Episode 1 – The Road to Highspear

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 Alright, welcome to Felt Lore, everybody.

My name's Sean O'Hara, I am the Game Master, and with me today are players Jessica Hi. And Abdul. Hello. Paul is no longer with us. He's just away for a little bit, and we've got in his place a special guest player that we will introduce. We have guest player Mark Robertson. Hello. There are some things that are gonna need to happen before you're introduced. Yeah. So I'm sorry if you're sitting around for a while. That's fine.

Mark will be playing a character that I will introduce when it is in the game. Okay. He's narratively pertinent. There's a whirlwind escape as you rush through the trees. You make it back in time for nightfall. The sky is gray and overcast, slightly raining by the time you get back. From Hudeir's hut you see Alaki walk out with a stick under her arm, and she says, where's… Where's Ving? He was, uh, he was taken. What do you mean taken? I can't remember very well, but he…

We fought a giant water monster, and then he took Ving. So what are you gonna do? What do you do now? I think we have to try and find him. We have to try and get him back. I'm very… I'm pretty… Still in shell shock. Yeah, of course. I'm very listless. So she sort of puts a hand on your arm and leads you to the hall. Mm-hmm. And they get you some food, get you a bowl of stew. Is Billy still not… Billy doesn't want to eat anything. And Dan is there, and he… Fucking asshole.

I fucking hate that guy. Dan, he sees you come in, banged up, really rough. Like, Hudeir joins you in the hall, and she's administering some… Some medical help. And Dan, when he sees you come in, he starts to say, where's… And then he just doesn't say anything. He catches himself. Seems to understand. And he just comes and sits at the table. And do you guys just go to sleep? Yeah, I'm gonna go… I don't know. Sleep outside, I think. Wicker joins you. Okay. And you guys have a little…

Little doze under the stars. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I stay at the table. Uh, Dan sits there quietly. Time passes, and he doesn't go to sleep either. Is there anything I can do to help? Um… Do you still have my amulet, by any chance? He says, actually, it's funny you should ask that at a time like this. Hey, Lumply, that halfling merchant is still there, sitting next to his pile of stuff that he's been transporting and selling to keep it out of the rain. He brought it inside.

He says, show him that thing, that thing that you found. And he rolls a big barrel over to you. Yeah, I found this, uh, found this in the side of the road. Back near Mudlark. Dan says, yeah, sweet schloss meat, my friend. Wow. Of all of the things to recover… I will say… I will say, a deal's a deal. He found this completely untouched. Perfectly preserved. Wow, not even animals wanted it. Not even animals wanted it. Did anyone ask about it at the festival? No. I was really… I was really…

Trying to make a point. I'm drinking ale. Uh, as I lift it to my lips, I like make eye contact with it, I go, huh. I thought I knew, I thought I knew all there was to know about meat, the whole meat mercantile industry, but you know what? You were right, my friend, I do not. And I'm getting out of the meat game altogether. Yeah, your meat's not good. My meat's no good. Yeah. So, deal's a deal. And he reaches into his pouch and he pulls out your amulet. And he hands it to you.

I take it and I put it around my neck. Looks good. Thanks. It was my mother's. She was a horse, I think. I was gonna say, maybe she's the woman in the amulet, but there's no way to tell for sure, is there? No, not really. Well, we're gonna, Lumply and I, we're thinking about maybe starting a business together. We're gonna be heading up to High Spear starting tomorrow morning. Oh, wow. If, um… What terrible thing are you gonna be selling now? Thinking about hats. Great.

Describe the hat that you think people would want to buy from you. Well, you know, I've been seeing people in this village, they love weaving stuff out of grass. I was thinking maybe like grass hats. Hmm. Keeps the sun off. Mm-hmm. I mean, that's really all it would do, because if it rains, it would get wet. Yeah. But, you know, that's the idea so far. Mm-hmm. You know, it sounds, upon initial listening, like a good idea. Thank you. Thank you. But I'm sure you'll find a way to ruin it.

Well, it takes money to make money, and God knows I've put a lot of money into trying to make money. One day I'm gonna make it. But for now, it's just gonna take money. Um… Do you guys want, do you need a ride up to… Yes, I would appreciate one. Okay, great. Well, I'm gonna catch whatever the elven equivalent of some shut-eye is. I'll see y'all in the morning. Hmm. And he… Before he leaves, I go, wait. Um… He turns, dramatically. What? Can you not look at me like that?

You told me to wait. Why did you whip your hair when you turn? That's what people do when someone's walking away and someone says, wait. Wow. What, what is it? You, every time… What is it? You make it weird. What is it? Just tell me what you need. Fuck, Dan. I really thought this was going well. I thought we were having a pretty nice exchange here. Ugh. Dude, I just wanted to know… Um, wha- uh, do, uh, do elves die? He, like, like, his eyes widen a little bit.

That was gonna be your incidental question? Do elves die? He comes and he sits back, sits back down at the table. Um, yes. We can die. Uh, we live a long time. But we do die. But we do die, and we can be killed. Like anybody else. Why do you ask? Um, well, how much do you know about, like, elven druids and shapeshifting? People, like, people like Ving? Yeah. You hear about people similar to Ving. But it's usually people that can turn into one animal. I have never heard of anybody like Ving.

His mastery over shapeshifting is… Given time, it will become legendary. That being said, all elves know that. That being said, all elves know that. That being said, all elves know about the spirits. Spirits reside in all things. And that's sort of what allows him to do what he does. His form goes in and another form comes out that he retains control of. The gills had something to do with it, I think.

Well, if he went into the spirit world, and something else came out, and then that thing was killed, what happens to Ving? I have no idea. Greg. That is not… I'm just being honest with you. Fantastic. That is something… You know, it's funny that you should ask, because I know of somebody that served with my father. He was a ranger in the Great Forest. Something in him changed. I don't know what it is.

Some experience he had, he got very spiritual, started really delving into the spirit world. And funnily enough, he lives in Highspirit now. So he might be the person to ask. All right. Yeah. Well, what's his name? His name's… His name's Shathane. Last I heard, I think he was working at the Highspirit Mall, as most people do. How do you… How do you spell it? Is it S-H-I-T-H-A-N-E? I… You know what? I've never written it down. Shathane? It's pronounced Shathane.

So write it however you need to write it. Okay. I guess. S-H-I-T-H-A-N-E. He would be the one to ask. Okay. I'm just gonna write it in my notebook. Okay. I'm gonna underline the first half, S-H-I-T, and then underline the second half, H-A-N-E. What do people call this person for short? Shathane. Oh, okay. What's his long name? Shathane. Oh, okay. A real Celine Dion scenario. Who knows? So he says, all right, well, we'll head out. It should take a couple days.

We shouldn't have any trouble getting there. And yeah, you can… Link up with Shathane, and he might have the answers for you. Awesome. Thanks, Dan. You know, in our time together, we've had a lot of disagreements. We have. There was a long time where I was really seriously considering just killing you. Whoa, okay. But I… That's a lot to drop on a guy before he goes to sleep. Yes, but I'm not going to anymore. Okay. So don't worry. Wow, you know what? You'd think that'd make me feel better.

You're welcome. And he walks away. He just leaves, walks to the corner of the hall near Lumply, and they… Lumply's already snuggled up in a pile of his stuff. Dan curls up on a cot and goes to sleep. And he looks back at me one more time before he goes to bed, and I do a mime where I run my finger across my neck and bulge my eyes out at him. His eyes widen. And then I shake my finger, no, and then I mouth, not today. He turns over and faces the wall.

And then from where I'm sitting in the hall, I whisper, I do a stage whisper, not today. And then in my mind, I think, he's going to sleep well today. Spectacular. And you're still just sitting there. You're still just sitting at the table? Yeah, I can't sleep. Yeah. I'm just sitting there with a spoon and a bowl, and I'm just tapping the bowl with the spoon. Yeah. And I'm staring off into the distance. A time later, you hear footstep, tap, footstep, tap, and Alaki… Is that a pirate?

Yeah, it's a pirate. Alaki comes into the hall with a crutch under her arm, and she eases herself down onto the table across from you and says, who dear told me what happened? I'm so sorry. Yeah, it was… It was tough. It was a tough day. I'm sure you know life here isn't the easiest. And all I can say is I'm sorry. Thanks, I appreciate that. How's Billy? I think he'll be fine. He's… He doesn't have a great memory, but he feels deep, so he'll be fine eventually, I think.

What do you want done with the box? I'm going to keep it with me, I think. Seems like the key to this whole thing. If you think so. Also, I'm pretty sure there was something we were supposed to do with it. You mentioned something on the way in. Yeah, I can't. It's so vague now. It happened weeks ago. It's only been a couple days. It's happened days ago. Yeah, it has. I wanted to say, the other day on the river, you saved a life. Who knows what would have happened if you weren't here?

I've pushed back a number of threats. I've pushed back a number of threats to this village in my time, but we could always use people like you. And if you wanted to stay, and she puts her hand on your forearm, there'd be a place for you both here. Ugh. I shift, so I tuck under the table a little bit more, and I lean in, and I turn my waist away from her, and I go, that's a very attractive offer. But I have to. But I have some work to do.

She looks away for a second, and she nods, and she takes her hand off. She says, I understand. But if you ever come back, there'll be a place for you here. You're a good man, Tacoma. Thanks. You're welcome. I don't know what to do. There's a lot going on, and I'm like, I feel like she wants me to kiss her, but I think it might be fucked up, because my friend just died if I try and kiss her, so she might think I'm fucked up. But what if this is the opening that she's giving me? But, okay.

Well, I think I'll let you get some sleep. Oh, she's lingering. She's lingering. I think she… Ugh. She shifts her injured leg up over the bench. It's gonna be so weird. She grabs her crutch. Okay, this is it. Stands up. This is your chance. Okay, do something. Do something. And she starts walking towards the door of the hall, and she says, goodnight. I would like to see you in a room. Okay. I would like to see you in a moon pie. Goodnight, Aleki. Goodnight. That's a poem I'm working on. I…

Okay. Goodnight. Goodbye. Goodbye. And she walks out the door. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. So the two old men that have been sitting next to each other at the table on the far side across from you every time you've come in here, watch this whole episode. Watch this whole exchange happen. And one of them leans into the other and goes, hey, did you hear that? Tacoma will always have a place here. And the other goes, yeah, second place. Ugh. And they just both laugh super hard at each other.

And then they both put their head down on the table and fall asleep almost instantly. I contemplate how terrible that was for a little bit. And then I go back to thinking about Vick. And I just sit there and I watch the moon move across the sky and then I watch the sun rise. Yeah. And it is morning. Does Billy wake up with the sun or? I guess. He has been in and out of sleep. Oh. And he has lots of tears on his face. Oh. Wicker is curled up next to you. Okay.

She sort of licks a little bit of dew off your face. Oh, thanks. Yeah. And yeah, Tacoma, you hear Billy rustling about outside. Is there any food in the hall? Yeah. There's like a pot of stuff in the middle of fire like there always is. Yeah. I'll grab a bowl of that and I'll take it out to him. Cool. How's your appetite, buddy? I don't want to eat. And then I roll over. And then I'm like, are you sure? This tastes pretty good. No, I don't want to. And then I do like a lot of mime slurping.

I'm like, yum. You're actually just eating it now. Yes. So I don't want to. And Dan and Lumpli load up the cart that Lumpli brought and hitch up his horse and take it to the house. And then I'm like, I'm going to eat it. I'm going to eat it. I'm going to eat it. And Dan and Lumpli load up the cart that Lumpli brought and hitch up his horse and they leave a little bit of space for you two. And Dan gets on Daisy. A few members of the village, namely Houdir and Alaki, come to see you off.

As you're getting ready to go, Alaki goes, a couple people in the village just wanted a small token of gratitude for you. And she hands you both grass capes. It's just like traveling stuff. And they're like, you know, it won't last forever. But at the very end, you're like, I'm going to eat it. I'm going to eat it. I'm going to eat it. At the very least, it should get you to High Spirit comfortably. And she gives one to Dan as well. And one to Lumpli. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Goodbye.

Where's Wicker? So Wicker hops up in the back of the cart with you. And she curls up on Billy's lap. Such as it is. I have to kind of lay down. Legs are like less than a foot long, basically. So yeah, Wicker curls up in the cart. And yeah, they see you off. You go along the sort of dirt roads that are typical of this area. The sky's clear, so it's sunny. It's not too hot, but it's not too cold. There's a nice breeze blowing through the grass.

And eventually the dirt track leads to a paved road, which in the continuity of this podcast so far, first time you've ever seen a paved road. Oh, wow. Look. Wow. Such glamour and opulence. It's like, it's mostly like stones. It's fairly well kept up, but there are definitely parts where people have obviously come and pulled stones out of the road or pulled flagstones. The day carries on. Normally you stop at a way house when the sun goes down, get a normal bed, have a normal meal.

And that carries on for two or three days. Are there any little like chap chapels to the first of the travelers? Yeah, there is one. There's one point where you pass a wooden shrine looking thing. Lumpley and Dan don't really pay it too much mind, but you do see a traveler as you pass the shrine, take a coin out of his pocket and put it on a shelf. In the shrine. Okay. Well, I have those, I have those, those hot dog festival coins still. I really want to get rid of them. Okay.

So do you just tell Dan or Lumpley to like stop the cart? I feel like the cart's moving slow enough that I can hop out and do this without really drawing attention to it. Okay. You're almost 300 pounds. You jump out of the cart and the cart goes, whoop. And then I go, he goes, whoa, I go, keep going. Okay. Okay. Billy, you see Tacoma, jump out. I guess I'll jump out too. Cause I'm confused. Yeah. There's a collection of coins of all different shapes. There's like square ones.

There's triangular ones, big, small. You actually see a couple of coins from McCall and he, yeah, he takes a coin out of his pocket, similar to the ones you've seen throughout the principalities, puts it down, takes a different coin, puts it in his pouch and carries on walking. And then I take out the hot dog festival coin. Yeah. And I take out two of them and I put them on the shelf. Okay. And then I look around for, for a coin from the frozen North. And I look for a coin from the great forest.

Um, do you know what those coins look like? I will say that you don't see any coin that you think would be from the great forest. No. Well, have you ever been to the great forest? No, no, you, you're not entirely sure that they have currency. Okay. In the same way that, can I do a discern realities just to like, see if I can find one? Well, you could Spout Lore, Spout Lore, I guess. Okay. The titular Spout Lore. Here we go. 2d6 plus intelligence. Plus zero. What? Should I assist? It won't help.

You can barely recognize coins. Wow. Look at all these cool tokens. Uh, mark a point of experience. Wow. This is such a weird thing to even fail on that. I don't even know what a failure would be. Um, it makes sense. You don't recognize any of that stuff. You just don't. On a failure, something happens. It doesn't have to happen now. Uh, and it doesn't have to be catastrophic, but you failed. Uh, okay. Okay. Oh yeah.

So this is a, this is a, um, indicative of a religion that we introduced a few episodes ago called the innumerable patrons. Humans revere the first of whatever thing. So like, Oh, the first traveler and they're not gods. Like it's not divine, but this is a human thing. This is a human thing. Primarily, at least in the principalities, as far as anybody, is aware. I mean, it's like a pseudo religion. Does that make sense? That's why there wouldn't be stuff from the great forest. Mostly elves.

Well, is that anybody that is a part of a patronage that went to the north would be like, Oh, a coin. And then they'd come back and be like, all right, here you go. And it's sort of like, at least the coins I see is sort of like geo caching where it's like you bring, you take a thing, you leave a thing from wherever you go. Uh, and that's just what travelers do. Um, yeah. Okay.

So you're looking at all the coins, you put some hotdog coins there and you see a coin that looks like it could be from the frozen north. It doesn't say the frozen north on it or anything like that, but it's a small silver triangular coin. So you're like, Oh, maybe I'll take one of these. And then you're like, all right, great forest, great forest, great forest. And you see a coin that is like perfectly circular of, Oh, I don't know what Mark wants to happen. And a cross and a circle.

It's a cross and a circle. The deathly hallows. I don't know. Is that what you're talking about? No, the buttons, uh, Nintendo, uh, okay. Triangle, square, circle X, you know, coin shape. Um, and then there's an R one and L. Uh, so there's a circular coin of a dark material and it has an eye in the middle, the shape of a human eye. Okay. And, uh, you go, well, this kind of looks like things. I, and you're like, all right, I'll take this. And you pop that in your couch.

Billy, do you want any coins? Um, there's a, there's a shelf full, of money in front of you. Yeah. I'm just sad, but I am a thief. Like a lot of money, but you were saying that Billy doesn't really value money. Things. Not particularly. He values practical things. He doesn't leave anything. Cause he's grumpy and he doesn't take anything. Cause he's just like, I hate everything. Sounds good. Um, wait, is there anything else around me? What else is around me? Grass.

Like this is a pretty wide open sort of rolling. What was it? Field. As you get closer to the city, there's more and more farms and you pass through villages and towns of small to slightly larger than small size. There are more and more people on the road. Like you guys aren't alone on this road. People are passing you on horses or on foot. Even as you're standing there looking at these coins, like another person came up and put a coin down and took one. So that's pretty much all the tier.

There's the box, which we've talked about is like, you know, those newspaper boxes. It's sort of like that. It's got different shelves. And, uh, in the back above the top shelf is, uh, a carving of a, a compass rose, North, South, East, West. Sellers. Sellers. Can I make a little carving? Yeah. What does Billy carve? Oh, is this like a ragamuffin symbol? No. Okay. He's just, he wants to make a carving for Bing. So he's going to just like slash like three little lines for his gills. Nice.

So you carry on. And near the end of this third day, there are a lot of people on the road. Roads have started connecting to this road that you're on. And now you're sort of joining traffic. Basically, you're on a busy road. Lumply's trying to keep the cart and his shitty horse, like in line with all these people. And you sort of crest a little hill and in the distance, the mountains and a peak moves out from the range. And around that peak is a city.

The walls of a city go right up to the side of the mountain and a huge collection of, uh, of buildings of all sizes, including, including one that is much, much larger than the others can be seen around the peak of this mountain. And on top of the peak is what looks like a shattered tower. Oh, like it goes up. It's made of some gleaming material and it's broken near the top. Whoa, Billy, look, look at shattered tower. Cool.

And you can see there are pieces even from this distance and it doesn't look like they're attached to the tower in any way, but they are in place around it. Are they just floating? They appear to be just floating. From where you are. Yeah. And so that is what you see on your way towards high spear, the city of high spear. Wait, what's the deal with that tower? Does anyone know? Lumply says, well, that's the high spear. That's the, that's the thing. What's the floating things? Wizard stuff.

I don't know. Whoa, what? Cool. High spear. You've, you've heard of this place. I've heard of it, but I heard of the mall. I didn't hear of this shattered tower. Yeah. Well, that's why it's called. They don't call it high spear because it's got a mall. I got high spear because of the high, high spear. Oh, wow. How big is that? Uh, you can see it from here. Yeah. So it's pretty big. Yeah. Pretty big. Cool. Have you heard of the water park in the mall? Water? Oh yeah.

Everybody's heard of the, the water park. Pretty good. I had a cousin go to that water park. He died. Whoa. Yeah. One of their slides is so steep that it's just like, sometimes you just die. How did he die? He died on the slide. How though? He went down the slide. It was too steep. What's the cause of death? He just, he just died. That's all I know. We don't talk about it a lot. Well, try and figure it out. I'm on a quest now. Cause my friend died. Well, my cousin kind of sucked. So he died.

We'll figure it out, man. It's a mystery. Mysteries are fun. Are you saying that I should investigate a slide that killed a cousin? I don't like 40 years ago. Yes, absolutely. You know what? It's just not a vendetta. I have. It's a quest for you, man. Let's just go. This slide was too steep. They don't let halflings on there anymore. For that exact reason. Halflings kept dying. It's like somebody had died on a wagon. What happened? He was on a wagon, right? Like people die on wagons.

He was one of the guys that died on a wagon. Yeah. You know how sometimes wagons kill people. So, you know, sure. It's one of my, one of my family members is now a wagon slayer, but that's revenge. It's just a thing that they want. They want to do. They need to slay wagons. One time, skinny Billy went to this mall and he died by a vending machine. Wait, what the hell just happened? Well, I thought we were sharing stories and I had one too. I guess. Oh, wait, skinny Billy. Yeah.

He wasn't skinny Billy before the vending machine. No, skinny Billy is the other Billy. No, there's regular Billy. There's fat Billy. And then there was skinny Billy. He died because he tipped a vending machine. No, the vending machine just like was in a really bad mood. And then it just throttled him. And it's just, you never know. It can be really dangerous to stand in front of a vending machine for too long. I'm just going to go ahead and make a note. Living vending machines.

You, you think you put enough money and you start shaking it. And it's like, no, nice try. Mother. Yeah, exactly. You reach your arm up inside. It's like, I don't think so. Not today. You have to ask permission. Not today. Oh man. There's got to be a way that, that actually, I'm sorry. I got to think about living vending machines. Well, it's the whole vending machine is not one organism, but there are like little gremlins that live inside of moving parts and alchemy and all kinds of stuff. Yeah.

Mostly it's a bunch of gremlins. Enchantments. It's an enchanted vending machine. Yeah. There's an elf. It's just a bunch of elves in the back, like pulling levers and stuff. And the vending machine elves are the most ordinary elves. Sorry. Sorry, Wes. The vending machine elves are the most ordinary and angry. Yeah. That is a thing that elves would do is run vending machines. Oh man. Now it makes sense. And this is what we're talking about.

And they are ordered because no one's ever happy with the performance of the vending machine. No. And all they do is complain. It's small portions. Try and get their tokens or coins back. Yeah. So we can pour one out for skinny. Skinny Billy. Sorry, man. It's just the dice that he was dealt. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, Lumply goes like, all right, next stop, High Spear. 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 long, 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 no.