Episode 31 – The Stalwart Son

Spout Lore is brought to you by listeners like yourself. If you want to check out more stuff or give us a support, go to www.pat… I'll start over. It sounds like a fucking AltaVista ad. Gather round, friends, let me tell you a tale of three heroes, noble and bold. A brute, a druid, and a thief who is but nine years old. You know them by name, you know them by deed, their quests are famously daring. So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing.

Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight. Fingers have health, he shifts his shape and wields a spear with great might. Billy's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart. Best in bread. They may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smart. So gather round, friends, and listen close. For the tale is about to start. Hello everybody and welcome to Spout Lore. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara.

And joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. My corpse. Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Hoppers. Poet. The ball. The bang. The bang. Diggy, diggy, diggy. Said the boogie. Said I've dropped. Playing Fabulously the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. I'm trying to think of something cool to do. Wait, you think we're cool? Yeah, you guys just went like, my curse. And then something else. Wow, Kid Rock, finally cool. Yeah, but wait a bit. But wait a bit.

All I had was, don't waste your time on me. I'm ready. I'm ready. The voice inside my head. My head. Is that from 90210? Blink-182. Blink-182. Their self-titled emo album. When last we left our heroes, they came face to face with the wizard. What? What? Pepper Lunch is permanently closed. Oh, Jessica, I'm so sorry. What the fuck? That was like my favorite lunch spot in Vancouver. It was like, yeah. That would go there all day. All the time. It was like a rice bowl place. You fucking kidding?

Oh, no. Dave Baxter tagged me. Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, what a nightmare. Dave, you fucking asshole. You derailed our entire recording. Just derailed the finale episode. Can everyone just stop sending Jess restaurant closures? Please. I am not doing well. I just had to break the news. Two. Abdul, that full epi was closed forever. Yeah. Abdul said good. Yeah. I'm really sorry. Should I check my phone? No, that's okay. That's devastating. Okay.

When last we left our heroes, they had come face to face with the wizard Morris Wedge, who had made himself two-dimensional to hide inside a portrait. He revealed himself to the party, unfolding himself like human origami from a two-dimensional plane, only to be punched in the face by Perel. There was a bit of a tussle and then a hug and a kiss. And then Morris started to answer some questions and then said, you know what? Let's go somewhere else.

And you guys suggested the fanny pack, which he was overjoyed to see. Entering the fanny pack, he opened up the flap of the danger room, revealing a massive study slash sitting room slash observatory and explaining to the rest of you that the fanny pack, which you had been sleeping. You had been sleeping. You had been sleeping. You had been sleeping. You had been sleeping in the servants quarters of not even the servants quarters, like the servants lunch room. It's a rec room. Yeah.

It's their break room. Yeah. Yeah. Is in fact connected to a greater sprawling, massive extra dimensional mansion that Morris designed many, many years ago. A castle. Yeah. A fanny palace. Yep. Which we know for our non North American listeners is a questionable phrase. But yeah. You know, it is what it is. Morris then very arrogantly decided to turn things into an impromptu lecture. And you guys began to ask him questions. What we learned from those questions.

The big one was that the Exodus, the extra planar evacuation project. Was a fucking con. Was a deceit. Yeah. Anyone that passed through into the worlds of their own creation after a certain point did not not return because they chose not to. They were unable to. So, Morris was trapped inside of his self-made paradise slash prison for over 90 years. Unable to reach anybody else in their own prison as well. Yes. All of the wizards apparently were completely separated and isolated.

Morris revealed that he had planned on finishing his universe, his paradise, and then returning for Perel and Aquaria, who he wanted to bring with. But he was trapped for almost a century, losing his personhood and his mind. And several times over a period of nearly 100 years before he was able to finally work his way out using something he called the Thaumic Tunneling Principle. Pretty fucking cool.

Emerging into his own tower and then in an attempt to make contact with other wizards would jump through back doors he'd created in towers that he'd worked on in the past, but found that- Everyone was gone. Everyone was gone. And presumably due to the lack of wizards, his own magic feels unmoved. Unmoored and unreliable. So Morris has been jumping from tower to tower, now more cautiously, and he's been doing so for about two months, he said. Uh-huh.

Perel and Morris had a little conversation about the fact that unbeknownst to Morris, the remaining wizards were wiped out or imprisoned, including Perel, and Aquaria was almost killed. He's a little unstable right now, and learning that one of his loves was almost killed by humans and that the rest of the wizards had been wiped out. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Giving Morris another target. Yeah.

That's very cool. The Gibbous Man. I used Fountain of Knowledge, and then I did a parlay, and then I used Particle. Yes. So sneaky. So Tuck connected some dots in his head, revealing that he believes the Gibbous Man was responsible, and if Morris wanted revenge, then he should take it out on the person actually responsible for ruining the entire world. Mm-hmm. And through some further dot connecting, believing that the identity of the Gibbous Man must be that he is the God of the Sky. Yeah. Wow.

And that is where we find ourselves now. A question I did not ask last time, but will ask now. Tuck, where did you hear about all this? What was the song that finally fit the final puzzle piece into the picture for you? I think the band Archers Over Kings. Mm-hmm. They did a metal version of an old folk song. Mm-hmm. That was called Stallward Sons. Ooh. And it is about the God of the Flame. Oh. And it talks about his relationship to his father in it. Cool. Yeah. Right.

Because that was a thing that we talked about. So right. So the connection was if the Gibbous Man is the God of the Sky, that means according to the stories that he is the father of the God of the Flame. Yeah. And likely the father of Lillian as well. Yeah. But that is where we find ourselves now. Tuck having revealed this, to Morris. Yeah. And provided him as a potential target for Morris's wrath. Yeah. And Tuck's like, we wanted to get Perel, his magic back, to stop the Gibbous Man.

And we are on your side. If you chill out right now, and go for the person who actually did this to you. If you don't actually address the problem, you're going to be fighting for the solution your entire existence. Perel steps forward, and, and puts a hand on Morris's arm, where it's like gripping the lectern, and puts another hand on his shoulder, and says, it's, Morris, it's, they're telling you the truth. You can trust them. Morris takes a breath.

And as he breathes out, the room expands a little bit around you. This restricting feeling receding, that shelves around you becoming less towering and sinister. I don't think he's just, just a mere conjurer of cheap tricks. That was very intimidating. Very good. Very well. And he claps his hands. All right, then we have, we have a project. Something to work on together. This is excellent. Great. Wow, he's real moving forward, are we kind of guy.

Yeah, he, and he brushes himself off, and he kind of moves around Perel, and he starts walking across the room. All right, let's get to work then. Uh. Billy looks around, he follows him. Yeah, off to work, I guess. I don't know what, what help I can provide. Can't really even read, so. And he walks to the other flap, like a flap on the far side of the room where you came in, and he slams it, and it's a double flap. And it opens both ways, like a big double door, and you emerge into a hallway.

Ooh. A corridor made of the same leather that the whole fanny pack is made of. Oh. But here is just portrait after portrait on the wall. There's beautiful paintings on either side, all different aspects of Morris. There's one of Morris walking across the moors with a hound in his side and a walking stick. There's one of Morris, uh, playing. Leaning naked and touching the finger of another Morris on a bed of clouds. There's another Morris.

Uh, him standing on a clamshell with his long wispy beard blowing across his chest. There's another Morris. Oh, just fucking balls. Balls. Deep. What the fuck? Oh, I don't know. In the Mona Lisa. Yeah! Finish it. Uh, yeah. There's another Morris in, uh, but… You don't know anything about art. Just… God. Is this Tuck, like, in the hallway? Yeah. And he's just like, What is all of this? And he's looking at a painting of, like, Morris, playing poker with a bunch of dogs. Oh, nice.

And Morris turns around and looks, like, looks over his shoulder as he's walking and goes, Beautiful, aren't they? The dogs? Oh, the dogs, the paintings, just this whole place. I really put a lot of elbow grease into this thing. Did you paint these? These are actually very well painted. Well, I mean, in a fashion I did, yes. In that I paid people to paint them. But through my patronage, they became. So if you think about it like that, I am responsible. Yes.

And Morris takes a sharp left turn about halfway down this corridor. Further down the corridor, you see beautiful stone sculptures of Morris. Tiny penis. Yeah. Big hands, big feet. Like, he looks like a homunculus. Like, really big feet. Looks like some kind of ape man. There's a progression of Morris. Like, the progression of man. Oh, my God. Yeah, totally. They're all the same, just getting taller. And he goes through a couple flaps. And you're in a vast workshop. Mm-hmm.

Machines of various makes and models. Their origins and purposes completely alien to you. Whoa. Tables, desks, piles of papers and shit. Here we are. He turns around and spreads his arms wide, looking at you. Billy starts beep beep booping. No. The thing. What? Child, don't touch those. What are they? They are delicate instruments requiring a specialist touch. That's an espresso machine. But the rest of these machines are very important. Don't touch anything without my express permission.

Beep boop boop boop. Stop it. When you say it, I just want to push the buttons more. If you, okay, well, if you're about three quarters of the way through making a flat white. So just press that button, turn this. Beep. Twist that one. Put that cup there. Now press the button again. Beep. Pshhh. Nice. He takes it, sips it, nods thoughtfully. Mmm. Delicious. Now, this gubbis man. Where can I find him? No problem. We know exactly where he might be. Mm-hmm. And that is… Upon walking the earth.

Ah. In the wilds of the world, gray yonder. Things leaning on a portrait of outside. And as a… And as a portrait of, um, Morris Wadge sitting on a picnic table looking right at the viewer. Out of the painting. Making eye contact with him. So you have no idea where he is? No. The only thing that we know that is tied to him is these coins. And I give him the bag of the six coins that I have.

And he tips them out onto his hand, picks one up, throws the bag on the ground, and holds it up to the light. I pick up the bag. Fucking rude, dude. Ha ha ha ha. I gave this to you. And he's not even listening to you. He's just looking at the coin in the light. Fuck you. Fascinating. I'm sorry, Tuck. And this is some sort of, uh, medium between the material plane and the outer dark. Yeah. Some people say that there's pieces of the outer dark in there.

Oh, and I smashed one and a demon went into it one time. Look. Oh, also there's this one in my chest. Oh, that's what that is. Yeah. I thought it was maybe your bones coming through. I didn't want to question it. No, this is one of those coins, but I think it has a demon in it. Interesting. And he, like, walks up to you. He's almost two feet shorter than you. He picks up a rod, like a small little rod, like a chopstick, kind of. Yeah. And just starts prodding the coins in your chest.

He puts, like, he wheels over one of those Home Depot stepladders. Ha ha ha ha. He stares. Click, click, click, click, click. Does this hurt at all? Nah. Feels fine. Hmm. And he really digs one in. Ugh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude. All right. I just wanted to see if it was connected to your physiology in any interesting ways. I think it's just in there. Mm. All right. So, after this short period of time, it has come to my attention that the four of you will be of no use to me.

Ha ha ha ha. So, and he claps his hands, you can leave. Oh. And I, with Perel here, will continue our research. And to the gibbous man, perhaps. Like, you want us to leave the room, or do you want us to leave the tent? I don't care. Aww. Huh. I assume that you had other things that you came to this tower for? Well, we came here to get Perel's fucking magic back. So maybe, can you help with that? Oh. Is there any way you can lend him some of yours? No. No. No, my good man. No. Huh.

That's unfortunately not how it works, but… I think… I think… I've been in this tower for a few weeks now, and I've done some poking around. Perhaps there's something here that might be able to help with this little issue. And, smash cut to, a door in the tower. He took you down two or three more levels from the vault that you were in, and you're standing before a tall, maybe ten foot tall, eight foot wide, double door made of, like, opaque ice. Hmm. I have not been able to open this door.

Oh. Thing, you know the passwords? Lothalorianacea. He waves his hand in front of the door. You wave your hand in front of it, nothing happens. He goes up and breathes on it. It feels like something almost happens. Whoa. Did you guys hear that? Do we all breathe? Oh my god. Billy, we gotta start brushing our teeth more. Jack breathes on it. Morris is standing there with his arms crossed. Ah. Nope. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. The ox's blood is fucked. Yeah, the page's duplications are not quite one-to-one, but it's close enough. Is this something that you've done before that has worked? Yeah. I spoke a word. Yeah. With a gate, that gate to get into the waiting area. Yep. All the ice just melted away and let us in. Not this one. Not this one, unfortunately. But it feels like something is almost happening. Shit. How do we discern realities? That's how you do it. Wow, 12.

12, shit, three questions. Ooh, boy. What happened here recently? Ooh, recently. So, Billie, you're full-on Aragorn, on the ground looking at stuff, sniffing shit. Sticking your fingers in the crack underneath the door. Trying to wiggle your fingers. Very gently. Yeah. Just like Aragorn. Just like, and that's what I'm thinking in my head, just like Aragorn.

And you find, in the space of a second, you have a little bit of a sluggishness, a sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, sluggishness, the door trying to wiggle your fingers very gently yeah just like aragorn just like and that's what I'm thinking my head just like aragorn and you find in the like soft snowy like carpet of powder that's been all over the floor of this place you find what you think are tracks like human tracks like footprints yeah old footprints maybe about a month old how big are the feet probably like an average sized human maybe like five what nine five ten maybe and they are leaving this room okay so they wouldn't be in the room no well okay when you say this room is it the room that we're in or the thing on the other side of the door it's the room on the other side of the door that they left okay yeah and then went presumably up the stairs okay uh what here is not what it appears to be mm-hmm so for this part you kind of have your hands like out in front of you like a tv antenna you're trying to like feel the vibes and you think that whatever ving did to get into the tower through the gate it's not not working on this door it's just that he hasn't done the right thing yet oh yeah what here is useful or valuable to me again feeling the vibes you feel like everybody's getting really close to the door and breathing on it yeah and then you're like wait and you like kind of like climb up the stairs and then you're like wait and then you're like a little bit and grab his hand and touch it to the door okay and then just like the palm of his hand yeah whoa what the fuck what that was so useful and then tuck grabs ving's hand he touches it to the door again the open door yeah it closes and then tuck touches the door it doesn't open it's just for ving so I grabbed ving's hand again I smashed it against the door and the door opens whoa I grabbed his hand again touch it to the door closes.

The door closes. Can we go in? Well, it's closed now. Okay. I will open it. Wow. Tuck, step aside. And Morris, you hear Morris go, Fascinating. What? It's just, nothing that I did could open this door. And a simple touch of your hand opens it? I mean, he is the prince of the Boreal Reach. Is he now? Yes, my father is the king of the rangers. Oh, your majesty. My majesty, a pleasure to meet you. Why did you just become shitty all of a sudden? What do you mean, just?

He could be being sincere right now, Ving says. Perel's like, he's always like this. He's almost always like this. Why do you like him? He's not always like this. I take, like, Billy and Ving aside, it's like, okay, yeah, like, you know the situation where sometimes your friend likes a really shitty person and you don't know what to say to them? Okay. Yeah, what do you do in that situation? I don't know, I mean, I feel like you kind of give them space to let them know that you're there for them.

You definitely don't tell them to break up with them! Like, in any sort of way, like, don't ever lay it, like, very obviously. I mean, I guess it depends how nice the bobbies are that they have. What's the bobbies, Khalil? Khalil! Khalil! That's so cute! Sorry. Wow, it really leaked in there. Yeah. What's the bobbies, Billy? Billy just puts his, cups his hands around his chest like, these bobbies. Oh. So if the bobbies are good, then I guess it's okay. If they're not nice all the time.

But if the bobbies are bad, then they gotta be nicer. Maggie snorts. His hands are, like, on his head and he's just like, how? Where did you learn this? Well, whenever you're talking about, like, Alec, he's… Where do you think… I don't talk about this in front of him. You don't talk about it, but your eyes do the talking. Yeah, and also you think I'm asleep, but I'm not asleep yet, and then you just talk so loudly to Ving, and I can't help but hear.

Maggie's very notably looking up at the ceiling. Am I not supposed to talk about them? It's… It's like adult stuff, Billy. Sorry. Maggie steps in. Let's go inside. You know what? I would rather go face whatever horrible, magical danger this might be than have to listen to any more of this conversation. This is too much for me. This is why I never had kids. She just strides into the room. Singing a song. And what we find inside is the door opens to a…

Okay, so what you're struck by is how much older this part of the tower feels than the rest. You're in a corridor, basically, of slanted ice, crystals. It feels like they've dripped down from the ceiling and formed this sort of natural corridor that carries forward light refracting in the walls, lighting up this whole chamber, so it's got this very glittery crystal look. I like that there's a blue light coming from the bottom, unexplainably. Yeah. Light is emanating from below.

And at the end of this corridor, which is about 30 feet long, it opens into a circular chamber that sort of slants toward the center, and in the center is what looks like a column of ice that connects the floor and the ceiling. The ceiling's about 15 feet high, and this pillar of ice, which is lit from below by this emanating blue light, has an alcove carved in it. Whoa. Like something was in it? Yes. Is it in there now? No. I want to discern the realities of this chamber and this alcove.

Yeah, yeah. 2d6 plus wisdom. Nine. I'll help you. Great. Plus bond. Seven. Beautiful. Ten. Three questions. What here is useful or valuable to me? So what here is useful or valuable to you is that in front of this alcove, in the pillar, on the ground before it, kind of like gathered, since the floor is slanting, some of it stayed put, but some of it kind of gathered around the base of the pillar, is what looks like two or three inch thick ice that is shattered. Like a chunk of broken ice.

Like something was covering the mouth of the alcove, it was broken away. Oh, like somebody broke glass in case of emergency? Sure. What's about to happen? What's about to happen is while just like looking around the chamber, you look back and see Morris and Perel and they're both like stock still. Wait, what? Not stock still, like frozen. Yeah. But frozen in the sense that they are not moving. What's going on? You guys look freaked. Is this magic? Yes.

And Morris holds out his hands and kind of gestures down. He's like, below us, there is a power. Oh, there's like a power source beneath the room? Like this room that we're in? Beneath us. This room. This has to be why Allwater built her tower here. Wait, I have a question still. Yeah, you have one more question. Is there like a what just happened question? What happened here recently? Yeah. Who did this? Who happened here recently? You sort of Columbo.

I said Aragorn for Billy, but I'm saying, Columbo for you for some reason. You like look around the room. You're trying to put things together. Billy's helping. He's like, here are the footsteps that I saw. And based on the patterns of the shattered ice and the alcove and the footprints, it looks like something somebody very likely was sealed in this pillar and broke the ice and left the tower broke out of the pillar. Yeah. Oh, I thought this was like a little alcove. No, this is like human.

Oh, I also thought like, tiny. Oh, sorry. No. So I should have described it better. Alcove would be a big thing. But yeah, I also thought it was really little, but I think it was because of a forced perspective thing. You were closer to it in your mind. Yeah, exactly. I was closer up and it's the size of the alcove, even though the alcove was really big, the pillars really big. So it makes the alcove look small. Yeah, it's more of a prison.

Yeah, it looks like there was someone sealed inside this pillar of ice in this room who then broke the ice and left. The tower. Is it possible that this is where Adternack was trapped? It wasn't like a box like Perel was in. Oh, just trapped in her tower. Yeah. Maybe she trapped herself in the tower. Oh, to protect herself. Oh, maybe. I took, grabbed some of those shattered ice and he puts it in his mouth. What happens? Have you ever… Jessica wept. Sorry. Have you ever…

Finally, Jessica laughed in the mic. Just a pause and Abdul looking at you like expectantly like, come on, say something. Have you ever eaten ice outside ice? Yeah. It tastes like that. What does it mean? What does it mean? I'm trying to figure that out. I'd like to use World Talker and see if I can commune with the talk to the ice in this room. I help by spitting the ice out and putting it in his mouth. I smush it into my ears. Ooh. You baby bird the ice back into Ving's ears.

So here's an interesting… I go into the alcove and I put my hands on either side of the walls that are remaining. So you go into the alcove. Oh shit, fuck no. Not now. Your eyes got so big. You made the move already though. You gotta stick to it. I go inside it. You go into the alcove and it does feel like that honestly. Like it feels… It feels like you step into the concentration point of a magnifying glass in the sun. Whoa. Not heat wise, but just energy wise. You are just…

Your body is buzzing. I'm glowing. Yeah. Like as soon as you get in there, it's just like we can't look at you. My skin is turning into like hair fur. Like frosted… A whore frost. Oh, I see. Growing out of my… It looks like this long fur. Whoa. Bulking out my entire body. Tell me more about this. This comes from my head to my neck and it's like starts as a cowl and it's building down my body into a big bulky furry filling the alcove. So you're just being consumed from within almost.

Like this ice is just building and building and building. You don't know why. I don't know why. Maybe it's protecting me? Could be. What you do feel is like you feel you know those rare days everybody when you wake up and for like a couple minutes you're not tired. You know and you don't have a headache and like you just had a shower and your body just feels so fresh and clean and you feel like completely without feeling. And like the absence of feeling is exuberant in itself.

You're like unmoored from the pain and discomfort of a human body. Oh shit. You just feel a hundred percent fucking amazing. Whatever damage you had, gone. Whatever debilities you had, gone. The light is coming out in prisms from this weird hoarfrost and casting like disco ball little rainbows all over the room. Do you look like a snowman right now? Bonhomme. Carnival. You look like Bonhomme. It kind of looks like a bear. Like a big polar bear standing on a hind leg. Yeah totally. Cool.

So everybody's standing outside the alcove watching Ving become a snow bear and glow with the light of a bajillion moons. Yeah. And it's like Perel is covering his eyes. It's like what is he doing? Get him out of there. Okay. I start digging at the hoarfrost. Yeah. Trying to unbury thing. Yeah. 2d6 plus strength. Oh no. Uh. Two. I was gonna say for a failure Ving arm like my Ving arms pop out through the hoarfrost grab Billy and bring him in. Oh. Wow. Fun. And you're enveloped in this snow.

This hoarfrost. Like what the fuck. And he walks up and puts his hand inside of the hoarfrost and tries to pull both Billy and Ving out of it. Yeah. Totally. And now when this is oh wait 10. 10. Yeah. So you like grab Ving like around the shoulder. If you want you can yank him out. Yeah. Yank both of them out. Cause I just saw my kid disappear into like a mysterious magic column. Yeah. Totally. Ving falls out laughing. Billy.

It's almost like you pull a cat out of a comfy box that he wants to go back into. I'm doing the hand over hand. Keep grabbing it. What are you doing? We don't know what this thing is. It felt nice. And you see in Billy's hair like snow drops have like blossomed up. He's got like a little clutch of flowers coming out of his hair. And I'm like Billy how do you feel? I feel so cozy. Okay. You've got your growing flowers. Yeah. Just let me lay down for a while.

So you just lay Billy on the floor of the chamber? No I put him in the crook of my arm. Yeah. I carry him over to Perel and Morris and Maggie. Do you guys want to try that? Um absolutely not. That was very bold. I respect that. I could have used subjects like yourselves back in the day with such a blatant disregard for your own safety. But Perel what if it turns you magic again?

Perel and Morris have walked up and they're like examining the alcove very cautiously with their hands out like it's definitely like they're talking to each other. Maybe this is like focusing. Maybe it's got to be something down there. Perel is like I want to see what's underneath us. What do we do? I could do shadow dance or midnight waltz. Yeah. True. Perel is like I would be willing to try that again. Okay. Billy does a little stretchy move with his hands. I feel good.

I shed a bunch of leaves. Perel starts doing stretches. He's got his arms outstretched either side and he's like touching his toes. What are you stretching for? For the transition to the fairy world. You don't have to do anything. You just hold on to me. Okay. When you're 151 you can tell me what I need to do. I'm sorry. No let's do it. Don't forget to stretch your hamstrings. Okay. Yeah. Alright let's do it. Okay. So I got nine. So I have… I have one hold out of my body. Okay. Yeah.

So yeah you emerge from your corporeal form free of the shackles of the flesh. Frolicking through the fairy energies. What's this column look like in the fairy realm? Hmm. Looks kind of like um what are they called? Like a nebula. Cool. It's very powerful light but it's not like a ray of light. It's like um when you look in a nebula it's like all those tiny stars that are just like so bright because there's a lot of light. There's like a trillion of them. Yeah totally.

And inter like interconnecting these little motes of light it looks like it's almost like uh strings of yarn. Yeah. Coming from below and then coalescing into this like specific pinprick right in the center of the alcove. Yeah it's like dew drops full of a star. A star packed in a dew drop and all suspended from these like tiny spider threads that just reach up forever into the sky. Yeah. And then below. Perfect. So cool. And uh the hold would be to see what is beneath this floor basically.

Okay jump Perel. Hold on. Oh he's kind of like floating like uncontrolled like he's waving his arms like he's trying to swim. Yeah. My hammies. That's why we had to stretch them. I slowly stretched one of them. I didn't stretch the other one. Jump on that one foot. Here we go. And you bloop dip through the floor and a cavern yawns beneath you. Whoa. Crystals of ice like lattice work.

Work themselves up from like the base of the column in a very intricate network of tubes and struts and like it looks like this was constructed almost with thought. Okay. And far far below through the ferry you see a blinding white light. It's water. Water? Oh. Old old. Is it like a pool? Old glacial like a lake like an ocean beneath the ice. Is it like cut off from everything? Is it like its own? No. It's connected. To what? To this alcove.

Oh sorry that's what I meant but it's not like there's no rivers coming into it. It's just like an old basin. If there are rivers you can't see them. They're too far away. This is a vast pool. Like a huge cenote? Yeah exactly. Like where you are there is a level where the water stops but you get the feeling that it continues on for many miles around. Like it's an ocean sized like pocket of water underneath. Totally. Just like brilliant in its power. It's not the moon. It's water.

I mean maybe there's a piece of the moon down there. Can I dive? Can I take? Can we keep going? Can we keep falling into the water? It will be dangerous because this is your last you've used your hold. I want to. I feel like it would be sad if we just turned around now. It's a big risk. Perel what do you think? I think we're close. Too close to to not go right? Yes. Billy reaches out like thin vines to pull us down. Oh cool. Towards the water. Sweet.

You like latch onto the lattice work of ice crystals as you pull yourself further and further. Ivy growing down. Is your aspect, your physical aspect changing? Yeah it's I look like petals and snow kind of boiling together in like an orb sort of situation. Cool. There's like a seed inside. Whoa. Whoa. And from that comes like these tiny little like strawberry vines almost. Every once in a while a croissant comes to the surface of the orb and goes back inside. Royals back in.

The croissant at the core of all. And you pull yourself deeper into this water. You get closer and closer and it just becomes all you can see is this blinding white light. And then you breach the surface. And you are in a sea of moonlight. Ooh. You're traveling at speeds and in distances that would be impossible for a more subtle. Like in your fairy form you are crossing leagues.

And at the very bottom of the ocean nestled in a bed of silver kelp glimmering in the light is maybe a three foot across chunk of white stone. So that's the moon hey? It's gotta be. And as you get closer you feel that you're getting closer and closer to danger. Like a point where you can't come back. Okay. But you're filled with this feeling that there are people up there that care about you. That you care about.

And what more noble action is there than sacrificing yourself for the ones that you love? Hmm. Why not just stay down here? This could mean something. It doesn't really matter. I mean I'm just here for fun. But what is fun when compared to love? I don't know what love is. I just care about fun. I feel like I'm just only in, Billy's only in spring mode right now. Oh yeah. So you're just looking to play? Yeah.

Perel is reaching, like he's now climbing down your vines basically to get closer to the rock. And you can feel this like point of no return approaching. And Perel is moving faster towards it. And you hear him say through the energies of the fairy, I know what I have to do. Perel, what do you know? It's the only way. What's the only way? I have to sacrifice myself. No, that's not how it works. And I start coiling him up in my that's not really fun. He's like fighting against it.

Yeah, but I'm more powerful than you. All right, roll it. What is, what are you, what stat are you using? What's, what was defy danger is this? It doesn't really matter. Oh, shit. You're not physical right now, so it wouldn't be strength. I guess it would be charisma. Your fairy stuff is always charisma. Oh, okay. It's like you're the influence of your personhood. I mean it would be five, so it's still a failure. Still a failure. You don't have any fairy child left. Fuck. Yeah.

Oh, have I just ended the podcast? God. No, I don't. I don't think so. So I think that you can't let him fucking die. Oh my God. Is there literally nothing you can do? I mean, we've got some pretty hardcore narrative stakes here. Why would you put me in this position? Why did I said you wanted to go for fun? I wanted to find stuff. Um, I think you feel yourself like the connection to this shadow dance. Uh-huh. Start reeling you back in. Oh, no, no, no.

And the pull of the stone is separating you and Perel and your vines are gripping so hard trying to keep his spirit where it is. Yeah. But you lose hold. Are you serious? The pull of the stone is too strong and you find yourself back in your body. Uh-huh. And Perel remains motionless beside you. And Morris is next to you. What happened? Don't get mad at me. What happened? What happened? Um, we found a piece of the moon in this big lake under and uh, Perel really wanted to go to the stone.

I tried to stop him, but I don't know. You didn't do anything wrong, Billy. What do we do? Is he, is he dead? I don't know. What did you do to him? I didn't do anything to him. He didn't do anything. Tuck goes over and checks on Perel. What's going on with him? He is breathing, but it is faint. Okay. So I think we're running against a clock now. We gotta find a way to bring him back as quickly as possible. I uh, hold on. I have Terry Larry and Chad. Uh-huh.

When you are initiated in the old ways, the ways of sacrifice, choose something your gods or the ancestor spirits value, gold, blood, bones, or the like. When you sacrifice on a 10+, the GM will grant you one insight into your current trouble or a boon to help you. So I wanna do a sacrifice. To get TLC to go down there and bring Perel back. Okay. Roll it. Okay. What are you smashing? Yeah, I have to destroy something and it's gotta be pretty important. Destroy me! I did this!

I mean, there's really only one thing in the room. What? The alcove. The pillar. I have to just… Ugh. Fuck! Okay. Tuck, he starts… He kind of, when he does this, he lets TLC sort of decide the thing that they want. So he like starts spinning the axe, like over and over again. It like kind of wakes them up a little bit. Yeah, and you can hear him go like, whoop, whoop, whoop. Okay. Alright. Yeah, here we go, bro! Here we go, buddy. You guys got this, right? Darn. Darn.

I tell them, I was like, Perel stuck at the bottom of an ocean. I need you guys to get him back. Fucking smash it, bro! What do you want me to smash, buddy? Smash this pillar! Nine. Aid! Aid, how are you aiding? I'm telling the ice that it needs to smash. Now is its time, and the purpose has come to let us through. 2d6 plus bond? Nine. Nine. So that makes it a ten. Sick. So what is the ten plus on Lariatarian Chad?

On a ten plus, the GM will grant you insight into your current trouble or boon to help you. If it was a seven or nine, they would have taken from my flesh, basically. Okay. So you do a bunch of cool axe spins. I do so many cool axe moves. To the point where, like, the crystal is leaving, like, a trail of purple light behind it. Oh, cool. As you power up for your limit break. Oh, yes! The afterimage of the light is remaining too long. Like, burned into your retinas sort of situation?

Burned into the retinas of everyone here. Yeah. And I jump. Wow. And come down with a thunderous smash. Smash. Smash. That is actually what happens. It's like… Smash. I go, here we go. I'm gonna… Smash. But your muscles align at the last second, like a fucking freight train. And you bring it down and you smash the pillar. What did you think I was gonna say? What was the word that you thought I was gonna say? We were doing a back and forth thing, man. I was trusting you. A thunderous…

Crash? Smash? Some sort of sound effect, maybe? Uh, smash. I suck! No, the smash is good! And you smash the pillar. Thunder smashes. Everybody, it's just like, everyone is showered with, like, razor-sharp crystals of ice that glint off of you, thankfully. Tug is so embarrassed, because he knows it kind of got away from him at the end there. He overextended himself. He was trying too many cool axe moves. This fucking Cartwin's apartment all over again.

And you smash the alcove, and it just explodes into crystals of ice, and leaving a hole yawning above this chasm with the seawater below you. And the spirits, you see three little lights go down. Yeah. Whoa! I jump in after them. Yeah, totally. Dive. Dive. You see, yawning below you, this incredible chasm filled with a criss-crossing latticework of ancient ice structures. The water to you, this room is bright, and the water looks deep, dark blue. Cool.

But there's maybe a glinting at the very, very bottom, just out of what you would consider your line of sight. And you hit the water, splash! And you are submerged. And Tug and Billy, where you're standing, Perel starts to, like, convulse a little bit. Like he's kind of, like, he's choking. Oh my god. So we're kind of, we're running up on a clock here, for sure. Yeah. I want to, um, elemental form. Yeah. What is your elemental form? Transmute my body into a form made from the raw elements.

I want to draw the natural elements of that stone up and make, um… Oh, to make it easier for TLC to go grab him. Yeah, get him closer. So I'm getting him, I'm drawing that, because it's a natural element, because it's moon rock, around my body. And, um, just draw up these two beams of light, like giant, giant wolf eels. From the depths of moonlight coming up and wrap around my body and spin me slowly, take me up to the surface. Roll it. 2d6 plus constitution? Nine. So you get one hold. Great.

So the rock below you, you see, like, a stream of light as this, like, glittering almost miniature coronet of moonstone swirls up from the bottom of this massive, like, basin. It's like it's got the same kind of shape as the shattered moon. Yeah. And then it curls up around you, creating, like, a spinning river of moonstone as it coalesces into this snake.

And you feel like, as you coalesce this moon rock around you and start to rise, you see three motes of light zip up from the seafloor and join you in this glittering cascade. And one slightly dimmer light behind it. And, uh, everybody standing around the hole at the top, except for Morris, who's, like, kneeling over Perel and, like, kind of slapping his face and shaking him. And emerging from the chasm, a beautiful moonlit form surrounded by water and moonstone.

You know, like, the gymnastics thing where they're twirling, ribbon gymnastics? Totally. With these giant snaky eels of moonlight. And Tuck's like, whoa, what a beautiful man. Unsmash. And you reach, you reach the top with this mass of this, like, brilliant blue water and the shining white moonstone. Billy, you are struck by a memory. Years ago, outside the village of Bullrush, you were overcome by a dark malevolent force.

And the only thing that could bring you back was submerging you, sacrificing you, some might say, in this… Tea bagging. Tea bagging. Tea bagging you in this source of water. What do I do with that? I think you realize, or maybe hope, that maybe Perel was on the right track, and the only way for him to regain this connection is to sacrifice himself and be remade by the waters of this place. So maybe I didn't ruin everything after all. Maybe not.

But Vang has a significant source of that water with him right now. It's draped like, um, like a onesie, like a leotard, like an 80s gymnastic suit of water. Can I start pulling Perel's body over to where Vang is? Yeah, absolutely. Morris, help me. And Morris, for a second, is very defensive when you grab. I know. He, like, tries to push you away. No, I know. I know, but this is what Perel wanted. Save him. Okay. And I scoop up Perel with my arm. And what do you do?

The eels travel around both of us, change from eels into snakes, and then from snakes into rocks. And the water flows around you. A river above an ocean. You can see through my skin, through my body. You see an outline of me, a more of Perel floating in this, like, almost like a cylinder of, like, a drain, you know, where you get a vortex. Oh, yeah. And you feel the waters, this, like, ocean below you. A vortex forms below as well.

And a water spout, basically, of this brilliant blue water rises up to meet you, as if beckoning. I drop him down the hole. I lower him. Down the hole. He's cradled by the waters that take him below. We have a moment where, like, our fingers are doing that, like, last little let go of his hand. Gently down into the water. And he leaves your sight for a moment. Mm-hmm. And a long time passes. Yeah, we're all hanging over the hole.

Long enough that Morris is, like, you can see his face clouding, like, this is over. Mm-hmm. Tuck grips the axe, because he knows if this goes sideways, this is gonna be a bad fight. Mm-hmm. But then the light grows beneath you in brilliance. Ooh! And beneath you see the vortex form again and carry something from deep, deep under the ice and under the water. And then tuck uncorks a music bottle and you hear let it be an evening light a flashlight a mark.

And this is what you're hearing, because the person who recorded this, does not remember this song. The person who recorded this is Tuck. Yeah. And you hear his self-cunch. He recorded this on, like, the ship when he was kind of alone in the closet. The same way he didn't know he couldn't dance, he just learned that he can't sing either. In his mind, he's like, this is my moment to reveal my talent to the world of my friends. To reveal the demo that I made. Ha ha ha! Incredible.

Let it be an evening light that shines up above me. He also sings it up and up and his off-tune. He can't sing with shit. It's coming out of the bottle. Let it be… Did we both record this? No, I was just coming in beside you. Yeah, like, um, uh, we are the worlding it for the moment because I don't want you to be self-conscious about not being the only one who can sing in this cave. Ha ha ha! Is Billy joining the chorus as well? Ha ha ha! Should he? I don't know.

Maybe Billy doesn't even know this song. I don't know this song, Billy. Help me out. Let it be an evening light that shines bright for you. For you. Let it be for you. Maggie reaches over and puts her hand over the mouth of the bottle. Oh, thank grapes. And as she does so, a moment of silence reveals to you the crystals below ringing with just the purest note that reverberates through the chasm. What? What are you doing? Like, Yes, that's what I saw. I saw that. I'm covering one ear.

I'm going, Oh, man. I really tried to make this. Dramatic moment. I really did. Are you going to say the same thing? I'm the home of the ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha And as that final word rings through the cavern, emerging Laugh into the mic! No! It's so loud! Emerging from the cleft in the ice that Tuck created, Perel rises, cradled by the water. His mouth and eyes are closed, but you can see water pouring from his eyes and nose and mouth. He's crying. Awesome.

And he opens his eyes. That's what it looked like when he was possessed. The water runs from his face. And he extends behind Tuck and he's around his shoulder. He extends his hand. He extends to either side. And the water that's like coursing off of his body starts to freeze. And the hole beneath him is covered in a sheet of ice. And he lands as the water rushes away from him lightly on his feet. Stumbles a little bit. Perel? Is that you, buddy? And he opens his eyes.

And he reaches down and grabs a piece of the ice that shattered. When whoever left the alcove emerged and holds it in front of him. And he lays it on his palm. And as he's staring at it, it melts and reforms and shifts into a small, crystalline frog. And he smiles. Perel. Buddy, is that you? Are you Perel? You fools. What? I'm joking. It's totally me. It's totally me. And I'm a fucking wizard again. Ah. Yes! And then he leans forward and wretches up like three gallons of water.

Oh, it was all in me. Bing takes a jar of it. Sorry. I know that's gross. It was all in there. Oh my god. And he reaches forward and he grabs Billy and he drags Billy towards him. What? You did it. Did I? And he reaches up and he grabs Maggie and drags her forward and drags Bing forward and drags Tuck forward. You guys did it. Did I do a good job? You did an amazing job, Billy. Oh my god. Okay. He's a big fella. And he runs forward and he kisses Morris right on the face so hard. Ew.

And he kisses him again. And he starts kissing her too hard. Yeah, I covered my eyes. Whoa, whoa, whoa. And then for a second we're like, oh, that's nice. And then it's the thing where we're like, we got Billy. We gotta get out of here. We're looking around, patting this round room ice room for a door. Billy runs into a wall with his eyes covered. He's like, I'm sorry. It is so reflective in here. I can't get away from it wherever I look. There's mirrors everywhere. It's a hall of mirrors.

Someone find the door. Everybody roll to find the door. You guys know you came down a hallway. You know where the door is. Find the door. I got a ten. I got a five. I got a six. I got a six. I got a six. I got a six. I got a six. I got a six. I got a six. I got a six. I can't find the door. Okay. Billy remembers you came through a door. Yeah, it's really big. It's like ten feet wide. We all have our eyes closed. And we're like, Billy, get us, please get us out of here.

And then he's like shooing you along the hallway. Just go. Just go. I'm running around your legs like a cat does. We hear so much moaning. And where do you guys go and wait? Back to the tent. Just back to the fanny pack? Yeah, which is in the vault. Yeah. So you guys go back to the vault. You pop in the fanny pack about 45 to 120 minutes later. Oh, I actually want to be in the vault. The vault. I want to be in the vault. I don't want to go in the fanny pack. Okay. Yeah.

So you guys go back to the vault. There's a possibility that there's wizards in some of these items. Yeah, because we came here to find Addernack. Yeah. And we don't know for sure that that was her in there. No, that's true. You don't. Yeah. But yeah, you are in the vault. Yeah. As we described it, it's kind of a roundish chamber with shelves all along the walls. Mm-hmm. And you would guess now being powered by the immense source. Of magical energy beneath the glacier.

No specific hotspot exists here. You would assume at this point. And there's just shelves full of shit. Can I discern the shelves? Yeah, absolutely. Sweet. Eight. Okay. So you get one question from the book. What here is useful or valuable to me? That definitely depends on like what specific, what would Billy be looking for? Well, Ving and Tuck. I think I told him to look for a wizard stuff. Uh-huh. So something wizard-y. Okay. So the thing is, is all of this stuff is magic. Mm-hmm.

All of this stuff has spells on it that are dangerous. I pulled up that weird loot table with like a billion things if we want to describe items or if you have an item in mind. Like what comes to your mind when Billy is like wizard stuff? Would Addernack All Water have? So this isn't anything that Addernack would have. This is stuff that the menders have placed here. Oh, the menders. Yeah. So there's, it looks kind of like a drinking horn. Oh.

This is carved from a horn from some animal up here with a cap that's carved, but it's like it fits in. Like it's carved to fit in. It's like a plug. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, like a copper one because that's what the menders use it, working copper, don't they? Oh, interesting. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. You find what looks to be a carved horn, maybe a foot long horn with a copper cap in the top. Like carry that like a log. Yep. Yep. And Maggie's like, here, let me just, she reaches down and generally picks it up.

So we're not just, we're not just grabbing stuff. Is that what, what are we, what are we, what are we doing here? Yeah. I thought we were just grabbing stuff to look at. No. Okay. Put that in your purse. Yeah. Just put it in your purse. Like an Uncle Frank here. Yeah. That's real crystal. Put that in your purse. And Maggie's holding the horn. Could be a wizard in there. Gonna go look for another one. It doesn't look like any vessel that you find. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Specifically a ward stone box probably doesn't contain a wizard. Well, we don't know that yet. And that is actually something, I will tell you something that is not here. What? A ward stone box. Okay. Well, that was easy. Well, yeah, that's all I wanted to know. Okay. Yeah. That is something that you could like, there is not, I wouldn't say there's like tons and tons of stuff here. There's probably like a dozen items. Okay. And none of them appear to be a ward stone box.

Okay. Is there a sentry here? Like a Chamberlain? Doesn't look like it. Hmm. Yeah. Does it look like it was emptied out or something? No, it just looks like it looks very curated. So it's hard to say like, what makes all these items, items that needed to be kept here together? If anything, or is this a Mender's Vault situation where they just are keeping stuff that's dangerous? And if that is the case, what's so dangerous about this horn? You know? Does someone want to Spout Lore on the horn?

Yeah, if you want to. Go for it. Two to six plus intelligence. Seems like the kind of thing that would have been on an album cover, Tuck says. Yeah. Let me look at this thing. Tuck licks it. That's a one. That's not a good start. That's a bad start. This is what you get from licking first. It means if I don't get a six, this is a full failure. Here we go. And that's a five. So that's a six. Dead. All right. I recognize the horn because I know the animals of the earth and it's a arctic longhorn.

Highland cow. Seven. Eight. Eight. So that makes it a seven. Thank God. Okay. Something interesting, but not useful. Yeah. It's made from the horn of an arctic long hair. It's black. Cow. It's like an auroch, like a large ancient breed of cattle. And like Ving, you're like, oh yeah, I feel like I remember hearing stuff about this. It's basically a, it's like a ghost horn. There are beliefs in the north where when a dangerous person dies that you can't let their spirit just roam. Oh.

So you got to trap it in here. Yeah. It's kind of like an urn, but it's not for like wizard prisoners. It's for like ghosts. Like a person who is so evil. They became a ghost. Exactly. Wow. And then Tuck turns to Ving and he's like, put it in your purse. Put it in your purse. So metal. This will come in handy. I guarantee it. I am all over it. I don't think I should let you do that. Let you do what? Like take the horn? Act casually? Ving says and. And Maggie's like really scratching her chin.

She's like, I mean, if what you say is true about the Gibbous Man and we're going up against a God, maybe we just. I mean. Grab what we can. These are mender property, right? Well. And you're a mender. And technically so are we. Technically. Sechnically. Sexually, we're menders too. Sexually, we're also menders. So it's actually okay. Okay. Sexually. Sexually. I'm going to go now. Sexually. Okay. I really got away from you there. Yeah. When you guys are standing next to Maggie going sexually.

Okay. You hear the door open behind you and Perel and Morris come in. He goes sexually. I'll say. What are we talking about? There. It's like the step. Dad plus stepdad thing where they come in wearing towels and they're covered. They're covered in sweat. It smells like Billy just opened the cheese vault again. So what are we doing in here? Looting. One of them has a coconut water. The other one has pineapple juice. Gotta replenish those electrolytes.

Can I roll to see if you have a fun little table there? The table is just a button that I click. Oh. So you find a small metal box. It's a little bar. Mm-hmm. Like maybe eight inches long. Yeah. Oh, that's about an inch. Sean held his hand so close together. He's like, that's like eight inches, right? And it sits flat. It's like flat on each side. Okay. Like a ruler? How thick? About an inch thick. It's like maybe. Inch and a half. Yeah. Inch and a half. And it's got dwarven letters etched in.

On one side. Mm-hmm. And you remember from your time in the deep ward, you read dwarven. Yeah. I mean, I can. Yeah. Only bureaucratic dwarven, but yeah. Yeah. It says help. Oh. Whoa. What? Cool. It says help. I want to discern realities about this. I mean, Spout Lore about this. Okay. 2d6 plus intelligence. I got four. Because my intelligence is a minus one and I rolled a five. Okay. Cool. Absolutely. Absolutely. No clue.

But it looks like if you blow into one end, it might just be like a whistle. It looks like a whistle. Yeah. Dude, blow it. Okay. I'm going to blow this. This better not be a genie. There's no discernible hole in the top and it just kind of slides out of your mouth. All right. I'll put in my backpack. And when you put it in your backpack, make, he goes, she feels really bad. I feel like this is a terrible idea. Dude, we have to be ready to fight a God. I know. I know.

But like, so we're all just going to be walking. Walking around with like bombs in our bags. Bombs in our bags. Hey man, it's a dangerous world out there. And if you don't stop to smell the roses every once in a while, you just might miss it. That doesn't mean anything to me. That's literally meaningless. Well, I'm not, I'm not going to take anything. I'm not taking anything. I'm going to take even more stuff. No. Can I roll a thingy? Yeah, totally. Ooh. All right. That's interesting.

So you find a book with like a nice kind of modeled gray leather and a picture embossed on the cover under words that you don't read that looks like a tortoise. Oh, is there a bee on here? I hold it up to one of the adults. And Maggie leans down and goes, no, no bees. What does it say? Oh, it says a treaty on tortoises. Why is that in here? I have no idea. And she grabs the book and she's looking at it.

She's flipping through and it's literally a, you see like illustrations, like biological illustrations on tortoises and a bunch of writing. And then she keeps flipping through the book. And I mean, unless you do some real investigating, she's like, yeah, it's a book about tortoises. Spout Lore. Eight. Eight. Okay. So, uh, not useful right now, but you see, like you grab the book back. She just hands it back to you and you can't read.

But as you're flipping through the book, you notice that the words on the page, don't match about halfway through. Like it's a different language. It's like different writing. Like it's like the, the book that it started as changes and becomes something else. And there's like notes and stuff in the margins. And like it becomes pages just crammed with writing. What? A turtle codex? Yeah. Yeah. We hold onto that for people who can read. Yeah. That's fine, Billy. That's just a book about turtles.

You'll, you'll like it. Maybe Perel knows about it. It's reptile. Oh yeah. Perel. Here you go. Oh, tortoises. Tortoises. Tortoises. Sorry. Tortoises. Sorry. My mouth's full of cum. Morse has come to me. I want to be specific here. I did not eat my own cum in there. Tortoises. Cool. Thanks, Billy. Look closely at the words. Okay. A tortoise is a reptile. Don't make fun of me. Oh, okay. All right. Fine. And he flips. And then he goes, what the fuck? I told you.

And he like gets really close cause he doesn't have his glasses, but he puts the book really close to his face. I'm going to, I'll do some research. Tuck. Do you want to roll something? I actually, I know what I find. Oh, I'd find another mirror shard. Oh my God. Interesting. Yeah. So how many do you guys have? I have three now. I'm just collecting things. So you find a mirror shard. I believe I found a fucking turtle book. This sucks. This sucks. This sucks. This sucks. Yeah.

I forgot that we could just tell him what we find. Just throw it. Throw it into my backpack. Also, Billy, can I keep this ghost horn? It's fucking cool. Yeah. Thanks. Put that in my backpack. What? All right. Perel says, now that we've looted this potentially extremely dangerous magical horde, uh, and I have my magic back, which is incredible. Hell yeah. I go to high five him. And he high fives you. And as your hands are touching the air in between the cushion of air transmutes to like, mustard.

Oh, you see that? That's funny. Look at that. Yeah. That's the kind of shit that you can expect from Perel the wizard. And then Tuck turns around. He's like, totally. And he turns to Vane. He's like, I think I hate Perel now. Now? But you do notice that like, after he does that, Perel chugs coconut water. He's just like, it's going to take a while to get used to. Uh, so what do we, are we done here? Yeah. So I guess we know that Addernak is probably the thing that was in that alcove.

And then she's gone. She got out. Can we go back to your library and have snacks and look at the things we found? Uh, yeah, absolutely. I suppose. Yeah. Let's go back to the palace. If that sounds okay with you guys. Is there anything else we need here? We're just trying to find her. We're trying to get Perel's magic back. You got it. Great. Is there anything else that's more valuable than this little tiny stone ruler? I mean, if I'm being honest.

This place could be a source of research for years to come. But I also, without my abilities being as sharp as they once were, I hesitate to stick around here. And I think I would rather just be in the fanny pack and do my work in there. So I'm going to probably just be there for the time being. And you go do your thing. And I will research this gibbous. Gibbous man. Oh, right. Yeah. We have a vendetta now. I have a vendetta. And Perel's like, I also have a vendetta.

Maggie's like, I also have a vendetta. Against who? Gibbous man. He's kind of responsible for all this. Okay, Perel, what about you? Yeah, gibbous man. And he punches his palm. I'm going to get him. Tuck leans in. He's like, also gibbous man right over here. I have a vendetta. But mine's against the gibbous man. Gibbous man. I mean, I guess I still hold a grudge about that waiter who took away my food before I was done with it. And the gibbous man. There's like a long silence.

And Billy's like, I said the wrong thing. All right. Then I suppose we all want this gibbous man dead. Yeah. Or in jail. So full jail. I'm just. I don't know. Got to put him in God jail. Yeah. All right. Full steam ahead. That's the only thing we have to worry about. Yes. Okay. So you guys, what are you guys just fill in a sack with all the other magical stuff in here? Are you leaving some of it behind? I kind of, I don't have to track this many items. It is a lot of items already. Okay.

Tuck is like two is my limit. And he pats his belly. And what were the two things? I took the horn and the mirror shard. Oh yeah. Yeah. And Morris does say. Uh, at some point, once I have sharpened my abilities to their previous strength, we may be able to return to some of these places, find further vaults. So we don't have to clean them out now. Yeah. We can steal this shit later. We can steal all this shit later. Really? Billy pops out under a shelf and he's like covered in a lot of dust.

Like a dust bunny. Jesus God. Like a little ball. Where were you? Where did all the dust go? Oh my God. Oh my God. Hey, there's a storage room. There's a storage room behind here that we squeezed myself into. Um, yeah. Morris is confident that he, I mean, of course he's confident, but he's confident that he can eventually find a way to travel as he once did to fix his shit, to fix his shit, to get better.

And he actually, him and Perel, you've heard them talking about a bunch of magical shit in the time we go back to the fanny pack mansion, Morris's mansion. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I imagine this is. This is probably a good time for everybody to rest a little bit. Yeah. I kind of, I want to take my time in the fanny pack now that we have like access to all of it. Maybe sleep. Sleep. Well, I want to look at that horn that I gave to Tuck. The ghost horn. Yep.

I'm going to look in the book library and see if there's anything about small flat dwarven stones. Uh huh. Yeah. So that was something I was thinking is, um, we have talked about how there's like during the golden age, even there were around a hundred. A hundred and twenty maybe wizards total. Mm hmm. Uh, that's it. Yeah. Not very many. So Morris and Perel probably know the people that made these items, if not exactly what their purposes are.

So they might be able to help you figure out, like fill in any gaps on things that we aren't sure about. Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah. So you come in, you come and find Morris and he's in his workshop. He's wearing his like previously fine tattered robe that it looks like Perel has, uh, transmuted to kind of. Yeah. You know, kind of juice it up a little bit, get it, get it gussied back to a, to a previous shine. It's way tighter. It's, it's way tighter.

And then you see, he's got, you realize that Morris has like a kind of like barrel chested sort of like, he's got like a workman's body almost. He's fidgeting. Like it's not quite comfortable. Yeah. It's like he, I mean, he was out of his mind for almost a hundred years. So he's like a little tighter on the shoulders. I haven't been this restricted in a long time, but you find him in his workshop and he's got these big crazy goggles on and he's like messing with the machine.

There's like different lenses that kind of flip in and out of the goggles and he's working on this big device. Morris. Yeah. And he turns, what can I do for you? His eyes look huge and it looks like he's got, it looks like he's got 13 eyes. Wow. You look like a very fancy fly. Thank you. Uh, uh, Morris, I was wondering if you know, if you know, if you know, if you know, if you knew of any dwarven wizards in your day? Of course. Yeah. Can you read this? What's it say?

Do you know any dwarven text? Oh yeah. And he, he takes it. This says, uh, help. Oh yeah. Glad to be of service. And he turns and he goes back to his machine. Is this ward stone? No, this is iron. Yeah. Yeah. Metal. Yeah. You passed my test. Who's the nerd now? Very well. It's you. It's you. Can I? Do you know? Can you tell me anything about the dwarven wizards of days of your? Yeah. Let's talk about one. Cause I, I don't have a name off the top of my head. Um, Opal Winfrey.

Sasha, Sasha, Opal Winfrey. I do like that. Uh, oh yes. There, uh, I mean there was Sasha Opal Winfrey who was a, um, extremely skilled and respected transmutation. Wizard. Yeah. I've seen their magazines at the library. Yeah. Oh, magazine. I don't understand why they have to be on every cover. I mean, it's their magazine. If you had a magazine. Indulgent. You'd want to be on the cover of all of them as well. That's true. But, um, yeah, Sasha was a powerful transmuter. Hmm.

Wizards existed in all cultures and races around the world. Why do you think they made this that says help this placard? Hmm. He flips a bunch of the letters. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Hmm. He flips a bunch of the lenses on his goggles in and out. Wait, no, hold on. Roll for this. Nice try you fucker. I was wondering what you were going to figure out there.

There should be some- We're just getting so many freebies. Let's call it a spell. Shawn, I just want to have a little conversation with you. Nice try. Let's call it a Spout Lore to determine whether or not he can figure out exactly what it is.

I'd like to use World Talker to see the patterns of makeup, the fabric of the world, and now apply my spirit tongue to pure elements of- earth this is a worked object and I'd like to do the thing that you're saying and roll a spout Lord 26 plus it's why don't you apply your spirit tongue to this do a point into his vagina it's a pretty fat badge that plus with some 11 plus intelligence for spout Lord yeah so that's minus one I got an eight that delta is insane that was a huge spread that was a huge pendulum swing holy shit yeah he says it appears to be tied to some sort of transmutation spell the exact use of it I can't be sure but I'm sure with some experimentation you might be able to figure things out you seem like a canny lad do you mind if I use some of your equipment here in the lab I'd be careful there are many objects here that might be outside your can yeah probably but not for long and then he lowers some safety goggles that he had on top of his head and steps backwards into a lab coat that you didn't know was behind him and then he gets stuck on the hook that the lab coat and walks and has to walk away from the lab coat and Morris watches you walk backwards for a long time with the lab coat it's attached to a coat rack he starts walking does the coat rack fall over he's dragging out Morris Swag's old clothes and then all the lenses click back into place and he turns away okay so can I do some discern realities on this bar in this lab and see if I can run a current through it and maybe polish some of the metal and see if I can get down a couple layers yeah totally I got eight so you get one question off the discern realities list this is great I put some acids on it I squeeze out some lemon onto it you do an egg drop with it do an egg drop near it you just wanted to do an egg drop because it's kind of fun and I'm looking at Morris the whole time with my little sage glasses on upside down did you make a little volcano diagram I slowly lower it I have a stopwatch start it lower it into Morris runs over and he goes Ving look out it's a volcano oh wait seems to be some sort of miniature volcano diorama yes which I made with my own two newspapers incredible Ving just does this it's a montage of Ving doing grade 6 science Morris goes but that egg didn't break at all there's a scene with me with the rubber gloves inside of a cabinet and like he's got the thing on and he's wearing and the soundtrack is like Highway to the Danger Zone and there's like little mini explosions and red lights flashing and then he pulls out and like opens the box really carefully and it's a little blue ribbon that says first prize on it and then I put it on I love the idea of somebody in one of those big dangerous like radioactive boxes putting vinegar into their volcano and it bubbles and they're like oh self-contained every experiment this is a vinegar volcano vinegar and baking soda volcano I think that's so funny where every experiment is the volcano that's just what it ends up being yeah exactly he puts on welding goggles and then he does it and then the volcano and then he looks over at the bar and he's just like fuck and then I write things down and Wadge is standing across the room nodding with his hand on his chin on a chalkboard writing this very elaborate you know equation and you step back and it's just a drawing of a volcano it says baking soda plus vinegar equals and then a picture of Ving and Morris Lodge running away and then you look over at the bar and you're like damn it I like to imagine like Tuck with a mop coming by later in the evening and he solves solves the volcano quick and then a woman and runs up to a woman plus vinegar equals question mark.

He draws a volcano. And then Morrison and Ving chase him down. Hey, wait a second. So yeah, Tuck's in this now. Ving takes off his first prize ribbon, puts it on Tuck. Here's not what it appears to be. It's not a volcano. I'm just imagining Billy as like the Ben Affleck character that's like, you know, man, best part of my day is every day coming by your house and hoping you're not here. How do you like those waffles? My boy's wicked smart. My boy's wicked smart.

Billy used to wake me up with his farts. Billy used to wake himself up by farting. Every night he wakes himself up with a fart. Billy's the Robin Williams character. He's not Ben Affleck at all. Listen here, chief. Don't make fun of my wife. It's not your fault, man. No, not you too. It's not your fault. Don't fuck with me, man. It's not your fault. Don't fuck with me. It's not your fault. Perel's mini driver. In the background, the thing that he's talking about is one of the volcanoes did it.

It's not your fault. God, so fucking funny. What a fucking good bit. So what here is not what it appears to be. Uh, you, you've done at this point, probably 70 to 80 volcanoes and none of them have made any difference. There's a pile of wet paper mache. Everything smells like, uh, like a flower glue recently cleaned bathroom. Yeah. I was like, I'm not making any more vinegar. I don't want to do that anymore. I don't even know what making soda is anymore.

And you're just staring at this little bar and you're like, what the fuck does it do? Did it do anything when I put acid on it? Uh, no, it didn't. It didn't. Reactions, nothing. And then you get a, uh, I think it is kind of a speak friend and enter thing. You're looking at this word and you're like help, but not in English. Oh, I worked in a deep word as an outreach worker with dwarves. So I definitely know the word help. Exactly. Yeah. Are you trying to think of the word? Yeah. Okay.

It can be anything. It can be anything. But if you want to think of a word, I can tell you what the word for help is in Arabic. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Cause they live in there. Yeah. That's just McCall, right? Hmm. What's the Arabic word? It's Musada. Musada. Yeah.

And you're, you hold the bar like you pick it up off its little, uh, pedestal that you made for it while you've been doing your experiments and you say Musada and, uh, it starts to like and it starts to like unfold and fold in on itself. Like it's kind of flowing Morris and it becomes it. Morris runs over and he's like, Oh, he comes over with a beaker full of baking soda and a beaker full of vinegar. No, no, no, no, no, no.

He's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's I think we're at a red food coloring. He keeps running over. And it kind of flows transmutation style into a little metal dwarf that salutes you. What? I salute him back. And it just stands there expectantly. I don't know what to do with this right now. Tuck? You should ask it for something. Go get that pen. And it salutes you and goes and grabs the pen. Oh my God. He's making Mario sounds. And holds it up.

And how this thing is like six inches tall. Yeah. It's like it's a little bit like because I said the bar was about eight inches. So I guess it's four inches because it kind of like molds into a smaller shape. So cute. Oh my God. Four inches tall. And he's holding up the pen. I take the pen. Yeah. And it salutes you and whoop becomes the bar again. Oh my God. Billy's going to take this from you for sure. Billy walks in with a snack. He's like, what's going on? Okay. Sorry.

I thought it was another volcano. Oh yeah. Cool. What do you got there, pal? Nothing. Billy, what are you asking? Hold on. What are you doing? It's just a bag of marshmallows. Where did you get those? The butler. The butler gave you marshmallows? I thought you told the butler to. You can't just eat a bag of marshmallows, Billy. Why? Because it's just marshmallows. Peoples are huge.

Also, I should say, if you told the page, not to get him marshmallows, but then he asked for marshmallows, the page is going to get him marshmallows. You need to put parental controls on the page, dude. I need to? Yes. And he rolls his eyes and he takes his baking soda and vinegar over to a little volcano that he has prepared. Ooh. Billy, we'll deal with this later. And he goes over to the volcano. Can I finish this bag? No. I really wish you wouldn't. Fine. And he hands them over.

I give Billy a bag of granola instead. I don't want this. He kicks it everywhere. What the fuck, Billy? He kicks it. Wow. Drops it to the ground. Kicks it. Koosh. His little, like, five-inch long, like, Billy, you have to clean this up now. No, I don't. As Billy runs out of the room, the camera follows him into the study that you guys have been hanging out in, where you see Maggie is sitting on, like, a love seat around the fire. Like, all the seats that are around the fireplace in here.

And on the table is the horn with the copper cap that you stole from the vault. I grab that because I'm like, Tuck doesn't deserve this. Maggie's reading a book and she's like, Billy, where are you going with that horn? Going to my hidey hole. You have a hidey hole already in here? Of course I do. All right, just be careful. And she continues to read her book. And we go to Billy's hidey hole. There's, like, a big globe, like a world globe. Mm-hmm. That opens up that he crawls into and closes it.

Excellent. Cool. That's very cool. Is it bigger inside than it is outside, or is it just a globe? No, it's just a pretty big globe. Yeah. Next to it is, like, a pile of, like, smashed bottles and stuff. Yes, throwing out his bourbon. Because it used to be, like, a… Oh, a bar globe. A bar globe. There used to be, like, a bunch of, like, crystal bottles of bourbon and stuff. Yeah. The page is outside the globe right now, sweeping it up.

It is, of course, pitch black in there, so he brings it out. And then he brings out his will-o'-the-wisp. Yep, the little bell jingle that heralds its arrival sounds. Yeah, she just curls up by my feet. There's not that much room in here. It's just big enough for us. Yeah. And Billo starts looking at this horn. Okay, sick. So what are we doing? Is this a… Are you trying to remember things about horns like this, or are you trying to examine the horn itself?

I'm just examining it, so I guess discern reality. Yep, 2d6 plus wisdom. 12. 12. Shit, okay, three questions off the list. Can you remind us what the horn looks like? So the horn is like a black, long cattle horn. Rune's carved into maybe the edge around the hole in the horn, and then there's a copper cap inside. Okay, cool. So first question, what here is not what it appears to be? Hmm, what here is not what it appears to be.

The cap, you all, I mean, assumed, based on your experience with the menders, that this was probably placed here by menders, considering they work with copper so much. Mm-hmm. But looking at sort of the scuff and the age on it, you think that this was a part of the original, quote unquote, design of the horn. Okay, cool. I guess, who's really in control here? Ooh, interesting. With the horn. Yeah. Very interesting question. I think this is a memory that comes to you unbidden. Wow.

Can it play out on the inside of the globe? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, it does. I like that. Maybe one of those planetarium projectors, like the Bill of the Wisps starts projecting these lights on the inside of the globe. Cool. It's got a rotoscope vibe to it. Yeah. It's choppy at first, and then it smooths out. Mm-hmm.

You remember a long time ago, after the Winter War, for sure, when you spent a period of time wandering in your winter form after the battle trying to figure out what was going on. Yeah. Most fairies in their winter, that's a time of settling down and preparing for the end, but the war sort of disrupted that part of your cycle, so there was a while where you just wandered. Okay, yeah.

And you came into contact with a group that existed in the North, and their goal was to quiet the spirits of the dead that had been slain in the war. Oh, okay. Because the North was just overrun with enemies. Yeah. And they were like overrun with angry ghosts for a long time, so there was this group of people that sort of traveled around quieting, putting to rest, or trapping dangerous ghosts. Okay. And you remember them carrying vessels a lot like this horn. Cool.

What should I be on the lookout for? Hmm. You are very… You do find yourself very curious as to who might be trapped in this world. Yeah. As to who might be trapped in this horn specifically. Yeah. Can I read the runes? I don't know. Can you? Yeah. Didn't you… Billy's able to read runes, right? I can read some runes. Yeah. You can read runes. Instinctively. Yeah. So the older the rune, the easier it is for me to read it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay.

So the runic languages, the modern version you find a little hard to read, but you do find that this one is easier to read. And even though the writing is only a couple hundred years old, do you think it's based on an older version? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's probably a little older form of the runes. Okay. That is probably used specifically by these ghost hunters. So sick. Yeah.

The figure that you're talking to in the dream has long dark hair that drapes over a fur cape and then a carved wooden mask. Totally. Oh my gosh. And it has a horn at their hip. I bet they have so many horns and other vessels draped over them. Draped? Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're the keepers of… It's their duty and vocation to stay. To trap and then keep these things. Yeah. The ghost keepers? Or is that… No, that's the name of a person. What about ghost facers? Ghost facers. They face the ghost.

The soul carriers. Ghost fuckers. Because if you're a ghost and you see them, you're fucked. The ghosty lads. Ghosty lads. Wraith walkers. Oh, I like that. Wraith walkers? Yeah. The grave… Ooh. The walking graves. The… The… The… The… The… The… The… The… The graveyard. Oh, I kind… What is it called when you have a graveyard? The walking graves are like the wandering graves. I like the idea that they make themselves their graves. A tomb. Like a graveyard. Yeah.

The wandering tomb. Oh. What's it called when you're buried above ground in a tomb? Oh, it's mausoleum. Mausoleum. Mausoleum. Yeah. The mausoleum. I think mausoleum is a cool name. I think Billy is running through all these names. He's been like, I swear to God I've heard all these names before. I do like that this was just Billy trying to translate, because the literal translation is ghost fucker. And he's like, I don't quite understand. He's like, no one would let me say that.

Yeah, he's like, oh, I'm not allowed that word. Trying to think of other ones. I don't know. It's so hard to remember stuff. The mausoleum is the easiest one to remember. It's just one word. Yeah, exactly. There we go, mausoleum. So you're looking at the runes, because based on who they trapped, the words that they used were different. It would either be like, here is entombed, or we bind thee, or back to hell, that kind of shit. Or if they wanted to go, it's like, we lay to rest. Yeah, exactly.

So what does it start with? In fire and flame, we bound. Yeah. Whoa. Billy's like, so sick. Like, in fire and flame, we bound. You can't quite read the name itself, but you do see of the dark forest. Of the dark forest. Ooh. Oh. Oh my gosh. Wow. It's a dark elf in there? It's a dark elf general, maybe. Cool. Because they're the ones who have the most unfinished business, who died in war. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

So it would seem that bound within this horn by the mausoleum is the unrested spirit of a dark elf general of some kind. All right. And boy, that cap looks like it'd be so easy to just. Pop out of there. Oh, I know they would be so mad. Just like when I kicked all the granola, which I should probably go clean up. Oh, he's learning. If they were mad when I kicked that granola, they're really going to be mad when I release this ghost into the room. Yeah.

And I've never had to fight an evil ghost as a Billy. So I'm too tired to fight a ghost today, I think. Today? Yeah. So I'm going to bring this back out. Billy opens up the globe and he hops out. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you go to do a matinee. Yeah. You come out, you're like, oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. Cripes. And the wicker, the wisp follows you back to the table where Maggie's sitting and it hops up on the chair and curls up in her lap. I just put the horn back and say nothing to Maggie.

She just looks over and sees that everything is fine. Mrs. Cole. Madam. And goes back to her book. That boy just got up to some shit. He goes, gets the little broom. It's just a hand broom. And he goes and cleans up the granola. And the camera follows Billy back into the workshop where he starts sweeping up granola. Everyone's wearing the big goggles. Standing around a giant paper mache volcano. It is huge. We put that like elephant foam in it. What's that? Oh, the elephant's toothpaste. Yeah.

We put elephant toothpaste in it this time. Uh-huh. And it just shoots like 15 feet into the air. It becomes a solid tower. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah….. We found one in a shipwreck. Okay. Near Hibernia. Aye. And we found one… Oh. In the water? Oh, in a… In a… That moon room. Yeah, in a shrine. At Port Four Frost. At Port Four Frost.

And you have at least the one shard that you looked at. You found but didn't even look at the other shards. But the one that you looked at seemed to reflect a different place. Yeah, it was like… And when we'd move it, it would change perspective. Yeah. Yeah. And more… Are you going to roll anything on this? I'm… Honestly, guys, I'm not invested in the mirror at all. All right. That's weird because it was the only thing that you were like, I found a mirror shard.

I know, but that was because everybody else got something cool. I felt like I had to pretend that I was interested. I mean, I think it's cool, but if you're not keen on it, you can look at the other thing. Yeah, that's fine. I haven't seen one of these intact in a long time. Wait, you've seen this before? And he seems more interested in just like moving the pieces around and trying to fit them in because you don't… You're not invested.

…in what the mirror is, so he's just doing his own thing. Well, yeah, I'll let him do it, but I'll watch out of the corner of my eye. Well, then I guess you're going to roll a 26 points. No, I'm not going to roll anything. I'm just going to stand here silently and very still and watch out of the corner of my eye. And then while he's doing it… Well, I actively think about it more interestingly.

And while you're not being interested, Morris is just mumbling to himself and going, oh, yeah, that's interesting. So you talk about what he's doing. He's playing it cool and pretending not to be interested to get you interested. But it's a little too quiet for you to hear. Okay. So he's just like, oh, that's fascinating. But Billy's on the desk really invested because there's so much secret mumblings happening. And he's eating granola out of the dustpan.

There's so much dust and vinegar in there. There's so much baking soda. It basically just tastes like salt and vinegar chips, but worse. Yeah. And as Morris is moving the pieces around, trying to connect the edges that are broken, you see each piece seems to be reflecting a different location. And as he's moving them, so they're all showing different images. Okay. And as he moves them around, the images change. Oh, whoa. I want to know more.

I guess someone's going to have to roll a 2D6 plus intelligence to Spout Lore. I will do this. Because I'm the one that has this stupid fucking thing. Thank you for your sacrifice. That one was a five. Does this count? Pick that. Did it land flat? Yeah, it's flat. It's super flat. It's a four on his hip. It landed. I'll just roll it again. No, it's fine. You can roll it again. No, I'll take the four. No, that's a seven. So six. No, I have negative intelligence. Yeah, so a six.

So somebody can aid. Yeah. 2D6 plus bond. Trying to just like. I'm playing it cool too. I'm like, yeah, stupid fucking mirrors. I don't give a shit about this, but really cool. Everybody's just edging closer to Morris as he's working. I failed. I got a six. Oh, shit. Can you aid and aid? Can I aid and aid? You can aid and aid, yeah. No way. Yeah, you guys are allowed to aid aids. You just can't double aid. Oh. Yeah. You can help each other get a plus one, but you can't. Cool. Sweet. Eight.

Eight. So seven. Seven. Seven. It only works in really calm settings, actually. What we're doing is we're trying to convince Tuck that it's okay to be interested. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And everybody's moving a little closer being like, what's Morris saying? Oh, Tuck, it's really cool. Are we doing that by also playing it cool? So then it's a reverse psychology. Like, no, no. I'll actually. I am interested. Yeah. I say, don't worry, Tuck. You don't want to know about this.

Like, it'll just be me and Ving learning. Those are really interesting, but you don't have to be interested in them. I'm like, fuck you guys. I'll come over there and do whatever. Don't be excluded from stupid fucking thing. Is Tuck acting like this because the volcano is so cool. And then this has been like a big decline. Yeah. Ving's experiments are super cool. I have the feeling that Billy's thing was awesome. And I feel like this thing's going to be a piece of shit.

Well, I've got good news and bad news for you. It is a piece of shit, but only because we don't have all of the pieces or any connecting pieces. And he shows you and it's like just the very like tip of the shards kind of touch. Oh. And there's like three pieces that would fill in the rest of it to create what looks like a mirror, maybe about three feet tall, two feet wide. Can we lay them out like where they would be in the two feet by three? Yeah, totally. So it's showing different places.

Like each shard shows a different place. But because they're not connecting, they're not showing one full picture. You're just getting like flashes of different places. This. I mean, I haven't seen one of these in a long time, but this is a looking glass. What do they do? They were created by a wizard who went by the name. Master Mirror. I know. M&M. I know. Master Mirror. So lame.

He got very irate if you called him anything but Master Mirror to the point where I don't know if he had another name. Oh my god. What's wrong with you people? Sorry. I just realized. Chuck and Billy take a step away from Vick. I'm so sorry. A couple desks around you slide away like six inches. And then wow, the elven heritage really came out there. I'm sorry. That was my father speaking. And the desks slide back into place. And all three of you do too.

You realize that you moved across the floor as Morris got a little mad. They were basically just a way to create long distance communication for people. You'd stand in front of the mirror. You'd think of somebody who had a mirror as well and you would be able to speak as if they were right in front of you. Oh, okay. So what we're seeing is probably where the other mirrors are. I would assume so. That is very astute, young Billy. Thanks. I've been learning today. Wow.

I didn't actually put that in. That's pretty cool. Do you think that, like your mastery over the spaces you've built, do you think the master mirror, Bing rolls his eyes, would also have sight into each mirror that he made? Oh, I would assume so. If perhaps only through his own devices. Though I this is an unfortunate circumstance, but master mirror, could not be swayed to the wizard's first ideology, so it is very likely that he is no longer with us. Or trapped in a box. Or trapped in a box!

Or any, what may be perhaps encased in some sort of magical ice coffin that he escaped from. Could be anything. But, um, without him here, there's no way to know. I believe that is what we have most of the pieces to. Okay. Cool. It is cool. But if you are not interested, feel free to go, um, away. The thing that I kind of actually wanted to look into is what's going on with this thing in my chest. Oh! The coin in my chest? Oh, yeah. This, uh, is not my area of expertise. Okay.

So to speak, but what… Why is this not made out of paper? Hilarious. You're really rude sometimes. Texas! I like that there's just something about Morris that rubs Bing the wrong way. He's an asshole. I don't trust him. Fair enough, honestly. But there's no need for, to be rude. What was it you were hoping to learn? I just want to know, so there, I think there is a demon in here, but is this doing anything to me? Also, why did it shoot into my chest? I am not an iconographer.

I have never heard of white obsidian. As you have previously stated, you're the only person that's ever made it? Yeah. As far as you're aware, I've been away for a century. I don't think I can help you. Okay. That's fine. But there are many books in this place. Perhaps one of them may hold the information you seek. Fuck. And Perel walks up to you as you walk away and goes, they're not going to. They're all, most of them are fake books.

But, you know, who might know, a little bookwormer, a bookworm situation, perhaps. Maybe we contact our old friends at the library. Oh. Maybe. Did we? What was on the last bookworm we sent? Where is that guy? I was wondering about that last episode, if we should send a bookworm telling them that we're at the Allwaters Tower. Oh, right, yeah, because that's why they gave us the bookworm, was so that we would let them know that we're here.

And as you're all debating this, sort of in the study area, you are suddenly taken with a massive shape next to you that emerges. What the fuck? Holy shit. Of course you did not see me. I am stealthy as the night. I think you should come with me. I was scouting ahead in this horrible place. I found the surface. You need to come. Okay. Okay. This bag is weird, but come with me back to normal world. Join me outside of bag. There is something outside in the tundra that you must see. Uh, okay, yeah.

What, what is it? Things are, it is too, they would take too long to tell you. Longer than leaving here with you? There is no time to say. Okay. So steal yourselves to leave this bag and think on what might be discovered. I don't think we were in a zone to accept, like, an energy of urgency, because we're kind of just, like, slumped in a bunch of love seats around a fire. So he's standing there waiting for you all to get up. Billy's struggling to get out of the beanbag chair he's laying in.

Time is of the essence. Please move. Okay. Big chair. I mean, if you could tell us and maybe we'd hurry. There is no time. Please grab your stuff. Have a snack if you need to. Take a rest. You want to sleep? Go to washroom. Then hurry, because time is of the essence. Tech Lake goes, huh? He peels himself up and you hear that sound of, like, leather peeling away from a bare bag. Shlick. Take your time. Get up slow. Be careful. Don't pull hamstring. But time is of the essence.

Alright, so five minutes later, Billy has gone to the bathroom and he's wrapped a little cloak around himself and it has a bindle. Tech made a bunch of little sandwiches. Sandwiches? Like the kind that you take to the beach? Yeah, totally. Okay, let's go. There is no time. And he starts running out of the fanny pack and into the tower. Oh my god, running? I know. I run to follow. I told you there is no time. And he leads you to the mouth of, like, an ice cave.

You feel, like, the cold blowing winds of the tundra and the ice is, like, ice extends before you. Oh, so this is, like, the front door of the, like, the actual entrance to the tower? Yeah, this looks like this is, like, the above ground entrance to this place. Is it day or night? It's day. And you emerge into the blinding white light of an arctic day. Whoa. Yeah, the light's glittering off all the crystals in the air, so it's just this, like, sheet of white light.

It is so blinding to the point where, like, you can't see anything and you can't expect that there would be anything out here. I have a light sight. Oh, yeah. So, at first, you see nothing. But Vic, like, sniffs the air. His, like, big wolf head lifts to the sky. Ving's head tilts back, too. He sniffs. You smell a familiar smell. Oh, sorry. Jesus Christ. He starts wafting behind his back. Those bergam fruit sandwiches? I found them in the palace. Oh, God. So, once those sulfurous fumes pass…

Oh, God. I can taste it in my nose. You, uh, you catch You catch a familiar scent. One that's comforting, but also upsetting. A deep memory. Something that you've hoped that you could've forgotten forever, but it is brought up in you unbidden. Yeah. It's a smell like moss and ice. Old leather. Resin. The smells of the north end of the great forest. And you see a figure approach through the snow. Victor starts to emit a low, rumbling growl.

A hood is pulled down as a cloak, wreathed in white, ends the refraction, the camouflage inherent in buttermoth silk. And you see the dark countenance of Nathaniel, your father, the ranger king. And he walks forward and he says, I hear you've been looking for me. What took you so long? … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Father, oh father, our time has come not. … … The blade is now sharp, and the moon is now high. … …

A daughter once treasured, now she must flee. … … But the stalwart son returns to thee. … Maiden, oh maiden, your heart is now bare. … … … … Caught deep inside, the devil's dark snuff. … … … With salt and sand and broken key. … … … The stalwart son returns to thee. … … Brother, oh brother, your winter has come. …

An army now marches to the beating of drums With the waking of the wandering free The stalwart's son returns to thee Sailor, oh sailor, your port has been burned The love that you seek will not be returned At the ringing of bells and the boiling of seas The stalwart's son returns to thee Devil, oh devil, the flock has been lost The sheepherder's kindness does come at a cost The waxing flame, it bends the knee To the stalwart's son who returns to thee Liar, oh liar, your road has been run The die has been cast and the game has been won Men must abide, but gods they live free The stalwart's son returns to thee The stalwart's son returns to thee The stalwart's son returns to thee Hunter, oh hunter, your quarry has fled The holly and heather will soon be your bed As you lay to rest near the burning tree The star is now in the air As you lay to rest near the burning tree The stalwart's son returns to thee The stalwart's son returns to thee The stalwart's son returns to thee The stalwart's son returns to thee The stalwart's son returns to thee Children, oh children, do not speak my name I've done all I've done and would still do the same To the one who calls the apogee To the one who calls the apogee To the one who calls the apogee My stalwart's son has returned to me