Episode 10 – Late Fees

Hey, Tuck here telling you that without people like you listening to the show and giving us some money, this show wouldn't have happened. Well, it did happen, but it wouldn't be continuing to happen. So if you want to donate and also listen to some bonus stuff, a lot of bonus stuff. Holy shit, like 50 hours of bonus stuff. You can go to speltlore.com slash money, please, or patreon.com slash speltlore. And tell them Tuck sent you. Tuck is the Brute. He knows not his home. He loves to play.

He'll sing and fight. Thing is half-elf. 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 back to the show. Welcome to Spout Lore. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. And joining me as always playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers.

Hello there. Playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello. Currently had a mouthful of cold brew as I started talking. And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jusketai. Hello. When last we left our heroes, they were interrogating an erstwhile member of the Medjay, a hapless fellow named Erk, at the very, very tippy top of the… Lighthouse of McCall. And in the middle of that interrogation, we got an insight into the ritual that Ving endured, survived. Yeah. Yeah.

Initially, we believed undertook, but it sounds more like got through barely. Yeah. And then forgot by accident. Yeah. Through. Was like pushed out of his brain due to the intense trauma of the ritual itself. After that, and some threatening by Tuck to just drop him off. This dude from the top of a 1000 foot high lighthouse.

Billy was able to convince this man via supernatural pinky swear to track down whatever text the Medjay keep that might help them unravel the mysteries of the ritual and to not tell anybody that he's doing it under punishment of Billy knowing immediately where he is at the time and that he has broken that promise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In case this dude tweets out what they're trying to do and then they'll be ready to track him down. Uh, after that they desperately scaled down the side of the lighthouse of McCall. Is that what you call that leaving a path of destruction down the side. But I mean that place, that thing's probably pretty fucked up already. The lighthouse. Yeah. I mean the outside's probably kind of fucked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a thousand years old and has not been maintained. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. And there's probably, you know, like generations of graffiti and stuff like that carved into the side. They have been trying to like build it back up. There's like a heritage committee. There's guys down there like, what the fuck? Who does this? This is so ancient. There's a bunch of fucking axe marks down there now. What the hell?

And then they crashed through the roof of the shack of an old man named Greg Gregorius Gregory III in his rat petunia. And then they shared a little bit of soup and headed back to the library itself. Just before they headed back to the library, Ving popped into the perceptions of one Ama Margani via Eye of the Tiger to see what was going on. And we got a little bit of an insight to a tea party between Ama and Farhan. And also… Oh, I love it. I love the tiny table giant man. Yeah.

Medically recovering bully and former light guard enforcer, leader of the Immolators, Fatim, who seems to be recovering physically, but not very well emotionally right now. He seems to have come to terms with the fact that the torch was a piece of shit. Well, that and I mean, you know, I'm sure that you guys have been thinking about this, although Tuck did make himself dumber. So it's hard to say if he actually has been. I've been thinking about this.

Fatim was serving the demon of zealotry for years. So it's hard to say he's a bad. He was a bad dude for sure. Fatim was an asshole. He was a cruel person. But it's hard to say how much of what he's done over the last several years was him and how much was the demon of zealotry influencing him. It's also like was during, you know, the more formative years of his life, like mid to late 20s where you're like… That's when you kind of become an okay person a lot of the time.

Or at least lock in the person you think you are. Yeah. And then he probably thought he did. He was like, I'm the hammer of God. And I, you know, I enforced the will of the church. And then when Tuck came to town, he started telling people he was the axe of God. Yeah, he started to take my thing. And then he had that veil ripped away. And he had that influence purged from his mind. So he's like, fuck, what? What am I? If I'm not that, what am I? Classic 33 year old. Totally.

Now that he's like approaching 30, he's like, oh, man. And then, yeah, you headed back to the library and felt safe for the first time in a few days. Had some late night snacks and talked to Farah Margani, master librarian, and kind of gave her the down low on everything except for the attempted possession. There's a ton of work to be done. Of one Pellan guaranteed Corbin. Yeah, we didn't get to that because she got fucking pissed.

Because Billy realized that in escaping from the lighthouse, he forgot at the very top, he lost a library book, which very likely would signal to the Magi, if they find it, who you are working with. I wonder if that will happen. Yeah, nothing to do with like that flashback. Yeah, we got a little post credit scene. Yeah. Oh, and I mean, like, yeah, that's probably what Farah was talking about. But she's also just probably mad that you took a book out of the library. Yeah, she's a librarian.

Yeah, that's like because she said before, do not take books from the library. Thank you for saving my great many times great grandfather and saving the library. Do not remove the books from the premises. Yeah, it broke a big rule. Yeah, the only rule really we were given. We were given pretty free reign. And that is where we find our heroes. Now, Farah has walked out. Perel has gone to the medical wing long ago to rest after getting fucking worked over.

And here you are sitting in the semi empty cafeteria. Billy, you should go apologize. Yeah. So I get off the bench and I and I am scurrying down the hall after Farah. Yeah, you see her. She's walking ahead quite briskly. Farah, wait. She doesn't stop. Initially. I pick up speed. Farah. I'm running too fast to say anything. She does stop after a few more minutes of you chasing her minutes. Unbroken minutes of you chasing her. I trip. I am crying. Then she stops. I'm so sorry.

I know I did a big mistake by taking the book. But I only took it. A long time ago. And honestly, I forgot I had it because I have so many things in my bag all the time. And I'm sorry. I forgot it. I'll never take another book again. And it wasn't even that important of a book. Probably. She stops you there. She says with much less warmth in her voice than you're used to. We are not only an institution of learning. We are a safeguard against the law.

We are a source of loss and abuse of knowledge. By removing that text from these walls, you have betrayed not only my life's calling, but the life's calling of every individual that has ever come here to learn and protect the written word. Oh my God. Billy is speechless. Like I, Jessica, am feeling ashamed. You have undoubtedly. And she hasn't knelt down like you're used to adults doing.

To you when they like you, she's standing full height above you, which is not super tall, but for you, it's like, holy shit. She's huge. You have undoubtedly done a great service to this library and to me personally, as I have said. If this book is not recovered. And she's like, she is kind of speechless a little bit. She's like, it will irrevocably change how I feel about you. But I understand that you are. For all. Sense and purpose as a child.

That your decision making skills perhaps are not as full as mine. And your respect for knowledge is perhaps not as strong as mine. I would like your promise that you will do everything in your power to recover this book. I offer her a pinky promise. Are you othing yourself? I'm othing myself. Whoa. Okay. Okay. Spend the point. Okay. And she kneels down and she extends her pinky to you. Pinky promise. You promise to recover this book. I will give up my life before I don't recover this book. Whoa.

It's the first time I've ever did a promise. So I'm not very eloquent. Sean O'Hara asking, are you saying that if you don't recover this book, Billy will die? I guess. All right. Oh. And she says, I accept. Okay. Does Farrah realize the gravity of what she just did? She does. Billy tried to get her to pinky promise earlier when she, when he was like, promise you won't be mad. And she was like, I'm not going to promise you anything, Billy. Whoa. Like she realizes.

I feel like Billy is, he has never felt like the disappointment of someone that he like loves and respects. And because he's such a traumatized and like love starved little boy, he's like, I will do anything. To get this back. And also his parents are so fucking permissive. Yeah. He's never run up against something. She dusts her knees off after kneeling on the floor and she nods and you can feel a little bit of the warmth come back to her voice.

And she's like, I understand the gravity of the promise that you just made. And I appreciate your commitment to writing this wrong. We will consider the matter tabled. And when the book is returned, then all of us will be able to write it. And all will be well. But please, I'm begging you, do not steal any more books. I will never steal another book again. And if any of your friends have books that they have stolen and have not told me, please ask them to return them. Okay.

I am going to return to my quarters. Okay. Good night. Good night. And she pads away. I run back to the cafeteria. And things there going through like a pile of like herbal. Books and just looking around really sketchily like field guides and I'm sliding them into his hair. Billy slaps the book out of your hand. Billy. Do not steal the books from the library. Okay, pal. Give them back. Did Farrah, was Farrah really mad at you? Yes. What happened? I can't talk about right now.

And Billy like goes to the, I guess like the. The icebox and he packs some like little water cups and like protein shakes. Oh, Billy's leaving right now. Yeah. What you doing, pal? I'm just like, it's really tired and I want to go to bed right now. You're taking bed snacks. Yes. Cause I'm really sleepy and I, and I know I'm going to have a long sleep. So I need a lot of energy for it. Usually when you're really sleepy, you just fall asleep wherever you are.

But I'm like extra, like I'm really a special sleep. Yeah. You're kind of quivering a little bit. Yeah. I, I, it's just cause I'm so tired that I, that, that I'm moving a lot. It's my body being like, hurry up, go to bed. And Tex just like, okay, Billy, you're going to go to bed. Yeah. Okay. And I will sleep for a long time and it's okay. And then find us in the morning. Okay. Yep. Okay. Sweet dreams, Billy. I love you. I love you too. Good night. Love you. Billy like shrinks away.

Elbows up in his arms, hanging at his side as he scuttles. Okay. Interesting. Actually, I just have a quick question. Are we doing like Billy out on the town by himself? Like adventure? Yeah. I got to go get this book. Cool. Yeah. After Billy, like bust out of the room, uh, text, like he's for sure going to leave the library. Oh, definitely. A hundred percent. That is not his going, going to bed. Walk. All right. There we go. Nevermind.

Then it might not be a Billy on his own adventure after all. Okay. Literally the most conspicuous, like came into the cafeteria, said, I'm going to bed now. As he grabbed dungeon rations out of the freezer. Yeah. Okay. That answers every question that I just had. Where the second he leaves, you all get up and you start grabbing your shit and you're like, Billy's going to try and get out. When you said that. Yeah. Ving was packing water bottles into a backpack, filling his camel bag.

Wait, should we go after him or should we let him deal with this? We should go after him. We should definitely, we'll let him deal with it from a distance. Yeah. A respectful distance. We'll hover a distance away if we can keep up with him. Wow. This is like your kid, uh, going to like, like walking to school, walking to school for the first time alone. And us in a helicopter directly above him. Yes. Um, so where would Billy go to get out of here? Yeah. Yeah.

Like, are you going back to basically the motor pool, like the sand boat? Yeah. Um, who was the driver again? Uh, the driver was, uh, he was handlebar mustache. Remember? That was a, that was a joke. No. All right. No. Yeah. Yeah. I was mainly just imagining Hulk Hogan. Yeah. Like a blonde handlebar mustache. Uh-huh. A flat butt and bags under his eyes. Bald with like long hair, long blonde hair. Okay. Way less racist for sure. No. More racist. Okay. He sees Billy and he goes, ew, a halfling.

Can you get away from me? Uh, yeah. Bulko is in the, um, boat launch and he's working on the sand boat that he brought you back in. Bulko. Hey, it's me, Billy. What's up little brother? Um, it's a big emergency. We need to go back to the sticks right now. Uh. Right now. Right now. Farrah told me so. Well, I don't know if I should be letting you a little unattended little kid. No. Don't you usually have two other dudes that are with you? Yeah, but they told me I can go.

They gave express permission and they said, we want you to go alone, Billy. We don't want to go. We are very tired and we trust you. And come back to us. We're around the corner listening to this conversation. I can't believe he actually gets away with this shit. People believe him. Such a fucking liar. Fuck. He doesn't get that from me. He does not get it from me. I don't lie. Who does he get that from? I don't know. Maybe it's the guy that lost us 98 coins. Whoever that is. And the tech looks.

They're stuck in like a wide. Looks at me. Tilt his head forward. Tilt more. And by being in this argument, we have missed most of the conversation. Yeah, totally. Billy, you're going to have to either roll a defy danger charisma or perhaps spend a fairy hold. But that might be. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Rolling charisma. Okay. Oh, boy. It's fine. Five plus two is seven. Five plus two is seven. Billy's like hands and knees. Eyes closed. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. I don't know.

Let's go. Let's go. I've gotten in a lot of trouble in the past for taking people out into the desert with not enough clearance. I'm on thin ice. Little brother. No. Farrah said. And she also said a long time ago that we are basically like the boss of this library. So like, I'm your boss. So please. But like, I'd be really nice about it. All right. All right. All right. Holy shit. Just shut up. Okay. All right. All right. I'm not sure that I can let you. Out of. The boat.

Like, I can take you to McCall and I can take you. I'm going to have to come with you is what I'm saying. I can't let you go unattended. Okay. Fine. Billy agrees, but he's definitely going to like shake him off. Yeah, totally. Okay. So Bulko grabs his sand boating gear, which is like a big heavy scarf that goes around his neck goggles. Because you know how sand boats have like just a slit that you look through.

So he's got his goggles, his hat, his scarf, and he wears a librarian's robe, but the sleeves have been ripped off. Cool. So it's like all jagged on the sides and he's got real huge tanned muscles. Nice. And a tattoo that says books. This guy's fucking rad. This guy's the only nerd that Tuck has ever respected. Yeah. He's a sand boat driver, but he is a librarian. And he's like, all right, let's get out of here. Hop in. I'm already in. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you go. You're so quick.

Oh, that's fine. Let's go. All right. And he hops in, clangs the hat shut. And he kicks his foot out of the sand boat onto the ground and kicks the lever that starts the funicular that can we run up and latch on somehow. Should we run up and latch on or steal a different sand boat? Oh, yeah. I'd be fun to try and talk somebody else into taking us up to the surface. Yeah. So, Billy, you're heading up and he's like, okay, if you don't mind, I might let the sales out a little bit on this one.

What do you say? Like, make it fast. Oh, yeah. Oh, please do. I've been working on a little something. Cool. With what's his boat called? Big Mama. Oh, yeah. I've been working on a little something with Big Mama that I think you're going to like. And yeah, you're heading up and out. Tuck and Ving, you see Bulko's sand boat, Big Mama, heading up and out of the boat launch. What do you do? We run up to the other sand boat guy who's washing down one of his sand boats. Yeah.

He's just hosing it down. He's got one of those sand boats. He's got one of those, like, pump things that, like, before, you know, pressure hoses existed. He just got a big container full of water and a pump and he's just blasting sand off of it. Hey, Nacho Man. Who's this guy? Randy. Randy. Oh, because you're going for it. Yeah. Randy Nacho Man. Savage. Randy Savage. Yeah. Nacho Man. Randy Savage Nacho Man. Yeah. No Nacho Man. Just Randy Savage. Randy Savage. Hello. Hello.

It's me, Randy Savage. What can I do for you today, fine gentleman? This guy's so distinguished. I love it. He's still huge and he has, like, sunglasses that cover his whole face and he's got a big beard and a cowboy hat. What can I do for you this fine evening? Spray, spray, spray. We need to get up to the surface. Post haste. Very well. Hop in. I have no reason to disbelieve you. You're two reasonable adults. Jessica just threw her arms up there. What the fuck? Yeah. I asked the wrong person.

No. Billy is a child. If a truck driver was at a truck stop and some adults were like, hey, we're just hitchhiking. We need to get to the next town. They're more likely to say yes than if a kid runs up and is like, we got to go right now. This is a hate crime. Okay. Yeah. And Randy's like, let's go. Where to? Follow that sand boat, Tuck says. Post haste. Post haste. And Randy hops into. His sand boat kicks the lever and the funicular heads up to the top, the boat launch.

And Billy, you come out of the launch with Bolko and he pilots it out to the edge of Elaine Springs. And he's like, all right, you ready? Absolutely. Okay. Here we go. And he reaches over and pushes like a lever forward and you hear mechanisms above you like in the sail extend outward, like two arms come out to make a really big sail. And then you hear something rumbling inside the boat itself and it's moving under power. Like it's got like a, some sort of weird thing that's pushing it forward.

Whoa. And then he's like, okay, here we go. And it starts picking up speed. And then you feel the desert wind catches extra large sail and it's like hitting fucking hyperdrive. Like you just get thrown backwards. Yeah. Billy's cheeks like flapping the wind and he's gripping on to the front of the seat so hard. And he's like, oh, my God. Fuck yeah. I'm going to get that book so soon. Yeah. Does Billy have little goggles on? Yeah. Tiny goggles. Yeah. And Bogle's like, oh, yeah.

It's a Tim Allen sound. I couldn't remember if there was a sound that Hulk Hogan made. So it was kind of Tim Allen, kind of macho man. And you're fucking ripping ass through the nighttime desert. Tuck and Ving, you come out of the boat launch with Randy. Oh, with that? Yeah. Yeah. It's such a much calmer affair. Yeah. He turns over and he's like, can I interest you in some in-cabin coffee? Lovely. No, just follow that boat, man. Which boat? The one that's fucking getting away.

And you look and you can barely see it on the horizon. And Randy's like, my word. And he it takes a lot longer because he doesn't have a motor in his. So it just like slowly gets he gets out and pushes it into the sands. No, no, no. Fuck. Can you get some fucking? Wind? Yeah. Just a moment. We have to get out into the sands. I don't want to damage cream of the crop while he's behind there pushing it. I want to see if I can get a big Gus and we can leave this guy in the dust. All right.

Dustin Gus. Holy shit. My God. Twelve. All right. What's a twelve on elemental mastery? Get you. I think I only get two from the list below. The effect comes to pass. Avoid paying nature's price. Retain control. So I'll get effect comes to pass and I'll retain control. Okay. So nature's price. We're back, back, back again. What? What is nature's price? I mean, it could always just be damaged. It can just be damaged. It can totally just be like, what's your damage? A D eight. Oh no. It's six.

The elements. It's a D 10. Oh shit. So if you want to roll me a D 10, this is the act of hanging onto the, yeah, you get up on the top, like to be like, fuck this. Two, two. Great. Yeah. So you only take two damage as the, as the, the wind whips so hard that you can feel like it tearing at your skin. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Tuck's cheeks are… As the boat lurches forward, the sail unfurls forcefully, and you hear Randy go, Now hold on. He's gone.

As you whip out of the desert, Tuck, you're driving, apparently. Oh, yeah, and I call off the back, Sorry, we'll bring it back in one piece, we promise. Bye! Yeah, and you carry on. Bing, I assume that you're going to pilot as a former sand sailor? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to make you roll to pilot because you've driven a boat before. And, Billy, you're hanging on to the front of a seat, legs flapping behind like a little flag, and you hear Bulko go, What the hell's that? What? Where?

Some sort of squall kicking up behind us. I'm just going to take a quick look. Can you hold the wheel? Sure. Can you carry me? He grabs you from where you are, flapping on the back of the seat, and just picks you up and puts you on the wheel. Yeah, so I tuck my legs into the wheel, like I'm sitting on a chair swing, and then I hold… I hold the wheel. So I'm just like, here we go. Effectively doing nothing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just using my body weight to…

And he pops the hatch and stands up and squints. He gets a mouthful of sand, and he's like, somebody's following us. Oh. Billy knows immediately. No! Oh, no! Oh, I think it's just my parents. Your parents, the ones that you said were fine with you coming? Yeah, they're totally fine with it. They just like… I probably just like forgot my backpack or something. Should we stop? No. It's not that important. All right, whatever you say, little brother.

And he slams the hatch shut, picks you up off the wheel, and keeps going. And it's going to take you like… What's the ride we usually say? It's like two hours to get kind of around McCall into the library? Yeah, but I guess with his turbo speed, it's probably like 40 minutes. Yeah, you're going to do it in 40 minutes easy. Yeah, he's really proud of that time. Oh, he's like, are you timing it? Yeah. It's going to be so fast. I could even go to the far side of McCall.

I could go to the north side if you want. We don't even… If I get to the north side, it's going to take like 10 extra minutes. That's crazy, right? I mean, whatever is closest to the lighthouse. All right, fine. I'll just take you to the south side, whatever. Thank you. And Balco sits down. In no time flat, you see the city of McCall rising up before you. And he goes, all right, hold on. Okay. And he pulls a bunch of levers, and the boat starts slowing immediately.

And he's basically like e-brake turning it. Everything's shaking. The boat sounds like it's going to rattle apart. Yeah. His monster energy drink falls off the dashboard. And he basically e-brake turns into just a bunch of houses that are built on the very edge of the desert. And he almost hits a pen full of goats. In fact, you hear it tap the latch, and the gate opens, and all the goats get out. Billy is like so bruised, because it's just… He's been like ping-ponging around the hatch.

And he's like, nice. Like he pops out of the hatch. He's like, thanks, Balco. Hey, happy to help little brother. He takes his goggles off. And where he was totally brown from the sand, he's just like nice and pink under the goggles. All right. If you need a ride back, are you good? Wait, no. I said I was going to come with you. I forgot. Fuck. Fuck. We have fairy dust him. That's… Oh, you're going to put him to sleep? Yeah. Because then I know I have a ride back, but he can't follow me.

God, Billy's like off the chain right now. Yeah. This is Billy with no supervision. Oh, man. He's an animal. Okay. So fairy dust is 2d6 plus charisma? Sure. Okay. Balco, can you just like… I think I dropped something under the chair. Can you have a look? Oh, no problem. There's a lot of stuff under this chair, though. It might take me a sec. Okay. And he starts digging around. Seven. Okay. So you get one from the list. The list is… It affects a group of people.

They stay asleep for a good amount of time. You can do it from a distance. I have to get really close. So I'm like… Okay. I'm like leaning over him, like hands on his shoulder, like, oh, it's like really under there. And then I'm going to choose that he falls asleep for a long time. Okay. So as he's like bent over, like shoulder deep under the seat, pulling out like copper book romance novels and like a little… One of those rubber, slappy, sticky hands. He's just like, nope, nope, nope.

And you just, what, blow a bunch of dust in his face? Yeah, basically. I go… In his face. He goes, oh, come on, little brother. Good night. Have a good nap. I'll see you later. Cute. And when he goes… And his handlebar mustache flips out from his face and lands back down. I pull his shawl over him and like tuck him in so he's comfy. Mm-hmm. And I hop out of the boat. All right. And it's dark out. Yeah. It's nighttime. Mm-hmm.

And the moon is obscured by like clouds, so it's not as bright as it usually is. The only real light is the occasional worm glass in the cliffside and the light at the top of the lighthouse of McCall. So yeah, just like tightens up his satchel, his backpack, and off we go. Mm-hmm. Cut back to Tuck and Ving. You are absolutely hauling ass on this sandboat. You can feel the wind, the wind unnaturally, like almost picking the boat up off the ground. We're getting air. Yeah, exactly.

You can feel it. The boat stops vibrating every once in a while, and you're like, that's not a good sign. So you are approaching the city very, very quickly. You see a sandboat parked like, I don't know, half a kilometer off to your left. You realize the wind is pushing you kind of off course. You're going so fast. There's goats everywhere, dodging the goats. Right. There's goats just running, out into the desert right now. Yeah, there's a bunch of goats. Goat, goat, goat.

A bunch of goats making a freedom dash. They're like, finally. We're dashing around the herd. We got to, yeah. I suppose that you said that you retain control. So it's not going to uncontrollably slam you into the side. But I feel like we need to defy danger dexterity to not hit these goats. Yeah, totally. So somebody give me a defy danger dexterity. I'm assuming because you're piloting. Yeah, the boat skills. Come on, save a goat. 11. Oh, geez. Yeah, you step between the goat drops.

You know, you like you're threading the needle so beautifully. Jumping goats. Yeah, a goat like clops up onto the boat and runs down the other side. Well, he's like, heads up. He's talking to the goat. Yeah. And you hear the goat go, freedom. Runs into the desert. And you ask the wind to let up just before you get to the city. The night zephyr carries off into the sky. Cool. And your boat gently comes to a rest. At the edge of the city of McCall. And we tap a pen of chickens.

And all those chickens. Chicken latch opens. The chicken latch opens and the chickens don't move. Like I'm not going anywhere. I love it here. Somebody brings me corn every day. And yeah, you're here. You're at the city of McCall. You see Balco's sandboat. Big Mama parked a little bit further up the outskirts. And Billy must be nearby. And we'll cut to Billy. So Billy, you know, he's trying. To be, I guess, like economical with the exercise. He's going to have to perform.

So he's like the fastest way up is just straight up. So he pulls out his throwing daggers, two of them. And he's scaling the light tower. Oh, you've made it back to. Yeah, you've made it back to the to the sticks. I think that I kind of want Billy to have to roll to get there unseen. You know what I mean? Because like there are a lot of people in this neighborhood. Oh, shit. So defy danger dexterity. Whoa. Nice. Dexterity. I got 10. Okay. Holy shit. Yeah. You are a phantom. I am in thief mode.

Yeah. This is old school. Billy sneaking unseen through the trappings of society. I flip through the shadows and I stick close to the walls. I tiptoe. You sneak right past like jackals just chatting about their day's crimes. They committed. You hear whispers of some sort of terrible fight in Stepside that left a gang. I'm decimated. And you just hear a couple whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears in a dark alleyway. Can we hear some of those sweet nothings?

I just love the way your butt looks so sweet. It's just, you know, like most people like when they when they think about a butt, they think about like sitting and shitting. Not me. I think about your butt and I think, wow, I love it. This kid is 13. Yeah. These are like teenagers. This is not good. And the person was like, wow, you know, I never thought about my own ass like that, but I'm going to from now on. And then you hear they start kissing each other. Oh, fucking gross.

But you can make it to the base of the lighthouse. No problem. Little bit of, you know, flashbacks as you remember what you went through just earlier this day in this neighborhood. Yeah. It was like those stairs, even though I only climbed like 50 feet of them. Oh, but I love Farrah. She's such a good grandma. Do I have to? Yeah, you're going to have to roll unless you can think of another mechanical move you could use to get up there. Yeah.

It's going to be defy danger dexterity and it's going to take a while because remember it took you like a couple hours to walk up and now you're going to climb up the outside. Yeah, that's true. That's okay. Yeah. So it's nine. Okay. The first thing you do is like you scramble up, you know, a bunch of things. You go through the houses and stuff like that and get as high as you can just by climbing on those. So that gets you like 100, 120 feet up. You see Petunia. Yeah.

You see Petunia the rat sitting on a rooftop. Yeah. I did take a pause to like look in the like it's creepy, but like look in the window and like there's Greg. He's like having a nice snooze and Petunia is on the chair curled up. Yeah. Petunia. And you see the roof that you guys helped build. It's holding up. Good. Like for the last six hours. Solid six hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Record. And you get up on top of Greg 3G's hut with a nine. You're like, who?

I got some work ahead of me. And you start digging your little daggers into the brickwork and pulling yourself up. Yeah. And I find like little footings. And you start climbing up and we will cut to Tuck and Ving. You enter on the cliff side side of the city. Yeah. We need to be very discreet. This is a conversation that we're having in the chicken coop to be discreet. So we ducked into the chicken coop and Tuck is like, we need to be very discreet. There are people are looking for us now. Who?

What the fuck are you talking about? The Magi? Oh, no. I was Paul asking. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Wait, what? I was really just picturing our feet inside of a nest. We're sitting on either side of this big nest. The chickens in between us. And the chickens are just like. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. What are the chickens saying? What's up? You want to be discreet. What? What? What? What's up?

Hey, ladies. Don't mind us for a moment. Okay. Okay. Mwah. Can you give us a moment, please? Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. And they all kind of go and cluster up on the other side of the fence. And Tuck is. Talk about us. Tuck snaps in front of Ving. And he's like, hey, it's rude. It's rude when you do that when you speak a language I don't know. So sorry. He's just casually talking to these chickens. Okay. Yeah. Well, do you think Billy's going to exercise the same discretion? No, for sure not.

Damn it. You know Billy. Yeah. One time he made a scene at a Charles Eve pageant because he thought the plastic hanging meats were real. And then at another Charles Eve pageant, he tried to fight a guy because he thought he was actually Charles and he was actually trying to break into a house. He was just doing his best. What do we have for costumes? What do we have for darkness? Oh, man. I have the axe with me. So I'm very noticeable right now. I mean, you can always hide the axe.

I'm not leaving this thing behind. Not again. Well, that's your fault. There's like a farmer's tool shed next to you. Could have some stuff in there. Maybe Randy had some stuff in his sand boat cream of the crop. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work.

There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. There's a ton of work. You're going to have to roll something to break the lock. Yeah, I'm just going to roll strike.

Okay, two to six plus strike six plus three is nine. Yeah, and I just lift the shed up the things that are in it. And as you toss the shed to the side, it shatters completely. You're not going to be able to put it back. Sorry. So now there's just a bunch of Texas. Sorry to the chickens. Sorry. They all go and they're flapping day. Actually, yeah, the chickens are making a ton of noise in your what's going on out there. Cluck, clack, casually get away from my chicken.

And you hear like a ding and you see a worm light start glowing in the house next to you. And you hear a rumbling as somebody starts coming out. You got to move fast. Are there clothes? Yeah, there's just a bunch of stuff. There's a scarecrow. Vink grabs his clothes off the scarecrow. All right. But he forgot to take the stick out. So his arms are at the side. Tuck grabs. No time to think. Oh, okay. It comes to your head. Tuck grabs a bag of bird seed. All right. That's what you get.

And puts the axe inside of it. I guess. I guess so. And the door to the house bangs open and there's a farmer standing there with a pitchfork. Get away from my chickens. Tuck grabs a pitchfork too. And he's like, they're my chickens. Are you trying to scare this guy away? Yeah. He's like, what's your name? Money. What's your name? My name's Bill. Get away from my chickens. And then Tuck goes, my name's Bill. Get away from my chickens. This is so confusing for Bill in the middle of the night.

Please roll something. 2D6 plus charisma, I guess. Vink is staying as still as possible, but this is insane to witness. Ten. He just stares at you for a second. Your name's Bill? Yeah. Where, what was your mom's name? My mom's name was Mill. My mom's name was Mill. Bill. And he holds his hand up like he's trying to see if you're a reflection. And then Tuck does the same thing. And he moves it in a circle. And Tuck. Tuck does the same thing, but there's an obvious leg. And he touches his face.

Tuck touches his face. And he just closes his door. And goes back inside. And then Tuck mime closes the door. There's no shed door. Yeah, Tuck picks the shed door up off the ground and then closes it. And you can hear, you can't see, but you can distinctly hear Bill heavily. Sitting down at his kitchen table, head in his hands. Just thinking so hard about what he saw, but you're good for now. There might be some ramifications here. I feel like every time I interact with a farmer, I…

Ruin their life? Yeah, ruin their life. Yeah. All right. So you have, Ving has a disguise. He looks like a scarecrow. What does a McCollin scarecrow look like? You know, there's a hay coming out the sleeves. Uh-huh. Dressed like librarians. Librarians. Okay. Old discarded librarian robes. That's pretty much it. Yeah. So you just got an outfit full of hay. Yeah. And a floppy hat of some kind. Yeah. Beautiful. Tuck, you just have a bag of bird seed with an ax in it. Yeah.

And he throws another bag of bird seed on his back. And he puts like an old disheveled hat on to try and like hide his face. Okay. And he hunches down so he doesn't, so he looks like a hunched farmer. Great. He makes the bird seed. His bulk of his body looks like… He just bags a bird seed. Yeah. Nice. Wonderful. And he keeps the pitchfork. All right. And you head off into the city. Yeah. Shambling. Cut back to Billy. Billy, you've begun scaling the side of the lighthouse.

I feel like, well, I know I'm ahead of them by quite a bit. Yeah. So I'd say you're like a third of the way up. That's it? It's going to take you a long time. He was able to climb a third of the way basically on the houses. True. So your stairs were spiraling. So that takes up more than going straight up. All right. All right. You're two thirds of the way up. Yeah. The lighthouse. I'm much more than two thirds of the way up. No. You're two thirds of the way up.

Billy is telling himself, I am much more than two thirds of the way up. Billy can manipulate physical space. Come on. You got a seven to nine. I would like to point out. Well, he is dripping sweat, but he's just gritting through and telling himself little stories so he doesn't get too scared. And Billy, you're like just before what looks like it used to be a window before it was sealed up. So it like sticks out a little bit.

You could rest on it and you hear a behind you and you see a chunky little bug flying right behind you. And then you see a couple more. And now there's this little swarm of chunky little bugs buzzing around you. What are they? They look like something that you might want to Spout Lore for. Okay. I will Spout Lore. But they definitely look like a bee of some kind. Ooh. Ooh. Nice. Holy shit. Cool. So nine. Great. Okay. Can we aid? No. Absolutely not.

You don't know much about them, Billy, but you do recognize these as what you've heard an entomologist in the library describe as McCollin stonecutter bees. They're very like they have gray chunky chitinous shells. They look geometric almost like they look like cut stone and they have big, huge chomping mandibles and they're flying very close to you. They're very curious as to what you are. Um, is this your house? Am I in the way? Billy kind of like moves aside a bit.

It moves a little bit closer and you can see its mandibles start like chomping. You get the idea that you might be close to their hive. Do you want to Billy's like motioning? Like do you want to chop through the window that could help me? And he's like pointing himself and Billy like there's, I don't know, just like some sand and gravel. Kind of like on the ledge. So he like picks it up and he's like holds it out like a little offering. Like yeah. All right. Can we be friends now?

Two D six plus charisma. Okay. Oh, wow. Got 13. Holy shit. Okay. Um, yeah, there's like a good number of these bees now. There's maybe like a couple dozen in this swarm and a few of them move forward and land in your hand and start. You can see their huge mandibles, which are like, you know, a third again, as big as their body. They come into the sand and rock. So I like move them against like, I guess the plastered over window. Like do you want to eat that?

And they land on the window sill next to you and start chomping at the sand. And then they start crawling all over the side of the lighthouse and you can hear like as they start chewing through the stone. Yeah. Chew it. You can do it. Like, I don't know. Billy. Like.

The copper pin of his hair and he starts like digging through it like I will help yeah chew it you can do it and um they chew like since there's a good number of them and they chew a lot faster than you would expect so they start digging through the stone pretty fast the copper pin wasn't doing anything so I like used my knives instead I'm like chew it and I start acting like I'm a little stone cutter bee by like making little mandibles with your knives yeah like yeah stone cutter billy chomp chomp chomp saying buzz a lot yeah that's amazing and as you uh follow them into this like roughly billy sized hole that they're making it takes a little bit of going you can tell that there's something that you didn't remember about stone cutter bees because all the bees are moving around you in this hole and they're filling in behind you like they're filling in the stone behind you with like very um intricate looking hive structure okay so I grab my bag from the sill yeah I don't want to leave anything behind yep and they slowly seal you in as you start to like move through the wall of this lighthouse oh and we'll cut back to tuck and being real quick what are you doing we're we're how far are we away from the lighthouse are we um maybe a 20 30 minute walk um but you're gonna have to roll something to get through the neighborhood unseen wait we don't really know where billy is going what do you think tuck and think billy is doing going to get the book yeah and where do you think the book is he we know he left it at the top of the light yes yeah at least your first instinct would be well we should go there first yeah totally thanks for talking me through that stranger you know what happy to help my name I you know I just like to go around and help people talk through things in the middle of the night it's like a spiritual undertaking I've accepted what's your name uh it's in fornish booth if you uh if you have anybody else that needs some help you just point them towards info booth and I'll help them out have a great night folks and he trundles off down the street that guy's gonna be really handy later on too I can't wait to ask him a bunch of specific questions about where our enemies are and stuff if you can find me and he starts sprinting down the street away from you a huge star above him it's bobbling he's got a map on his back yeah it says you are here and the dot always moves to where you are in the city man that guy's vibe is very much that he's on halfling white he's definitely a burner and you make it to the base of the lighthouse of course that's where billy would go and you see the uh well I'm glad it seems obvious to you sean maybe it's just because I'm omniscient I know where everybody is in the city um but yeah you get to like the uh the borderline fungal construction of the sticks and you see the lighthouse immense above you and a lot of little knife marks if you were to get really close you'd be able to see the lighthouse and you'd be able to see the lighthouse and you'd be able to see the uh if you were to go to do you think you'd go to greg's starting point shack I don't know we're in a bit of a hurry yeah can I use the axe to kind of just like smash through the side of the lighthouse just on the street full view everybody maybe is greg's up against the lighthouse isn't he it is yeah yeah maybe we'll do it at greg's house so that there is some cover so you're gonna go to this old man's house yeah and you're gonna wake him up it's like two or three in the morning and you're gonna say hey would you mind if I cut a hole into an ancient and unknowable giant construction yeah but we're gonna pitch it to him like he's on uh that house flipping show yes all right we're gonna expand this house so you go to greg's place and you knock on the door greg he wakes up his he comes to the door his eyes are closed hello greg it's tuck from earlier when your house got destroyed we're here to do it again martha you're back he's sleeping sleepwalking I'm so glad that we were able to go to the seaside for our anniversary come here and he starts moving towards you with his hands out in a kissy face yeah tuck plays into it what yeah and don't wake him up he gives you a little kiss right in the middle of your chest because you're so much taller than him uh but tuck holds his hand up and he makes it into a face and gives it lips he kisses your hand and he goes it it's great to see you too greg and as this is playing out in ving you hear why hello there hey toontown how you doing girl two times in one day could I be so lucky I'm the lucky one and you know it girl what can I help you with tonight sugar you know our sweet little boy yeah he's up on the lighthouse oh I know oh what you saw him I saw him earlier this morning not aren't you perceptive and beautiful well he he looked me right in my eyes and said hello oh man those beautiful beady little red eyes oh ving you china you and if you look over to the corner of the room tuck you hear as a rat is going you know like a wave a wave a southern bell hand gesture and if you cut back to tuck for a second he doesn't notice that because his arm is now his arm is now spooning with Greg in the bed.

Hurry the fuck up. They're whispering sweet nothings to each other. And his hand is going, your butt is great. Usually when I think of a butt, I think of pooping. But your butt is so the opposite of that. And I love it. Greg. And he's dead asleep. He's got a big smile on his face. He's so happy. Tuck continues. Okay. And Petunia is like, are you going to go get your boy? Well, yeah. You have the run of the house into all the nooks and crannies.

What part of the house butts up against the lighthouse? We're thinking about maybe cutting a little hole in there to get up the lighthouse faster. Well, if you look around, you'll see that it's more of a one room shack kind of situation. And one of the walls is very clearly the brickwork of the lighthouse. Oh, okay. Thank you very much, Petunia. Of course. You're not going to leave that hole. You're not going to be able to yawn and open to scare old Toontown, will you?

No, we'll close it up, of course. Okay. Wouldn't want to scare you. Hmm. Well, have fun. Thank you. Tuck, are you done? You're about done? Yeah, I'm done. I cannot wait until we awake on the seaside together. Good night, Greg. All right, I'm ready. You slip the arm out of Greg's hands. I like the idea, like Indiana Jones style, you switch it with a bag of bird seeds. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And draw like lipstick and eyelashes on the bag. All right.

Defy danger dexterity because that's really funny. Holy shit. As always, whenever it's going to be the funniest to succeed, you always succeed. Yeah, you slip the bag of bird seed in there and he throws his knee up over it and he holds it close. Okay, cool. I'll start cutting into this. Whoa. Quietly. Yeah. It's just going to take you longer if you do it quietly. It's not going to be hard because your axe does destroy stone. Yeah.

So Tuck takes his axe and he kind of like, he starts shaving pieces off the wall. Nice. Yeah. Cool. And the axe cuts it like butter basically. It's coming off in sheets which is really weird to see stone do. Yeah. Curls. Yeah. And we cut back to Billy. Billy, you're working through the darkness of this stone cutter beehive. Yeah. I've created a little will-o'-the-wisp. Nice. So it's like, I've got a little ball hovering in front of me. Mm-hmm. Do I discern realities to like know where I am?

No, you're going to pop out eventually. Okay. I'd say that you, being a little chaotic kid, you don't know how much time has passed because you don't really care about the passage of time very much. But eventually, as you're digging through with all your new stone cutter friends, you feel fresh air. Well, quote unquote, fresh air. Uh-huh. And you pop out. You feel the cavernous opening of the lighthouse in front of you and you are above the staircase.

Like maybe, five to eight feet like above it. So it's going to be a little bit of a drop, but you're right above the staircase. Uh, all right. And do you just climb down? Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, I just pictured like a cartoon of Billy falling forward covered in honey and just like, squeak. Yeah, I basically like belly flop. Hope for the best. Oh, that's probably what stone cutter bee honey is like. It's like mortar. Oh, so cool. Cool.

And then like, as it dries, you have to like, brush it off. Yeah. It's like sandy. But your skin's so smooth. Yeah. Because it takes all the old skin with it. It's probably so good for exfoliating. Oh my God, they have it in spas. Um, so yeah, you climb down, no problem, um, with your little daggers, tink, tink, tink.

And, um, the stone cutter bees start filling in that section and like, they were basically just filling like tubes on tubes on tubes behind you and then you see the beautiful construction of their rock hard hive structure like, starts spreading out along the walls too and then they just stop and you hear like, quiet little inside the tunnels. I see by them. Whoa. And, uh, yeah, you're in the lighthouse itself. It's very eerie in here.

You've got the light from your little will-o'-the-wisp and you remember that on your way up the first time, you didn't really have much to do with it. You didn't take in too much of the lighthouse. So now you've got a bit of a climb ahead of you but now it's safer but also, who knows what's in here. Alright, so I tuck my daggers back into my pockets and hoof on my backpack and I'm pretty scared so I turn the will-o'-the-wisp into a little wicker.

I'm like, okay, now I feel like I'm not quite so alone. Yeah, totally. So up we go. Okay. I'm going to be as stealthy as possible. Yeah, climbing up these stairs is a laborious process for Billy but, um, as you start hustling up this staircase you are struck, by, the mystery in openings that are off the staircase like other chambers that obviously go to different parts of this lighthouse. Yeah.

And, the designs carved into the walls that you didn't really notice before, like there's just a very alien, monumental, ancient feeling to this lighthouse that is somewhat, it's strange but it's somewhat comforting to Billy in its age. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I feel like I relate to it. Does Billy have any interest in, um, exploring the lighthouse at all or are you just going straight to the top? I'm pretty fixated on this book. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Uh, okay, so you climb up the lighthouse hand over hand, foot over foot, belly over belly as you flop up the staircase with your wick or the wisp behind you. As you get to the top of the lighthouse you see that opening you feel a disturbance in the air very similar to the disturbance that you felt when you were fighting Roth and the Medjay earlier. There's some sort of interference, right? Yeah, so I extinguished the willow, the wisp. Um, this might take a roll to get close.

I'm going to trap expert. Oof. That's a nine plus two is 11. Fuck. So you get three questions off trap expert. Okay. Is there a trap here? Yes, there is. Okay. And if so, what activates it? Um, what active, what would activate it is probably just getting too close. You feel just based on your experience now being around Medjay, you could tell if you really, really focused kind of where Roth is. He's at the top of the lighthouse on the skirt that surrounds the very top like the light chamber.

Okay. But he's not moving right now. Is Billy sensing this through the fate realm? Yeah, kind of like it's it's something that not everybody would be aware of. Tuck actually with Roth Tuck might be aware of this feeling if he was really close. But it's just like a turbulence. Oh, because I'm connected to the X. No, just because of the degree to which they're creating a turbulence like in reality. So it just affects regular people too. Yes. Yeah. But mastering of the elements.

I think especially when like when Billy was in like Lillian's tower, I think it's kind of similar to that feeling. Yeah, exactly. It feels very similar to the energy you felt in Lillian's tomb. Hmm. So what does the trap do when activated? What the trap would do is if you get too close, um, Roth will probably be able to sense that you're there and then he will attack. What else is hidden here?

So now that you've gotten to sort of the top of the stairs and you're peeking out onto the, uh, the platform, you can see Roth sitting at the very edge overlooking the city facing the salt flats. He's sitting cross-legged on the ground. He has his hands on his knees and he's completely immobile. But you can see next to him is the book. I'm going to try something. Mm-hmm. So I'm going to use a fairy child to switch objects within view. Ah, yeah. Yeah. Sweet.

And I don't have to roll for that, right? Like, I just use one of my moves. It'll be my last move. Oh, it'll be your last fairy child? Yeah. Then, yeah, you would just spend it. All right. I'm all out. So I, um, what do I have that I'm not too worried about leaving behind? Oh, I have some, like, fucking gross sweaty raisins still. The last of my raisins. The last of my raisins. Is there anything that's maybe a little more important to Billy that would be, like, a sacrifice to leave behind?

Is there anything that's more nutritionally dense that you can maybe leave? Uh, uh, I'll leave my copper pin. Oh. Oh, shit. That's actually, yeah, pretty big. That's pretty cool. Mm-hmm. Okay, so I take it out of my hair. I'm like, fuck. Shit. Billy says, losing a pin that he really likes. The audience realizing that the menders will no longer be able to use it to track Billy. Yeah. So Billy is super sad about this, but, yeah.

And, yeah, you hold your hand out with the copper pin in it and you feel that fairy energy start to tingle through you. Mm-hmm. And, boop, then the book's in your hand and the copper pin is set. I look at this book, I'm like, I hate you. I put it in my backpack. And, as you're, as you're getting ready to turn and head back down the stairs, you feel that spiritual turbulence pitch. I stay really still. And Roth starts to turn. I duck out. We cut back to Ving and Tuck. Oh, God.

Tuck, you've made it through the side of the lighthouse. Lathing it away, there's a weirdly goopy pile of stone behind you. Mm-hmm. And you feel, yeah, the stale air of the lighthouse rush as you cut through into the structure itself. Ving can sense that the Roth is up there, right? Totally. Maybe not quite from this distance, but still, you enter the lighthouse and it's, the vibes are bad in here. Yeah. You know? Like, it's not specifically Roth is upstairs and he's angry.

It's, something is wrong. Should we run up the stairs? Yeah, the stairs are here. Is there any faster way? Yeah, you can light as a feather. Tuck, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go up. Yeah, you go ahead. I'll, I'll fucking try and bust it, okay? I'll try and do the stairs as fast as I can. I'm so sorry. No, it's fine. I'm in a bulk phase. This is gonna be extra hard for Tuck because my thighs have been rubbing together so much because I'm in that kind of a bulk phase.

It's gonna be really chafed when you get to the top. I'm bulking my thighs. Well, it's good for stairs. All right, light as a feather. Light as a feather. So, it's been a while. I want to read that one real quick. When you run across a surface that cannot hold your weight, roll plus desk, dex. On 10 plus, you do it, no problem. Seven to nine, something goes wrong. Okay.

So, it looks like he's, yeah, just kind of like jaunting above the stairs around them and jumping from side to side little ledges. So, that is a seven. Okay. So, you start scaling the wall like just your fingers finding the tiniest little in-between things sections of brick climbing up. Yeah, maybe that was an old stonecutter bee hive, you know, like you're just scaling like a spider up the side of this wall.

And as you get to the next level of the stairs and start scaling that wall, you see, hear, and feel a huge bright gout of flame punch out over the stairs at the very top that Billy, you just dodged. Roth has seen you and he turned around and immediately just punched forward and fired a huge big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, Oh my God. Whoa. Holy shit. And yeah, Billy, I assume. Are you trying to run down back down the stairs?

Yeah, I'm actually sliding down the rail. Okay. 2d6 plus dexterity. Nice. Oh, 13. Holy shit. Okay. Billy Bart Simpsons down the rail of the staircase and Bing, you see this flame and you hear, I assume Billy makes a noise. Yeah.

I'm like, well, I scream and then a big thunk as I jump down and then I'm like, oh oh whoa slide down yeah and uh ving you're climbing up tuck you see this flame too as you start hustling up the stairs and you get the distinct idea that that is definitely billy oh no and tuck yells up billy get out of here I'm coming and ving you're climbing the wall and billy as you're sliding down the rail you see ving climbing up one side of the wall and you're about to like meet basically at the same section of the staircase but ving looking over your shoulder as you're climbing you see roth like running down the staircase keep going billy yeah follow me I kind of want to act as like a bit of a barrier like I'll start coming down but I need to put some buddy between billy and roth okay yeah totally billy whizzes past you on the railing and you see roth arcing around the spiral of the stairs approaching you what do you do I'm gonna fight with honor and gonna get gain some chi hopefully ten okay so that is a bunch of chi and he's yeah he's coming down the stairs at you and he yells some stupid villain bullshit what does he yell uh he sees you and says uh now will be the end of this I'm drawing an absolute so is roth he's not good at this so angry he's had such a shitty fucking day for a morally gray villain he's like you will stand in the way of my ambitions no longer what lame and he's doing that you know he's running forward and he's punching and like little chunks of the elements are coming out like fire rock a puff of air kind of stuff um I want to lay I have still have a jar of that worm cum the blue light maybe it's it's glowing what's I would like to hear your plan with the worm cum please uh he's running down the stairs uh-huh I'm gonna take I'm gonna take it and put it on a whole bunch of the stairs I'll uh home alone and uh covered up with a quick light dusting of um of dust of dirt sand so that he is not glowing and hopes just to trip him up a little bit to lay a little trap for him okay uh defy danger dexterity I guess to do it fast yeah watch this he's laid so many worm cum traps in his life as a kid he used to do it all the time in the forest nice eleven oh my god so you just like pull out the jar throw it on the ground kick some dirt this gooey pile yeah you kick some dirt or like elementally move some dust onto the pile oh cool yeah and uh he's running down at you this is definitely here he hasn't seen it he might slip I'm going I'm going down oh you're just running okay I hop on the rail like billy yeah go for it divide danger dexterity light as a feather surfing down ten okay great so you uh throw this goo on the ground cover it in dust hop on the railing start surfing down and tuck wants to uh do what are you waiting for to try and distract roth so that he doesn't pay as much attention to billy and ving and like looks down is like what's that happening down there over there who's that big boy with a with a big bag of bird seeds yeah you brought the bird seed with you well I had two bags so I still had one okay is that is he carrying greg's wife so the answer is yes you did bring a bag of bird seed I did I ran back into greg's house and I grabbed the wife bag and I ran back out and my what are you waiting for is that I'm gonna throw this uh like sex doll at it's not roth to try and hit him to make him mad nothing establishes that this is a sex doll it just was all right uh yeah what are you waiting for so what's what's how do you roll that again when you cry out a challenge to your enemies roll plus con on a ten plus they treat you as the most obvious threat to be dealt with and ignore your companions so twelve okay so roth is running down the stairs and what do you do you yell something yeah I go hey roth I found your girlfriend and I throw the bag of bird seed up at him and despite the fact that you're like still pretty far below him tuck is so strong that it just hits the side of it hits the wall next to roth like a fucking boulder and it explodes in his face and he looks down at you and he goes I will kill all of you and he steps forward and steps in the worm slips his feet out from under him slams his ass on the stairs and talk yeah you keep hustling up the staircase and just as you get some momentum going billion ving rip past you on the banister going the other way I took I wants to slide down the banister too because he feels left out now okay it's banister time but he's doing it you know the lame way where you're going but first yeah oh like a lady yeah if I danger dexterity seven okay um so you see billy and ving race past you billy's uh riding on his butt ving is surfing it like disney's tarzan as we've established and you are like I'm doing it too and you throw your leg over the banister hold on with your hands in front of you and start squeak squeak yeah because he doesn't have pants so it's just squeaking against his the inside of his thighs which are already rubbed pretty raw yeah and you see above you the worm goo glow shifting as roth gets to his feet and starts charging down the staircase is the banister faster than me running down you probably not okay I get off the bed and I start running and yeah as you're running down the staircase billy and ving you hear the like thud thud thud as tuck is charging guys we're not on the banister anymore we're running down the stairs this is the game that we're all playing not the banister game stairs run so you run down to the bottom you're running down to the bottom of the lighthouse you pass right by the hole in the lighthouse that leads to greg's house and roth is sailing down the stairs behind you and a few days later a woman runs up to a woman runs up to a woman runs up to a woman runs up to a woman runs up to a woman runs up to a woman runs up to a woman runs up to a woman runs up to a woman runs Yeah, kind of.

He's basically coming down on a cushion of air, and you get to the huge central base of the lighthouse, and you all get to the bottom of the staircase and prepare for Roth's arrival. And up and in front of you, like on the spiral of the staircase that comes down to the base, he sees you at the very base of the lighthouse and kicks off the wall directly across from you and sails through the air and lands with a huge crash right in front of you as the brickwork waves out from him.

And he stands up to his full, not that impressive height, two-thirds of this group are much taller than Roth. And he looks you tuck in the eyes, and he says, this ends now. And his voice reverberates through the lighthouse. That was a better one, honestly, than the last two you tried. Pretty cool. Yeah, that one was good. And that's where we're going to end. Ended for this week. Tucked shit talking a villain.

I've been your Game Master, Sean O'Hara, joining me playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Take care, everyone. Playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So long. And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Bye. Thank you to Erin Reid for our intro and outro music, as always. Thank you to our Patreon supporters around the world. If you would like to support the show, join us at patreon.com slash spoutlord or spoutlord.com slash money, please.

We have been doing some more streaming lately. We got a monthly. We got a Q&A. And we're very soon going to start, or maybe we've already started by the time this comes out. Every alternating month, we're doing live improvised episodes of Lone Tree Hill using Bully Pulpit Games' fiasco. First one was a lot of fun. Second one, fingers crossed, has been a lot of fun. And you can get access to that and more on patreon.com slash spoutlord. Maybe drop us a review on iTunes if you want to.

We'd really love it and appreciate it. Have a great night. Bye. Bye. Keep saying have a great night. Have a great whatever. See ya. And so ends the tale of Adventures 3 Who tried the best they can Though dumb and scared and lost they be For time's abreast in revelry And though our journey may be like a conclusion We will not leave you alone 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 more