Episode 11 – Elnor’s Anatomy

Hey, Spoutlorians, Abdul here with a quick Patreon announcement. We are implementing some changes to Patreon. First things first, we are introducing a brand new level called The Wizard. This level is a $300 tier. It entitles you to a monthly game GM'd by none other than everyone's favorite GM, Sean O'Hara. As of right now, that tier is restricted to only two slots, and I believe one of those slots is actually already gone. So make sure you jump on that if you want it.

The other change we're making is we are actually kicking off the Speltlor Almanac, where patrons at the $25 level will start to receive PDF pages of assignments, Speltlor's sourcebook, and that'll include maps, drawings, travel logs, all sorts of information and background on the world that we have created.

So if you're interested in either of those, or in any of the other awesome Patreon benefits that we have over on our Patreon, like extra audio content, video content, merch, custom artwork by the cast, handmade gift boxes, head on over to patreon.com slash speltlor, or speltlor.com slash speltlor. Thanks a lot, and enjoy the episode. Speltlor's Home Hello, everybody, and welcome to Speltlor.

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. And playing Fat Billy the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Hello. When last we left our heroes, Billy having absolutely devastated his relationship with Farah Margani, master librarian of the Margani Library, after stealing and then losing, a book from the library, decided that it was time for him to head out on his own.

A little Billy side quest, specific little episode, just to himself. And he left the library under the cover of darkness, followed immediately by Tuck and Ving, who realized that he was leaving the second he decided to pretend not to leave. He had his traveling backpack on, not his sleeping backpack. Yeah. That was the trick, is the sleeping backpack is a lot softer. Yeah.

And meeting some sandboat drivers with big personalities, the two groups independently went to McCall, Billy knocking out his sandboat driver, Bolko, and heading off into the city on his own, meeting up very briefly with Petunia the rat and the sticks before climbing up the side of the lighthouse of McCall, Tuck and Ving, absolutely ruining a farmer's night. And made possible the rest of his life. Yeah. Identity crisis. Really fucked with him emotionally.

Gonna have a lot of questions about the nature of the world. Yeah. Put on some absolute bare bones disguises and snuck into the city themselves before shaving their way into the lighthouse through the shack of Greg, Gregarious Gregory III. Once inside, Billy found Medjai leader, lieutenant, it's hard to say, Roth at the very top of the lighthouse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

For real life years and it's gone now forever tuck and ving made their way into the lighthouse but not before billy alerted roth to his presence and uh a whirlwind chase took place before they realized that by escaping the lighthouse they would be leading roth right into the shack of an old man that they've been taking advantage of so instead they ran to the bottom of the stairs tuck cried out a challenge and roth has met them at the base of the lighthouse of mccall ready to fight he said this ends now his voice spiritually booming through the air yeah and that is where we find our heroes now yeah you know the last thing that you said up top about like the end of the things that we're all collectively doing or whatever that sucked that was a way more impressive very intimidating he cuts you off and he yells enough and he stomps his foot and a huge slab of brick pops out of the ground he punches forward and sends it barreling towards tuck tuck just cuts it with his ass all right defy danger dexterity six billy you can aid by making fun of roth okay so give me that yeah give me what he's doing okay uh billy is just like you know I'm basically like a basketball and I got through your trap so easy honestly if I was thinking you know for more than half a second I probably could have just like disarmed your trap and you wouldn't have even known and like your face is stupid two to six plus bond uh eight okay so that makes it a seven meaning tuck is still probably going to take some damage um but I'll say that you can roll this twice and then take the lowest okay so you're gonna roll a d and you're gonna roll a d and you're gonna roll a d and you're gonna roll a d ten twice six okay so you're gonna take six damage uh as you do slice the brick kind of you break it into a couple chunks but those chunks still nail you in the face and torso oh fuck and he is moving forward to strike again what do you guys do is he within reach of ving um he is yeah you're all kind of like I imagined you sort of together like in a line basically tuck in the middle if I'm roth mm-hmm if I'm roth I realize that you're not gonna be able to do anything you're gonna be able to do anything you're gonna be able to do anything you're gonna be able to do configuration of the room you are in front of me right now tuck in the middle billy to the right of me and ving to the left yes hypothetically hypothetically that's what it is uh but because of what are you waiting for roth is focusing on tuck primarily yeah I'm gonna use um the fact that he's focused on tuck to come at him from this side with a huge gust of air and try and push him back like a windmill kick sick is this just a hack and slash or is this elemental mastery uh this is a fight with to deal damage to a foe within your reach perfect nice four okay he is focused on tuck but as you come in and aim that kick at his head he just dodges right out of the way oh damn like you you maybe clip him in the side and like the cheek as you're moving but it doesn't look like it slowed him down and he's still going for tuck he's now like within arm's reach of me yeah billy what do you do can I create a willow the wisp illusion um like yeah like how much can I do with that he will know right away that it's an illusion like with willow the wisp the ones that you can just do idly are like basically entertainment okay like the the fairy child illusions are convincing you can create a convincing illusion she's used her last billy's used his last fairy child old shit consequences I was trying to think of something that like fuck if it isn't the consequences of my actions it's so tough uh just because we have a bunch of sheets let me see if I can remember the kind of stuff that billy's got going on you've got poison probably you have a dagger that has a poison reservoir unless you lost that no I still have it oh yeah I'm going to try throwing that dagger with the poison in it okay if I remember correctly it was the previous poison was depleted during the fight with the light guard so you might need to um refill it no I actually already refilled it oh wait yeah it says three doses of poison and then you can pour a ton of poison in it and pour a ton of poison in it and pour a ton of poison in it and pour a ton of poison in it and pour a ton of poison Three doses of poison.

Yes. And you might have used those three doses. Because remember, Shia gave you three doses of her garden snake venom. So you will have a different poison. Okay. What other poisons did you have with you? Do you remember? I have two uses of oil of taget. Oil of taget puts people to sleep. Do you think that Billy, honestly, Jessica, narratively, do you think that Billy has since refilled his dagger with poison? Oh, yeah. He loves to play with hazardous materials.

And he had so much time at the library. So he was like filling up everything. Like a toddler, you love to fill up containers. Yeah, that's true. Okay. All right. I'll accept that. There's a flashback to like Billy sitting on one of the desks that Perel is like studying at. And he's just like, bloop, bloop. Yeah. Bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop. Billy, can you focus, please? Sorry. And then Perel takes the oil of taget and then takes it, wipes his eye, and then just immediately passes out.

Face first on the desk. Now you've learned to not touch my stuff. So, yeah, I've got two. So I'm going to use my dagger and I'm going to aim it at Roth's chest. Okay. Because I'm really mad. Perfect. So something to consider with oil of taget is that it does put the target into a light sleep. So it's not going to knock him out for long. That's okay. But it might knock him out for a bit. That's fine. It's all we need. Two to six plus dexterity. Jesus Christ. Holy shit. Yeah. Nice, Billy. Okay.

Sick. So he's reaching out for Tuck. Like, he doesn't even have an element ready to go. He's just reaching out with his bare hands. And just before he gets his hands on the axe, a dagger just whips up from the side and slices him right across his bare chest. And he grits his teeth and he's still struggling with you. And then you see his eyes flutter and he starts stumbling backwards. And I want to take him because he's holding the axe now. Yeah. Okay. I take him where I pull.

I take him in and I then whip him over my head and then slam him into the ground behind me. All right. Because Billy has knocked him out, you're just going to roll your damage. Sweet. He's at your mercy. He's like, he's actively falling asleep. Okay. Eight. Nice. So he sails through the air in an arc and slams down on the ground. You could see, like, blood coughs up for a second as he hits the ground. As soon as he hits the ground. And Tuck's like, oh, shit. Are you okay? He's for now.

The poison is coursing through his veins. So he is on the edge of sleep. He's not getting up right now, but he will be very soon. What do you do? Oh, man. He's at your mercy. Basically. Can we? Should we? Okay. This is disgusting. What is our strat right now? Do we want to run or do we take him prisoner? I mean, when he wakes up, he's going to have so many things. In his arsenal. That's true. Anything around him. Yeah. Anything. Like, my stupid magic doesn't do anything to his.

He's way better at it than I am. He's just going to keep coming for us. Billy, can you put him to sleep with your sleep spells? Yeah, I can. He's already asleep. I think fairy dust doesn't do much to somebody that's already asleep. Okay. If we affect his tattoos at all, would that do anything? Affect how? Oh. I mean, nothing too violent. Like, tattoo over them? No. Turn them into penises. Yeah. Do something else. Oh, Billy, can you switcheroo his tattoos? Can I do that?

I don't think a tattoo is something you can physically remove from a person like that. Okay. That won't work. Yeah. A voice whispers in your head, we could just kill him. I don't want to kill this guy. Who is that? Oh, that was me. Sorry. Billy. Well, you know, I'm pretty tired. And, like, my patience is wearing thin. Understandably. Should we just kill him? I don't know. Is that us? To kill a sleeping man? It feels weak. Oh, man. We're all just digging around our backpacks. Yes.

As Roth is, like, actively struggling against the effects of the tagging oil. Stab him again, Billy. Okay. So I run and grab my knife. And I'm like, I think there's, like, one use left, maybe. Like, I'm like, it's, like, dripping out. I'm like, all right. Yeah. You just dose him again. Again? Yeah. I just, like, I just, like, let it drop into the cut already. Because it feels weird to cut someone who can't fight back. Yeah. So I'm just shaking it into the wound.

I'm like, oh, that probably stings a lot. All right. No more oil of tag it. And you can see Roth is, like, struggling. And then he settles down a little bit. But that's bought you some time. Not a ton. What's the assassin vine milk? That's from seasons ago. That's a paralytic. Oh, sick. Sweet. Amazing. That's a paralytic poison. That's a paralytic poison. That you've never done anything with. And, in fact, would probably be rancid. No way. Things last forever in mason jars. You know that.

It just gets better with age. Yeah. Okay. Hypothetically. Depending on the role. Yeah, exactly. But, Ving, you're, like, yeah, you are digging through your satchel, I guess. Digging through all your jars. And you find a little tiny mason jar that's full of a hardened sap of some kind. Oh, my God. Okay. We just need to juice this sap up. Spout Lore about this assassin vine milk. Yeah. How to reconstitute it. Oh. Well, yeah. Ving's knowledge of plants yielded 11. 11. Holy shit.

Interesting and useful. What you do know about assassin vine sap, which is, like, for the assassin vine, which is a weird borderline intelligent, like, carnivorous vine, it uses the sap as both a blood and a venom. And it does maintain its paralytic quality for some years after it's removed from the vine. And the enzymes in human saliva can reactivate it. Like, make it. Make it a pasty liquid again without getting rid of the paralytic qualities. Okay.

Ving takes a little swab of his little pant bottom there and swabs the guy's mouth. He doesn't want to use his own spit. It's really hot out here. He's going to. When he wakes up, he's going to be so cotton, man. And then, yeah, gets a drop out. Yeah. Just fills this slash across his chest with this stuff. Yeah. Go ahead and cross that off. I'm going to say it's old enough that you have to use basically all of it. Yeah. And, yeah, you.

Just mush it into Roth's cut that Billy just smushed another poison into. I'm just piling things in this guy's wounds. Yeah. And one of you, probably Ving, off in the corners of your mind, think, I wonder what mixing all these poisons in a person's body does. Oh. I'm not an anesthesiologist. I don't know. Yeah. I kind of want a role to determine how well this is going to work. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Maybe. Defy danger intelligence. Oh, shit. Yeah. That makes sense to me.

Like medical knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. Defy danger intelligence. Six. Oh, Billy can aid if you want. Yeah. I can't think of how I would help in this situation. You've been alive way longer. Eight. Yeah. So basically you just do it. You mash it in there and Billy's like, yeah, it should do something. It might make it better. Might make it worse. Might make it the same. And you mush it in there. And, yeah, he stops. He's struggling against the effects of the oil of tag it.

And you can see his muscles like spasming a little bit. And then he is like not moving very much. But you can still see like cramps basically as his body is. Is he breathing? He's breathing shakily. Like his chest is like, but he's immobile right now. He's not trying to kill you. I put a blanket under his head. At least. I feel a little bad there. Should we take him back to the library? Yes. Yeah, I guess so. Oh, fuck. Damn it. More prisoners by the minute. Yeah.

So you don't know how long this is going to last for one. So if you're going to get him back to the library, you're going to want to move. Oh, Bulko's waiting outside for me. Yeah, let's go. That's a generous description of what happened to Bulko. That was really nice of him to wait for you, Billy. Yeah, he definitely like offered to. Okay.

So considering that Roth was the most direct threat that was potentially waiting for you right now in the sticks, you should be able to get him back pretty quickly. Maybe somebody's watching you. Who can say? I'm going to say that you have to go through the way that you were trapped. Because when you go back up to Greg's hole in the wall, the stonecutter bees have started filling that in as well. Oh, nice.

They like having like when they find a little like a good gap in a stone, they're like, Oh, yeah, we're doing this. So that starts to be filled in with like very beautifully intricately weaving stone tubes with that. Ooh, you know what I kind of like? Some of the tubes have little openings and the way they buzz inside. It sounds almost like a pipe organ. Oh, cool. That is really cool. Yeah. Objectively improved Greg's life. Yeah.

Which cancels this out and tuck lifts up the crumpled, barely breathing form of Roth. Yeah. And you can, you know, you're not in any immediate super danger. Again, you're just kind of idly wandering through this ancient superstructure that could hold untold wealth and mysteries. And you just go for the back door. Yeah. Cram your way back up the way you came, avoiding the tripwire. You remember up and out into the sticks and you're just going for the edge of town. Yeah.

I don't think we're trying to be stealthy, right? Nah. No. Like we were heaving a lot of stuff. I think you still, are you still carrying the bag with Terry, Larry and Chad in it? Yeah. I'm still carrying a bag of birdseed. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No, you destroyed it. Yeah. You threw it at him. I had to. You gave. Oh, right. You used your axe. I used his girlfriend. All right. Whatever. So many bags of birdseed. And you're walking through the sticks.

It's like the sun is going to be coming up very soon. And like a jackal, a group of jackals see you carrying Roth through the streets. Good evening. Top of the morning to you. Do we, do we want to know what's going on here? Probably not. All right. No. All right. Carry on. And you find a bulk goes sandboat. Big mama on the edge of town. Hey, bulk. Oh, he's asleep still. Oh, shake him awake. Oh yeah, brother. Hey, you fell asleep there. Oh, did I? Yeah. It's okay though. I'm not mad. All right.

Well, Hey, it's your, it's your dad's. Yeah. They, uh, they came to, uh, bring me my bag. And took takes his little backpack off and it's like, yeah, here you go, Billy. Thanks. Tuck. All right. So we're going back to the library. Who's this? He points at Roth. Oh, this, uh, this is our, uh, uncle prisoner, our uncle prisoner, uncle prisoner. Is that a name or is that two titles? It's probably best. You don't know. And just get us back to the library as fast as we can go. All right. All right.

Understood. And he puts his goggles on. Can we go turbo speed? Oh, we're always going turbo speed. Little guy. Don't worry. Cool. And he, uh, starts piloting it back out into the desert, hits the turbo button, hits his NOS injector and you whoop ass back to the library. The sun starts to rise. Billy, if you want to roll your fairy child, it is a brand new day. Two, eight. And that means I get three holds. Three. Okay. So for the next, yeah. In game day, you have three hold. Okay. Um, yeah.

And you get back to a lane. You get back to a lane springs. Uh, no problem. Hop into the weird, like stables that stands in for the boat launch for the Margani library. And you are back inside. Cool. Bulko gets out. All right. Get put in there, little brother. And he gets down and he gives you one of those, like pulls you in. Yeah. And I slap him like a nice friendly thump on his arm. Yeah. He, cause he pulls you in full on off the ground. Yeah. To his chest. To his whole arm. Yeah.

Like you're a little, like you're a loaf of bread. He's just like, all right, I appreciate you involving me in your adventures. You're welcome. I hope to have another adventure with you, Bulko. And he, he sends you on his way on your way. This guy's going to be handy for sure. Yeah. Hopefully Randy's okay. Wherever he is. Oh, he's probably back inside. Randy's just having breakfast at the cafeteria. We cut to Randy and he's having a very nice omelet with a tea. I sure hope my boat's okay.

Oh, shit. His boat. We did leave it behind. Yeah. A hundred percent. Okay. So what are you guys doing with Roth? Take him to the infirmary. Yeah. And we send someone to get Farrah and also to get ghost route. Yeah. Right. Yes. Okay. So you go meet up in the medical wing. The medical wing we've described before is sort of a operating theater style room. There's like a sunken pit zone where all of the physikers of the library do their work.

And take care of people that have been injured or are experiencing particularly noteworthy or extraordinary illnesses. Mm-hmm. You come down and there is the head physiker of the library. Ooh. A lady. A lady. Maresh Elnor. Just a human woman. Maybe like exceptionally young for being like the head physiker of the library. Yeah. And she's really pretty. Yeah. She's like Dr. TV. Pretty. Pretty. Yeah. It seems like she was called away from like a fancy dinner breakfast. Whoa. Wow. Tuck, don't.

Don't what? I'm not doing anything. You're already doing it. No. So he puts Roth's body in front of his crotch. Oh my God. Like a binder. So yeah. Maresh walks up to you and she is just like, who's this? What's going on? What's going on? You've you've come into my pit with another unconscious person. Yeah. This guy is the head of the Magi or like a general or something. And he was trying to kill us. And then we may be mixed too many drugs when we tried to drug him. So he might be dying.

Uh, but also he can manipulate the elements. So that could be a good thing. Well, yeah, but you're going to have to dose him with ghost roots so that when he comes to, he can't do that. Every time, everything that you say when you're like, this is the head of the Medj. She snaps and she points at somebody and waves them over. Uh, we put a bunch of drugs in his body. She points at somebody else and waves them over. Like she's waving over a person for everything that you say.

And she just like, okay, put them there. It's like, all right, cool. What are you doing after this? Or what? Is there something she's already working? Like a bunch of people swarm the table. I love that. Tuck is still asking while she's busy. It's like, if you wanted to go grab like a coffee or something afterwards, I'll be around. Uh, or a tea. Or whatever.

Somebody takes Roth from you and they lay them on a table and they all walk over to this like little bin and they grab like this little cube of resin and they pop it in their mouths and they just chew it up and they all start working. What, what is that? What kind of snack is that? Somebody, somebody could Spout Lore. If somebody could Spout Lore about this, if they want, because no one's talking to you right now. This is like emergency situation. Yeah. Ving, what does the box say?

What is a cube? Seven. Seven? That's fine. Uh, it's colloquially referred to as, um, physics pitch. What does it do? It basically makes you temporarily immune to illness and infection. Oh, so it's like a self sterilization. Yeah, exactly. It's basically a little resin that's very hard to produce and very expensive to produce, but it makes you temporarily immune to disease and infection. Hey, can I have one of those? Absolutely not. Can I steal one of those? Please clear out of my theater.

I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah, sure. Whatever. Okay. Yeah. I'll be up on the top balcony or whatever. Theater. That's a great idea. You want to go see a movie sometime? Yeah. Ving is also like dibs. No. You didn't say shut the fuck up. You didn't fucking say dibs. I'll kill. No, I don't care. You can't call dibs on a person. I'm a feminist. I know. And I turned to her. I'm like, I'm a feminist.

An orc physiker walks up to you, grabs you both by the fronts of your shirts and starts pushing you towards the stairs. Oh, hey, you're strong. You want to go get a coffee or tea sometime? Or whatever. We're going to be hanging out. You've been bodily removed from the pit. We could go on double dates if you're into it. Farah enters the balcony above the medical theater. I rush over to her. She looks at you not as warmly as you're used to. Sarah, please. I'm so sorry.

And I just want you to know that I have completed the tiring journey of getting the book back for you. She looks at you like surprised. Really? Yeah. I told you I would not rest. Listen, I would give my life before I failed this task. So I give it back to her. Yeah. She kneels down and takes the book from you. I checked. All the pages are there, including the ones I might have drawn on, but I erased those. She ignores that. Billy, I'm very impressed. Thank you for upholding your promise.

No problem. Very tired now. I would understand. Yes. You have not slept in a long time. From what I understand. I will lay down and then I sleep right there. Just lay down on the ground. I will lay down. She sees you tuck and Ving approaching and waves. We wave back. Did you accompany Billy in his quest? Kind of. Yeah. After the fact. Yeah. I see that you have brought another straggler to the library. Who is this? His name is Roth. Ah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know of Roth?

Well, you mentioned Roth earlier, I believe. A magi of great power and an enormous threat to you all personally. Correct? And now you. Sorry about that. Hmm. But he is mostly paralyzed, so that's good. Ving hands her the remainder of the jar. Yeah, I used this and Billy used his paralytic. She takes the lid off and sniffs the inside. He goes, hmm, okay. Well, I will give this to Physiker Elnor and we will, um, I need the jar back when you're done. Very hard to come by. Very well.

Uh, and we will see that no incredible harm is done to Roth as it is. And do what we can to limit his access to the elements. Yeah. It seems like those tattoos on his arms might be a part of it. That's what Billy was saying. Okay. Very well. Um, perhaps it would be smart for you all to get some sleep. Okay. Okay. Do you know what the deal with Elnor is? Is she like single or whatever? I don't know. Okay. She like anything in particular? I have very little information for you. Okay. Good night.

She into dudes or chicks or whatever? Yes. Okay. I'm going to go get breakfast now because it is the morning and you have not slept in at least a day. Okay. I would expect. Okay. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect. I would expect.

The approximate hour I guess afternoon if we're going to bed as the sun is rising yeah yeah and yeah what are you all doing now like I Sean O'Hara I'm very interested in kind of what your next steps are because it seemed to me like roth potentially was going to be a huge narrative threat but he has been imprisoned by you currently so what next yeah what do you guys think we should do oh yeah um we're in the cafeteria right now yeah we're talking yeah louise is on shift breakfast buffet oh just hold on I'm gonna get more goat cheese omelets plural yeah and perel is there he's come to join you he's uh bandaged up you know he's got salves and like pieces of fabric pasted to his body and he's kind of gingerly eating uh tiny button mushroom omelet trying very hard to not use too much of his body to eat his food billy is uh playing with the teddy bear trying to figure it out uh oh yeah and perel has the puzzle artichoke in front of him oh yeah did you figure that out no no I'm sorry that came out a little shorter than I thought are you upset about it it's really confusing maybe if it was a puzzle frog it's a plant but it is got complex interplay lots of parts are locking pieces oh it's this we got this from like morris wedge's fanny pack you got this in morris's fanny pack yeah yeah did you oh wait no oh did we found in the spirit world yeah you found it in the spirit world in boar's when boar was like digging stuff up fuck right yeah wait did we have another puzzle box you got a puzzle box from morris wedge's trap room in aquarius tower right okay and you broke that So you have not gotten that repaired unless in the last several months you've taken it to a clockwork person to get it fixed.

No. I don't mean this is from the spirit world. Oh, that makes more sense. It doesn't look pretentious enough to have been made by Morris. It's kind of twisting the pieces back and forth. Anyways, how'd everything go last night? I understand that you didn't stay after we returned to the library. I had to go get the book I lost. And then we had a fight with Roth. Oh. In the tower. What happened? I mean, it went pretty good. Pretty smooth. Yeah. I mean, for us, it went okay. He's here now.

He's here? He drops the puzzle artichoke and puts his hand in his omelet. You're fine. I mean, we already put a bunch of poisons in him. And I don't know. He's still out of it. He's still out of it. Yeah. They probably have him sedated pretty hard. Yeah. Is it a concern at all that he might come to and escape and lay waste to the library? A huge concern. Yeah. But it feels like that's a Farrah problem rather than an us problem. Yeah. Okay. So what do we do now?

I mean, we're still waiting on Irk to get us that fucking book. That's true. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or not. And figure out where the heck he is. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But first, I need to… I need to wait and see. I'll know if he finds it or not. Mm-hmm. So something that I'm… Oh, God. I think he said… I think he mentioned this. It's not going to be like a quick thing for him.

He's going to try his best, but it might take a while to find the book and to get it away surreptitiously enough that he's not like executed or forced to give up his information. So in the meantime… Should we… So we'll stick around the library, hey, and like do some research. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So remember… Just nerd out for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

Remember something that I established, I think, last season is if you spend a full day researching in the library, you can get an automatic 10 plus on a Spout Lore. Sick. Nice. Yeah. Fuck. I'm so dumb. Same here. It's going to actually… It's going to take Tuck two days, actually. Oh, no. He's forgetting… He's actively forgetting how to read. No. No. It's only going to take a day. So if you spend this whole day like just hanging around reading… You can get a 10 plus on a Spout Lore.

A single Spout Lore each. Well, Roth is out. I want… Ving wants to study his… The… Maybe take a sample and take it to the lab and study the ink in his tattoos. Oh, interesting. Sick. Okay. Yeah. So you go to the medical wing. He let his stubble grow in a little bit and like did a hard line on it. Like he's looking like real soap opera 2010. Oh, no. Like he's looking like a little… He's trying a little too hard. You… He did his hair. He performed it just in case.

And yeah, he took all the sleeves off of all of his clothes in case he wasn't wearing any shirt. Yeah. So you go in. You're ready to go. Tuck is in our rooms at this point in time. You get to him for a second. He finds all of Ving's sleeves and he figures out what he's doing. Who's an idiot now? You said that. No. And then I go to run out of the room and Ving's gummed it up with gum. Yeah. He's put gum on it. He's put gum on it. He's put gum on it. He's put gum in the lock.

He put Vaseline on the inside knob too. Yeah. He put Vaseline all over the inside of the door so I can't get out. Amazing. So you go to the medical wing and it would be really funny if Marush wasn't there. Walks in like arms moving, kind of swagging in. But she is there. You went through all this narrative buildup, all this comedic buildup.

So yeah, Marush is there and she's working with a handful of other physikers on a number of projects, including Roth, who is, I think they would move Roth pretty soon. Once they get him like stabilized, they're probably going to try and move him to like a specific chamber where they can suppress his like spiritual connection. If they can, they're going to try and mess around with ghost root.

Like they've brought in other herbalists and like spiritual experts in the library to try and figure out the best way to contain him. Yeah. Maybe he's in like an iron lung. That's. Oh, that's interesting. Pushing like ghost root smoke into him. Yeah. That's so cool. That's really cool. There's a gaggle of librarians all gathered together, like conferencing and writing on a chalkboard, trying to figure out what to do. Oh yeah. Chemistry equations and stuff. Yeah, totally.

And like physics drawings of like what the representations of the spiritual realms. So cool. And then there's like druidic runes and some like, you know, there's people that are spiritually interpreting their. Medical knowledge too. So it's like trying to bridge the gap. Yeah. And like just off to the side of this group, there's like somebody in deep, deep meditation. Like it's this whole confluence of different. It's a multidisciplinary. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of project. Yeah. Cool.

And Maresh looks up from someone she's speaking to and she sees you and she kind of shoes you away. He's taking it back because he's put a lot of effort into this just to be sued. The fuck away. And he was like, and he walks up to her like, yeah, you called me over. In fact, I did the exact opposite of I, I, I did the other go away. We're busy. Yeah. I mean, you're busy now, but the opposite of that is chill. Maybe you want to chill sometime. The opposite of busy.

I'm sure that you are well aware of the fact that you brought in a living weapon into my medical theater. Yeah. And I think that's a very important way to make sure that this individual that you brought into the library does not wake and lay waste to everything. Generations of people have attempted to build. Pretty cool. It's pretty hard to bring a weapon into a place like this. I bet it is. Speaking of weapons, check out these guns. Can I help you?

Do you have some sort of a practical reason for being here? I'm sorry. Yeah. I would like to study his tattoos if I can. Study in, um, what do you mean? I'm just wondering if I can take a small sample. Sample of the ink under his skin and, uh, take it down and into your laboratory. I was wondering if I could use a small portion of laboratory. I know that you're very busy, but I think it could be important.

The tattoos have a lot to do with his power and I am a spirit Walker was, I just, I haven't, I have, I have a hunch. I need to follow my gut. Please. It could be terribly interesting. Hmm. She, uh, she rubs her chin and she turns to another physical and is like, what, uh, what, um, and she's like, what? Um, a physical stimuli like that, like him taking a sample of the ink with that, would that be enough to wake him? And uh, the dwarf woman that she's talking to is like, mm, I don't believe so.

How deep are you planning to go with this? Uh, with these sample, just a couple of inches, inches, things that good with measurements into his flesh or whatever, uh, or meters. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be an inch. Try not to draw blood. Then we should be fine. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. But just, um, know that this isn't your, um, private play area in the future. If you don't mind, I'm a head physical. I'm under a lot of pressure. I'm quite young to have this position.

Um, there are a lot of people looking over my shoulder. They would like to ask me at any moment. I cannot allow that to happen. She starts like twiddling a braid that she has kind of woven into her hair. She's like, please just don't make me look like a fool in front of anyone. You are in charge. And I will respect that. People have been talking and they're very impressed with the work you're doing. I just, I think you can move forward with confidence and know that you've got this. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Carry on. Thank you. And she goes back to her conference. So you're just going to like, he does one, like look back at her hard jaw. He pushes his bottom jaw out as hard as he can. She's just looking at you blankly. Yeah. Fair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm being a douche bag. I'm sorry. There's a guy jamming his hands against the door going. Don't listen to a smart guy. Stuff. Guys are good. Yeah. The door is rattling in the stone frame.

It's been carved out of this section of the mine. Dust falls from the ceiling and a passing librarian jumps. We bash into the door and just keeps walking. Yeah.

Just uh how do you take it like you're just kind of scraping off yeah with a syringe are there any tattoos that stand out I actually think that these are different than the runes that you are familiar with yeah it's of a different like magical discipline and does there seem to be a confluence like is there a central image that's a great question well yeah what do these tattoos look like we've never looked I imagined like runes but what if like the runes are tattooed in like the blood of the animals whoa that's amazing that's so cool so they're like a dark red instead of like pitch black yeah and maybe there's like blood on my blood sort of thing yeah uh yeah I think it's like when you were facing down roth the turbulence that you felt from the elemental spirits was like too much for you to feel that sort of resonance from the tattoos now that he's in this torpid state um you can feel the resonance from the the blood that was used by previous shapeshifters I guess yeah wow strange okay I'm gonna take a little sample from his chest yeah below the giant cache uh so you tell me because we're doing these spout lores um you tell me what stands out tattoo wise like if there's an um an image of some kind or a design that calls to a certain kind of elemental or spiritual practice I think it's just maybe even as simple as like a black circle a dense black circle that's raised the tattoos are raised so they're kind of scarification scarification and and colored with uh both blood yeah that's cool that is cool so yeah now that you're closer you can see that it isn't just tattooing it's yeah it's ritual scarring yeah neat and they all kind of yeah surround a big black center yeah in his gut in his oh like right in his stomach interesting that's really cool okay yeah you get a little sample of one of those tattoos cool of the ink um we'll come back to that we'll cut to billy or tuck who wants uh to do a spell or next you go I'm still stuck in my bedroom okay um do you want me to let you out or do you want to be left to no tuck is in there and he's holding all the loose sleeves and he's like oh I'm not gonna let you out I'm not gonna let you out I'm not gonna let you go um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um but only wore one shirt.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know. I was just, the night before I started tearing off sleeves, like what, I don't know what I'll feel tomorrow. He's like, he tries on like one of his outfits and he's like, what about this? And he tears it off. He's like, no, not this one. He puts another one on. He's like, this is definitely the one. Oh shit. No, damn it. That's not going to work either. Okay. So what's the thing that Billy's trying to learn? Or accidentally learns even.

Billy and Perel went to like, read some books together. Like Billy's feeling bad for Perel. Perel's really like hamming up these injuries. So he's like, fine, I'll come with you. And like, I'll help you out if you want. But he's brought like the teddy bear and the puzzle artichoke. And would it count if I was like messing with those and seeing if there's something in there? So he's like, he's like limping as he's walking. He's like, oh, Billy, I can't believe I survived.

That encounter with those horrible Magi. But I gave them one of these. Yeah, that bruise looks painful. It is. Thank you. Is that a scrape above your knee? It's a cut, Billy. Not a scrape. A cut. You're right. Whoa. Anyways, so you want to come hang out with me while I read some books? Sure. But I'll bring my toys. All right, let's go. And he, he takes you to the, um, like the wizard history section that he's been digging around in. Sure. Yeah.

I kind of want to, I want to try this puzzle artichoke. I haven't really played with it. Yeah. In fact, they didn't usually let me play with it. So yeah, I want to play with it. Okay, cool. 2d6 plus wisdom to kind of blunder your way through the puzzle artichoke. Nice. Whoa. 10. Okay. Billy blunders his way through a puzzle artichoke. Well, yeah, he's just like spinning it around and he realizes like, well, you can't really use logic with this. You know, plants don't follow the rules of logic.

They always follow like a natural pattern and they, they go from the inside out. So he's like, he's just like fumbling around like, okay, okay, here we go. Like doing like different patterns of twisties that would go into like kind of the spiral effect that is basically like the pattern of life and the puzzle artichoke like a flower starts to bloom. Whoa, cool. So Billy, uh, Billy is like twisting and messing with this puzzle artichoke. I like the idea that he's actually saying this.

Like plants don't follow the order of man. They follow a natural order that hearkens to the patterns of life. Like he's having this very profound conversation with himself and Perel's ignoring him because Billy mutters all the time and he's like, uh-huh. Oh, wow. Really? As he's reading a book, uh, and the puzzle artichoke starts to bloom from the top down and, um, the seeds fall away revealing like a central cavity that was in there the whole time. Yeah.

And sitting inside is a, what looks like, like a fruit pit or a seed and it's got little bits of carving on it. Ooh, what's it made out of? It feels like it's made out of plant material, like wood. Oh, like it's, it's almost like a peach pit or like, uh, like a, like, like a chestnut. Huh. So I, I like it. Hmm. It tastes, uh, kind of sour. What? I, I think I know what it is. What? No, I, no, maybe not. I want to know. Uh, maybe it's a tree of knowledge. Oh, that makes so much sense.

Oh, is that because the carving's in it? Cause the carvings, are they runes? Oh, so Billy like flaps his hands and he's like, oh my God, is Billy going to have a plant friend? And just for context, we're not actually there. No, but Billy remembers what Ving had mentioned about like these trees of knowledge. Mm-hmm.

And Billy is also remembering like ancient, like an ancient memory of like not seeing these, but knowing kind of like about these trees of knowledge and what the seed might've looked like. And he knows they're very like precious and rare. So he's like, he like jumps off the desk and he, he's like, Pearl, I'll be right back. And he goes, I'll look for Ving. Yeah.

And for those of you that don't know, these knowledge trees came up during an Outlander session, which is something that we've been releasing on Patreon in which everybody gets access to the Outlander move that Tuck had for seasons and seasons. And they do a little bit of world building in exchange for an experience point. And Paul introduced the idea of these trees that organically pass on druidic wisdom. The basic idea is that the old, old druids didn't pass on their knowledge.

Like via written word, they did it through propagation of special kinds of trees that when they bloomed, blossomed from those seeds, they contained the knowledge like in their bark and leaves. And when the trees grew, it had, it grew with the runes within the bark already. So as the tree kept growing the knowledge, you would gain more knowledge and people read it off the tree.

And if you were able to nurse these very difficult to grow trees, you were able to gain more knowledge as it got older and bigger. Yeah. And the seed will only germinate for people who are basically like worthy of its knowledge. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, so Billy excited and running wouldn't notice, but we would notice as the audience that the words and runes and symbols that are, that look like they're carved into it. Aren't carved. Like it's naturally just in the seed. Yeah.

So Billy runs to go find Ving. All right. And we'll cut to Tuck. Tuck has gotten out of his room. Now. And he is a moodily walking around the mines with black spire. Okay. And he's talking to black spire, like any shit talking thing. And he's like, man, Ving said he called dibs on her. And I was like, that doesn't exist. Cause we're all feminists. And cause I had all these like feminist kind of questions that I wanted to ask her. She's a doctor.

And I wanted to be like, how did you become a doctor when you're not allowed to operate on your own sons or whatever? And then she opposite of a feminist and then Ving locked me in our room and then fucking forced me to stay in there while he went there, like with zero sleeves and like, probably like was like so smart and shit in front of her. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah, bro. Those are all concepts. I understand. For sure. And because of that, I know you're upset.

It took jumps on his back and hugs him from the back. And he's like, you're the only one that understands me. Black spire. Same bro. It would seem. And he's like, just trundling through the minds. He's kind of taking you deeper than you've ever been. Oh, cool. He's already getting pretty comfortable in here. It's like, yeah, this place is pretty sick. It's like, it's like my own pad. You know, it was nice. It was like early.

The place that you found me was like a pretty good pad, but it kind of started getting a little small and there was all that goo, but he's walking around and he's, he's finding like what looks like obsidian rubble, but you would probably guess his house of broken bones. And he's just like, this place is covered in this stuff. It's the bomb. Sick. Yeah. And once it, bro, I was digging around. I was digging around, snuffling around, and I found like one of these, but like opposite. Wait, how?

Like, this is like black crunch. And the other one was like shiny crunch. Show me the shiny crunch. Well, I ate it. Fuck. I'm sorry. Are you kidding me? What do you mean? Am I kidding you? I chomped it, bro. You think I'm going to wait? Okay. Well, tell me, did it look like this? And then tuck like rummages around, and in his backpack, and he pulls out the white dark card coin. And he's like, was it like one of these? No, no, no, no, no, no, shiny, shiny. Yeah.

Like, uh, what's the, what was the up thing that we saw when we were coming back? Oh, like, fuck sunstone. Sure, bro. Shit. It was delicious. Oh, no, geez. Dude, you can't eat that. That's so expensive. What do you mean? I mean, like, it's worth so much money. What do you mean? I mean, like, and then tuck is like, how do I explain representational currency to a dragon? Okay. So, um, let's say that you want to eat black crunch all the time, right? Yeah. Okay.

But say you have more black crunch than you can eat. Okay. So a guy says, okay, give me that black crunch. Whoa, hold on. And he, uh, he sits down on his butt. Like while you're talking, he's, he's, he's, he's, his front, his front legs are still on the ground, but he, his back legs flip out in front of him and he just plops down on his little butt. Yeah. So a guy says, give me that black crunch and I'll just like hold it for you.

And then whenever you need more crunch, I will give it to you just so you don't have to hold all this black crunch. Okay. All right. I'm starting to catch your vibe. Uh, so it's like, it's kind of like if I'm trying to crunch and like one of those gross worms, comes and crunches my crunch first. Yeah. This is somebody had the crunch. Yeah. Then the worms wouldn't crunch it. Exactly. Okay.

And then say you were talking to someone else that wanted black crunch, then you could just say, Hey, this guy has all my black crunch. If you need it, you can go get it only if you want it to give it to them. Hmm. And that's what money is. Okay. This would have been clear if duck was smarter. I think I, I understand. Okay. So, okay, no, so I don't want to talk. I understand. You don't have to keep talking about it. Okay.

Just if you find that shiny crunch, save it and then I'll give you tons more black crunch instead. Hmm. Promise. Yeah, man, I promise you a million percent. You're my best friend because my actual best friend just fucking betrayed me. All right. No, uh, Paul, the player feels really guilty. Yeah. And awesome right now. Uh, yeah, so, okay, yeah, I will not eat the shiny crunch right away. I will come in. I will try. Okay, here's the, here's my fear. Here's what I am a feared of.

If I find a shiny crunch and I, and you don't come for a while and I have to not eat it and it just sits there. So how do I know that you are going to come and relieve me of this shiny crunch? I promise you, I will come back and give you 10 times as much black crunch as shiny crunch. 10 times, 10 times. I don't know what that means, but it sounds like more. And then tuck is like, how do I explain ratio based mathematics to this drag? Yeah.

And he's like towering above you with his big, like his big front arms on the ground and his head's tilting side to side like a big dog where he's like, okay, so he's like, so tech is like, all right, and he drops one small rock on the ground. He's like, for every one of these, I'll give you this many. And then he drops 10 small rocks. Oh, a black crunch. So you give me a shiny crunch. That's as big. I'll give you this much black crunch. All right. Okay. Mostly understood.

I will not eat the shiny crunch right away. I will wait for you, my bro. All right. And then, and then tuck goes to fist pump him and he head butts your hand and I go to the infirmary because my hand shatters. Is there anything that you were hoping to learn in the mines or did you just want to chill with black spire?

I just wanted to chill with black spire because, because my best friend betrayed me and my son is hanging out with me, his nerdy uncle and the girl that I have a huge crush on all of a sudden is busy. The girl I developed a crush on instantly is busy. Uh, okay, we'll cut back to Ving. So Ving, you are, um, in one of the sort of more secluded research chambers off the medical wing. What's your plan with this sample? I wanted to test it against some ghost roots. So I get some ghost roots.

Ghost root and grind it up and I want to take a look at it in there. Um, they have a sun stone that they've molded into lenses and it, it's, it's not like a microscope, but it's exactly like a microscope. Yeah, it, it definitely magnifies things a lot, perhaps not molecular. What it does is it, it, you, it channels lights so bright, a very, very bright white, white light, but Ving uses his, uh, light site. He can like withstand it and it illuminates, you know, some of the properties of it.

Oh, that makes sense. Actually, can I propose a mechanism for how this works and why Ving is actually better at looking at it? Okay. So say they carve like lenses of sunstone, uh, and then they like lay a sample on top of it. The sunstone will shine the light through the sample and project it on a screen bigger than it is. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, it will like diffract and diffuse. So there's like a limit on how big you can actually make it before it starts looking shitty. Right.

But then can just look directly at the lens cause he has light sight. Right. So he can kind of like use his elf eyes to see. As, as like the, the, uh, what do you call overhead projector screen? Exactly. You can project it directly onto your fucking retina. Cool. That's pretty neat. Yeah. I like this. Uh, okay. So you are testing, testing the ink in Roth's tattoos against ground up ghost root. I just want to see if there's ghost root in there.

I think my theory is that they grind up ghost root and use some of the chars that blackness in with the blood of the sacrifices for what purpose I'm wondering. I don't know. I mean, we're, we're loosely saying that ghost root has, uh, got a spiritual quality to it. It could be like the binding agent. Yeah. Yeah. The chains that you saw could be this substance.

What if, if it's sort of like basically like a seed and then the tattoos, like the runes act as like roots that sort of like that symbolic nature of like we have rooted the spirit and the energy of these animals, which we've taken their blood and we use like the ghost root to bind it to our physical form so that it can never truly leave us, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Those chains come out of that central thing. Every Druid, like the first tattoo they get is that big black circle. Oh yeah.

And then all the other ones are built off it. That's awesome. Yeah. Pretty cool. And it makes sense because the ghost root kind of pierces the realms. So if it's like, I need to anchor these like animal spirits to me and then like, how am I going to keep it here? It's like the ghost root is the thing that like binds this realm to the next. Yeah. And it, so it's not like through that it's almost like it's not that their bodies or their perceptions are piercing the spirit realm. It's the tattoos.

It's just the tattoo. It's like that part of their body, which would explain why it's so, so dangerous for them and why it's so painful for the spirits. And maybe when Marash is like looking at like the bones underneath where the tattoos are, she sees like sheer fractures because like that's where like all the like sheer forces is like focused. Oh, they're covered in. Yeah. And that's why they're also weak and because their body is always an immune response to try to heal itself. Yeah.

And that's probably, yeah, that's why Roth is so yeah. Scrawny, like the sheer pressure that's put on her. Put on his body and also the effort he has to expend. He also just can't eat enough to put on mass because he's just always exerting himself, which would explain why he's such a son of a bitch. Why he's so pissed off all the time. And he's so he has to be so convinced of his path. Yeah, because every day he's actively like killing himself. Yeah. Uh, cool. That's pretty intense.

We all get a point for that. Sean, take a point. Hey, thanks, man. Oh my God, I just leveled up finally after three years. I'm going to take the advanced move and the podcast. The move itself is called freedom. Okay, that's really sick. That's really interesting. Like the destructive nature of even being a Medi is really interesting.

And at that moment, Billy bursts into the room because somebody mentioned where you were and then Billy started sprinting through the medical theater and they couldn't stop him. Yeah, I like the thought that Maresh likes Billy a lot. Everybody kind of likes Billy. That's the thing is like he's such a precocious little kid that they're like, yeah, sometimes he tips over a big pot of gumbo. Sometimes people will go back to their rooms and find him in their sock drawer, but it's cute a little bit.

So, okay, so actually while Ving is doing this work, the door opens and Billy is in Maresh's arms and she's carrying him into this chamber. She's like both trying to get her attention, but Billy just has it. Yeah, look, I told you he was just working. Here he is. Oh, well, thank you. Hmm. Um, also, thanks for the ride. I have been running a lot. I can tell you're so sweaty. Yeah. Oh, little guy. Well, why don't you come by later for some tea? Okay. Do you have like sandwiches too?

Oh, I can get some sandwiches. Certainly. Sweet. All right. Sounds good. That sounds great. Vings. She casts you a look and then walks out of the room. Oh, damn it. Um, hey, Ving. Hey, bud, I want to show you something. What's that? Uh, and I open my hands. Oh, it's a seed, a tree of knowledge. Yeah. It was in the artichoke puzzle. What? These are so rare. Oh my God, Billy, we have to try and grow this. Like right now? No. Oh, too delicate in the, in the desert. This is amazing.

I just, I just wanted to show you, what does it say on it? Uh, I mean, these are very old runes. Right. I should know this. Oh, I didn't even try to read them. Uh, do you have an idea of what, let's say you can find, you can see like one phrase. Oh, maybe the differences from the different trees have kind of like an environment that they like to start in. And that's kind of written as like how to start it sort of thing on it. So it's like, it's like a growing instructions, like on a packet.

Yeah. Yeah. They come with their own instructions. Cool. Yeah. Um, this one is a willow. Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. Oh, Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. That is the interesting thing. What is the useful thing that we gain from this? Um, yeah, I think, you know what? I mean, I don't know how old this like seed is, but it's still good. Like these seeds don't, they can withstand a lot.

Yeah. Um, and Oh, you know what? I bet it's these seeds will like survive long enough for someone worthy to find it. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Oh, and maybe once you do, maybe that's the thing that's useful. Billy notices it when he's like, don't put it in your mouth, but it's like, it's popped and there's a little bit of green. Oh my God. Oh, like, yeah, the color of the seed changes just a tiny little bit. Just it's cracked a little bit and you can see that it's starting to germinate.

It's tiny vein of green. It's chosen you. Oh, that's, and Billy's like, it's my pet now. Oh my God. That is so beautiful. Great. Okay. What's Tuck doing? Oh, what's Tuck doing? He's wandering around the halls now. With a broken hand? Uh, no, his hand was just hurt a lot. It wasn't actually broken. Okay. Yeah. But he's, he's writing a poem to Maresh and he's like, all right, it's what it would work. He's trying to do an Alec, you kind of thing again, where he's like, nice to the beautiful Maresh.

Her name is Maresh, right? Yes. He turns to a random person. It is like her name's Maresh, right? I don't know. The doctor, the hot doctor. Oh, Physiker Elnor. Yeah. Her first name, her first name is Maresh. Sounds right. Fuck, I hate you. I hate you. Good. I don't want to be your friend anymore. Then get the fuck out of here. I am getting out of here. I was working on something and you walked up to me. Tuck knocks the shit on his desk off. That took me three years to build. Fuck you.

And somebody walks up and is like, are you okay? And he's like, yeah, it didn't take me three years. I was just being an asshole. Uh, to the beautiful, he's walked away. Yeah. To the beautiful, Maresh. I would like to see your flesh. Fuck. That's not good. Feminist. I'm a feminist. And, uh, he walks, he, as he's like, what are you ready? Walks past her, his office. And then he realizes that he never explained the demon thing to her. And he never figured out what this white coin was. Right.

So he goes back and he's like, Farrah. Yes. Tacoma. How did you, uh, it always seems, why is it? Whenever I am shaken from a reverie, it is because of you or your friends. What are you, what reverie are you looking at? And he comes behind her desk and looks over her shoulder. Uh, you see that she is, um, writing and you're reading the McCollin and she's writing poetry. Oh, whoa, no way. I was trying to write poetry and she, she covered, like she very quickly covers the thing she was working on.

She was like, it's not finished. Yeah. Mine isn't either. And then, I'm like, here's what I have so far to the beautiful Maresh Tacoma. I can really see your flesh. I would. Wow. All right. It's still not finished. Is there a reason that you came in here? Right? Yes, there is. Thanks for reminding me. It's a poem about how visible her skin is. It is visible. So this is tuck talking to her assistant. Yeah, it's visible. It's not completely covered. I believe you. All right. That's a parrot.

It took it like he, he takes the two coins out and he's like, he drops them on the table and he's like, all right, two things. One thing we forgot to tell you was it seems like demon possession is becoming more prevalent in the city. One of the things we dealt with was this like dwarf guy who had tried to use ghost route to like do something, contact the spirit world. And he ended up like inviting the demon of ambition in. And I was like, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. And then when we tried to banish the demon, this black coin turned white. So then that brings me to the second thing I probably should have told you. I don't know. Six episodes ago. I think these, these coins are related to the dark card. And I think this is how the Torch found me in the library.

Now, you say you think do you mean that you were directly told uh yeah ama told me that and he suggested that I throw them away and then I might have immediately forgotten because it was the end of a recording weekend I understand because also it was farhan that told you that oh right but I have spoken previously to farhan and grandfather ama about these coins and they are both in agreement that it is something that demons are able to perceive in some way so I am absolutely floored that you even still have these yeah I mean one of them came in handy the white one it turned white because we had to like banish a demon with it or I don't fucking know I just broke it and stuff happened interesting and she picks up the two coins she hesitates to pick it up considering the extremely specific circumstances in which you were able to shatter this coin with your spirit world forged axe I would be surprised if that was the purpose of these coins um in terms of the black coin the obsidian coin from what grandfather ama and farhan are a were able to remember it seems that they do have some sort of use in tracking they described it as in tracking individuals that are most ripe for possession something about the coins calls out to those who are in need in some way in a way that would make them more likely to welcome in an icon's influence wait so you're telling me that me carrying around this coin is because I'm susceptible to demonic possession or is making me susceptible to demonic possession um question mark it seems to be with you specifically um where did you find this coin you said uh I found them in like travel or shrines in the principalities they're like all over the fucking place yes well that would make sense if the coins are proliferated by individuals then the idea I suppose would be people who are more likely to accept the influence of an icon would be drawn to the coins in some way and through the carrying of these coins the demons and icons that are able to control them would know that those individuals are vulnerable so whether you picked up this coin out of sheer curiosity or whether it called to you in some way I do not know the fact that you have two of them is very interesting to me but it would say to me that this white coin has been potentially expunged of whatever influence creates that effect so fara says she you know she slides the coins across her desk to you assuming that you have stopped looking over her shoulder and walked right around to the front again and she says so working with this theory this coin she points at the white obsidian should be safe potentially though it might also contain the aspect of an icon this black coin if I were you I would get as far away from me as possible however if what we think is true is true it could just potentially be picked up by some other sorry soul that would find themselves possessed so you are in quite a pickle as they say that's callback I understand that you were in a pickle earlier oh right yeah shia forced me into a pickle that I feel like everyone's pretty cavalier with the fact that shia tried to drown me no she no the way that she says it she pranked you bro and that's on you uh yeah so that's what she says she's like who knows what you want to do with these coins but either way they're bad news uh okay is that the useful bit that you might want to get away yeah um the useful bit I guess is that that's what you know these coins that's what you think these coins might do um like they can be used to trap demons they might have like multiple functions and maybe that was a one-off fluke like just because tuck is who tuck is yeah or like the fact that it was shattered by terry larry and chad maybe that's the only way that that was possible maybe yeah this actually kind of makes sense because like within the coin there is a thing that calls to people who can be possessed and then calls to demons to be like come here and possess this person so like there's like a calling like a negative like a vacuum kind of thing that pulls things in little black coal coins but then when tuck broke it it like broke the containment and it sucked in like whatever demonic things were in the area cool yeah and then it neutralized it basically yeah that's really cool it filled it so the whiteness is the whiteness of an icon like we always think of it like the outer dark is full of icons and they're dark but the whiteness is because there's an icon in there yeah yeah neat is there constellations and stars that people worship as icons there's some in something like they're the white against the sky oh maybe yeah there's something in somebody's yeah stories maybe like giant lore is like within astrological lore yeah the bowl of the celestial heavens each uh star was like a like a demon like a different demon yeah or giants very well may have seen icons as a totally different force where they're like they are oh you know what's kind of cool is considering giants are so they were so concerned culturally not like you know they're not not every giant was exactly the same but their culture generally revered trades people and crafters if they saw the icons as like the muses kind of sometimes like people would be overtaken by the spirit of creation oh and they were like that's what the stars are the stars represent like the the muses inspiration cool so they might have had a very different relationship with icons yeah because their bones are obsidian and they are better able to accept that influence into their bodies and mediate it so it doesn't completely overtake them whoa it contains them yeah within their core that makes so much sense they can get so much more youth that's why they're able to do all the like insane things they got to do yeah that's why they're able to build such monumental towers holy shit maybe that's why there's so many demons like and issues in mccall is because the giants are no longer here to contain it oh my god and they were broken up into smaller segments then right what would that mean for orcs then if orcs were descended from giants maybe that means that the like what the god of the flame did was remove their a bit like remember that's the the like prevailing orc folklore is that we used to be giants and then the god of the flame like suppressed us and turned us into something less so maybe the god of the flame separated them from that connection they had to the icons or fundamentally changed their like physiology their physiology so they could no longer like like!

Accept and mediate the influence of the icons do we have we talked about orc physiology their bones do they have obsidian bones we can we know that their tusks are white okay so maybe they're maybe their bones are white obsidian yeah and everyone just thinks they're like bones yeah that's so cool amazing I like the idea that the giants could be like I want to build something so I am going to like open myself up to the eye to like a specific icon and they could choose kind of a ton of different types of şu şu şu şu şu şu şu şu şu şu şu şu şu şu şu şu that's how you did it and mccall because they're thinking about it based on human culture they thought that it was a lighthouse that told ships the shore is here but for giant culture it was a beacon to the stars yes that was it's oh it was a star on earth and that's why it has images of the giant creator god carved into it because the story is that they were inspired by the stars they were the first yeah yeah oh maybe it was like this was a star and the creator god reached up into the sky and brought it down and gifted it to the giants so that they could use it to like reach out and connect with the different muses it makes sense why the lighthouse is so very high up because it's like closer to the night sky oh my god it was as close as they could make it yeah I am rock hard right now this is I bet everyone listening is rock hard I am gonna bust if you're gonna shoot shoot into this yeah okay okay okay!

That's sick everything that we just said is fucking awesome it also makes sense why like in the that song the tolling yeah uh it's one of the instructions is uh the darkness fears the nighttime sun yeah yeah and it's because like the lighthouse itself has an influence on demons so if we don't really like pass within its like shadow because they're afraid that if they're overexposed they'll be overexposed and overexposed and overexposed and overexposed and overexposed and they'll be like separated from the body that they've overtaken yeah and they'll be like cast back to the outer dark cool oh man that's very interesting and mccollins might just not understand that like the fact that they interpret every like so much uh giant imagery as being similar to theirs like revering the day and the sun but their connection was to the night that's so fucking cool good job everybody pretty well done pretty fucking awesome well done well done well done I love fantasy I love my friends um okay so maybe that is kind of the information that tuck gleans throughout the day like it's he's talking to farah and he reads a book or two maybe or is this all stuff that's just in the wind and the characters don't necessarily understand it I feel like tuck wouldn't put this together yeah unless pharaoh was like let's talk about it yeah I think pharaoh maybe walks him through it yeah like you guys like the assistant leaves because you guys end up talking for like hours yeah because it's like tuck his face with a philosophical and moral issue now that pharaoh has presented him with which is just like I either have to endanger my family by keeping this or I sentence someone else to death by like just throwing it away basically so he's like trying to work through what he should do and he's like asking for pharaoh's help basically and yeah maybe that's like when all of this stuff comes up through this conversation it's like like us look researching and looking through yeah the parrot actually had a lot of really good ideas but you guys shoot him out of the room because you had to talk I don't want that parrot remembering anything that we're saying right now so yeah that's really neat I think there's maybe some stuff that the world doesn't still understand about that like giant culture stuff you know what I mean Or maybe, I guess if anybody would, if any group would, it's the librarians.

Yeah. Okay. So yeah, she's basically like, at the end of this, she's burning with curiosity. I thought you were going to say desire, but duck. Duck's so hopeful. Maybe just a little bit. But yeah, she is like, you've given me a lot to think about today, Tacoma. I am going to hit the books, as it were. I feel 90 again. I feel like a freshman again. Yeah. Thank you so much, Tacoma. Yeah. Cool. Also, think about what you want to do with these coins. Sure. I honestly have no idea what you should do.

Okay. I'm sorry. I wish that I could give you better advice, but it's kind of up to you. If you think you can withstand this influence, and if I'm being honest, I think that you, of all the people that I've met recently, would have the greatest chance, then do it. If you fear that the risk is too great. To you. To you and those you love. I can't begrudge you making that choice. All right. Thanks for laying this burden on my shoulders. I will go finish my poem now.

It's like five hours have passed. You're like, what was this poem about again? So, Tuck, you're heading, you leave Farah's office and you're wandering, working on your poem. And… I'm kind of… Kind of distracted. I can't, like, my mind keeps getting pulled back to the two coins in my backpack, trying to, like, figure out what I should do with them. So, nothing happens with the poem. Yeah. I just crumple it up. I throw it out. I'm like, fuck. Think and have. I don't give a shit anymore.

And as you're walking away, casting a longing glance at that garbage can, you hear, hey. What? What? You turn and Fatim is standing behind you. And Tuck drinks. Tuck squares up. Tuck squares up a little bit. And he's like, hey, what's up? Can we talk? And that's where we're going to end it for this week. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Ving the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Take care. Playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So long.

And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Bye for now. Thank you to Aaron Reed, the incomparable Aaron Reed, for our intro and outro music. Thank you to our Patreon supporters. Our incomparable Patreon supporters. Supporting us around the world. If you would like to support the show, go to patreon.com, throw a slash in there, and then Spout Lore afterwards. Or Spout Lore.com slash money, please. We've got a whole bunch of Patreon benefits, like 150 plus hours. No. What is it?

How many hours of bonus content? A lot. I don't know. There's definitely more than 100 hours. Really? Yeah. Pretty good. 100 plus hours of bonus audio content. Wait. No. No. There's definitely less than 100. 100 hours. Less than 100 hours of bonus audio content. But definitely more than 60 hours. Between 60 and 100 bonus hours. And maybe more than 100 hours. You know what? Use your discretion. And we've also got some video content. We do alternating Q&As live monthly.

And then on the off months, we do live Lone Tree Hill episodes playing Fiasco. And if that is the kind of stuff that you're interested in… And maybe hit us up. Or if you want to help, drop us a review on iTunes. We love them. Thank you so much. See you next time.

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 without a resolution Return next week to hear some more Whilst you commute or do your chores And for you I'd gladly spell more