at the burning tree And I'm just going like It's fine It's fine You always knew It was gonna end Somehow It's fine Yeah That's so cool Okay Roll it 2d6 plus constitution Nine Nine Okay I want to aid Okay Okay Okay Okay Just aiding by being beside him Yeah Nice And being present 2d6 plus bond Six Okay Not so good Not so good Okay Unless we want to try a bond An aid on an aid So I can aid his aid?

We've done this before Yeah we did it at the end of season six It happens so rarely I think it's This is a weird internal thing It's not a big mechanic Like it Yeah Ten Okay So ten makes Ving's failure a seven Yes Tuck your Ten There's a ton There's a ton and you look directly into the burning tree, into your foretold doom, and you see standing beneath the burning branches, another. And that is the last thing you see. What? Gone from your sight.

I want to Spout Lore on the burning tree before it goes away. A shadow of a person? A silhouette? Not how visions work, buddy. Not how visions work. Fuck. But what if that is how they work? Interesting. Interesting. Interesting theory. Sean, hear me out. We're all making all of this up. So Spout Lore wouldn't make sense. Okay. Because this is a portent of some kind. Mm-hmm. Discern realities also wouldn't make sense because it's like a flash of a fragment of time.

You know, it's not really a thing you could examine. Just tell me what the other figure looked like. It looks like a person. Does it look like me? Two arms, two legs. You very much get the idea that it's not you. Okay. Yeah. And then it's gone. What happened? What happened with Maggie and Perel? Maggie has like a haunted look in her eyes and Perel is crying. Oh. We're good. We're good. We're good. Perel is like sad crying. Very sad crying. And he's trying to hide it now.

He's trying to like wipe it away as fast as possible. But his eyes are beet red. And Maggie's like ashen faced basically. But she's like, it's fine. We're good. We did it. Let's go. Okay. And Victor is like, you have survived the trials and tribulations of the tunnel. And Vic continues running through the tunnel. Do we want to do a perilous journey for like the stretch? Yeah, I'd do it. Okay. We'll do navigate and scout ahead.

We might not need to do manage provisions just yet unless we decide to make camp down here. So who's going to scout ahead and who's going to navigate? I'll scout because I'm staying at the front of the sled. Sounds good. Billy, maybe you should navigate. I don't feel great. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So navigate is 2d6 plus intelligence and scout ahead is 2d6 plus wisdom. Okay. I have head beam moon eyes right now. Ooh. Uh, nine. I also got nine. Okay. So yeah, Victor continues on through the tunnels.

Rip an ass fucking mock for his wolf is hauling. And it's a confusing site from behind because like you can't see him necessarily. He will blend into the tunnel around him. Oh yeah. And you can't see past him. Right. So it just, you have no idea what's coming up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Feeling of like the passage of time is like lifted like as soon as the cavern becomes bigger and you see in like one uh far away corner of this massive cavern as if it was tossed aside a keep like a stone building whoa smashed into a corner of the cavern grown into and over the walls but like almost cast aside by the ravages of time so it's an old building that was frozen into this cavern yeah looks like vink pulls the um the bell to stop the bus and vick screeches to a halt we fly past him yeah it takes a while for him to stop because he's going so fast slide yeah why have you stopped me I'm running so fast have you been here before this place yes pass through what do you know of that building that's me mimicking spitting like humans do when they hate things you hate it I hate it it stinks of magic and tuck starts running towards perl shoves you yeah right perl shoves against tuck but gets pushed away so steady no talk I want to see it first can I roll to get there first yeah sure 36 plus uh strength I guess uh 14 yeah you congratulations and perl did that to himself yeah you got the 14 was perl's own actions yeah but you get there first congratulations everybody gets there shortly after you I start digging through it trying to find something good before anyone else does uh so you're digging through and as I hear people coming behind me I go get back I'm gonna roll discern realities yeah great great uh nine nine okay tuck you wanna you didn't know we can no I'm gonna just roll certain realities by myself okay then you're gonna roll discern realities by yourself okay then you're gonna wait no you're gonna wait eight great you did more poorly if you'd helped ving that would have been a ten can he say after the fact that he's helping nope sorry you made it very clear that you were not helping when I asked tuck to help me look through here he said no and he closes his eyes I pushed I pushed ving wow yeah all my street kid instincts kicked in because I saw a pile of garbage oh my god so billy found that really cool knife yeah that's true oh I bet he's all triggered again because billy found like the the knife the knife of rian as well it was right knife and then now we I don't have the knife anymore because we gave it a fucking cloud piercer right and then billy's the only one that found anything fucking cool and the you stabbed me with it yeah and now you're like I want to find a cool knife I want to find a cool knife and then maybe give it to ving as an apology for stabbing him uh-huh what's valuable or useful here magic something magic-y it's gotta be I mean it does seem like perel even is like approaching this place very warily there's there's this is something something terrible happened here I want to go in this building uh so the thing is that you can't really okay you see a building but there's chunks of snow and ice that are blocking the doorway and tuck now that you're there and you're fucking well actually what's your question oh I know what here is useful or valuable to me before ving so you are you're really uh digging your fucking way through and the partial success is because every time ving walks up I push I go get out of here in a way he pushes on my arm where he stabbed me oh and then we get into a little fight and I'll give him a little you know a little pinch that you do on your like siblings that hurts so much just with your nails I knew you in the balls so hard It's so hard you hear them clack.

It sounds like two pool balls smacking together. Makes the Chinese ball sound. You start pulling away at stone and ice in this collapsed gatehouse. And some of it falls away deeper into the ice. So you think that there are openings behind this that you could access, but it would be very dangerous. Can I trap expert or should I let go? No, trap expert is great. Should I let them finish discern realities? No, they finished. They only got one question each because they decided to fight each other.

Okay, so Billy's the only mature one in the group right now. I'm holding you responsible for this as well. Okay, 2d6 plus I think dexterity for trap expert. Yeah. Seven plus two, nine. Nice. Is there a trap here? And if so, what activates it? So there is a trap in that it's very unstable. Right? Yeah. And what activates it is not any current action. It's fucking around too much in here. So you could potentially get in. You could find some stuff. You could learn some things.

It's like ancient stone. I could crumble. Okay. It's kind of being held together by the ice that it's embedded in. Yeah, it's being held together by the fact that no one is fucked with it in God knows how long. So the way in lies before you tuck is basically uncovered a hole. Okay. Into the ice. And I go, guys, look. Okay. It's like a hole. A hole. You found it. I found it. I slip in. 2d6 plus dexterity to do it gracefully. I don't even touch the sides. I go 14. Whoa. Holy shit. Right through.

Boom. And you see the whole floor like whoa. Oh yeah. It glows with moonlight as you illuminate a really aggressively angled and collapsed stone fortification of some kind. Like this looks like it was made for practicality. Instead of art. It's all like old heavy beams, just stonework that was like chopped bricks out of like dark granite and then mortared together.

But at this jaunty angle in which everything that might have been in this room at one time has been like smashed down to a side and then half filled with ice and snow. Do I recognize anything? Can I discern realities or should I? Yeah, go ahead and discern realities. Okay. I'd like to discern realities. Plus wisdom. I got seven. Seven. I got one question. What here is valuable and useful to us?

So in a very D&D dungeon way, you see through the ice that is sort of like frozen part of this place in time, a heavy iron banded wooden chest frozen in the ice. Cool. But then you also see shapes around it. Are they moving? No, absolutely not moving. How deep under the ice is the chest? Pretty deep. It's like you can see it only because this ice is so clear. Yeah. Okay. It's probably 15, 20 feet of ice. That deep? Yes. Wow. Yeah. He looks at his spear. He looks at the ice, looks at his spear.

I don't know. He remembers he can summon fire. Yeah. I guess I could manipulate it into water. Yeah. Even just a tunnel towards. I like it. I'm going to try it. Okay. Elemental mastery. Okay. Okay. I got eight. Okay. So you get one. Okay. Well, I'm going to try it. Okay. Well, the effect I desire comes to pass. Which is turning the ice to water so you can get the chest. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

And you turn the ice around the chest to water, reaching out before you, creating this like tube of liquid between you and the chest, which starts to like . It's kind of like stepping into Stargate. Yeah, exactly. And you step through the water and the chest also kind of floating up towards you a little bit. And you're able to grab it. But then you're like, as you're going back up the tunnel, you're like, man, I made this thing so roomy. Wait, did I make it this roomy?

And then you realize all of the ice around you is turning to water. And this entire place is starting to just like fill with ice cold Arctic seawater. Shit. And Billy and Tuck, you and Maggie and Perel are standing around the entrance of this place. Tuck, confident, comfortable in the fact that you got your chest. Yeah. And Tuck is saying that he's like, I think we can all agree, regardless of what Ving is doing in there, I'm the one that got here first. So I have dibs on whatever's in there.

Cause I said dibs when I got here. I wonder what Ving's doing in the hole that I found. Just want to let you know, I found the hole. Yeah. Maggie, did you know that you found the hole? Yeah, I did. I did. You kept, you keep talking about it. Yeah. Yeah. But like, whose hole is it really? That's a good question. I can't remember who found this hole. It was me. Perel says, I found the hole everybody. Guys, are you freaking kidding me? I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

Are you fucking kidding me? Perel, you did find the hole. Thank you. Thank you so much. You start shaking everybody's hands. Fuck this. You guys are being assholes right now. I found the hole first. Tuck, thank you for your support. I couldn't do it. Bubbling water. Let my hand go. It was so awesome that you helped Perel dig the hole. I gonna, I am going, I'm, I'm going to fucking lose my mind at you guys. Perel, your hole's going to kill us all, Ving says as he's coming in.

Ving pops his head up out of the hole as the ice around it starts to like melt and turn to water. It's like coming out of a hole in the ice. Oh my God. Holy shit. And as, as like the greater piece of ice, like that the hole was adjacent to, melts away, a humanoid form is revealed. Whoa. Grotesque, kind of a blue gray, crystalline growths all over its hands and its arms. Whoa. Revealing a twisted human form and I'll fitting armor, massive hulking shape, completely dead. Whoa.

And the water melt or the ice melts and reveals another and another. Until there's like half a dozen of these creatures under the ice. I grab Ving and I pull him away from the melting ice. Yeah. Here, I got you this. Slam down the huge chest. And Tuck feels about two inches tall right now. But then Ving says, I bet you feel two inches tall right now. And then Vick is like, truly the greatest way to be superior to other is kindness. One tear.

He's like, I thought this large brute was being superior by staking his claim and being violent. But this skinny effeminate man is still the Swinton of a person. And the ice continues to melt. And it's clear that the ice inside this gatehouse was holding it up in a way where as eventually the, the stones themselves begin to melt. Yeah. And it's starting to collapse in on this structure. Guys, as per usual, elemental mastery, uh, is just a name. I do not have mastery over the elements.

We need to get the hell out of here. Elemental amateur. So do we all like throw ourselves onto the, the, the fur again? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Vick goes, you have failed pathetic thing. I knew you would, but it's time to go now because I am at risk. Yeah. So Tuck grabs the chest and he drags it back to the. What is that? And Tuck is like, it is another challenge to your strength. The Vic. That is nothing to me. Get on the far.

Also, you can keep calling me Victor if you want, I suppose, pathetic creature. And he grabs the rope and starts running you back out of the tunnel. And you see, as you turn around, like one of these like humanoid hands, like Bob up out of the water. Oh, geez. And you see Victor being dragged further down by the stone. And Victor continues on through the tunnel, drags you along for the remainder of the day, basically. But he eventually comes trotting to a halt.

Says, I've made it to my destination in a day. I'm sure you are impressed. Wow. Whoa. I'm, I'm actually impressed. Thank you. I'm glad to hear that you've seen the things for what they are. My superiority. I wish you didn't have to say actually, but they'll take it. Actually was a little pointed, but okay. And here we are at the tower of the wizard. Cool.

He throws his head in the direction of, uh, like, it looks like a, a mouth of teeth, basically, like stalactites and stalagmites of ice flowing into each other, creating these bars. There's a gap in between some of them, but so narrow that like even Billy couldn't just fit through. Billy, the widest of all of us. Not possible for Billy. And he goes, our agreement has been fulfilled. I've brought you here. Now I will take my leave of you pathetic things. Please don't go. I must though.

I am cursed to be alone. Well, I'll be sad to see you go, I guess. What? No. Yeah. You're so soft. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're so soft. So cute. I like gingerly pet him. He like tenses up when you reach out to touch him. Such fluffy ears. Maybe I will stay for a little bit. But only because I am choosing to. I will wait outside the gate. Oh, of course.

And I choose leisure. I choose to lay down here on this ice and relax. And Tuck arranges the furs that we rode in on so that it's like kind of a comfortable comfy zone. And I was like, if you want to. I will. But I'm because I'm taking it from you. Okay. Because of my superior powers. Sure. Yeah. Oh, I wish I had this now. Oh, I bet you do. Pathetic cock. All right. Jesus. It's a word I heard a long time ago from some trackers and I've used it because it feels powerful.

And Tuck's like, okay, here's some jerky. I'm like, okay. I'm like, okay. Jerky. Jerky, eh? Okay. All right. I shall be here until I choose not to be. You're your own wolf. I am. And now I slumber. Then he lays his head down and you hear him start snoring right away. And you're standing before this gate of ice. Perel is like walked up to it and put his hands on the ice. It's cold. So cold. And then Tuck's like, Maggie, you're the one that knows. Like this is the only place I can go.

I'm like, I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. Maggie, you're the one that knows. Like this is a Mender Vault, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a Mender Vault. Is this, do you know how to get in through this gate? Oh, um, if I'm being honest, I just know about this vault. I've never actually been inside it. Okay, what do you know about this vault?

I know that this thing- Yes? Is here. Ving says, I have an idea. He walks up and he goes, Lothalino-la. What was that? Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing? I don't know. I was just making up some elf sounding words. So what do you do? What do you do? You're like waving your hand? Yeah. Wave my hand in front of it. Yeah. And he drakes his hand across the ice. He was like. The ice flows up into the ceiling. No way. Down into the floor. What? Did those words work? Ving's like, his eyes are really wide.

And he's like, and then he turns around like, like, like real cocky pace. Like, shall we go in? Oh, looking for this? The entrance? We start walking in, but Tuck goes over to Ving as we're walking in. I'm like, what the fuck did that? I don't mean. I have no idea. What do you mean? I don't know. I just made up sounds. Wow. And so Billy's like really impressed by Ving right now. I didn't know you knew all this magic and stuff. Yeah. Well, pretty, pretty, pretty knowledgeable of some stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. Tell me about it. See, you don't always know. What you know, you know, until it comes to use. Whoa. That's so deep. And with this cocky explanation of a random happenstance, you enter into what is immediately clear to be hand carved structures. Oh, you pass right through the gate into like a more squared off hallway with tapestries on the wall, a rug on the floor, and you see a room just beyond this hallway.

And you know, as you pass into this room that you have well and truly entered the tower of the wizard at her neck, all water. And that's where we're going to end it for this week. I've been your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So long, everybody. Playing Ving, the half elf druid, Paul Oppers. Take care. And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone.

Thank you to Aaron Reed for our intro and outro music, which you hear at the beginning and end of the show every single time without fail. You can find all of Aaron's. Original music at Aaron Reed dot band camp dot com. Thank you to all of our supporters around the world supporting us on Patreon. If you would like to support the show and get access to a bonus game, bonus audio content, art, gift boxes, and a whole whack of shit.

Check us out at Patreon dot com slash Spout Lore or Spout Lore dot com slash money, please. And finally, thank you to all of you for listening. See you next time. And so ends the tale of Adventures 3. Who tried the best they can Though dumb and scared and lost they be For time's abreast in revelry And though our journey may be like a conclusion We will not leave you without a resolution Return next week To hear some more Whilst you commute or do your chores And for you I'd gladly Spout Lore