Episode 15 – The Spider’s Eyes

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It's good bonus content I work really fucking hard on it Now the round friends, let me tell you a tale of three heroes noble and bold A brute, a druid, and a thief who is but nine years old You know them by name, you know them by deed, their quests are famously daring So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight Fingers have health, he shifts his shape, and wields a spear with great might Billy's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts So gather round friends, and listen close For the tale's about to start Hello everybody and welcome to Spout Lore Spout Lore I'm your game master Sean O'Hara Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz Hello everybody Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers Hey, how's it going?

And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai Hello everybody When last we left our heroes, they confronted the elven agent of the Sun Peaks Known to us currently as Hiddleston Yeah Elf Hiddleston Elf Hiddleston Ving laid down to rest When Deliari Deliari of the Ranger Corps And the fight continued between Tuck and Hiddleston Billy helping with the aid of a lash and lasso made out of roots Tuck was poisoned as the knife was jammed deeper and deeper into his body With each attempt at hurting this elf Until they were able to restrain him And Tuck chopped his arm off with Larry, Terry, and Chad Wendy's beaver cat showed up Attempting to attack Billy before Ving commanded it to do so To cease And Shadowpa receded into the shadows promising vengeance Before getting lost And Desperately trying to find the way out The party then turned their attention to the man hanging from the roots beneath the tree A variety of discerned realities and spelt lores took place In which they realized that yes, indeed This is Dathaniel Vang Zumba Who has been interred beneath the tree For potentially years And that the one impersonating Dathaniel that Ving spoke to that they met at the mouth of Adarnac Allwater's tower must have been the Gibbous man in disguise.

I thought we were really getting somewhere. We had that therapeutic session in the cave. Yeah. I'm going to need so many therapeutic sessions based on that one failed therapeutic session. All trust is gone. Yeah. Oh my god. They also attempted to figure out methods by which they could break the Gesh knowing now what they know.

The helper, the McCallan magical item, the tiny little metal dwarf, aided in removing the vines from within and without of Dathaniel as Billy created a protective fairy ring for the very first time. Cool. Sealing out any potential influence from the Outer Dark or the Gibbous man and creating an area of safety in which the party could transport Dathaniel who has an obsidian arrow lodged in his heart into the fanny pack to speak to some of the finest magical minds of their day.

Billy was able to spy into the mind of Hiddleston, finding him out to be an agent of Solara Van Curen, de facto queen of the Great Forest and leader of the Sun Peaks, who gave Hiddleston both a blade and an obsidian coin. Her true connection to the events is currently unknown, but she is most certainly in cahoots with the Gibbous man in some fashion. Man. But good news, guys. The demonic influence has been removed from the heart tree. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a good place to start.

And we learned which demon it was. Yes, the demon of greed. Uh-huh. Yes. Mm-hmm. Which has used its demonic hunger, its want to corrupt many, many souls within the forest as well as the forest itself. Billy, maintaining the protective ring outside the fanny pack by himself in a quiet moment, heard Hiddleston choke to life long enough to tell him that he knows you're here. And that is where we find our heroes now.

I imagine the scene that we open on after that revelation is Ving bursting through the door into the fanny pack with Dathaniel in his arms. Clearing off the table with one hand. Yeah. And Morris and Perel were having dinner. Like a nice candlelit dinner. Yeah. Morris is feeding Perel like a chunk of beef stroganoff. He cuts the piece of spaghetti that they were both having in their mouth. Yeah. No time for this. No time. You're both a tramp. Ving does more damage than he needs to.

Like, he starts kicking over, like, sheds just nearby. Like the bar. I go over to the mantel place instead of painting on fire. All while holding his frail dad. I don't know what to do. My insides match my outsides. He's been holding this all in for so long. He's saying, help, help, help, stay away. Help, stay away. He kicks over like a bucket with champagne in it. Yeah. Every time somebody gets near you to try and take Nathaniel, you kick out at them. Get away from me!

I hand him over, I take him back. Somebody help me. Get away from me! Don't touch him! And you lay Nathaniel out on the dining room table, a shattered spaghetti dinner, laying in ruins around you. As Perel and Morris are standing back with their hands in the air basically letting this happen. And Perel is like, who? What is this? This is my father. What? This is… The corruption at the heart of the forest. He has a demonic influence through the means of this arrow in his heart.

If we remove it, he will die. Is there anything you can do? And in a moment of confidence and surety that you are not used to seeing from Perel, he approaches Nathaniel like a surgeon. He walks up and starts looking at the wound and feeling around. And you see him close his eyes. And he looks up. I can help him. But it has to be now. Pick him up. Come with me. Do it. And… Doors flap open. We cut to you in what seems to be an infirmary of sorts. Cool.

Through a corridor that you have not yet utilized. And there is like a table and arcanical devices of mysterious make and model but things that look like they must be used in a medical capacity in some way. We're in an interesting place here in that it is technically quote unquote medieval but also magical. So there are some things that are going to be really easy to do and some things that are going to be really hard to do. But thankfully you have a magical transmuter on your side.

He directs you to lay Nathaniel out on the table sort of in the middle of the room and wheels over a couple of devices. One of which has like a big rubber hose and then like a fat needle on the end of it that he like slides into Nathaniel's arm. Weird. And it immediately goes like It's got like little bellows. Yeah, exactly. It's got little like two little bellows. That kind of move in concert with each other. So cool.

And he gets Morris in here and starts telling Morris what to do and he turns to you and goes, we need some time. Tell me what I can do to help. What do you need of me? We need you to just stay calm and let us work here. I offer this and I give him the dwarven piece of metal. Oh, sick. Yeah, which is yes, flipped back into its bar state. Whatever you ask of this, he will do. I have named him Dwarf the Rod Johnson, which is a name I just came up with. Yeah. Thank you. We'll see what we can do.

Wait, I have something I need to say to him. Discern realities to see if my dad's conscious to say something to him. Okay, 2d6 plus wisdom. Great. I got 10. Okay, so you get three questions off discern realities to see if your dad is awake. What's about to happen? I am going to attempt to stabilize his body with parts of his organs having been missing using magic while removing the arrow. Okay. Yeah. Should I be on the lookout for you see that he is breathing while they do this?

Although it seems like his breathing is stabilizing whatever they're pumping into him seems to be quieting him down, but his eyes are fluttering like he seems to be semi-conscious. What? Here's not what it appears to be. Hmm. That's a good question. Okay, so you suddenly realize a few spoke to the gibbous man. He showed you a vision of Nathaniel's past. How did he have that information? And you realize the arrow being in his heart and obsidian being a conduit to the outer dark.

He must have been seeing like the truth of your father's heart like he had access to everything your father ever knew or felt. Oh, that's why he was playing me through my dad. God, gross. And Perel at this point goes, Ving, you need to leave. I take a moment with my dad and I whisper into his ear. Either way, I'm here and soon you'll be free. And his hand twitches on the table. I leave. And the door closes. Tuck is on the other side. He's gonna go in the hall. Ving cries.

And Tuck is like waiting there for Ving and he just gives Ving a hug. Yeah, Ving hangs onto that hug longer than usual. Yeah. Billy, back on the stoop. Hiddleston has just said this to you. He knows you're here. You are forced to remain out here to maintain the fairy circle, which is a totally new thing to you. The creation of these circles. But yeah, what do you do? Could I try to like learn some stuff from Hiddleston? Yeah, totally. Okay. Can I throw him a vial of golden root? Mmm.

And basically be like, I know you're not well. This will make you feel a little better. Like I feel kind of bad for you. Yeah. Then defy danger charisma? Yeah. He's in a lot of pain, so he might be willing to do this. Eight. Eight. Um, I throw him a vial of golden root. Uh-huh. And I say, uh, we really liked you. We really didn't want to hurt you. We really liked you. Um, I'm sorry. So you throw him. Sorry about your arm. Yeah.

You throw him this vial and he's like laying there and it like hits him in the chest, like pats against the doublet that he's wearing. Yeah. And rolls down into the dirt. Oh. He's just like, you must think I'm a fool. I'm a poison, a young boy. I don't just drink things handed to me by my friend. Suit yourself. Billy pops one open, drinks it himself. Whoa. Can I use wealth and taste? Oh, that wealth and taste move that you, aw. Do I still have it? I'll check. Oh yeah. I just don't have it. Okay.

Yeah, so he's like, I mean, I don't feel very good right now. So I think I'm gonna have one too. Okay, so that is also charisma. Smart. Thirteen. God damn it. Oh my god. Yeah, you, he was willing to hear you out with the seven to nine. But with wealth and taste he like sees you drink the vial. What is wealth and taste? Can we have, what is that?

Oh, so wealth and taste is when I make a show of flashing around my most valuable possession, they will do anything they can to obtain your item or one like it. Great. Yeah. So he like sees you drink it. And I'm going, mm, mm. So good. Picking up rocks. Wow. So good and tasty. And he licks his lips. He licks his lips like a parched man. And then he like, Billy flexes his biceps and he's like, oh! I feel so powerful and strong now. And then he starts doing, he starts trying to do a push up. Wow.

How far does he get in the push up? He gets on the ground. He goes down. Yeah. And then he like looks slowly at the guy. Yeah. So Billy fakes, he does a, he does like, half a burpee. Lays down. And he burps. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. And uh, Hiddleston licks his lips and then with his good arm, well his remaining arm, reaches for the vial, pops the top, and drinks down the liquid. Yeah and Billy's stretching on the ground. Feeling better, right?

Well considering the circumstances I suppose I feel just fine. Yeah, that's, I mean I'm glad to hear. Um, you know, maybe while you're feeling okay, we can talk and keep you awake until we get some help. I think I would like that. Nice. I would like that too. Um, so uh, tell me, uh, Billy's like, shit I didn't think this would work. Also, I love it cause Jessica keeps looking at me so conspiratorially where she's just like, look at what I'm making this guy do right now. What an idiot.

So when you say uh, like, he knows we're here, like, what do you mean by that? What do you mean? I think you know what I mean. Okay, well tell me, tell me like pal to pal, like, is he like on his way? No. He's not on his way. I simply want you to realize that there is nowhere that you can go that he will not be aware. But now he knows that you have seen what he's capable of, and he directs his hand to where Dathaniel was, that there is nowhere he cannot find you and no one he cannot reach.

Um, other question is we're getting to know each other. Oh, well, uh, moving on. Um, so, like, what made you want to side with Wendy in all of this? With Wendy? Hm. I do not work for that ranger's scum. Well, who do you work for then? I work for the highest of the high, the noblest of the noble. Her eminent Laura Van Curen. Nice. And what do you, what is she giving you for doing all this? Like, this sucks. Your job sucks. This sucks. Your job sucks. And you look fucking stupid today.

And you're ugly and your clothes are dumb. And you smell bad. Why is, why is Solera doing this? Like, what's she getting out of it? I think you might have to work for this one a little bit. You might have to, cause he seems very like, well, we're friends now, small one, but I can't. Of course we're friends. It is a poor gambler that shows all his cards. I can tell you a secret if you tell me your secret. That's what friends do. Ooh, parlay. Ah. Oh, yeah, parlay's great. 2 to 6 plus charisma.

Nine. Nine. So that means that he needs, you need to tell him something right now. A real secret. A real secret? I'll tell you a secret if you tell me one. A real secret. I had a bad dream about one of my dads. Tell me more. Just, it seemed really real. What was the dream? It was just a bad dream. It was just like a dumb, he was just chillin' under a tree and then it caught on fire and, anyway, that's it. I don't remember anything else. Anyway.

And the camera would see as Billy, like, I don't know, and looks away that his eyes, like, dilate a little bit. Whoa. When you say that. So what do you want to know? What is Solara getting out of this and like, why, why is she helping him?

You feel, again, that he's like, trying not to tell you this, but something about you think the way, now with like this fairy ring that you've created and sort of the, um, the flux you've been feeling with like your current self kind of pushing against, like, you know, like becoming your winter self in Hibernia and touching into these other parts, like, something about your connect, like how you asked this question seems to be compelling him to tell you the truth. Ooh.

Like I've, I'm like doing a trade right now. You made, you made a deal. Yeah. Yeah. You made a deal. You're like shifting into your, like, some murphy that like are the deal he wants. I guess would be the next step, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I told you a big secret, so now you have to tell me a big secret. And that's how friendship works. So, Lara Van Kieren isn't working for the Gibbous Man. Okay. She's working with the Gibbous Man. Oh, how so? You have to tell me, cause I told you.

And when Billy says that, there's like an aspect of him that shifts into winter. Oh, yeah. And it becomes like, Evil? Angry? Or if that feels right. Oh, yeah, like little, yeah, I think so, like, it's like, His influence grows? Sounds like kinda creepy, but like, you know, like in a horror movie when a little kid gets like kinda angry? Yes. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's like not just a kid having a flip out. Yeah. You can see like frost crawling along the ground as he gets angry. Yeah.

She is… And he, this is where he like, you can feel him straining to not tell you this. You have to tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. So, Lara Van Kieren is a warlock. Warlock. Whoa. Whoa. And he kinda falls back, and you can see that, like, the golden root that you usually see, like pupils moving and stuff, contract again. Oh. And he goes, You trickster. And he passes out from strain. Oh, hope they're done soon. Uh, cool. So then I guess we cut back inside.

What are Tuck and Ving doing? Um. The page brings you like a glass of water. I slap it away. I say, bring me a glass of water. I'm so sorry. I'm a mess right now. What is this thing that you do that when you feel uncomfortable, you treat serving staff badly? Why do you keep doing that? Does that happen? You do that so much. It's because I'm trying to portray the monster that I feel inside. I'm so sorry, page. I'll get the water. What do you want, page? Just paper rustling.

I just hand him a love and love. I like thinking his little paper mustache like bristles. Yeah, is there anything Tuck and Ving are doing or discussing in here? Or are you just waiting? Yeah, we went to the observatory where it's like, you can kind of like see a fake version of the outside and there's like a telescope and stuff. Yeah, so you're standing in like the bell of the observatory.

There's a intricately made telescope pointing at a leather sky that's about two feet away from the telescope. Yeah. Is it a real sky kind of thing? Nah, it's painted pretty like, lively. Yeah. But it's, you know, like big exaggerated stars that are all in the position that the constellations actually are, but very clearly hand painted. I guess Tuck in this moment, he's like really worried about Ving.

Cause Tuck is aware of how much Ving doesn't think about his dad and his mom and how much he's like avoided it all these years. Yeah. And Tuck is like aware of like the death of a parent and like how much that can impact you and really fuck you up. So, yeah, he's just really worried about Ving and he's really worried about Billy too. Cause he's just like, he's aware that we're under the tree and we've literally considered setting it on fire for like five minutes. Yep.

And he can like feel the end of the road. Like in this moment, he can feel the steps that are left running out. So he like wants to make sure that Ving is okay. It's like almost like he has a terminal illness kind of. And he's like seeing Ving having a hard time. Yeah. And he's just like, I gotta make sure that Ving is okay. So that Billy's okay. Yeah. So that's what's in Tuck's head. And then Tuck says, those stars over there look like a dick in balls. Talk about night moves.

And then he does the, puts his finger inside the hole. And then Tuck goes, ha ha ha ha ha ha. He laughs in such a sad way. Aww. And you hear a at the stairs. It's Morris. What's up? Your father is stabilized. Is he conscious? Is he awake? No. But we're going to continue observing him. Perel will continue working on him. But for the time being, he should be safe here. Can we see him? And then he turns to Ving. Do you want to see him? Ving just walks out towards the medical bay. Yep.

Cut to doors open. Your father is on the slab. Asleep. Machines hooked up to him. Pumping away. Perel is there and he's like leaning against a counter. Very tired. Whoa. I walk up and I hug Perel. He hugs you. He's got a bottle of pineapple juice in one hand. Is this for your cum? Trying to replenish my electrolytes, alright? I don't know if it's in pineapple juice. I'm not a fucking doctor. Thank you very much for what you did here. I'm happy I could do anything. He's alive. Where's the arrow?

It's over here. And it's like in a he takes you over to a bell jar that the arrow is like standing in. The tip is on the base of the platform but the bell jar encloses the arrow. I'm going to pick up the bell jar. Careful, careful, careful. I'm careful, I'm careful, I'm careful. And then he does that thing where he goes, oh! Drops and catches it. Perel spills a bunch of pineapple juice all over the place. And Tuckos, is there something special about the jar or what? It's just for presentation.

Uh, I didn't want to touch it. It's not like anything I've ever seen. It's certainly not magical. It's something else. Hmm. Could I discern realities on this arrow? Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. 2d6 plus wisdom. Nine. Nine. You can get one question. Do you know the one that makes the most sense? I know that he got a nine. Yeah, he gets one. Oh, right. Wow. I'm a fucking idiot. We were both staring at Abdul for like a minute.

Tuck got distracted cause like he was looking at the bellows machine and he was like, hey, check it out. It looks like it's pumping my balls full of stuff. Jesus Christ. So Tuck was just totally distracted. Yeah, totally. And he was like, oh, what? You guys are doing stuff over there. 11. Okay, so you get 10. What it here is not what it appears to be. Uh, yeah. So this arrowhead, you look at it now and it is like a napped obsidian arrowhead.

Like the edge has been you know, knocked away with tools in the old style. You would guess that this is much more dangerous than having a coin. The fact that it was the wound that allowed your father to be regulated in that way suggests that even nicking yourself with this arrow would probably be a huge problem. Ugh. Yeah. Is, are there any runes on it or anything or is it just an arrowhead? No. Yeah, it's just an arrowhead.

You hold it up to the light and shines a really, really, really puts like, cranks it up to 11. Sunstone light, thank you. Yeah. Puts it in front of a sunstone light. And what question are you using on this one? What should I be on the lookout for? You see what you imagine at first to be imperfections in the obsidian but resolve themselves as a constellation. Ooh. What is about to happen?

Okay, so knowing what you now know about the gibbous man and his connection to obsidian and obsidian's connection to the outer dark, you would assume that this would allow some aspect of perception on his part. Like he is in some way connected to obsidian. You also know that he is contained in a certain way. Thanks to Lillian's curse for all intents and purposes a bajillion years ago. But you also this is another like connecting dots from previous knowledge sort of thing.

If he is wanting you, basically like if he wants to stop you from stopping him, why didn't he come here himself? Why did he send you and stay behind? Why was he in Vigil City but no further? Like he basically left you to do his thing. And then you realize like why was he corrupting the tree in the first place? And you realize it has to have been the tree that was keeping him away. It was keeping him out of the forest.

And by corrupting the forest he could enter Vigil because that was the furthest edges of the corruption. But it hadn't been able to reach the tree itself. Holy shit. And that was that's consistent with like everything we've said about like all of his moves were about like removing sources of knowledge from the material plane. Like he got the Hibernians to shroud themselves in the grey so they couldn't see the sky. The skies himself he can shift his appearance. Yes.

Hiding the true knowledge of his being. Yeah. And he like he's obscuring the runes. Like he's trying to hide information. And information brings enlightenment. And enlightenment keeps him out. Yeah. He's just really trying to pull the dark over everything's eyes. Like bring about total darkness. Because I think there's probably like a functional thing of like if no one knows what the fuck's going on. Like all the wizards are gone. Like historical knowledge is shattered.

Then he's free to do whatever he wants. So it's like a functional thing. But I think also like the more literally in the dark everyone in the world is. Yeah. The like more he can do the thing that he needs to do. He can like smash all the realms together and get back to where he needs to be. Which leads you to another question. Why did he tell you to come here then? Yeah. He wanted us. He was telling us to fix the tree. He was telling us to cure the tree.

Well he was telling you to change the runes. Right. And he said that that would fix the tree. Yeah. He didn't take into account that we would fuck up so bad. That we ended up like literally face to face. Yeah. With Dathaniel. Yep. Which might have been why Hiddleston and Wendy moved in. Yeah. So it. And why they failed because it was a last minute plan. Exactly. This could be a very interesting piece of evidence that maybe he fucked up. He attempted to lie to some idiots.

He tried to use us as a tool but little does he know we're the biggest tools of all. We are a bunch of useless tools. Tools. Um. Is it a good idea for me to use bardic lore to try to discover the connection between him and obsidian? Like use bardic lore gods and their servants to see if there's a connection between obsidian and the night sky?

Cause the thing that Tuck is thinking now is if he's exerting power through the obsidian coins like it could be a thing where those are parts of his chains. You know what I mean? Well they contain a piece of the. I just saw a constellation in it. So there's something to do with it. There is a constellation. They are small pieces of the night sky. Like what if they are really yeah like actual pieces of the night sky. They're pieces of the night sky. Actual chains. Yeah. Yeah.

And remember the giants thought the night sky was the outer dark. Yeah. Like maybe what Lillian did was made the night sky tangible like she created obsidian kind of and it tied him in a physical way to the material realm. Oh and then I wonder if like when she brought the brooch that was like opening it up. Right. It shattered the sky. So it started like letting pieces of him through. That's very cool. If it's true. Could be. I think that this would be a Spout Lore rather than a.

I can't use bardic lore on it. Please. John. My character's really worried about his family. So you're using bardic lore on obsidian. Is that what we're saying? My guy's gonna die. My guy. You're playing a video game. My guy. Yeah like your instinct. Cause I don't have an expertise in obsidian. I have expertise in gods and their servants. I'm asking about obsidian. Yeah. That's a stretch. Yeah. So Spout Lore's fine. 2d6 plus intelligence. And Sean if this doesn't work.

Wait can we use sounding board? Oh yeah. Yeah I think so. Alright should we do this? Let's do it. 2d6. I'm gonna Spout Lore on this fucking obsidian. Then I buy you. You roll my bond? Yes. Okay. Here we go. Well that's a 3 so. Oh no. There's no way I'm succeeding. No. I got 7. Aw man. John. My guy. What a bummer. Yeah. Fuck. It's fine. I had a whole idea. Fuck. The lead up to that was awesome. Well who knows maybe we can ask it again. Later. Later. At another time.

So we're gonna do it in the you don't get what you want in that the answer is something you do not want to know. Which is you have to assume with Ving being like oh that must be how he knew about the death of my mother and like the war was by like using that obsidian as a conduit to like know Dathaniel's past to aid him in his deceptions. And then you're like I guess it would make sense with like the eye carvings. The gibbous man must be able to perceive through obsidian. Oh what?

So all this time you've been carrying around the eyes of the gibbous man. No. In your chest. In my chest? And you have embedded in your chest pieces of obsidian. Can he still see through these? You have no way of knowing. Can he see through them when they're white? Cause the ones in my chest are white. You have no way of knowing. Fuck! Spellore! We're at a point where we're gonna cut back to Billy probably. Oh okay. I just wanna check in with Billy basically. Yeah. Cause I mean I know your goal.

Hiddleston has passed out. Yep. He will be of no further use to you right now. And I'm not gonna betray the strength of the fairy circle. You are safe in this place as long as you stay out here. I guess I just wanna check in with Billy and see what he is doing. Is he doing? How does he feel here in this dark horrible place? Well Billy is having uh he's he gets bored so fast. Uh huh. Um so he uh was telling himself ghost stories for a bit. Like campfire stories.

So he like piled some pebbles into like a fake fire. Yeah. And he's telling himself stories. But you know how Billy sometimes like they can be really funny and sometimes they can be really scary. Yeah. He accidentally was telling himself scary ones. So then he got too scared and he's like. I thought he was the funny one. He's like I'm fine. Everything I said was made up. So he's just talking to himself. Yeah. Um and then he was like I have to find something else to do.

And everything is pitch black. Well not pitch black but you know there's nothing to look at. Um except I guess the roots. I could try to read the roots. Oh yeah. One down here. So he's but he can't leave so he's using his bilnoculars to try to read what's on the roots. Yeah. Of the tree. Okay. Cool. Very cool. So sick. When there's nothing left to do you read. You read a book. Reading is the last resort. The bottom of the barrel and stuff to do.

My options are to stare into the blackness or read. Or accidentally read. What have I become? His imagination betrayed him this time so I read. So what is this subject Billy is interested in learning about? I guess it could be like about the gods of nature. Cause we're learning that the natural world does have gods. And how they manifest and interact with our version of the world. Yeah like has this ever happened before? Oh yeah. Oh. Right cause this tree's thousands of years old. Right.

It was probably planted before the grieving. Oh yeah definitely. It's ancient. It probably has like information about like other civilizations too like you know like the giant myths and like everything else. We've really only talked about the giants but. Well I think it's because the giants were the original people. In the world? Of the planet. What? I thought we talked about this. I think so cause they were like the builders. What about before them? Let's rule Spout Lore.

I feel like I've said too much. I like that. In the middle of the tree of the rings there is like a few dark rings. Where the outer dark was more present. You know what I mean like. Yeah. There's a black ring. If you were gonna cut this tree down there would be one of the rings that was black. Yeah. And it grew within this darkened area. That's cool. Yeah. And there were runes from that year. Totally. So plus intelligence what'd you get? I got ten. Oh wait no. No I got eight. Oh thank god.

Son of a bitch. Fuck. Fucking ass. So it's interesting but not useful. Keep in mind. No. This is no. But I mean we can talk about the subject. It's just it won't be necessarily useful to your current situation. Jessica's so pissed off right now. Jessica hates not winning. She does. That's what it is. Wow. You want to win. She's just like I'm gonna read it into her hoodie. You're a natural born winner. And there she goes. Oh and her headphones. Her headphones. Priceless headphones.

Okay well I feel like I should probably say more. Now she looks like Clover. She looks like we're playing with the girl from the ring. Take a picture. Jessica look over here. That's what you look like. This is the reaction to a partial success whereas I have failed 99% of all. Of all of my roles. Head held high. Right so something that I think we have danced around is the fact that McCall, the McCallan Empire which I think maybe we'd oh I think Abdul and I maybe just discussed this.

McCall is the original word for the empire of giants. Ooh. Neat. Ooh. I don't remember this conversation at all. You rarely do. Do is it also okay you know how we've never named our world? Yes. That's why I thought you were gonna say that. Is the world like named like Maka or something? Oh yeah. And the giants were the original inhabitants of the planet. They were the first civilization. That we know of. That we know of. That's cool.

But as far as the elves are concerned the giants were the first. Whoa. They spanned the globe. They were great builders and great in the capital T capital G sense. The great builders. Sorry I just had a thought. And this is why their bones were obsidian because they were crafted from the sky. Oh yeah. They need to be made of something. Yes. Yeah. Was that what you were gonna say? The origin story.

They were basically yeah they were basically as far as the tales go the reason for their obsidian bones is they were basically the children of the night sky. They were Gibbous' children? Kind of yeah. Whoa. The elves believe at least in terms of folklore that the giants were created by the gods. Wow. Cool. This is fucking sick. I like that. I like that that means the sunstone is originally in opposition of the obsidian. The sunstone we had said that they used it. Yes. To commune with the sky.

Yeah. Cool. It was opposite but not in opposition. Yeah. You need it all. Exactly. It was part of the balance. Of the world. Yeah. That's sick. And living giants are different than obsidian. Uh huh. Um of course bones are different than rock. Yeah. Though they have the same properties in this respect. The death of the giants led to an imbalance in the influence of night. Yeah. Because as more giants basically became stone. Yeah.

That influence of like because we say the Gibbous man is the god of the sky. Yeah. He is the night and the day. Oh. But the night began to outweigh the day with the death of the giants. Like in his aspect he became more night than day. Totally. And I mean this is more like um myth than it is anything that matters. You know what I mean? It's kind of color. And it does not answer the question that you guys were asking. So let's talk more about what Billy might have been interested in. Yeah.

Because I have a feeling Billy would see like ancient giant empire and would be like boring. Yeah. His eyes would glaze over. Yeah. Okay. He would think about McCall and be like oh so sweaty there. I'm moving on. He just sees the name McCall and is like yuck. His thighs start getting pimples on the insides of them. No, no, no. He learns the true nature of the planet and he's just like so hot. And then moves over it. Can't help it. He's just an idiot. Yeah.

But he is looking for the Gibbous man I suppose. Right? Yeah. Was that poem again that you like made up last episode or the episode like last recording? Oh yeah. Chains Broken became Chains Forged. Uh huh. When Moon threw off her yoke. Uh huh. And Father Night was cast away to walk among the folk. So Chains Broken became Chains Forged. Oh. Maybe he, so his thing is he needs to go back to the sky. Mm-hmm.

Maybe he doesn't realize that him casting all these obsidian coins everywhere is what's, he's locking himself to the material plane. Oh. He's anchoring himself here. He's doing it to himself. He's doing it to himself. The more he asserts influence on the material plane, the more he anchors himself here. Yeah. So we can use that against him. Yeah. So it would make sense then for like those coins that turn white. It's actually helping him. Oh.

Like where it's like if you cast off the, the knight off it. Yeah. Yeah. Then it's just, you know, piece of stone or glass. Yeah. It basically like takes the part of like the outer dark that's within it, the piece of him. Uh huh. And it like gets rid of it. Yeah. So it releases it. Yeah. It's like the spirit of it if that makes sense. Yes. Yeah. Which is why the demon is trapped in white obsidian. Cause then it doesn't have that like transmission point anymore. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's stuck in the physical coin. Yes. As opposed to being like a conduit from the dark. Yes. Yeah. It's, it's basically like closing a door on that demon. Whoa. Which means the gibbous man can't watch through those. It's just the demon in there. Ah. Cause it's just walked now. It belongs to earth. Yes. Yeah.

And it also means that if the gibbous man wants to undo the thing that he's done to himself in like reclaiming all of the pieces of himself that he's had to plant in the world to exert his influence. He's gonna need a thing that can shatter all these fucking coins. TLC. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Cool. Cause I think Bill Lee came upon a story of like um, like it's like an old myth story like old, very old and it talks about like the eyes of the spider and stuff like that.

And like the spider's web and things like that. Yeah, I like that. And the web was so large that the spider like he couldn't protect his web on his own. Like it was too big for him. He had eyes everywhere. He had eyes everywhere and so he had to grow more eyes and take parts of himself to place eyes everywhere. But like all it did was like. Make him more vulnerable. Make him more vulnerable. Yeah. Whoa. That's really cool. Fuck. That's a great parable or whatever. Thank you. That's sick.

That's fucking sick. And that makes so much sense too that like maybe he wants TLC. Because the first time that Tuck like smashed a coin was in McCall to stop the demon of ambition. And if he can see through the coins up until that point he must have been like what the fuck was that? Yeah. And then was like I need to find those people. Uh huh. Interesting. Cause that was kind of when like that was when the Medjai started coming after us. Yeah. That was when. When things got really hard. Yeah.

Yeah. Got dark. Yeah. When the narrative entity that is the end of the story saw us for the first time. Interesting. Totally. And I think I bet the Gibbous man would have taken it as like a threat to his like safety. Like if your sight's cut off you're like whoa what the fuck. Like that's automatically a threat. But really it's it's like that's what he needs. But has he realized that? That is beyond what you would know. Okay. Does he know that he if he had TLC that it would help him free?

We would know. There's no way for anybody to know that. Uh huh. But the fact that Billy realizes that the coins are actually chaining him. Like he is chaining himself in trying to expand his influence. That's huge. Yeah. So interesting and pretty useful. Fuck. But more so interesting. More interesting. More interesting. It's so much more interesting that it is useful that it's basically not useful. Like I can't use it to make myself dinner right now. So it's so not useful. That is a great point.

Anyway thank you guys for helping. That was awesome. That was really good job. I fucking love it. Huge world building. And the spider story. The spider like removing his eyes to like oh that's so fucking good. I'm pleased with that. I love how there's like a little connection to that like that myth. The spider and the hummingbird. Yeah. Like the scorpion and the frog. The scorpion and the frog. Yeah. And the spider myth that Abdul wrote for the Almanac about like prophecy.

I thought that was an intentional connection. Oh no. I was thinking about like the scorpion and the frog. Then it's a perfect like. Wow. Yeah. Oh it's so good. You know the thing where like sometimes in myths gods are good and sometimes they're bad and then they morph over time. There must be like some interpretations of like those like progenitor myths where it's like oh the spider was gibbous. Like but like others where it's like no that's like a completely different thing. Oh yeah.

It's just now they refer to it as gibbous cause he's the modern god. Yeah. Well it's like real like dude like god. The Christian god. Yeah. Yahweh was a war god. Uh huh. In an old like Babylonian pantheon. Whoa. And then so to those people he was the god of storms. The god of war. Uh huh. But then to his cult he was the creator, the protector, the one that defended all. Cool. Yeah. So that's what you learn. What do you do? Um Billy's like I need to tell Ving and Tuck about this like right now.

So he's like what do I do? So he starts coughing and farting. As loud as he can. Tuck just took another one of those coins off Hiddleston and walked into the tent. What an idiot. We're so stupid. He's been collecting them for seven years. You cut to Tuck and we're in the medical theater and I'm like freaking out and saying the same thing or I'm just like fucking stupid collecting these fucking coins. Just dumping them in a garbage can. Stop pointing them at me. Everybody's running away.

He's like Ving you gotta take the coin and Ving's like get it away. Morse is like trying to shut all the doors to hide secrets. Get these fucking outta here. They're throwing them into a fake sky. And he grabbed the bag of coins and the axe and I'm like I'm gonna solve this forever. And he starts running to the danger room and he's gonna try and force them all out of existence like he did that one time. Wait the danger room doesn't exist anymore. Oh right.

Cause it's like a where it oh right cause you guys are in the danger room. Okay so then Tuck takes his axe and slices through one of the walls of the tent to try and find the extra dimensional space. Oh no. Tuck. Um. Did you just break? Oh no. I can't do escape route. Where did you cut through? Uh I think. You're in the medical area?

I was in the medical observatory but I imagine Tuck running back to the observatory and you know how like there's a night sky over the balcony but it's actually just two feet away. Oh no. He tries to just slice into the night sky and like shove the coins in. And then he can Billy's outside farting and coughing and yelling. When he realizes that the coins are a problem. Yeah. Yeah totally. Uh. Ah! Ving! Tuck! And then Ving's stuck between Tuck doing this possibly destructive thing.

Oh my god yeah. And then uh fart coughing. And Tuck does hear that. He hears Billy screaming and he stops. Uh huh. Billy runs in and he's like I called for you so many times. No one answered me. It's so scary out there. Oh Billy. And then Tuck drops the axe in the bag of coins and he goes to Billy. Are those the coins? Billy we found out that these things are the gibbous man's eyes. I know. I found that out too. Wow really convenient. I know so convenient.

So I guess a thing to consider is that he must know about the fanny pack and about the wizards and about all that stuff. Yeah. So maybe Billy tries to like do it in like code like shhh. I don't know what it can see. We have to hide those. Yeah we Tuck that's not for we've already had enough dinner. Yeah. You've had enough dinner. It's time to put the napkin on the plate. And then Tuck goes I was trying to put the napkin in the toilet room.

Morris do you know where there is something like a toilet room that can hide our napkins? What the fuck are you on about? Shhh. Secret time. And he looks around all over the place. And Billy trips like in quotations with like his cloak and like drapes it over the coins and he's like whoops. And then we all get really close to each other. Yeah. We bring Morel in close. Morris and Perel? Morel.

And they well Perel is still in the operating theater with uh with Dathaniel but Morris gets his little whiskery face in there. What the fuck is going on? The gibbous man can see out of those. Oh no. The coins are the spider's eyes. I don't even know if the one in my chest he can see out of or not. So we have to talk in code. Is that what we're doing right now? The napkin is the coins. The toilet is some liminal space where he can't see out of.

Are you saying that the gibbous man can see through the coins we've been getting? Shut up right now. The gibbous man that I want revenge on? Shut up. Yes. Yes. And you will not get revenge. And he looks to the coins. No. And he starts walking towards the coins. No touching. Oh no. Fuck Morris. Morris. What? If he knows what we're planning we can't get revenge on him. You can get your revenge but not now. Alright. We have to get out of here. Where can we hide these that he won't see?

And I tell him, I'm like Morris one time before we found this when the danger room was still like toilet room. When we were shooting. Is this the first that he's finding out that it was our toilet room? No. He's familiar. I shoved the coins into one of the coins into that space. Yes I'm familiar. Can I, is that a place that they give us man cannot get to? I suppose. What about the safe behind the painting? That was between worlds. What safe behind what? Oh you already know about my safe.

Sorry that's a reflex. Wouldn't that be somewhere that exists in many places and no places at once? The safe. The safe. Yeah the old safe. Would that keep it safe? Keep us safe from him? That's what it's designed for. Okay yeah let's put it there. Alright. And he picks up, he just moves over the cloak, picks up the coins, throws them over the page, just goes put those in the safe and it runs off. So I mean keep in mind that all of my work was designed with humanity in mind not the divine.

So there are considerations. One, he's a god. Two, Tarka's coins in his chest. Three, he's a god. Okay so on number two, do we think that the coins that are white he can see through? The story said no. Okay that's good news. That's good news. So you simply have a demon of some sort in your body. Mhm. That's bad. No big deal. NDD. That's whatever right now. So are we in um, I don't know I assume that we've left the forest or something? We're in a safe place?

Um Smash cut like we cut to the outside where there's no people and we see the mycelium of the fairy ring starting to recede Oh no. Back into the soil. Oh shit. Oh shit. Um we gotta get out of here you guys. We don't have much time. I shouldn't be in here right now. Okay. Billy runs out. Okay. And closes up the tent. Okay. And does Billy just like start packing up the tent? Yeah. So nobody Wait. So you close up the tent with us inside? Yeah.

I think you might have to explain to us what's happening. Oh sorry. Okay. I gotta guess I would hear you guys. And the fastest way is if I go alone. Are you saying that you wanna find Elmin on your own and just take us in the fanny pack? Yeah. If that's okay. Do you think it's okay? Yes. Do you know you can do this? I know I can do it. And I know at worst I'll open this up again. That's true. Yeah. Tuck is so apprehensive.

Like it's like this is like letting your kid go to the corner store for the first time. Yeah. To get you cigarettes. Yeah. Okay. I will mark Billy. Ah. I'll use the mark of the animal. I'm gonna use the eyes of the tiger to mark Billy. That's great. That is very good. You will be removing the mark you have on Maugath. That's okay. That's fine. This is basically like putting like one of those air tags on a kid. Yeah. Totally. Basically. Yeah. I tie it into his shoelaces. He's at the gas station.

I don't know. Yeah. He's been at the gas station for like six hours. Okay. And then Tuck is realizing that he's the mom now. Yeah. Fing realizes that he's the father now. He's like, you'll be fine. What could go wrong? He's gotta do it alone at some point. Okay. Billy, if you have things I have to tag around you, I trust you. Billy's like holding out his hands like waiting like, okay, I'll do it. Do it fast. Do it fast, Fing. I'll give you a hug and kiss on the cheek. Aww. The kiss.

The kiss is the mark. That kiss is the mark. It's the only clean part on his entire face. Yeah. Fing's lips are so dirty now. What the? Well, I did like dunk my face in blood earlier. Yeah. Right. We have not cleaned that up. Yeah. Billy, if anything happens, you open the fanny pack right away. Don't even cough, fart, yell. I won't do any of it. I'll do it real fast and quiet. And Billy emerges from the fanny pack. The last of my my little mycelium wall is receded. Yeah. Okay, be brave, Billo.

And I roll up the tent and wrap it around my waist. Billy, is a child. Yeah, I'm not doing well. Attempting to fold up a complicated tent. Oh, yeah. So it's like, it's like coming down like, you know, like it's still kind of puffed up. It's like just folding it like, I don't know how they do it. Oh my god, Morris is freaking out. No, no, that side folds in. It doubles over. We're inside and we can see like stuff happening. Like little hand prints. Yeah. Like rooms are changing size.

Is he putting it in his mouth? Why is he putting it in his mouth? Billy's like, like, yeah, like, I don't know. Is it like an envelope? Try to lubricate it to get it into itself. And it's sort of like if you fold a fitted sheet. Yeah. So he's like, good enough. Yeah. He's just bulging. He puts it around, kind of around his waist, but like tucks his shirt over it so it stays in. Yeah, nice. Perfect. And Hiddleston is passed out down here and you know that Wendy is dead around the corner.

I'm gonna use escape route. Excellent. Great idea. This is a really solid plan, by the way. I like this. I'm not gonna dilly dally. Nope. So when I'm in too deep, need a way out. I, oh yeah, name my escape route and roll plus dexterity. So I'm gonna try to find the way out that Wendy came in. Yeah. You're literally in too deep. You are deep in the earth. I'm scared. This is perfect. Come on, do it. Do it, Billy. Do it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, plus dexterity. Oh, ten. Oh my god. Fuck yes.

You got eight plus two. Okay. This is us watching from the inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you got plus two. That's amazing. Everyone's just standing around Ving like he's a radio. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm like leaping over like the roots and stuff like that. And I can see Wendy's footprints. Yes. It's quite muddy down here. And you follow her footprints like back into another side tunnel up a route. Oh, she ran a long way. Yeah, she's quick. She's fleet of foot. Yeah.

Which means, unfortunately, because you said it and I agreed, that you come up quite a ways away from the action. Okay. Like you're, I think. Am I still in the I think you're still in the garden. Okay. Yes. I think you haven't entered into like the chambers, but you're in the garden itself. But you come up pretty close to the walls on the other side of where you were. Like you know you'd have to go through either the garden or the cloister to get to Elman's quarters. Okay. But there are guards.

There are gardeners wandering to and fro. There are armed like military elves. Oh shit. Stomping around. And you see the like the callousness with which they treat the garden. Okay. Stomping through. And I feel like there are gardeners like actually holding weapons. Like looking uncomfortable about it. Yeah. A few gardeners have like scythes and sickles. And are yeah walking around very apprehensively. Are they like concentrated in an area?

Like if I were to use fairy dust to make them fall asleep, would that kind of create enough of like a quiet zone where I can Yeah. They're not super concentrated, but you would be able to either take down the guards or the gardeners. And a gardener a very apprehensive looking young elf girl has a sickle and is walking down a row of bushes including your bush like poking. Oh shit. The bushes. I back up against the like garden wall. Yeah. And I try to shoot out some fairy dust. Okay. Yeah.

Perfect. 2d6 plus charisma I assume. Come on. Nine. So I believe you choose one between you can get a bunch of people, you can do it from a distance and they stay asleep for a long time. For a long time. So you basically since you don't do it from a distance you like wait for her to get close to you and just like poof. And it hits her right in the face. She sees you and there's like a moment of alarm. She's like Yeah. And that gasp she breathes in a bunch of fairy dust.

And then and flops into a bush. I steal her sickle. Ah. Nice. You have a weapon now. Yeah. Terrifying Billy with a sickle. Yeah. Okay. Now you got to get across. Are you going over the garden wall or through the garden wall? I will. I'm going to go over the garden wall. Nice. Okay. Defy danger dexterity to climb up the garden wall. Vingatuck have popcorn at this point. Yeah. Yeah totally. Billy's in full stealth mode. Yeah. Eight. Eight.

You scuttle over to the garden wall and start climbing up the old ancient wood of the roots that have been turned into this structure. And like an old PS2 stealth game the camera sees like a guard has a question mark over his head and turns and is like huh? And starts walking over to where you are. You haven't been found out but they like caught movement out of the corner of their eye. Oh shit. Basically as you get over the top of the wall. I'm just going to book it. Yeah. Uh.

Can I use escape route again or is that too many times? You should be able to use it again. Okay. Yeah. Ten. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So you just book. Yeah. You use your scary agility and your thiefly intelligence to sprint as much as your tiny little legs will allow. So crouched? Yeah. And you hear as you're running away Hey! Wake up! She's like being shaken Uh oh. By this but since you used a long time he's like hey! And you're able to slip in to the cloister itself.

What's inside the cloister? Like are there, is there furniture that Billy can kind of like traverse around? Yeah. Yeah I think there's like you know. All sneakily. Chairs and places with flowers and stuff on it. It's basically a big ring structure with like corridors and rooms as a part of that big ring. Uh but you do recall that you're sort of close to Elman's quarters. Is there any like little anything I can disguise myself with? You can discern realities. Okay. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.

Uh nine. Okay. What here is useful or valuable to me? Uh there is a bucket next to a mop. Actually that's perfect. Yeah. So I squeeze it to the bucket. Yeah. Like over, like overturned. Yeah. Yeah. I use the how big's the sickle? Sickles aren't huge. Sickles aren't huge. Billy's aren't huge. The sickle is about as tall as Billy. Oh shit. Can it fit in there with me? Yeah but you got a big ol' razor sharp sickle in your face. I'm risking it. Yeah. Alrighty I'm covered in blood.

And we hear Billy say that Yeah. From inside and we're like what the fuck? Why is he risking it? Why is he running with a knife? And then he brings it really close up into his face. No no no no no. To carve little eye holes out of the bucket. Holy shit. Oh I see. Be careful. Be careful. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. This makes the bucket way more useful so you're gonna have to roll for this I think. Uh 2d6 plus dexterity. Yeah I gotta do it like without dying. Seven. Oh my god. Seven to nine.

You're only able to get one eye hole. That's fine. Which means your peripheral vision is dog shit in this bucket. It's okay. Actually I am so good with just one eye cause that's how thieves like thieves look around. Just one eye open. Out of the one eye. Alright so now Billy's in a bucket with a hole in it. And there are gardeners and guards in lesser numbers than those in the garden itself.

And now this is a cartoon where we see a shot of like a bucket moving and then a guard walks by and it stops. There's a hole in your bucket. Dear Billy. Dear Billy. So I think this is going to be I wanna say defy danger Oh it's wisdom or charisma. Cause it's no longer. Charisma cause I gotta move like a bucket. Yeah. You have to move like a bucket. Like a bucket. Alright charisma. Nice. That's a funny enough explanation. Yeah.

Well cause I'm thinking it's either like knowing when to stop or knowing how to pretend to not be there. Yeah. Nine. Okay perfect seven to nine. You get so it's stop. You're stopping at all the mops on the way. Yeah. Hopscotching the mops on the way in. There's a lot. There's so many mops. There's so many mops. They do a lot of cleaning. Yeah. And you get to Elman's door and you wait like a bucket would wait. Like in a bucket's worth amount of time. Yeah. And I'm going do do do do do do do do.

And then Tug inside is like why the fuck is he singing? Go. Go. Go. Stop singing. Let's go into the god damn room Billy. Stop singing and go. They just trust the bucket process. And you wait the appropriate amount of time for the guards to leave. And you sneak in the door. And you see there Elman's cutting in the pot. Nice. Held in the hands of first gardener Malgath. Oh fuck. Am I still in the bucket? And that's where we're going to end it for this week. I'm your Game Master Sean O'Hara.

Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome with the Barbarian Abdulaziz. So long. Playing Ving the Half Elf Druid Paul Hoppers. Take care. And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai. Bye. Bye everybody. Thank you to Aaron Reid for our intro and outro music. You can find all of Aaron's original music at aaronreid.bandcamp.com and all the music produced for the show at soundcloud.com Thank you to all of our susporters around the world.

If you would like to susport the show and get access to a bunch of cool things check out patreon.com slash spoutlore or spoutlore.com slash money please. And thank you finally and most of all to you for listening. We'll see you next time.

And so ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can though dumb and scared and lost they be for time's abreast in revelry and though our journey may be like a conclusion we will not leave you without a resolution return next week to hear some more whilst you commute or do your chores and for you I gladly spoutlore