Episode 1 – Chimes

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 Peely's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts So gather round friends, and listen close For the tale's about to start Hello everybody and welcome to Spout Lore.

I'm your host, Spelt. I'm your Game Master, Sean O'Hara. And I, for the first time since this podcast has been released, just thought about the person playing tambourine in our theme song. There's somebody who, in this bard's troupe, whose only job is to play the tambourine. I always imagined it was like that guy from Mary Poppins who has all the… Dick Van Dyke? Yeah, who has all the instruments on him. Oh, he's just, he's a one-man band? Yeah. That's better, that's better.

And that voice belongs to… Playing Tacoma Dome, the Barbarian Abdulaziz. Hello everybody. And playing Ving, the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. Hello! Playing Fat Billy, the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Hello! When last we left our heroes, they were taking part in a whirlwind escape from the resort town of Crystal Bay aboard the West Wind, a merchant vessel slash pirate ship being pursued by Crystal Bay customs officials on their own ships, as well as the Purifier, flagship of the Light Guard.

You guys really just kind of stacked problems on top of problems. That escape that we played out was pretty frantic, pretty frenzied. Tuck dragged a cannon from one side of the ship to the other, which no human being should be able to do, and took a couple pot shots at some customs vessels. Billy corralled Perel into helping the ship move faster by altering the sails. He did some transfiguration magic and made them long. He did some transfiguration magic and made them long.

He did some transfiguration magic and made them long. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done.

There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. There's a ton of work to be done. And decided to throw a big old lightning leash around it and drag it to the shore, baby. Easily one of the coolest things that's ever happened in the podcast. Yeah, this is like people are going to tell stories about this probably forever. Yeah. Stormbringer. The man who rode the storms. Yeah, pretty sick.

I like the idea that there are people telling stories about your adventures for generations, but they're all about Ving. Ving, Stormcaller, the Spirit Walker and his two friends. And his two friends, Bill Bose and the big wall boy. Oh, I'm surprised. His son, Fat William and his butler, the bearded baby. And I mean, that is where we left our heroes. On the deck of a ship in a storm. Ving is still on the bird? I mean, yeah, Ving is like on the bird in the middle of a storm.

So, I mean, that's the situation you find yourselves in. You are absolutely overwhelmed. Visually, audibly, you can see cracking lightning through a wall of almost impenetrable gloom. The deck is bucking under your feet. People are shouting and running around. You feel people bumping into you, but you can barely see them. And you hear wind chimes over the sound of the storm. And in a distance that you can't quite tell how close or far away it is, you see what looks like a bonfire. Oh, fuck.

And Ving, you are… Seeing all of these things from about 50 feet in the air. Your knees locked on either side of the Thunderbird trying not to get thrown off. What do you all do? I'm going to swoop down to that bonfire. Check it out. See if I can do a pass. Yeah, absolutely. Give me a defy danger. So it's basically like you're trying to stay seated. So what do you think this? How would you be doing that? Strength. Strength? Okay. Defy danger. Strength. Pinch in the bird. Okay, great. 11.

That was great. Yeah, you just like lock your knees on either side, grab a big tough to feathers and the Thunderbird works with you. Then that then I will allow you now to roll a discern realities. Yeah, there's down under the feathers. Oh no, I'm just going to go ahead and mark a point there. It's like the dice know that our characters are stupid. It's like punches his thighs ripple and he dives into the cloud and just like bounces off of a mast comes up. There was a crow's nest.

I didn't see the crow's nest. I got nothing. I rolled a three. Yeah, that's a hard failure. Is there a mark? Can you see a mark? Yeah, it's like there's tiny Thunderbirds circling your head. It's your eyes cross hook, pick hook, pick hook. And here Thunderbird squawks. It doesn't even make like a it doesn't even make an eagle sound. It goes like a fucking goose, but you do see the source of a bonfire and it is a bonfire. A man.

Oh gosh, and the torch of McCall turns and sees you and just punches forward roll a ten two. Oh, wow. That is great. That is very good. We can't see much, but we saw like the shadow of the Thunderbird go towards this bonfire and we heard the squawk and then we saw what like it looks like, you know, when a jet engine explodes and there's like a trail of black smoke. Yeah, totally. Like all of his wool is just burning.

Yeah, the Thunderbird does recover, but this huge gout of flame ignites a few of the Thunderbirds feathers and also singes like up one of your arms, giving you a pretty nasty flash burn. Tuck and Billy, you hear Kingsley shouting over the storm. Somehow his voice is booming over the wind and he's yelling real sailor-y shit like batten this, get below decks, blah, blah, blah. I didn't know you were a sailor. Were you? In the Sea Cadets?

I was in the Sea Cadets and my dad was in the Navy for 37 years. I spent a lot of time on boats, actually. All you came up with was blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Well, the thing is, is that there's not a lot of battening on like a naval frigate because the ship kind of does all that for you. As we all know, of course, common general knowledge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the friggle rocks, it's really hard to batten those snatches.

And when you're battening the planks and looping the knots, it's hard to say where the sails will take you. Oh! The starboard could go anywhere. That's like an inspirational quote that is in an office on a naval. Are Billy and Tuck together? Yeah, we were standing next to each other. Ooh, actually, because everything's so dark and so frantic, you guys are gonna need to find out if you can find each other. What's Tuck doing?

Tuck, I think when everything goes black, it's the kind of thing where like, where's my kid? Yeah, it's where's my kid? And he's like, he starts like calling for Billy. Okay. And he's like, Billy, Billy! Yeah! And I'm trying to follow this. I'm over here! Defy danger wisdom. I got 12. Okay, great. Yeah. Billy is not that far away. Like, you've both been kind of thrown away from each other a little bit, trying to keep your footing. I fell into a pile of ropes. I'm here!

You grab down and grab what feels like a ball of spaghetti and Billy's at the center of it. I'm a meatball. I take those ropes and I tie Billy to myself like in a little baby Bjork because I don't want to lose him. Yeah. Defy danger dexterity because this is like under duress. Okay. Yeah. Eight. Eight. Okay. You do that, like you're tying Billy and then Tuck shockingly, you're the one that remembers, where's the vase? Oh. Billy, where's the vase? Oh, I put it in our room. We gotta go downstairs.

Yeah, I start, I'm like, this is fucking stressful. Tuck's not used to having to focus on so many things at this point. He's wearing Billy around his neck like Flava Flav wears clocks. Yeah. He's like running downstairs to try and find a vase with a monster in it. So there is a shit ton of stuff going on right now. There are people everywhere. It's still pretty dark. It's gonna be hard.

Like, that's the thing is it's gonna be hard to do anything right now, like let alone find your way below deck. So yeah, how are you guys finding your way below deck? I'm gonna give directions because I know where everything where I put everything because I set up the room. Could you maybe feel for it magically too? Oh, yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah. So he focuses on his memory of where he put it and he feels like a little string of energy that he could like pull.

This is gonna be a discern realities, I think. Okay. Yeah. I got ten. You get three questions from the discern realities list. What here is useful or valuable to me? Billy, you can feel like kind of the ambient emotions of people and you can feel coming off the where the wheel is that Kingsley's trying really hard to keep it together, but he's about to lose control. Okay. Um, Tuck, we got a key run really fast. Yeah. Okay. I run to our bunk. Okay.

So with Billy's direction, you make it downstairs, but Tuck, I need you to roll a defy danger. Probably dexterity. Seven. You find yourself down below deck. There are barrels and boxes flipping all over the places. The ship bucks back and forth. There are people running all over, but you see the vase kind of moving back and forth like an egg in a nest. I run up and grab it. All right. I unzip the fanny pack. I'm like, stuff it in. Okay. Shove it in. I pass it off to Mears. Mears?

Mears is like, yeah. Can you catch this? It's the vase. Yeah. And you hear him go. Okay. I got it. Okay. All right. Put it in safe. Put it in my cupboard. Okay. Strap it up tight and lock it up. Well, you're okay with me touching your stuff. Yeah, it's fine. That's fucking great because he collected over the last few weeks all of the soft things and he just put it in his drawer and we're like, Billy, you gotta stop cutting this stuffing out of the cushions. It's good.

It's fucking up the whole house. And now everyone's like, great idea. Yeah. I love you. And as you're zipping it shut, you hear Mears go, wait, what's going on? He has no fucking clue what's happening. Yeah. We cut to Mears inside. He's got the vase under one arm like a football and his hand up against the wall is everything shaking back and forth. Oh God. And Francis is on his back. His little legs are kicking in the air. Mears just pukes. Plates are falling out of the cupboard.

He's catching them all. Yeah. And you can see that post-it note falls off the danger room. Oh no. So thing you are above you are in the skies of the storm. The winds are buffeting you there. Jimmy buffeting you. What do you do? I'd like to land on deck. Okay. Yeah, I'm having a hard time locating the boat. You're having a hard time locating anything. There's lightning all over the place. The only thing that is a landmark is the torch of McCall. Maybe. I should use them. How so?

Maybe I'll get close enough and do a pass in front of him so that he will shoot at me and then I'll follow his shot. So I'm going to try and use it as a torch light. Tricking him into like firing a flare. Yeah. That's so cool. So you can see where our ship is. So I can see where the west wind is. Because it'll illuminate some of the it'll illuminate some of the storm. So defy danger dexterity to pull this off. Nice. Ten. Yeah, baby. So cool. So you swoop down how to train your dragon style.

I come in on like his level. Yeah, like at front of them and he shoots a couple over my head. Yeah, you get so close. You can see him like make eye contact with you as you fly by him. What is his like disposition? Is he furious right now or what? Surprisingly calm. Like mechanical almost. Yeah, he's done this before. Like he's seen it all. This is not scary to him. He's totally human torched right now. Like completely. Yeah, well, it's it's it's around his feet.

It's like he's at the center of a of like a conflagration. Okay. Yeah, his skin isn't burning.

His clothes are intact, but he is standing in the middle of a huge fire and he's like pulling pieces off of it to throw at you like he's manipulating the flame cool and you get so close as you pull by you make eye contact and you think you see a bit of flame burning behind his eyes and he just goes like a bunch of bolts of fire just rip over your head and under the bird and he fires a big shot straight ahead of you as you pull away. I chase it.

Yeah, it arcs forward through the air like it's got mass like it's not just flame. Yeah, and it sails by before splashing into the water right next to the west wind and you go, oh, there's the ship boom land on deck and the bird just grabs onto the side of the ship with its town fall off the front of it. Just land in a pile. You gotta tell me when you're gonna stop, buddy. It's like when you hit the front brakes on a mountain bike. He goes right over tea kettle. Oh, tea kettle.

That's not a bad name for a bird. That's actually pretty good. That's not bad. Oh, man. Tuck and Billy, you run upstairs onto the deck and you see Ving sprawled out in front of the Thunderbird. Oh, God. Holy moly. That is you look badass. You look like Grandmaster Flash. What the fuck are we gonna do? And I go up to like sick move pulling that storm and it is a lot. Meaner than I expected. Yeah, I watch the whole thing and boy was it something. It's making this face. Oh, no, you look cool.

You look super cool. You too baby Bjorn to be wild over here. Bjorn to be wild. We're literally in the middle of a disaster. We're doing puns that Kingsley's bellowing. You can you hear him yelling. You look back. You see all the cords in his arms like popping. He's just trying so hard to steer this fucking ship. Where's Perel? I don't know Perel Perel Where are you? You're my crocs dad. You are all looking around like where is Perel? Where could he possibly be?

And you look towards the front of the ship and you see a massive rune covered pillar emerge from the fog. Oh shit you guys look and you know the ship is about to crash. It's going. The ship is going to crash. What do you do? Yeah exactly. There's a small bit of silence before everything gets really bad and you know the ship is going down. Like the quality of the sound changes where there's no ocean noise coming from in front of us anymore.

Yeah because we're up against this big buffered sound wall. I grab Ving and tuck. You feel the prow of the ship touch the pillar first and then the only sound that you hear is the sound of the timbers deep in the ship start to splinter and smash. Sick. Oh god. We can feel it. And moving backward through the boat. Oh yeah. Like a wave. Yeah. And then as if the distress of the crew overpowers whatever baffling effect the pillar is creating you start to hear people scream.

You hear Kingsley's voice booming over the deck. All hands abandon ship. I react very quickly. I grab Ving and I bury the axe into the mast that's like next to us. Okay. I'm going to bury the crystal claws into the deck. Oh you're going to make crystal claws? Oh yeah. That's going to be a shape shift and that's going to be a defy danger strength. So we're anchoring ourselves. Yeah. To the ship that's about to crash. Just to not get thrown. Yeah totally. Because it's like it's so close right?

It's like Kingsley's not going to be able to steer. Iceberg right ahead. Yeah exactly. Whoa. One one one. Defy danger what? Defy danger strength. I got nine. I got four. Shit. So yeah. Super fail. And this is a really bad failure. I think the two things that occur to you in this next moment are one where is Perel and two we're fucking dead. Everything lurches forward. It's just inexorably pushed into this pillar smashed to absolute flinders before your eyes and then you plunge into the water.

You hit the water. You go under like deep. You can feel huge pieces of the ship passing you as they sink and you're you start drowning basically like you're running out of breath. Is it that thing like in the Titanic where the suction from the ship sinking is like pulling us under totally. Yeah. Huge pieces are passing you and pulling you down further in their wake. So you need to do something but you're starting to lose breath and your vision starting to go dark.

Can I try to swim to the surface? Yeah, totally. Okay, roll it. What is it strength? No constitution because you're trying to like like stay conscious long enough. Oh, yeah. So I can keep swimming up. Yeah. Yeah, I think all three of you need to roll defy danger constitution to like stay conscious. Yeah, totally. Twelve twelve. Okay. Eleven. Oh, nice. Yeah, I got four. Shit man. Again. Yeah. I mean, I'm tied to talk. So yeah, Billy's gonna surface with tuck. Okay, tuck.

You're pumping your legs so hard trying to surface holding on to Billy with all your might holding on to thing with your other hand. You feel pieces of the ship passing you as they sink. You feel what you think might be people passing you clawing at your clothes as they as they're pulled under shit. Yeah, it's pretty it's not good. Yeah, it's really rough. Yeah. Are they gonna be okay? Hey, Steve Graves man, who knows? They could be going to some sort of paradise down there. So dark and cold.

Yeah, the cold of this water is crushing you. You can feel it sapping your strength as you're trying to surface thing. You're gripping tucks hand hard as he swims kicks up to the surface and as his legs are pumping pushing him upwards through the sea a huge piece of the ship drops down right next to you and you feel your grip loosened and then broken as the crystals come off and tucks hand and you're dragged deep deep into the water. Okay, tuck after what feels like an impossible amount of time.

You finally break the surface of the water to absolute chaos. You hear people screaming. You see chunks of boat floating past. It looks like a barrel of oil has broken and ignited on the surface of the water. So there's flames licking at you. Huge waves are cresting over your head and slamming into you. Things go absolutely silent. All you hear is a ringing in your ears. It feels like the waves are like throwing big pieces of the ship at us like intentionally.

There's a maliciousness to this storm. Like I even though I'm above the water now. I still feel like I'm drowning. Yeah, you've swallowed so much seawater at this point and Billy you're like attached to tuck. So it's like every time he's trying to struggle you're being pushed above. And under the water over and over.

Yeah tuck is like trying to like make sure Billy's above the water while trying to tread water and it's like he's alternating and he knows that Billy is like dunking underneath too much and as you are trying to keep Billy above the surface of the water you haul thing up to beside you and you realize that you're just holding a crystal in your hand things gone. Oh my God big big I call I try and like like call for him. Yeah, you're you don't see him or hear him over the chaos thing.

You see the light of the storm being dragged away from you as you're pulled deeper and deeper into the sea of graves. What do you do? Maybe there's a move to command the Thunderbird like a diving bird diving duck just like maybe you do have that. I have the tiger thing so you can see through the eyes of the Thunderbird. Yeah, is there a way I can call him from under the water? I mean, well, okay, we you've called the Thunderbird before so there is a precedent for you having contacted it.

So I think that you should be allowed to at least try. Yeah. So I think we defy danger wisdom to make that connection. Yeah, that's what he uses for his connection. So 2d6 plus wisdom. Okay, sink it down almost out of breath. Eight okay, so Ving is falling deeper and deeper into the water as chunks of the ship fall around him. You see like a mast a shattered crate a bag of coins with coins trailing behind it bodies of sailors sink down around you above you the light of the storm.

It seems impossibly far away like you'll never make it back up there. You see just above the surface of the water lightning crashing alternating with gouts of flame that almost make it look like the torch has like entered into battle with the storm itself.

And it's this that the Thunderbird sees through your eyes and it finds the point in the ocean that you're at by watching the flames and the lightning it watches for the patterns and finds the pattern that you're seeing and flaps up and up into the storm before tucking its wings in and just diving straight into the surface of the water.

And you see this huge form firing towards you like an arrow and it's it starts flapping its wings at a certain point because it's going deeper than it really should have any ability to can I swim? Yeah, you can definitely try strength back up 12. Oh perfect. So from your failure, you're still unfortunately going to take this consequence as the bird swims towards you and extends its talons and punches them into either side of your shoulders to grab you.

You feel it sever a tendon inside your arm and you're going to take a debility to strength. So your strength is going to be at minus one for a while until you can find a way to heal it. I smell fucked. And then you feel the strength of its wings as it beats against the water and pulls you back over the surface from the silent danger of the depths of the ocean to the cacophonous danger of the middle of the storm. Yeah, it's immediately like yeah, goes from no sound to every possible sound.

Yeah, we see this fucking bird just rip out of the water. Yeah, with Ving in its talons. Yeah, what are you trickling down? Yeah, fuck. Yeah, it's not good. Pretty limp. What a tuck and Billy do. Should we look around to see if we can see Perel? Yeah, you could call him that you've called him before. Yeah, I guess I just closed my eyes like in my head. I'm calling for him, but I'm sending it out with the waves and every time a wave beats on us, I send out another another call for him.

I'm very panicked. I'm worried about him. I have a little purple twinge in the crest of the way. Yeah, seven seven. Okay, so you you send out these waves of perception with the water and you don't feel anything for a while until you feel one bounce back like a wave return to you with that perception and what it tells you is that Perel is alive, but he is very very far away fuck and that perception is also telling you that you can feel.

Other parts of the crew impossibly far they're far and I and there's some that I don't feel anymore. Yeah, like everyone's being spread out and taken away. The ocean is like pulling them away. Yeah, fuck. Oh God. So Perel is alive. You know that much but he is not within reach. How close are we to the purifier? You actually don't see the purifier anywhere near you right now. So we need to find something to hold on to realities. Yeah, I want to discern reality.

Try and find the purifier because it's the only thing that's intact in this fucking storm. Yeah, so tense. Seven eight. Okay, so you get one question. I guess what here is useful or valuable to me. Unfortunately, it is not the purifier. Fuck what it is is a big old chunk of mast like close enough that you can swim to it fairly easily and it'll be buoyant enough to hold you up. Okay. Yeah, we get on that mast.

Yeah, so you're just now hanging on to this piece of wood bobbing in this magical storm and thing you are being you are hung from the talons of a giant bird. Do I have enough strength in my arm to harpoon to the mast? Yeah, you absolutely can the debility means that you're like your arm is fucked but not so much that you can't use it just that you'll be able to use it worse. This will just be a defy danger harpoon to the mast anchor to my friends. Oh seven.

So as you throw your harpoon you feel your arm like twinge. And you're like, oh, that's not how it's supposed to be at all. But your harpoon sails out through the winds stabbing into the wood of the mast. Then yeah, you've anchored yourself to this mast that you see tuck and Billy attached to. What do you do? I thought the bird could maybe tow the mast. So where are you towing it to? What's the nearest thing? What do we should do? That's a discern realities 2d6 plus wisdom for discern realities.

Eight. Okay, great. So you get one question. What here is useful for us? Hmm. You don't see the purifier. You see chunks of the West wind floating around you, but you think in the distance as the lightning flashes through the wall of the storm just far enough away that you're not a hundred percent sure you it looks like you see the silhouette of a small single mast at sailboat. All right, let's get there. Yeah, try to defy danger dexterity to pilot the bird. I guess cool. Yeah, right failures.

Oof. Yeah. Nice nine nine. Great. Um, any eights? Oh, yeah. Should I swim? Should I try and kick? Yeah, we can swim. Yeah, I kick your legs. I think tuck would just like use the mass like a little flutterboard. Yeah, kicking his legs kick towards the direction. Yeah, big pull. That's great. Plus strength. Yeah, Ted. Great. So yeah, plus one strong calf makes it a 10. You spur the bird. Forward and it is pulling against the weight of the mast like straining. Yeah, straight hard.

Yeah, it's poor boy. Yeah, this would be so painful for being man. What a strug. That's a struggle. And that's why you've got a minus one to strength for the foreseeable future because this damage is like you can feel the talent digging deeper and deeper into your meat, man, but he's trying to save his friends. Yeah, and the Thunderbirds flapping its wings erratically trying to stay like a right in this. Storm as the winds buffet it back and forth.

It starts straining against the rope dragging the mast through the turbulent water as tuck and Billy cling to it desperately and it flies in the direction of the ship that it sees through the lightning strikes in the clouds. And as you all approach this figure in the distance of being you're focusing on not being ripped into probably but tuck you see with his hand on the tiller of the boat is the captain of the purifier and as the bird flies through this terrible storm.

You can hear the sound of wind chimes and the water around you starts to slow. It doesn't quiet. It actually physically slows. The waves are moving slower closer to the boat and the clouds around the boat are swirling. In a slower more gentle fashion and it seems like even the lightning is slowing as you get closer to the boat. You even see an arc of lightning come down from the clouds and pass very closely to the ship before turning away gently and pouring itself into the ocean.

Then you hear the sound of wind chimes through your tightly scrunched eyes as you're trying to hold back this pain.! I hear them through my eyes? Yeah. What do your elf eyes hear? You hear through their eyes? I'm glad we're talking about it now because absolutely. Ving, you feel yourself being carried through the air in the talons of the Thunderbird and blacking out from the pain. Your eyes are just drooping closed. You're so exhausted. Every time I droop closed, I'd see through.

Yeah, see through the eyes of the Thunderbird. So you're catching glimpses of this small skiff with the bearded man at the tiller and you hear a voice over the muffled cacophony of the storm say, why don't you just drop him right here? And you feel yourself be placed in the hull of the skiff on a bench and you see through the eyes of the Thunderbird as it flaps above you trying to find a place to perch on the side of the boat. It doesn't want to leave you, but it's obviously exhausted.

I want to tell it to go. And to rest. Recharge. And gather itself and I'll be okay. He has a sense that he'll be okay. He's been dropped here by the Thunderbird. Also, you notice on the Thunderbird's shoulder at the front of the wings, there's three red circles, like dots in the feathering. Whoa. Where it mirrors your injuries? Yeah. Oh. And you can feel the bird through. It senses hesitating to leave you, but you hear the voice of the captain say, I got him. It's okay.

And then the bird finally flaps off up into the sky. Thank you. Passing through this calm as a lightning crack just signals that it's back in the worst of the storm. It flies up and away. And he tries to see. He can't. He's too exhausted. Yeah, your eyes won't open and it feels like your arm is going to come off. You're just absolutely fucked. This one's fine. This one not so much. You have to point at the one that's not good. He goes to point, but it was with a stump. Oh, yeah.

And your hand is snapped off. So you're missing a hand and you're where I had a hand and Ving. You're sitting on this bench and right in front of you is the captain of the purifier. He's got no shirt on. He's got worn brown breaches, very simple leather boots, crazy angled beard with brass rings and seashells and other bits of material that you can't identify. And he's smoking a long pipe. He says, you should probably help get your friends in here. And tuck in Billy.

You are swimming swimming up to this skiff and you pass into this calm area around it. The water warms around you. The sound of the storm quiets and the the anger and viciousness of the storm seems to be set aside in this area around the boat. And we I kind of like I let go of the law because it's moving so slow now and I just start swimming with Billy on my back. Yeah, Billy was is Billy on the back because he wasn't a Bjorn on the front. Yeah, but the ropes got really loose. Okay. Yeah.

So I'm holding on to the back. Yeah, basically between his shoulders. Yeah, I got his beard in the hands and he's like I'm writing like a drag. And one hand on you saying a bunch of like weird like weird dragon specific terms like I'm holding on to your your dragon beard. Never mind. They're very dragon. Hold on. Hold on. What are dragon beards called? Yeah, dragon beard work. Yeah, feeling of the scales between my toes. Yeah.

Okay, I'm like I'm starting to play along like bark bark dragons bark in this world. Yeah, as you're making this bark bark sound tuck you hear you hear a gruff voice from the ship or the boat in front of you say that's not what dragon sound like and I like I swim up to the side of the boat and I like because I am so tired. I toss Billy up. I catch him. I catch Billy. Oh, Bing. Oh, you're okay. Oh, Billy. How are you? I feel really sick.

Seawater just pours out of Billy's mouth every time he coughs. Yeah. Oh, buddy. You just netty pod in the boat there. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's okay. It's okay. Billy, you just are okay. You're basically collapsing against Bing. It feels like you've just been wrung out like a sponge. Yeah. I'm pulled tuck in with best I can help him up. Yeah, you're struggling. You try and reach out to tuck with your one good. Well, you don't even have a good hand.

No, you're missing a hand and then your arm is fucked up, but he'll do it. But the captain pushes past you and reaches into the water, puts a hand under tuck shoulder and just lifts him into the boat. Wow. Whoa. Yeah. Bodily just with one hand. Whoop. Wow. Like a sack of rice and he just like tosses me to the deck. Yeah. Well, he doesn't like he doesn't throw you. He tries to place you and I like I'm lying there and I like I look up at him and I'm like, why did you save us?

Because this is the captain of the purifier, right? Yes. Yeah, it's the same rune tattooed tangled beard tan skin wrinkled face and he sits down at the bench puts his hand over the tiller and says you three seem like you're worth saving. What's your name? That's a good question. Most I've met now call me chimes. What happened to the fire guy? Oh, I I reckon he's still looking for who for us for the three you for one for your bald friend for the other speaking of bald friend. Have you seen him?

He puts his pipe back in his mouth and he leans over the side of the boat and kind of drags his hand lazily through the water and he pulls it back up and shakes off the water and goes, well, he's a ways away now. How far you know how far a league is? Yeah, no, it's far. Oh, no, and he's many leads away from here. Can we get to him through this storm? Not likely. What do you mean? You can't get us to him. Just fucking sail us to our friend man.

We can't leave without him where he is and how we get there are very different things in the sea of graves. This isn't a point A to point B kind of operation son. He looks off into the storm and his beard chimes a little bit says sea of graves is a mean some bitch. We got a couple rounds see one some I want some but I know how this dance goes. I'll get you there and by there I mean close and that's the best I can do. Thank you. Well, we got a bit of a ride ahead of us.

So why don't you all tell me a bit about yourselves? Well, okay, no fuck that like dude, you're sailing a boat through the sea of graves. You tell us about you. How are you doing this? He points like it on the inside of the hole and the whole boat that you're in is absolutely encrusted in runes like hand carved weather.

They look like they've been carved into this boat for a hundred years and they're covering the inside the benches the mast the outside does this ruin me being points to when it's like a circle and a stick going into it that one's for getting into things that don't want you to get into them. What about this one? That one is if if ever my boat is upside down. Oh, that one that one's if my boats ever right side up with that one that one's if it's ever sideways.

Wow, whether that one that one's when it's not one that one's about to now hold on hold on. Sorry you any squints at Billy and he goes, where do you where you come? Where do you come from? I come from the Everwood Valley from specifically a barn old bills barn. Do you know him? Yeah, do you do you know him? He's pretty old there. Yeah, there was old old bill owned it first and then Billiam the second and then Bill Bilson then will William and then William Junior. I can't remember.

I could keep going I guess but wait, so did you say old bill? That was the first one you said bill old bill. That was that was a will Apple Thief's kid. Yeah. Yeah, I never met will Apple Thief but old bill was really nice. He was he was a good. He's a good one. He was a good guy shit at stealing apples. Yeah, but really nice to me real sweet guy.

Wait a sec and he like Everwood Valley you say yes and he leans in to Billy and he he licks his thumb and he rubs something off Billy's cheek and he just kind of points at you quickly and passes leg and goes your Faye. What? How did you know what's under here? I haven't washed my face in a really long time and I put I push over like don't lick my kid your kid. Yeah, I mean mostly. Yeah, he's kind of my kid our kid is our kid. Yeah, these are my dad's basically. Yeah, sweet. We don't fuck though.

Whoa. Hey, I want to Spout Lore on the boat to see if I know anything about it. Let's do it. Okay. Eight. Okay, so that means that you get something useful, but not interesting. No interesting, but not useful. No, you can do it the other way around. Don't try and scam me at my own game. So what you're just trying to learn about the ruins or the boat? Yeah, I'm looking at the ruins, but not the ruins on the boat. I'm looking at the ruins that are tattooed on him.

Oh, yeah, and I'm seeing if I can read them like read anything that is like familiar from them. Hmm. What could tuck possibly know about this? He's looked at a lot of album covers. Um, I guess he just tells you like he's like, I don't know. Ain't no sense hiding things. We're all friends now. Runes on the boat are same as runes on my skin. They let me do things and survive things and comprehend things that most people can't don't and will not. Does that make any sense? Like what?

Like like reading? Yeah, sometimes like moving in and out of the spirit world, like moving in and out of the spirit world. I've done that a time or two. How many times or two? More than two. More than two. Wow. More than two for sure. Oh, yeah, we have tattoos. Oh, yeah. I can't see my so much dirt. So I lick it. Oh, there it is. Yeah, and he grabs Billy's hand. And looks at the tattoo and goes spirit world, huh? How do you know? I got one of those two.

And he shows you the inside of one of his elbows and he's got a very simple tattoo. That's this one. All the other tattoos look like complicated runes, but the one on the inside of his elbow is just a circle. What does that one mean? Well, you know what these tattoos mean. Mine is like a tree. Yeah, what's it mean? Well, I don't know the lady that did it just like she went into a trance, a sexy trance. Yeah. Remember, guys? Yeah, her cloak slipped a bunch.

And there's a brooch, I think, that was involved. Yeah, then we went into the spirit world. He says, oh, you should know if you've been there, souls are anchored by the things they've lost. All right. Bruce Bruce. Yep. All right. It's the Widdershins. Would it be possible for me to roll for the blood god? I want to commune with the axe. Terry Larry and Chad to try and see if there's any insights I can get on like who and what he is. So that is what? 2d6 plus constitution? Wisdom. Wisdom.

My wisdom is one. Great. Eight. What happens on the night? On a seven to nine, the sacrifice is not enough and your gods take of your flesh as well, but still grant some insider boon. Okay, so roll a d10. Three. Three.

Okay, so I think it's I think it's something like you cut yourself with the axe and you're holding this like insane looking axe and he goes, oh, and he reaches down and grabs the axe and just holds it in front of him, like takes it right out of your hand and is looking at it like, what'd you do to these guys? Like we want he they were our friends, so we wanted to bring them back from the spirit world.

You guys all right in there and you hear Larry Terry and Chad go, yeah, man, it's good to see you again. Again. Yeah, man. You know, you've heard stories, right? This guy dudes. No, you know him and he's like, yeah, you know, the ghost pirate. You're the ghost pirate from the spirit world. I've got a lot of names. Ghost pirate kind of makes it sound like a plunder ghosts, though. That's not strictly true. Is he treating you well? Oh, yeah, man. We get to smash it all the time. All right.

Well, that's good to hear and he throws the axe back to you. He sits back down at the tiller. Billy, he sits next to you and says, you want to help me steer? Yeah, I'm trying. I was trying to find Perel because I had my hand in the water. Oh, yeah. For him. Because yeah, he's gonna that's gonna be that's gonna take some doing. We'll find him and he rustles your hair a little bit. Don't touch me. Okay, noted and he takes the tiller.

And he steers a little bit more through these very slow choppy almost geometric waves and you see in front of you a pillar rise out of the mist. We're gonna hit that thing. No, we're not gonna hit there. We're gonna dock there and you see at the base of the pillar a small ramshackle dock form out of the mist at the base and at the top of it you see a door. What? Whoa. And that's where we're gonna end it for this week. My name is Sean O'Hara. I've been your game master.

Joining me as always playing the Tacoma Dome, the Barbarian Abdul Aziz. So long. Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. We're going in that door. And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Good night. Thanks to Aaron Reed for our amazing intro and outro music. Thanks to Adam Coble and Sage LaTorah for Dungeon World. And thanks to all of you for listening.

You can find us at Spout Lore most places on the internet, including patreon.com slash Spout Lore where we are continuing a game of Blades in the Dark slash World of Blades featuring the Cool Tree Kids. And you can check that out if you feel like it. Thanks a lot for listening, everybody. Good night.

And so ends the tale of Adventures 3 who tried the best they can though dumb and scared and lost they be for time's abreast in revelry and though our journey may be long a conclusion we will not leave you without a resolution return next week to hear some more whilst you commute or do your chores and for you I'd gladly Spout Lore