Episode 12 – Sealing Deals

If you like Spout Lore and you want spelt more of it, go to patreon.com slash Spout Lore for exclusive bonus content, bonus games, exclusive merchandise, and more. So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing. Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight. 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. Okay. After doing a little bit of fact-finding on whoever or whatever attacked the village slash outpost they found on the rocks, it was determined it may have been creatures called selkies, which seemed to be some sort of melding of human and sea mammal, maybe druids, maybe something else. Mm-hmm.

The horns in the fog sounded and the journey into the gray was made. They sailed through the day and evening, coming upon a… A drifting collection of dozens and dozens of empty boats drifting past. And it turned out to be a fleet, armada of lost souls. Ving was almost carried away before diving into the water to recover a rope and seeing beneath the waves hundreds of bodies, his mind breaking clear of whatever enchantment they'd placed on him.

While keeping watch one night, Tuck spotted an island. The group landed. Grouping on the… Beach as well. And then there was a little bit of group exploration as each group individually went around and looked for things. Ving finding a pool of water, a well, a spring that seems to connect to the spirit world. He completed his promise to the snake spirits that helped him see on the clear water. Well, we cut a deal.

Yeah, you cut a kind of deal imbuing them with some sort of aspect of the moon and giving them potentially a portal into the material realm at each… Full moon. We'll see if that has any ramifications on anybody at a later date. I can't imagine how it would.

Tuck found a stretch of beach that seemed reminiscent of the image slash vision that Billy had of Lillian's memories back in the Temple of the Moon and perhaps a worn carving of a little dinghy in a rock that he recarved, adding the symbols for Tuck, Billy and Ving in Runic next to them. It's the only thing I know in Runic. It's the first… First letters of each of your friends' names and your name. Yeah.

While foraging for food, Billy found a copse of trees covered in Runic carvings themselves in the old Druidic language. And from the top of the grove spotted some sort of stone beehive structure on the other side of the island. Upon investigating that, found a little worn, long abandoned living zone with a circlet made of twigs bearing the name Ileana in the Druidic language. Pretty fucking wild. Holy macaroni. And that is where we find our heroes now.

Billy, you're holding a circlet that contains the name Ileana. I put it on and I curtsy. I say, I look very beautiful. I should probably show my friends how good I look. And as you're curtsying and talking, it's slowly sliding down your head because it's too big for your tiny little head until it's around your neck. It's okay. It makes a nice necklace. It makes a nice necklace too. So you're heading back to find Ving and Tuck. Yep. Not too hard.

Tuck is just wandering around aimlessly, it would seem. And Ving is leaving a tumble of stones at the base of a rocky hill. Yeah. Looking a little thoughtful, introspective. It's easy to find Tuck because he's throwing rocks into the air and then slamming them into the ocean with a piece of driftwood. He's trying to get them as far as possible. And a couple people have gathered around to watch. Watch you do it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was like, wow. He's really smacking them.

This one goes to you, Short and McGuire or whatever. I slam it. Sploosh. Yeah. So yeah, Ving, Billy is rushing up to you. He's got something around his neck. Hey. Hi. Check out what I found. So I pull off the circlet and I hand it to Ving. It says. Ileana. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's your mom's name, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think. I think it's an old Druid name. You don't think this was hers, do you? I don't know. Did she live here? I mean, she lived up north, I think.

She's from somewhere up here. Maybe it's a common name. This can't. Where'd you find it? I found it in a house. A house. Let's go to the house. Right. Billy leads Ving very easily to the stone hut on the other side. And then you hear Tuck running up behind you. Be like, get away, guys. I want to come too. And Perel is running behind Tuck even slower. I also. I also would like to be there. Oh, sure. I don't run fast, so you could probably catch up. And you all arrive at this hut.

It's quite small for the two of you. It was quite large for Billy. But it's a pretty small place. So this is the bookshelf here. I found some pretty cool nuggets of stuff. Nuggets? What do you mean? Like, look at them. Billy, those are mouse turds. Really? I definitely didn't eat any. I definitely did not eat them. I definitely did not eat them. I definitely did not eat them. I definitely did not eat them. I definitely did not eat them. Anyway, moving on.

Oh, Hentivirus doesn't exist here, I hope. Ving, you do see, actually, he is right. There are a couple kinds of nuggets on this. It looks like there's little dried bits of maybe, like, resin or sap of some kind. Different little, like, globby dried up oils. I'm going to spell lower about these globs of sap, these little resins. I got seven. Yeah, this looks to be some sort of old, um… Like, herbalist reagent. Hmm. You know, like a carrier oil, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Like, you put the herbs in this kind of, like, little sap and it helps bind them together for whatever, uh, unguent you're trying to make. Cool. Mm-hmm. Huh. It smells nice. It smells really nice. This comes from the, um, the old furs out there. Does it? Yeah. Is it poultices like these? And then I, uh, there's, like, some old cloth bags that are shoved back in behind a shelf. Oh, are there? Yeah, there are. Oh, fucking wicked. Oh, wow. Yeah, there are. Oh, great.

Anybody else want to reveal any loot that they find? There's more. What else is there? There's stuff under the, the old blankets and fabrics, like a book. Excellent. There's a book in there. A book. There's some cloth-wrapped, uh, bundles shoved behind something. There's a really old bottle of salad dressing in the fridge. 2009? Yeah. What the fuck? I've been using it this whole time. You've been using it since? Since 2009? How is it still in there? I don't eat salad a lot.

Um, yeah, you know what? I'm comfortable with there being some cloth-wrapped bundles and a book of sorts. What's the title of the book? Um, the title of the book is Meditations on a Valley in Bloom. Ooh. Hmm. Can I take that book? Yeah, absolutely. It's written in the, uh, the common language of the principalities. Cool. So, so it's newer? Uh, no, it's still, well, I mean, yeah, it's definitely not like, you know, 5,000 years old, uh, but maybe, you know, more in the two or 300.

Like, it's still an old book. It seems like it's poetry of some kind. Beautiful. I don't, I don't, I mean, yeah, I don't know what to think here. I want to sit and commune with the whispers of this face. Oh, yeah. Good call. Smart. Yeah. Um. Tuck, did you want to do something? No, not at all. Your thing is cooler. Hey, Tuck. There's also a really cool beach down here I wanted to show you. Oh, sick. Do you guys don't mind if I hang out here for a bit, huh? No.

I want to check out this beach, Billy. Perel's kind of got his hands on either side of the doorframe leaning into the hut while Ving, uh, settles into a meditation and looks for a couple seconds and goes, I'm going to go to the beach. Ving says without turning, thank you. So you've got a couple of minutes alone. So what's, uh. I'm going to read the book. Oh, you're just going to read the book? Yeah. I'm going to read the book. Yeah. I'm going to read the book. I'm going to read the book.

I'm going to read the book. With whispers. Okay. 2d6 plus wisdom. You put some of that like a resin underneath his nose, uh, and taking deep breaths and feeling this place. Nine. Nine. Okay. So you, uh, settle in and try and connect sort of, yeah, the circular imagery of a few of the things that you've seen since you've been here, the connection to the spirit world, the, the circlet. And, um, you first, you feel there's a lot of spiritual presence on this island.

Like, you know, there's a lot of spiritual presence on this island. Like if not direct presence, like the evidence of past presence, spirits have come here a lot for whatever reason, but you are given a clearer vision of a clearing in a forest far away. The trees look similar to the ones on this island. Uh, it's a dark night. The moon is high in the sky and there are people gathered. There seems to be, uh, a great deal of. Excitement, uh, anticipation for whatever's about to happen.

A young woman waits like in the center of the circle and an older woman. They're all wearing the same, like kind of long robe, like garments, like tux, like tux kimono. Yeah, exactly. Like tux kimono. It's so stylish. It weirdly flares at the hips for some reason. Somehow, despite the fact it doesn't reach the hips at all, it still flares at the hips. Are you pleading these? Um, yeah, they're all wearing similar garments of flowing.

Material, but they've all been ornamented in kind of individualized ways. They all have different sorts of, um, things on their brow. One is wearing a pair of antlers interwoven with like blackberry thorn, uh, or one has like a bark cap basically that contains a imagery reminiscent of an owl. Some people have, um, uh, coral woven into their long hair. Yeah. I like that a lot. Uh, and the, an older woman who is wearing a veil.

Basically made of like weeping willow branches approaches the young woman. And there's some words you can't make the words out, but you understand there's a ritual, a coming of age sort of thing happening. And the woman holds up a freshly woven circlet made of delicate branches bearing the name Ileana and places it on the brow of the young woman. Oh, there's a name day. 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.

Far off connection and you get glimpses of this circlet being passed to another and passed to another pass to another and so on and so forth and then you uh come to you realize that you the book has been closed you've placed it your feet and you have placed the circlet on your own brow oh that's sick down at the beach perel uh throws a rock up in the air swings a stick at it and whiffs so hard plops into the sand and goes no I can do it I can do it you just have to watch the rock I am watching the rock but if I'm not watching if I'm watching the rock how am I supposed to watch the stick just don't watch the stick how am I gonna know where the stick is if I'm not watching the stick you trust your body it's like oh my god he throws it up again whiffs again he just you you you see with your heart you hit it with your heart like this and billy has a tiny stick a tiny rock and he just smacks it right down doesn't even hit the water it just goes right in front of him just like that he goes okay I'll swing with my heart billy thanks a lot whiff I know it's hard being bad at sports I'm not bad it's whatever and then okay tuck comes up behind perot and he like touches him on the shoulder and he's like all right buddy I'll help you out with this close your eyes um close your eyes okay he closes his eyes and tuck comes up from behind time goes by and it's it's like when an asshole on a golf course is teaching a woman how to yeah but I've I've got my arms around him and I'm holding on to like the piece of driftwood that he's holding his feet are off the ground I was gonna say tuck is basically swimming perel as well and I I'm like it's it's like when you do magic man you're trusting your body to know where the wood has to go to connect with the rock uh-huh you're watching the target okay billy throw it uh throw it up and then tuck wheels back and then he lets go of perel's hands yeah and perel continues the swing crack whoa hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey I am 45, but I'm growing into my own as a man.

Oh, wow. You look rough. Thanks, Ving. If you're really old, you look bad. If you're really young, then you look terrible. I'm sorry. Life's been stressful for you. What did you learn? I have moved through my days with very little stress. What did you learn in the hut, Ving? I saw a naming ritual in which a young woman was given this name. Was it your mom? I don't think so, but I did feel a connection to them. There was a bunch of other people with strange…

I think they were druids or druidesque. Didn't you say back in the library when you learned about this that Ileana is like a family name? It's like a surname. Yeah. Right? It's not… Well, it's the, I guess, druidic equivalent of a surname, so it might not have… It might not have belonged to your mom, but it might have belonged to someone and people that you are related to. Mm-hmm. People belong to the names. And it helps guide their practices. That's cool. And what they do.

So this is like your family's house. Yeah, I guess so. And kind of like what my family did's house. So, what now? I wonder what Oleander's up to. Cut to. You guys find Oleander. Oleander and some crew members. He's like, Hey, I found a, like, I think a wreck of some kind. Oh, cool. So we're just kind of dredging, just kind of yanking up whatever we can find in there. Do you want help? Oh, yeah, that'd be great. You're super strong. Yeah, I'll help dredge. Sweet.

And it is laborious work, for sure. You know, people have dived down and, like, hooked stuff with ropes and you haul it all up. And it's just like some crates and barrels. Oh, yeah. I pull up a whole crate and barrel. That's awesome. There's so many soft blankets and wicker baskets in here. Do we want to roll and find out what it is? Yeah. Let me find. We'll do a treasure thing. Oh, a listener actually sent me a loot table.

Because they're like, Hey, I know you like loot tables, and I knew that you were struggling to find a cool one last time. So here's this one. Yeah, that would be sick. Sweet. Do you need me to roll to pull this shit up out of the bottom? Yeah. Give me a defy danger strength. You're going to pass. No problem. Nine. Yeah. There we go. Can I use my plus one forward to turn it into a 10? Yes, you can. Hell yeah. I forgot about that. So yeah, absolutely. Totally fucking wasted that.

But that means that you're going to get three rolls on this table instead of just two. Okay. Yeah. So there's like a bunch of like it's crates and barrels of various things. There's like some food in here that's ruined, you know, like some cloth. Dibs. Yeah. Dibs in the run. Food. Yeah. You can have it. Who says go nuts. But I want that barrel. And he points you. He points in your face. The barrel belongs to me. Deal. And basically sifting through a bunch of shit that you dig out of the silt.

One of the things that somebody finds and one of you snatches before they can get a good look at it is a single gold earring. Cool. Fashioned to represent a man being eaten by a crocodile. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. And then Tuck takes it and he looks at Ving and he goes to one knee and he goes, for you, my lord. What? I can't accept this. You're you. You got killed by a crocodile. Oh, my God. This is a very traumatic reminder of a horrible time in my life. I shall keep it with me always.

You should put it in your ear so you get reminded of it every day. You look in the mirror. And he keeps eye contact with Tuck. And then. Pierces his ear. Oh, jeez. Okay. I thought you had an ear piercing. I don't. Oh, God. That explains the wet feeling and pain. And everyone. Everyone's standing around us like all the pirates are just like, oh, God. Even short who you took the earring from is like, keep it. I don't even want that thing anymore. Oleander leans into Billy.

He goes, did Tuck just propose to Ving? What does that mean? I don't worry about it. Okay. Okay. And Billy, you're rifling around in this sundry crap. I like this earring, by the way. Yeah, it's cool, right? Yeah. And Billy, you find it's like a candlestick kind of like it looks like a mostly burned down nub of a candlestick. Oh. But for some reason, you, Billy, are like, ooh, ooh. Like it looks like trash to anybody else. But the wax has like weird kind of cloudy stiration.

And it that are like glittery. Almost. It looks like there's some sort of almost crystalline material mixed in with the wax. Can I wipe the wax off of it? Oh, no, it's part of it. The wax is mixed with this material. So it's like wax and crystal and like melted stub with a little burned wick sticking out of it. Billy puts it in his mouth. Of course. Sean jokes, of course. And we as soon as we seem like pick it up and start. We're like, ah, it's too late. It's in his mouth. Yeah. I taste it.

Tastes like wax. But you do as you're about to spit it out going. No, this tastes like all the other candles I've eaten before. You get that little tingly licking a battery feeling on your tongue. Ooh. I put it in the pouch. Do you want it? No, no, no, no. I was going to hand you some matches. Maybe that's not a great idea. That's a great idea. Perel goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Just one. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's a strike anywhere.

Let's be cautious here. I strike the match. No, Billy. Billy. Billy. I bring the candle and the match together. Don't do it. And light. God, fuck. Okay. Let me think about what's going to happen. Make a Billy high five. High five. Billy is laughing this maniacally at Perel. Oh. I think. Oh, okay. So you know what happens is. Uh, Perel goes, no, no, no, no. And you light it. And then he, he furrows his brow. And then he drops his hands. He goes, oh, what'd you think it was?

They're called like, what did they call them? It's like a, like an ion candle. It was like a, um, they were like focusing materials for magicians. It like helped, um, focus and, uh, helped you manipulate a thalamic energy. What did you think was going to happen? Well, I thought I was used to, I've used, I used them a couple of times when I was, um, a ma a wizard. Uh, and I thought, you know, Oh, dangerous Billy, maybe Billy's magic or my magic will go crazy.

But then I remembered, uh, of course I don't feel anything. Oh, uh, I, I pinch out the flame. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's okay. It's okay. It's good. It's a good thing to hold on to. These are valuable. They're rare. I doubt any, nobody makes them anymore. Hmm. So hold onto that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for confirming for me, Billy, what it is. I put it in the pouch. I feel very ashamed. No, if Billy, if I, if you didn't like that, just joking. Sorry.

No, this is, you guys have given me, uh, in the last like four days, a bunch of objects and information that I thought were lost forever. So this is still pretty exciting for me. Okay. I'll see if I can find another one. Yeah. Dig around. See what you can find. Get back in there, Billy. Start digging around. I'm gonna. Wait a second. If this, if this ship had someone on it that was burning ion candles, that means there might've been a wizard traveling on this boat.

There might be more wizard shit in this. And then we all jump in. Fighting each other to get in there. And I think our like feverish exuberance. Yeah. Our exuberance as we jump into this trash pile, like triggers a lot of the other pirates to jump into it. Oh yeah. There's something in the trash. No, no. It's. It's so much bad stuff that we're trying to get it to keep you safe. He's lying to us. I would definitely lie. He's trying to keep that trash from us. There's something good in the trash.

Our son is just jumping on a grenade of later to do work for you. Get your son out of my trash. Get your finger out of my face. It's my trash. I got it first. Billy's got his knife out. He's swiping at people. Okay. So Ving, you find, you find something in this scramble. While everyone's yelling, I duck between Tuck's legs and head into the muck. This was fucking weird. You find a sealed glass vial with wax still on the cap. Wax.

And it appears to be completely empty, but you see a small label affixed to the side and the words, a child's nightmare. Whoa. Oh my gosh. I put it next to my adorable little doll that I found a while ago. Cute. This, uh, loot table whips ass. Yeah. I love this. Okay. Then I will say, uh, this is called the Omni loot table. It's on a Tumblr account called tabletop trinkets by JJ. And it was sent to me, uh, by your wrist. Uh, but yeah, thank you so much for that loot table. It fucking kicks ass.

I'm going to use this every time. Now it's wicked. It's cool. It tucked in, get anything. I guess you found the earring and then you gave it to Ving. It's fine. Nobody's getting it. You're not giving me any gifts. I guess. Oh my God. Everybody fucking hates tuck. Well, we haven't rolled for the second one, so maybe I'll find you a gift. I don't know. Tuck starts jabbing the trash with his ax. Moodily. Oh no. Bullshit. You found all the stuff up here.

If you want anything else, you're going to have to go beneath. Yeah. Tuck moodily jumps into the ocean and starts swimming down. And before it goes, he goes, well, if you guys aren't going to give me any gifts, I'll go find gifts for myself. I'm an orphan. It's probably my birthday today. Okay. Splash. Billy goes, okay. Whatever. He, uh, he found that earring. He actually took that earring from someone else and then gave it to Ving. And now he's complaining that he didn't get anything.

I missed you guys so much. He gets like that sometimes. And then Billy jumps in the water. I'm swimming to the bottom. Can I just turn me on? He's just trying. Yeah, totally. Who is, who is, I guess is Ving leading the- Oh, you jumped in and you jumped in. Yeah, we all jumped in. I'm the last one jumping in. Give me a defy danger constitution. All of you. I got 12. Oh my God. I got nine. I also got nine. Holy shit. Uh, okay. Billy, no problem. You are a doggy paddling beneath the waves.

No, no problem at all. You're just kind of floating around everybody propelling your little body. I'm just trying to get you to go. I'm trying to get you to go. I'm trying to get you to go. I'm trying to get you to go. I'm trying to get you to go. I'm trying to get you to go. I'm trying to get you to go. Oh, you got a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad.

Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad. Oh, a quad.

To see because you are holding your breath but you're not going to hold your breath forever billy seems to just be motorboating around no problem like a little submersible but you see something glitter a bit of the gray light of day flashes off something kind of mostly submerged in the sand I grab it your hand brushes away the silt at the bottom and you uh retrieve a probably uh seven inch long shard of what looks to be a mirror oh shit cool I swim over to tuck with my last breath and hold out the mirror to him and then tuck takes it and clasps ving's hand and gives him a meaningful look and ving says I do too and I just imagine while you two are hanging there in the water looking meaningfully into each other's eyes billy just swims between the two of you and you're like oh my god I'm so sorry I'm so sorry and you're going it's like a heart trail of bubbles like a little looney tunes cupid yeah great yeah so you find a mirror shard in this wreck cool wow oh my god tuck are you looking for anything yeah I'm gonna look to discern realities 2d6 plus wisdom oh baby holy shit three what go ahead and mark one of those down um ving!

You know starts kicking back up to the surface and you swim further down your unbelievable constitution allowing you to hold your breath for an incredible amount of time um fatim used to give you uh he used to put your head in toilets a lot when you were younger so you got used to holding your breath so good holding my breath and in my mind I was like don't swallow any piss don't swallow any piss right now uh and as you're swimming around this wreck it's getting hard you can't really find anything super interesting it looks like you dredged up most of the water out of the useful stuff uh and then a shadow passes in the water just out of you oh just in the murk gone does tuck see it yeah but you don't see what it is it just flits in and out of you okay there it is again oh my god okay I start swimming really hard because I know about the selkies and the bullshit yeah defy danger strength okay what the fuck is going on that's five five what I totally fail I failed this fucking strength roll somehow um yeah you underwater though maybe you're like you swallow a bunch of water oh my god I just drink piss uh you start swimming up the surface kicking and paddling with all your might and I think the fact that I'm holding the mirror shard is slowing me down totally because you're not you don't have like a flat hand to paddle with and you feel jaws lock around your heel and you look down and there is like a harbor seal just like ripping your foot back and forth jesus fuck roll a d8 eight oh my god yeah it just like oh my god it just ravages your leg like just whips back and forth blood starts to cloud in the water that's so funny that is really funny that's great and then it lets go and it looks you right in the eye and then it dives back into the water and swims away what the fuck and it's gone you're like oh my god I'm so tired I'm so tired I'm so tired I'm so into the merc what billy you're totally peacefully swimming around this wreck I'm swimming around in the wreck underwater and I want to find something all right can I yeah 2d6 plus wisdom for discerned realities whoa 12 unbelievable so you get three questions off the list okay what here is useful or valuable to me so you are just like digging around in the silt like pushing sand and rubble away and uh you find what looks to be a little like um maybe the size of a walnut a wooden and metal dull metal that doesn't really glint kind of matte a shape that has a bunch of different sides it's like a ball but it's got a bunch of different sides and in each side is carved like a little rune and it's just sitting there in the sand it looks like a kind of like fun little toy all right pocket it yeah what here is not what it appears to be this ship uh you're you're looking at like the construction basically the pieces of the actual you're trying to reconstruct the ship in your mind basically as you're looking at all the pieces on the seafloor and um you're like oh well okay maybe they found that mirror piece it looks like maybe this is like a mccollan ship of some kind but the construction is off but it reminds you of some of the more specific alleys and neighborhoods that you saw in wickport like ving found those coins that have like the circles like the circular coins with the holes in them and the symbols written on them this looks like similar to construction techniques that you saw in that uh in those neighborhoods cool what is about to happen you hear a bunch of uh struggling above you sounds of like some sort of fight and you look up and there is a seal latched onto tuck's foot uh ripping it back and forth and there's blood clouding the water around him and you're like oh my god what is this this is a it looks like an animal that's getting back up oh oh shit um I swim up as fast as I can with tuck yeah you catch up with tuck no problem and you two break the surface they're selkies they're selkies in the water come on let's get out of here everybody out of the water yeah people rush back up onto the sand they're useless on land have you ever been to the zoo where ollie runs up where are they where'd you what'd you see there was like a giant harbor seal that fucked me up so bad and tuck is like limping his leg is bleeding thing is putting a portis on his leg while he's telling him yeah go ahead and roll what is it d6 to see how much it heals four does it heal four yeah okay um I start with four and then I'm gonna go with four and then I'm gonna start wrapping some of the fabric around me around tuck's ankle sweet thank you you're welcome no the blood flow is staunch sufficiently people are uh rushing back to the boats that you say that you rode over on and ollie's like no no they're in the water we can't get back to the boat it's not safe what do we know about selkies yeah 2d6 plus intelligence uh nine nine shit ten eight eight eight eight dd6 plus bond seven okay that makes it a ten heck yeah interesting and useful thing you know that if they primarily take the forms of seals and other sea mammals that it would be harder for them to fight on land and mostly that they will be way less maneuverable you know that like seals and sea lions can fight up close for sure on land but um if they need to move around a lot like chase you up the hill or chase you like to the center of the island though they might have to take human form which will give you a more even playing field I want to take all the driftwood and just push it up closer to the shores just make a barrier on the shore uh give me a defy danger strength uh eleven oh my god your strength is so much higher than I thought oh my god nine okay I I help yeah dd6 plus bond billy's also carrying sticks fuck four shit I'm not strong enough um um um um um um um um um um um Billy spends this whole time trying to drag one stick across the beach.

Yeah, and it floats away in the water. No! And Billy, being near the water while Ving is securing this barrier means that you're the first one to see eyes and slick gray heads poke up above the sea as they approach the beach. How many? You see three. Guys, they're here. Boom! They burst out of the surf. Fuck! They're varying size, some more reasonable size for sea mammals and then others huge. So they're not all leopard seals? No, they seem to have a variation.

There's a leopard seal, the harbor seal, the attack tuck, you can tell, and an elephant seal that has the huge drooping nose. Yeah, he's like two tons. Gross! Can I defend? Yeah, absolutely you can defend. I would love if someone used defend. What's defend? Oh my god. When you stand in defense of a person, item, or location under attack, roll plus constitution on a 10 plus, hold three. On a seven to nine, hold one. You may redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself.

Have the attack's effect or damage cut in half. Open up the attacker to an ally, giving that ally plus one forward against the attacker. Sick. Deal damage to the attacker equal to your level. Pretty fucking rad. Yeah. That's so cool. So Billy's preparing to defend the barricade, basically? Yeah. Yeah. Two to six plus constitution. Eight. Okay, so you get one hold. I want to deal damage to the attacker equal to my level. Great, yeah. Which one are you attacking? The big one, the elephant seal.

Okay, so what do you do? You just throw a bunch of stuff at him? I use one of the driftwood pieces, and it's kind of sharp, and I use it like a harpoon. Oh, nice. Sick. Yeah. Yeah, and it punches into the thick, blubbery hide of the elephant seal and stays there. Whoa. And it just goes like, and they start doing that flop. Yeah, I run. Yeah. Oh, no. Does that end your defend move? Yeah. Yeah, they're thundering towards the barricade now. Ving's like, I know. They have to do this.

Like, Tuck is like scrambling up the cliff that kind of like goes more onto land, and he's going to use what are you waiting for to try and draw them out of the water. Nice. Wow. Yeah. Whoa. Okay, yeah. So that's 14. Whoa. So what happens on a 10 plus with what are you waiting for? They treat you as the most obvious threat to be dealt with and ignore your companions, take plus two damage ongoing against them. Wow. Wow. Yes. I picture you putting like, I like sticks in your mouth. Oh, look at me.

Yeah. So what do you, what do you say to these things to get them to attack you? I do that. I put, I do, I do walrus face. Oh my God. It's not okay. And Tuck is like, turns to Ving and he's like, please don't judge me for this. What happens in battle stays in battle. And then he starts sprinting inland and doing walrus face. And then he's like, he picks up a bunch of bulk help as he's running up and he's like, look at me. I've got a dick for a nose. And then he makes it have an erection.

Is that a dick on my nose or I'm just happy to see you. And you know that you're just kind of putting a hat on a hat because the three seals are already chasing you. They burnt like they knock over a couple people as they run right past them and start chasing you up the hill. Uh, but they're having a hard time, uh, getting up the hill as fast as you, because they are not quadrupeds. They don't have legs. Not right now. Uh, and legs win again, my friends.

It's at this moment that you realize maybe you were being a little aggressive as four more seals come out of the water and go right past your companions chasing you up the hill as well. So there's seven. So they're going, so they're targeting tuck. That's what this move does. Yeah. Oh, tuck went come and get me. And now they're coming to get them, but they're all opened up to attack from the back from you guys. Yeah. I'm going to fall. Roll fight with honor. Yeah, do it. Nine, nine. Okay, great.

Uh, so you get what to hold? I get to hold. Cool. So I want to, um, cross the distance between your foe and bypassing all obstacles. Yeah. Great. So are you trying to stop one in particular or go after the big guy again? Okay, cool. I've got my harpoon. I'm going to send a flying. Yeah. How do you cross the distance to him with the harpoon flow throw? Right. Does that, and it yanks you. Oh, you're like, Oh, that's pretty fun. Swing. Ha ha. Like a throw. Yeah. His hammer. Yeah. Sick.

Your harpoon sails through the air with you drifting behind it like a ribbon in the wind. He's like, Billy, watch this. I didn't know that I would work. I thought I didn't think it would work. Now you're up close with them. So roll a roll, a hack and slash. Uh, plus what constitution? Uh, hack and slash is strength. Oh yeah. Uh, nine. Yeah. Roll your damage. Three. Cool. Uh, then roll. You're going to hate this. D 12. Holy God. One. Thank Christ.

So you stab your harpoon through the fin of, uh, the, one of the back fins of this elephant seal. Uh, what's the thing you used to yell on people when you step on the back of their shoe and grade school bullies used to do? Flat tire. Flat tire. Yeah. Yeah. That's what he yells. And it, uh, just whips around and tries to clobber you with. It's like, you know, how they just kind of, they rise up and they come down with their heads. Yeah. Shaking your bones a little bit and doing one damage.

Uh, and that deals with one of the seals that was chasing tuck. Now it's primarily concerned with you. Uh, Billy, there is a horde of sea mammals chasing tuck up a hill and Vingis started fighting the biggest one. What do you do? Um, I haven't rolled fairy child for today. Yeah. You could roll it now. Yeah. Okay. 10. So that means if I get, I get a 10, I get five hold. Holy shit. Yeah. Excellent. Um, I want to create a convincing illusion. Nice.

Um, so I want to create like another tuck to confuse the, the elephant seals. Smart. That's cool. Great. So is it like tuck is running one way and then your illusion runs the other way? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. They, um, tuck follows the other time. Wait, you look cool. Yeah. We high five. Like the other one, also does the dick nose thing. And then we high five and go two different ways. And it does. It splits them off. Three of them chase the one that you create and three of them chase tuck.

So now it's only dealing with three of them. Thanks Billy. No problem. Tuck. Uh, illusory version of you sprints off into the trees with, uh, three seals hot on his heels. And I, I stare at my ass for like a little bit too long as it's going. I'm like wicked. Yeah. And I want to use war cry. When you enter the battle with a show of force role plus charisma on a 10 plus, you take two of the options and a seven to nine, you take one. Okay. So what's your show of force here?

Um, as I'm running through the forest, I take Terry, Larry and Chad and I, I kind of just like start swiping them through trees as hard as I can. And they don't cut wood like with their spirit ability. So I'm just like trying to smash trees down behind me as a show of force, but also to slow them down. Great. Two D six plus, uh, whatever war cry is. All right, little bros. Don't fail me. Nine. Can I aid from a distance? Ooh.

Oh, you can aid from a distance because you got the illusory tuck doing stuff too. Yeah. Um, because I'm so in tune with like everything on the Island, I can actually feel that tuck is like calling on TLC to help him out. Oh, nice. Yeah. Buddies, you help my friend. Oh God, it didn't work. Six. Oh no, I'm too far away. Oh, well, I was running after the wrong tuck. Uh, so yeah, Billy, you run up and you're trying to help, uh, tuck in the illusory TLC, scare off these seals.

Uh, and you realize, yeah, this is not the right one as he like runs. He kind of clips through a tree, like his arm passes through. And one of the sea lions stops and goes like, Oh, sniffs at the air and turns around and looks right at you and bellows and starts flopping towards you. Uh, but you still got a seven to nine. So seven to nine on war cry. Sorry. This is just the funniest fight to watch. It's really funny. A chicken nugget running away.

It's a chicken nugget running away from a bag of milk. So on a seven to nine on war cry, you get one or the other. Yeah. So either your allies are rallied and take plus one forward or your enemies feel fear and act accordingly. Okay. Uh, so the trees start to come down. Like one falls directly on one of the seals. Yeah. And it runs off. Like it tries to get into the, it goes back down to the beach. Basically it flops down this crest into the water, just rolls down the hill like a hot dog. Yeah.

Just trying to get away. David Attenborough, especially when they're falling off that cliff. Yeah. Uh, and the other two, one gets clipped a little bit and one, one totally is missed by the trees, but they're charging after you, but it looks like they're a little bit less in control than they were a moment ago. And I, I turn around and I like, as soon as I see there's just one, I start charging this. There's two. I start. Oh, oh, he was doing the wink blink thing.

The one in front is bigger and the one behind is smaller and you start changing charging and the other one comes around and talks like fuck. Uh, so he throws the ax, it one, and then he jumps to punch the other one. Okay. Hack and slash. Cool. I got 13. I think so. Okay. Plus strength. Yeah. So roll your damage. And I take plus two ongoing damage. You do. Uh, that's a nine. So I do 11 damage. Let me just look at something. And the ax slices through the neck of one of them and the head falls off.

Oh, dabs the other one. It looks like a ham inside. And a cartoon, uh, tramp comes out with like the bindle and the hat with the top coming off of it. And it goes, someone's eating good tonight. Porky pig comes out. It goes, that's all folks. Yeah. Okay. So you're, you are going to kill one and seriously wound the other. I don't want to kill that. And you can totally just knock one out and mostly knock the other one out. Okay. So describe it. Oh, it's just what I said.

I throw the ax at one and it kind of like slices through it. And then the other one, I like, I do the, I think it's the Iron Man or the Thor. There's been so many Avenger references that I've made. Yeah. The jump up. And then like with the weight of my body falling down, I just punch as hard as I can. Just the like, boom, you see the ripple of muscle and fat through his whole body as you just slam its head into the ground. Yeah. Um, and it's like loud. It's like a tree falling. Oh man. Yeah.

And the other one, um, hits the ground and, uh, is like bleeding from this huge wound. And then it starts to, um, change. Its body starts to shift. Uh, Ving, you're fighting this gigantic elephant seal. Uh, yeah. It's pissed off. You talk to it. It is not talking right now. It's just yelling. It's roaring. Basically. You are being very rude. I would like to appeal somehow force the Druid. I want to force him to change.

Do I have the, you have ghost root and I got this spirit water and I put the, I take some ghost root really quick and I shave it. I grind it into like on the rocks. I may have a modern pestle and I'm just like, yes, you wait. And then I put in the thing and I'm like shaking like cocktails. Like you're going to get it now. Like Tom Cruise. Yeah. I'm cocked. I spin it up over my head and catch it behind my back. And I'm like, Coughlin's law, you're going to get your butt handed to you.

And then grab some seaweed. I just like, I don't know. I take some of my hair, put it in there. I squeeze out. I sneeze into the bottle and keep shaking up. And I'm like, I hope this does something. And then I, um, try and force it into his mouth. First, you're going to roll a defy danger dexterity to be able to do this without getting clobbered by this enormous elephant seal. Oh man, this is fucking, fucking great. I am really good at holy foraging on the go. This is my constitution.

Uh, this is dexterity. Yeah. I got a 13. Yeah. It's, it's like a, it's like watching a Jackie Chan fight scene. Like you're, you dodge a blow, grab a thing, duck under another blow as you shake it up. Yeah. I do a backward bend and I'm like, Oh, a mortar. Being so fast because he was bartending that party that we had at our going away party. Yeah. And similarly to that party, we cut away and like a lot of the pirates are watching and being like, Oh my God.

And like even Maggie and Oleander are like, wow, he is a specimen. Uh, yeah. So now roll a defy danger wisdom to see if this will work. Oh, nope. Five, five. Okay. So I, I crushed it up in my hand. I'm like, good night, sweet Prince. And I, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, blow it into his face. Okay.

So I think what does happen is you blow it in the elephant seals space and it like reels back. And all of a sudden there is a massive man standing in front of you. Uh, he's probably almost as tall as tuck probably weighs in excess of like 350 pounds. Like he's muscle, but he's got like a huge gut. Like he's really just a massive dude, big scraggly beard, big, like wet, dark hair. He's covered in tattoos. He's shirtless, leather pants on, but no shirt.

And he had a huge dick for a nose, regular human nose. That's his tail. He's got a walrus. He's got a walrus sticking balls on his face. What he does have is two eyes that look to be made of dark gray sea stone. Whoa. Like no pupils. Yep. Just stone. What? And he, he, he rips the harpoon out of his own human foot, throws it to the ground and goes, you dare and grabs you by the throat and just backhands you back down the beach. Holy shit. And then he is a elephant seal.

Again, roll a D 12 to roll and hit the ground and come back up on your feet. Like you skid backwards on your feet. Yeah. As you hit the beach, uh, Billy. Yeah. You, you've got a seal. One of the smaller ones is basically chasing you through the woods going like Billy is so stressed out cause he's already been running way too much. Yeah. Um, yeah. So Billy is going to run up a tree as if running from a bear. I don't know. Seals probably can't climb a tree. That's what Billy thinks.

Just it's flipper grabs a low bridge. Okay. Defy danger dexterity to get up this tree. Okay. Nine. Yeah. Okay. The seven to nine, you like get up the tree, you start grabbing branches. You climb so fast. You know this about yourself and in no time you're out of reach of the seal and it looks up at you and goes like, Oh, like barks at you. And then there is a rangy, skinny, pale young man at the bottom of the tree. It's just like, get down here. And he starts trying to climb up the tree. Oh no.

Why don't we just talk like as friends or equals? My name is fat Billy. What's your name? And he's just climbing. Whoa, slow down. I keep climbing up. So you try to, are you trying to charm him? Is this like a role or yeah, we're going to try to charm him magically or with just like fairy child. Okay. Then you can just spend your hold and charm an individual. Yeah. So I ask again, what's, what's your name? Why are you so angry at me? Uh, um, uh, what's my name? Help me out here. Jimbo. Jimbo.

Jimbo. I like Jimbo. My name's Jimbo and you have trespassed in the gray. Everybody's got to pay if they trespass in the gray, in the gray. Why can't we just drift through? Like we're, we're not going to be hanging out here very long. No drifting through is still considered trespass. Stone eyes orders. And he's stone eyes. Don't I? He's the, he's the king of the cell keys. Why don't you just ask stone eyes? Hey, stone eye. Why don't you ask one stone? I know he's got two, but they're one.

He's got so confusing. I know. I, we, it's been, it's been brought up. Just mentioned that we're pretty cool. Like we're just floating around looking for stuff and, uh, you know, just trying to do what we can. I'm just trying to do what I can. I'm just trying to do what I can. I'm just trying to do what I can. I'm just trying to do what I can. I'm just trying to do what I can. You know, just trying to do our best. I feel so stressed out.

All, all trespassers that come to the gray have, have designs upon things. What are, what, what designs do you have? You don't simply drift through. We're just trying to get to the frozen north. You passed through our territory though. You have to, if you're coming from McCall. No, there is a way around. Okay. Well, we didn't have time to go all the way around. So we're going to go to the north. So I'm so sorry. You could just put up a toll booth or something next time.

He like hooks his knees on a branch and like hangs his butt down a little bit to like sit like he hooks his feet under a different branch and he just crosses his arms over his chest. He's like a really skinny kid too. He's just got like a little bony chest. How old? I'd say like 2021. Okay. But really like whip lean. It looks like he's definitely relied on his seal form a lot for physicality. It's just like, ah, you're too high up now. Anyways, I can't get you.

So you come down here and I'll, you'll pay for your trespass. I'm not going to come down to pay for anything. Why not? Why not? Because we didn't do anything. We just came through here and you didn't even ask nicely. I think if you all asked nicely first, we could have paid you for. Wait, pay us. What do you mean? Well, you said to pay for trespass. What do you mean? Oh, I know I meant like, like pay with your life. Well, what tribute? That's an interesting prospect. Tribute.

Have you never considered maybe a, something in between living and death? No, not really. Um, what do you offer? I have, but Billy's like, could I save us all? 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. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Oh, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, awkwardly tries not to fall I drop it into his hand almost drops it and holds it and as he's looking at the compass billy that has been broken this whole time you see the needle start to spin in his hands whoa what oh he doesn't oh he hasn't done that before it's nice all right I forgive your trespass small one okay so you will let us all go free no no no no I forgive your trespass stay up here and you will be spared what from the gray from the gray and he puts it in like a pouch in his pants and he keeps he starts awkwardly trying to climb down well hold on I also awkwardly climb down that's not how this works you know ignoring the one instruction he gave and we will cut back to tuck as cutting away as billy goes well hold on starts climbing down after him tuck tuck tuck you've got this one seal under your arms still struggling yeah I just do like a headlock around it and I start like punching him in the face over and over and over again okay hack and slash 13 13 roll your damage six yeah you plus two ongoing so that's eight oh god just hammer this seal into unconsciousness and every time I punch I go you should not bite my ankle again please on ankle it turned into like a bob a person no actually interestingly now that you've like knocked it unconscious uh it stays a seal oh but the person that you wounded uh has become a um a short stocky woman with like long black hair oh and she's just sitting there like holding her shoulder that's bleeding and she's just like and then tuck uh tuck looks at her and is like uh is uh is the fight over or are we talking now she looks at you and you're kind of like if she's laying if there's trees uh like this path that you're on and then like cliff into the water you're kind of to her left next to the seal that you just knocked into unconsciousness and she's like oh my god I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry she looks at you and she gets up and she bolts for the edge oh she's gonna try and jump I chase to catch her okay uh defy danger dexterity oh snake eye okay uh she she races for the edge she jumps off head first and in midair becomes uh a sea lion and into the water and gone and tuck belly flops into the bay you can hear it everywhere around the island it's so loud it's a whip crack things like oh all the all the selkies and all of the sailors go ah it cuts back to those ghost ships and everyone's just like ah with their zombie face ving you come up in your anime backslide pose after getting knocked down the beach by stone eye and uh his elephant seal form is charging you what do you do I'm gonna grab a couple stones and then try and uh jump up double-fisted uppercut while he's over top of me cool hack and slash 2d6 plus strength I got 12 sick great roll your damage six oh nice holy shit this is a very tough individual yeah but you crack them like in his skull with these rocks and rocks on rocks rocks on rocks and you can hear the like resounding crack as you smoke him with these rocks and he goes up and boom like lands on his side and something underneath all this rage he's maybe a little scared oh cool billy yeah jimbo is trying to get back down to the beach he becomes a seal and he's going come back jimbo come back he stops and turns to you in his seal form jimbo is trying to get back down to the beach he becomes a seal and he's going oh hello well I can't talk to you like this and he turns back into jimbo and he's he's sitting cross-legged on the ground what do you want I already forgave your trespass yeah mine but I want you and the rest of your friends leave all my friends alone do you have more to offer I I I do have much to offer um I don't want to I have I pull out like that weird toy that I found under the ship it was it had like a bunch of runes yeah it's like a 131 sided die basically oh cool it was a it was a 20 sided polyhedron okay cool um I I I kind of wipe it down to make it a bit shiny and I I hold it up and like I have this he snatches it now hmm it is a treasure that I found long ago he holds it up to his eye and it is very rare and I've never seen one like that and it breaks my heart it crushes my soul to give it away but it's worth it to save my friends hmm I accept and I shall forgive your second trespass against me and allow you to join me in appealing to stone eyes better judgment oh yes I can do that if your friends can offer a significant tribute perhaps stone I can be compelled to be merciful for now okay and it's as jimbo's putting the polyhedron in his pocket he likes to do that like smiles pretty big like he's getting a good payday and you see his tail which is a mouthful of seal fangs whoa he's got seal canines creepy whoa dude sorry what I'm not there what I don't get to choose it uh and yeah you come down the beach and you see um sailors fighting the selkies that were chasing the illusory tuck and ving fighting a massive elephant seal tuck swimming back to shore he's a tuck actually climbed up and he's dragging the one that he knocked out back to the beach okay yeah so everybody kind of converges on the beach the selkies are trying to get back into the water the sailors are chasing them are being pushed towards the shore stone eyes stone eyes are uh rolling in his head and his huge elephant seal nose is like flaring as he takes in huge gusts of breath and a rangy young man comes down the beach with billy hot on his heels and goes stone eye stone eye and holds up his hands and tries to like get in between you and him I think hits the ground like uh gets to one knee stone ice and he because he's heard of the king and he gets down like to pay tribute and he like basically like hit me if you want to and his elephant seal form rises up very regally as you bow in front of him and jimbo goes they the small one this one he offered me and he holds up the two things the compass and the polyhedron he offered me the tribute they may have things to honor your great might if you might be merciful this could be an opportunity for you to increase your holdings in the and the holdings of uh all of hibernia wait what and uh stone eye turns back into this massive guy and he crosses his arms over his huge barrel chest goes is this true do you offer tribute yeah do we ever yeah and tucks stuffing the knocked out selkie behind a pile of driftwood yeah totally who amongst you is the leader and ollie ender uh steps forward he's like I guess that's me he gets pushed from behind everybody steps back he's still standing there oh fuck uh I don't want to do the back and forth between them but he's basically like hey stone eye nice to meet you heard a lot captain oleander dreyfus and he just goes I I would be happy to work out some kind of arrangement uh if that means that we could pass through your territories unobstructed ving holds up his spear with aliena written into it and he says this is the family name that once walked upon these lands please let us pass in the name of the land that the name is the family name of the land that once walked upon these lands please let us pass in the name of the land that once walked upon these lands please let us pass in the name of the is carved upon my spear in which the name of the land doth walk here once really really fell apart at the end I thought that was pretty good actually it was very moving speech I'm surprisingly out of breath this is an interesting tack being like I represent a family line of hibernia um okay roll um to fight danger charisma oh no fort four so you hold up the spear with the name iliana and stone eye is carved upon my spear in which the name of the land doth walk here once really really fell apart at the end I thought that was pretty good actually I'm surprisingly out of breath this is an interesting tack being like I represent a family line of hibernia looks you and even though he is shorter than you his prodigious girth makes him seem just like a giant among men and he looks at the name iliana and his brow furrows and he spits on the ground he says if you hold the name iliana you owe more than tribute you owe blood and that's where we're gonna end it for this week oh fuck let's do one more episode before I go to the fairy yeah I'm your game master Sean O'Hara joining me as always playing tacoma dome the barbarian abdulaziz so long playing ving the half elf druid Paul Oppers take care playing fat billy the halfling thief jessica tie bye everyone thank you to aaron reed the incomparable aaron reed for our intro and outro music and all of the original music on the show uh written by abdulaziz composed and arranged by aaron reed except for terry not which was written by you right yes I keep forgetting in between which was read by jessica true absolutely I wrote a limbic didn't make it in yet a limbic you did read the act the acts I read I read one I loved yeah right yeah we got a short story the acts uh read by Paul Oppers on there too um yeah check out the soundcloud there's a lot of cool stuff on there we don't pump it up enough I don't think yeah um you can support us as all of our other supporters beautiful supporters do at patreon.com Spout Lore or speltlord.com money please where you get a ton of bonus content hours of audio art merch special world building micro writing like whatever we think up and love we throw on there for all of you beautiful people uh so check that out you can find us online at Spout Lore most places we'll see you next time and so ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can though dumb and scared and lost they be for times of rest 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 spelt you