Episode 13 – Ego Death

Gather round friends, let me tell you a tale of three heroes noble and bold A brute, a druid, and a thief who is but nine years old You know them by name, you know them by deed, their quests are famously daring So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight Fingers have health, he shifts his shape, and wields a spear with great might Peely's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts So gather round friends, and listen close For the tale's about to start Hello everybody and welcome to Spout Lore!

I'm Spout Lore, and I'm a fan of Spout Lore. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello everybody! Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Hello there. And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Hello. When last we left our heroes, they were speaking with M4, the warmack that Ving brought to sentience using a flask of Hibernian spirit water.

M4, after a brief, uh, who am I, what am I, what's being alive conversation, agreed to come with the party and the Riverways Harriers in their attempts to destroy a coal refinery in the clutches of the Firefields Principality. The plan was made that the three and M4, using their various disguises, would enter the refinery under false pretenses, while the Harriers went up and around the hillside in which the coal mine is buried to sort of sneak in the back way and prepare for an assault.

They entered the coal refinery. Ving and M4 went to sort of the mech motor pool. Billy and Tuck went to the medical tent, uh, and met doc, met Mr. Steven Doctor, um, a medic in the employ of the Firefields Principality. And Tuck, in his fugue, perfectly controlled, tactical unconsciousness, used his move Demonize to look out into the void and sense the demonic presence somewhere in the refinery. Or perhaps under the refinery. Billy had a conversation with Mr.

Doctor and discovered that the general plan of the Firefields Principality and the Blackhammer Twins is to more or less take over as much of the Principalities as they can and bring technological innovation and industry to the masses, bringing about a new golden age free of superstition and the remnants of wizardry. At the motor pool, Ving and M4 went to the refinery. Ving and M4 went to the refinery.

Ving and M4 went through sort of a, uh, upgrade process as Ving attempted to help M4 make some key modifications to his physical form using his spiritual essence and control over the elements. He sort of melded iron into M4's body and allowed him to make his own modifications, giving himself two hands and, uh, allowing himself to feed through the front of his chest. There were some prices that were paid at that time off camera. Metal moving about the workshop.

Gathering bits and pieces here and there. Then, meeting in the mess hall during the shift changeover, the party decided to go talk to the foreman, Sir Lee Masterly Thank you to, uh, listener and Discord member Ben for that name. And asked to investigate the mine on behalf of, they said, the Blackhammer Twins and the Royal Family. Lee Masterly agreed to allow you to inspect the mine as long as he could come with. So, inspect you did. He took you to the mouth of the mine.

M4 in his newly modified, beautiful Art Nouveau flowing metal armor form stood watch at the entrance of the cave and you descended deep into the bowels of the mine, finding at the base a coal deposit seemingly infiltrated, laced with fragments of darkest obsidian. And just as, uh, Tuck and Ving were about to succumb to some sort of overpowering spiritual sensory iconic influence, screams were heard. And, uh, Lee Masterly, who was a little bit more experienced,!

That is where we find ourselves now. In a fairy ring. In a fairy ring constructed by Fat Billy. Lee Masterly turns around, sword in his hand, and goes, My God, what's that? I don't know. Screams. Maybe you should go see what it is. I think you mean we. Yes, yes, of course. We. I'll bring up the rear. You go ahead. Okay. Okay. Oh, I see. Rich cowardice. I gotcha. Yes, I gotcha. Okay. And we sprint up the- Right. Your dad was rich. Yes. Who's that? Who's that? Oh, yes.

So the poors have to go in front. Yeah. I'm more of a delegation kind of guy. Get behind the poories. Use your poor, poor flesh to defend me. I'm kind of the guy who's like, makes the deal, the backroom guy. Yeah, so Tuck hears the screams and he runs back up to the top. Yep. We all run up to the top. Yeah. Great. And you run to the top, the mouth of the cave, M4 is there. And he looks down and goes, Ah, good, you're safe. Look. And down the hill into the refinery, there is pandemonium.

People are running around. It's hard to tell what's going on. But seems like chaos has broken loose in the refinery. What do you do? Discern realities. Okay. 2D6 plus wisdom. I got 15. Holy shit. These bones, no. That roll is so high. 15 is so high. 15 is too high. What do your alphys see? Yeah. You get three questions. In the long distance, a woman is walking down the street. And she's like, I'm not going to die. I'm going to die. And she's like, I'm not going to die.

And she's like, I'm not going to die. And she's like, I'm not going to die. And a woman comes out of the bath. Oh. Is it Alison? And he sees Alison. Ving sees Alison halfway around the world. A pin falls. Her shoulder becomes undraped. Who's really in control here? So at first it looks like there's some sort of like regular, like, you know, evacuation emergency, like maybe a fire or a gas leak or something. Yeah. Because you see people running around and officers or leaders trying to keep order.

But then you see coming out of the Mac Bay where Bing was earlier, very strange, like almost arachnid like conglomerations of iron and scrap metal and different materials like crawling very quickly out of the mechanic bay, tearing people apart. So they look like Decepticons. Kind of. Yeah, it's more like metal is flowed up them and is like coming off of them almost like cordyceps mushrooms. Oh, shit. Like. Like tendrils of it are crawling up. Rusty. Yeah. Rumps are growing off of them.

So it's like infectious now? Yeah. And they're tearing their way out of the mechanics bay. And I turn to M4 and I go, M4, you got to get out of here. I cannot leave you. You are too small. We'll be safe. This thing infects machines. We can't risk you. They can't infect me. No one tells me what to do. That's right. You're metal as fuck. And Tuck takes a glass bottle out of his backpack. And he whips it into one of the tubes and it smashes open. It starts playing like one of the pipes. Yeah.

One of the pipes on M4's back. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what does it start playing? Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. But like. He starts storming down the hill. It's like that opening. And then it's like you hear the like speed metal drums come in. Uh huh. It's like a. Come on. It's like a power metal version. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And he starts charging down the hill. Yeah. Oh, and they have sort of like the nouveau touches about them.

Like a little bit of an ask. Yeah. That like. He's like looking at. M4. Looks back at M4 and is like, hmm. Nature's price is being paid. Yeah. Looks at his knuckle in his skin. Oh, yeah. I see. Okay. Yeah. That actually makes way more sense. Yeah. And Tuck's like, man, where could these things have gone? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. It's probably because you don't have dreams anymore. Like it might be Tuck's fault. Is that what you're saying?

I feel so bad for gaslighting the two of you. And then Tuck's like, I did see that vision of Allison that turned into a spider. Yeah. It was my fault, guys. I did this. No, you don't have to take the blame for Tuck. He's like, I did this. I did this. It's because I was greedy and took too many shots. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's because I was greedy and took too many suckers. We did.

We took so many. It's all my fault. There's just these monsters scuttling around the yard trying to attack people. What should I be on the lookout for. Yeah. So what you should be on the lookout for. I guess that depends on what your goal is. Are you just trying to escape now or are you still planning on destroying the Refinery. Do we just burn it all down? Yeah. Now that we know that this is like a mine full of obsidian, is this a bigger threat? Is it more than just destroying the refinery?

And do we have to somehow like foul this entire mountain? I think we should foul it because I think that, yeah, they're getting coal. But I think the main thing, I bet they're secretly mining that obsidian. Yeah. Or they don't know what they're doing. They're using the coal and he's having a greater effect by them using coal that's laced with this obsidian. Yeah. The thing that I've been thinking is that the obsidian in the ground is like, it's basically the body of Christ. Yeah.

It's the Eucharist of the Darkman. Yeah. It's basically the Gibbous Man's Eucharist, right? Yeah. Okay. Gibbous Man. The Darkman. Yeah. I thought you meant to do that on purpose. I thought it was on purpose too. Oh, you know, the Darkman. The Darkman. Oh. Okay. So it's like basically the body of the Gibbous Man, right? Yes. Some folklore would suggest that, yes. Yeah. So, like, I mean, that's what the thief and the maid basically implied.

Like, Lillian shattered the sky and pieces of him fell to earth. Yes. The reign of night. So the reign of night. So cool. So these are like shards that came from the sky. Long ago. Yes. Didn't like form in the earth. Yes. Whoa. So like, okay. I like some, some, some folklores call it the dark pieces of the dark side of the moon. The back side of the moon. Oh, so cool. Before, as it shattered, the blackness on the other side that no one ever sees fell to earth. Yeah. Cool. That's sick.

That's very cool. Yeah. Back that ass up, moon. Back that dark ass up. Ooh, I like that dark meat, moon. The moon's like, what the fuck? Yeah. What are you talking about? Lillian's like, what? What the fuck? That's my dad, man. That's my dad that you're talking about. Yeah. So it would appear that this is a piece of obsidian. Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? Cause your ass is. I think you were going somewhere with the. Right. So like, what are they doing with it is the question.

I think they're just burning it. I don't know. Maybe it's as simple as they're burning it through the max and going up going up the way into him back to his own basic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like a way for him to almost like reconstitute himself. That's a good point. Like the dark wizard getting little bits of himself coming back. Yeah. Every little deed. He's basically free basing his own essence. Yes. That's good.

It's sort of like, if you think about it, like he taught them how to like create a mess. That's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. How to like create mechs. And then was like, here's the coal that you're going to need to run. Unfortunately, they run on this. Yeah. You got to burn this kind of coal specifically. That's laced with obsidian. So then it's a way for him to like build his power back up. It's adding black to the dark.

Yes, that's true. This guy is blackened out. Oh yeah. Cause like in the fire fields, when you look up, you just see like black clouds. It's just his body up there. And you're obscuring the stars, which to me has all the knowledge. Yeah. The druid knowledge. It's what he did with the druids. Yeah. Trick them into hiding themselves away. He's trying to do it all over the land. So sneaky. He's fucking doing it again.

And if he spreads industry across the principalities, then that would black out the sky for everyone. He's the Sbargis. We have to Captain Planet this guy. He's in the industrial revolution. Yeah. Oh yeah. He's like our Jeff Bezos. Oh, we better kill him fast. We're going to slice his throat open. Before he has $1 trillion. Yeah. We have to stop him from becoming a trillionaire and ascending. I think he is a trillionaire. Jeff Bezos? No, there's no trillionaires yet. There's no trillionaires?

It's a race to the trillions. They're racing for it though. Oh man. Do you think I'm still in the running? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Let me check your statement real quick. We're all trying to get there. Yeah. A hundred bucks. I'm way behind. I've never made, see, make that face. It's so funny. Yeah. Guys, I'm way off. It kind of looks like Puppet Pop. It was a great face. That was really good.

I like that we're all at this stage of our friendship where just making a funny face we haven't seen before is the height of comedy. Remember Triangle Face? Yeah, Triangle Face is great. I barely remember Triangle Face. I've seen Triangle Face. Have I? Mm-hmm. You've seen it. Oh yeah. I don't know why it's so upsetting, but it is. I love you, Sean. I don't think we're supposed to eat that many teeth. Triangle Face. What it does to my eyes. You look like a puppet. You look like a marionette.

It's just so much. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle smile. You look like a puppet that's hanging on the wall at a truck stop. How do you do that? If it's a tape, perfectly. Horrible. It's awful. Oh, Jessica's truck. Oh, that's pretty good. You're good there. Yes. I don't think I can do it. The top flip is the hardest part. You've got it. It's so hard. Yes.

I've never seen anyone get it immediately. Wow. Look at you. Jess, so proud. Okay. Okay. So. He basically has control of the Blackhammer twins, and he's telling them to mine them. Mine this ore and burn it in the max. Mine this coal that's spiked with obsidian, which burn it in the max. Which would send it up into the air. Yeah, right. Putting it into the sky. Putting it back into part of his body, like the Dark Lord gathering pieces of his self. That is a very interesting theory.

And parts of it was being breathed in and consumed by the army. And it's physically part inside these war machines. Right. Yeah. And covering all their weaponry and their whole army is coated. Yeah. The convoy we were in was basically a convoy to protect this coal. Yeah. Yeah. And we saw the people in the mess hall who were sad, gaunt, and angry. Yeah. Oh, it's not the soup. It's not the soup. It's not the soup. The obsidian. It's the only thing keeping them alive. Oh my gosh.

And that can explain, because Ving, you noticed that there was something strange about how the max were constructed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It might have been the construction. It might have been the spirits and the materials reacting to the gibbous man's infected coal. It might have been… Actually, can I Spout Lore on this?

Because I think it might have been the gibbous man that gave the firefields designs, kind of spurred the firefields towards this more mechanized nature. Hold on. Hold on. So when you say spouting lore, where would Tuck be getting this information from? The music bottle. This is a music. He wrote an album. Yeah. There's ancient drawings on the cave walls that we're in. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. It was in their manual, their employee manual. No. That we were reading while we were eating dinner. Yeah.

Yeah. Tuck, he hears the icon of servitude talking to him. Okay. Sure. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Okay. He would know that. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. 2D6 plus intelligence, I guess. Yeah. Here we go. So then I rolled a seven. I'm going to use my druidic lore to aid him. Yeah. 2D6 plus bond. Wow. One and a five. Okey doke. So Tuck spends so long thinking about this that he gets shot with an arrow. He's just like, it shoots him. Random guy. He gets shot by an arrow. Just like the lunch guys. Drunk guy.

Yeah. Drunk guy throws an ax at him. Ow. Fuck. Oh, what the fuck? No. So I think at the top of this hill, you're all standing here and a few of the rust monsters that are standing there are just standing there. 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. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. To the surface. You said there's many mines?

There's a bunch of mouths, but you would assume having seen what's at the base that it's all going to the same deposit. A hydra of lava. I love that. That's cool. And it flows up all the other entries into these caves. Fill all the caves and then solidify it. Yeah, just turn it into slag. Great. Call of Nature is 2d6 plus wisdom? Plus con. Plus con. Okay. I want to use eager beaver, so I get plus one. Great. I got a nine. Oh, I aid. Okay, how are you aiding being in this? We defend him.

Yeah, we defend him. Oh, yeah. I guess you form a ring in front of him, a half ring as these things come up the hill. Yeah, so we'll fight these monsters and you do your shit. And it's like the ground shaking and cracking open. Steam coming out behind you. Billy, like, stepping… The aid is just Billy stepping forward and being like, don't worry, thing. We've got this. And then Tuck turns to Vig, and he's like, yeah, I'll take care of it. Thank you. Just doing my best over here. 2d6 plus bond.

Six. Oh, fuck, I'll help. I'm sorry. Okay, you can aid the aid. I'll aid the aid. Come on. Yes, Billy, you're gonna go into bad guy mode and ruin these guys. Yeah, Billy can feel himself going into bad guy mode. I rolled an eight. Great. So eight makes that a seven, makes that a ten. Yes! Plus! Great. Wonderful. So I get three requests. So yeah, this is a call upon… When you call upon the aid of a spirit, choose an element at hand. Lava. And roll plus con.

Seven to nine, you create a physical form of the spirit to inhabit and gain one request. Ten plus, you gain two requests. While you have hold, the spirit will attempt to aid you to the best of its ability. So he's creating a physical form for this, like, lava spirit. Cool. Which is a hydra snake. And he's got his hands down on the ground. And then, like I said, it's bubbling. There's puddles, and they start… Oh, yeah. Mud bubbling up from below. Earth crack opened. Steam. Bubbling lava.

Fire flam. It's like pyrotechnics during a rock show. Yeah, totally. They start firing off. Deep from the mouths of the caves, you can see this little glowing light from down, deep down in the shaft. Oh, cool. Like the ball rock. Yeah. If there was, like, a camera that, like, panned down, it'd be like, you'd see, like, the heads of snakes, like, slithering out from the earth. Yeah. Just like Beyblades.

The thing I was imagining was, like, seeing, like, a tunnel, and then, like, one wall of the tunnel starting to glow red, and the snake, like, burning through it, and then through the other wall and disappearing into the stone. The hissing, burning snake. Yeah. Steam and shooting. Bursting through. We see each little cave of obsidian. Yeah. Well, once you roll those 2d6 plus request, plus three. Okay. Let's see if this succeeds. Holy shit. Boy, does it. 13. 13. Fuck yes! Fuck yes!

Yeah, so from the mouth of the cave, there's, like, bubbling and smoking, and this, like, weird roar is oxygen is pushed out of the caves. You can feel heat washing up from the tunnel. There's, like, heat waves boiling your vision, and, uh, the mouth in front of you at least is sealed as molten stone flows up from the base of the cave. Surly's, uh, running away. He's like, no! My father's investments, no! He's going to kill me! We have to save my value!

Please, poor people, throw yourself into the flames! Extinguish them now! You cowards! Poor bodies to put the fire in! My coal! My valuable coal! This guy is basically Craig DeRock. My equity! He's on his knees in front of one of the mouths of the cave. And then he goes, This accounts for five percent of my family's wealth! Five percent! Which is a trillion dollars. That's pretty good. They have a lot.

But you can, uh, you can feel that at least most of the entry, like, the, this, it will be difficult for anyone to get to this deposit. Yeah. Uh, for quite a long time. Cool. It is not impossible, I will say. You could keep getting the spirit to work on this to make sure it is never again seen by human eyes. Oh yeah, like churn it? Churn it, yeah. I want that. I want it to like, so it's like a solid snake of lava coming up deep from the thing. It splits into a hydra into all these caves. Yeah.

Oh! Comes out and on the other side, Horus Boris, Holus Bolus? Ouroboros? Ouroboros? Oh, Ouroboros. On the other end, collects again into a solid snake. Ah. Churns the mountain side. Cool. Yeah. We cut back up to the Harriers and it's like, is that a lava snake eating its own ass? You guys think it's getting hot up here? What the fuck? Is it getting closer or just bigger? Yeah, okay, well, so 2d6 plus 3 for this. I forgot they were up there. I got 10. I don't know. What the fuck happened? 10.

Yeah. I'm realizing I might have made this move too powerful. It's so powerful. It's too powerful. We'll find a way to fire it. You overpowered literally everyone's moves except for mine. Well, that's because you- You could kill or survive anything. Yeah, yeah, okay. I feel like you fucked up all of our moves. I did, I really did. You guys are unbelievably powerful. We can find a way of fixing this. Yeah, we'll see. I'm sure, I'm sure it is more balanced than I'm imagining. Yes. I like it.

And it is cool. And I like that it's lighting up the battlefield. Yeah. Yeah, I like that this thing like, you know, you hear it like rumbling in the cave and then like this massive glowing snake head like emerges from a cave mouth and then dives back into the hillside. Cool. It is- There's like an ancient firefield's legend of a lava snake too. It's like he's awoken it. Yeah. Meanwhile, Billy and Tuck, these rust monsters are attacking very- We're about to do something. Wait, not as cool. Yeah.

It's really uncool. They're coming up the hill. This is the reverse of that mech fight from a few episodes ago. Oh no, oh no. Redemption! Oh the die! Have seen me in my woe. So there's three of them and they look like a yard sale has a score to settle. There's like just a pile of shit rushing up this hill at you. What do you do? Oh, I grab a shovel. Oh yeah, I do. I'm a bad guy now. Yeah. As I was in inspired. I was inspired by Tuck. Excellent. Yeah. So a bad guy now as we all remember for sure.

Yeah, I call upon my winter form to fight in a flurry. Mm-hmm. Roll plus wisdom. Zero to six, I get one hold, but I'm forced into my winter form until next sunrise. Mm-hmm. Seven to nine is two hold and a ten plus is three hold. Great. Sick. Yeah. And you are in your winter form. I am, so I I don't know, I just- We'll figure something out. I'll push it to two days. Oh. Yeah. What if you- what if it doubles the debility? Because you know how you take- Oh. You take a debility now for winter?

I like that. Yeah. Maybe it doubles the debility. Interesting. That makes sense. Yeah, like in my winter form, my debility is like I don't have any charisma. So maybe your charisma goes- You could take a debility. Yeah. Yeah. To minus one. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Terrible. Alright, two to six plus wiz. Seven. Seven. Holy shit. Yes! Yes! Yes! Perfect. Two holds. Okay. Two hold. Not bad. And you could feel the winter take a deeper hold of you. Yeah, I feel powerful.

As these foes rush towards your family. Oh, and it's like interacting with the heat of like the magma snake that's coming out. Also, Billy's like steaming. Yeah. Oh, so cool. Steamy boy. I like that. He's looking like a little pierogi. Yeah, and one of these monsters right in front of you, it's rushing up the hill. It's kind of like almost a centipede-like configuration of scrap and flowing iron. Iron that is unnaturally flowing. It is not hot, but it moves like liquid.

Wait, sorry, they're molten still, kind of? No, they're not molten. What? The iron itself is moving like it's organic. Creepy. Okay. Yeah. I want to, there's like a shovel by the opening of this cave, so I grab that and I want to like jam it into like any moving parts. Yeah, perfect. I guess there's three holds that I can choose from, so it's I can either terrify an enemy, deal damage to an enemy within reach, or I can freeze someone or something in place.

So I think I'll deal damage with this shovel. And your damage is two d6s. Yes, because of my winter form. Right, in the winter form. Yes, that's great. I have made, yeah, you're right, I've made you all too powerful. I've made you all way too powerful. You are so powerful. Roll a 12! Three. Okay. I need 12 if you pump together. So one and a two. So unfortunately, Billy, this horrible centipede thing is rushing towards you and you are like, oh, fuck you monster.

And you like jam it forward and it just fully clangs off of this thing. The metal like almost flows into the hit. It takes the shovel into its It's stronger now! It grabs the shovel head and like snaps it off of the handle and integrates it into its body. Well now I have a shovel blade. Ah. You do technically have one more hold there. Right, I'll try to deal damage to another one that's coming up. Okay, yeah, to a different one, yeah. This one looks like a shopping cart.

I need more help with these. A mining cart? That's fine. Oh, it's like a broken down mine cart. With like spiderwebs legs? Yeah, totally. Oh, creepy. Oh yeah, like in the Wild Wild West. Yeah, I'm gonna try to chop its legs off. Okay, yeah, go for its little spidery legs. Yeah. That's two sixes. I got twelve. Holy shit! Now you get twelve. Yeah. Hold on, let me look at math for a second. Yeah. Oh, this one's toast. Yes! So how did, what does Billy do to this thing?

Um, yeah, I take the shovel, which is now a blade since the bit's been taken off. Oh yeah, it like sharpened the remaining part of the shovel. It's so sharp that when I slice it's like, it leaves a bunch of like, you know, like stars when you're like, Yeah, sparks. Yeah, sparks. Stars. This is great. Yeah. Yeah, and it's just, the legs are shorn off. Shorn off. And now it's on its like little back with its leg nubs going, ahhh. Yeah.

And the pieces kind of like unconstitute and roll back down the hillside. Uh, Tuck, there's the one that Billy just made stronger and sharper with a broken shovel head. Yeah. I'm running behind Billy like a parent that's like running behind his kid on a pump track. Uh huh. And he's like, alright, you're good, you're good. He sees Billy grab a shovel next to a giant sword. And then sees Billy jam the shovel into the thing. Uh huh. It takes it.

And then he sees him whip around and then slice through another one. And he was like, whoa! Good job, buddy! And then gets slammed in the face by the one that took the shovel. Yeah, you're like pushed back a few feet by the weight of this metal centipede. Shit! And it's, you can see the shovel head that it's formed into this like biting mouth. Whoa! Chomping in your face. Yeah. Clank, clank, clank. A pickaxe, like scorpion tail. Yeah.

It forms, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, out of the legs of the other one. Oh, sick! Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank. Yeah, make it more deadly, guys. Slamming the ground on either side of your head. Whoa! Am I allowed to do this? Yes. It's great. It's super cool. This kind of sets me up for Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.

When you prepare yourself to endure some hardship without fighting back and it's, like, he gets hit by this thing because he was too impressed by Billy's bad guy moves. Yeah. The roll plus con on a hit, you can either take half damage or you can completely ignore one other I'll effect. On a ten plus, you also defeat, expose, or frustrate your oppressor with your stubbornness. Uh-huh.

So it hits me and I kind of like let it take me to the ground and, like, do sort of a grappling move where I try and, like, shred it while it's on top of me. Okay. So you're letting it hit you. Yes. Whoa. Holy shit. Is that… Ouch. You got a 12 too. I rolled a three. I rolled a one and a two. And then my con is three, so that's six. Eight. Someone help me. Oh, I'll aid. Yeah, Billy, how are you aiding? I see the sword finally. Oh my god, there's a fucking sword. Oh, yeah. Look at this thing.

Cool. And I pick it up and, ooh, it's molten. But wait, do you touch it with your winter form? Oh. Oh. It cools the handle to a touch. It cools the handle to a touch. Yeah, cool. But the blade stays red. Yeah. Sick. That's happening. That's what's happening. That's what's happening. Two to six plus bond. Yeah. So plus bond, 12. Yeah. Fuck yeah. So you grab this sword and, like, swing at this thing while it's on the contact? Yeah, I hit its stupid tail. Hell yeah. Yeah.

And it, whunk, shores it right off. Yeah. It makes that screeching, groaning metal noise. Mm-hmm. It throws its balance off, too. Which makes your thing a seven. Yeah. Seven to nine for… Makes my thing a seven, so I only take half damage. Yep. So you're rolling a d8. So that's six. So it gets divided to a three. Yeah. Which is no damage for my armor. Except this ignores armor. Oh, no! Which is, which feels strange. Because it, like, is biting into you and you can feel your flesh rusting. Oh.

Oh, gross. Whoa, gross! Yeah. It's got the effect. Mm-hmm. The cordyceps. Oh, the cordyceps. What's that show called? Last of Us. Yeah, that's what's happening right now. But it's not, it's not giving me a disease, is it? Well, your flesh is rusting a little bit, but so what? So what? Get over it. Okay, so Tuck's pissed and he just punches through the middle of this thing. Yeah, there you go. Nine. Yeah, great. Can I eight again? Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. Sure.

Yeah, you've got your glowing sword. Whoa. Twelve. Jesus Christ. I also punch with the sword. So this glowing blade punches through the chest of this thing, like, two inches from Tuck's face. What? Yeah. Are you okay? Yeah. Oh my god, it tried to stab me! Oh my god, Billy, watch out! These things have swords they can grow. Yeah. They have molten swords that they can just stab out of the… It looks like it killed itself by doing that. Oh my god. That's so scary.

It's like the sting of a bee, the last sting. Go ahead and roll your damage. That's a ten plus for hack and slash. Oh, fuck yes. Oh, that's a four, but can I put myself in danger to roll another d10? Is it d10 or d6? I think it's d6. Are you rolling your damage? Yeah, my damage was a four. Yeah, so you roll a four and then you can roll another d6 by taking additional damage. Yeah, I'll do that. Nice. Two. Great. Totally useless fucking thing. So I take additional damage. Four.

So I took more damage than I gave. So you can feel the rust spreading across the bite on your neck. Oh. You're just like, oh, fuck! It's taking more damage in this fight than I have in the last, like, half season. Yeah. Because the first thing that you did was willingly take damage despite the fact it hadn't really attacked you. You were like, I would like to take damage, please. Yeah, it was a good move.

And then Tug looks at you, Billy, as he gets up and he's like, ugh, I'm really pulling a Ving in this fight. What? Doing something cool? Rolling snakes, like, in a cave of fire. Don't worry, Tug, I'll protect you. I grab another molten sword. Great, yeah. Swing it really cool. Fucking sick. And I land in a Chun-Li pose. Yeah, cool. Swords out glowing, steaming. Leg up. Yeah, leg up. We'll check in on Ving for a sec. Tug gets hit with an arrow. Oh, why? Why do people keep doing this?

Oh, right in my rust. Guys, did you see how I'm rusting? Ew. But yeah, Ving, this I haven't had a tennis shot in years. That's what's happening. I just am getting tense. Oh my god, look, Tug. I'm locking up. I don't want to go back. You're turning into Tin Man. I don't know, I take it back. Yeah, Ving, you've sealed this deposit for generations deep below the earth. You can feel through your spiritual connection this hillside slash the small mountain that it's a part of is having a hard time.

The glowing molten snake is just fucking carving tunnels through it. Yeah, and it's like going up and over the tracks, destroying some of their infrastructure, jumping up, twisting and then turning back into the ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Goes up, does a 360, kickflip, dives back into the mountain, comes back out. Jesus Christ air snake. Christ air, yeah. Jesus Christ air. It's a Christ air. Jesus Christ air. Yeah, so what do you do now? I mean, I guess I still have control of this snake.

You sure do. And this thing's hungry for destruction. Great. Is there a clear path down through these monsters? No. There's two people. There's two, at least two people. There's M4 and then there's like groups of workers. Like there's lots of people down here. And this thing's pretty big, I think, right? The snake? It's quite big. Yeah. It's quite big. So I can make one smaller stake. I leave the majority of the Lovets to the snake. Yeah, yeah. I've destroyed all the things. Yeah.

I have one small lava snake that I want to send down and help tuck. Yeah. I would say it will be a request for it to change its form for you. Okay. So you'd have to roll for this. So this would be 2d6 plus request. Wow. So I lost one. And it fails. I didn't forget. It fails and you lose a request. So it refuses. It's just like, yeah. It's so hungry, it refuses to change its form. That's pretty cool, actually. Yeah. And the fire fields, it's like, there's so much lava here. Yeah.

And I think, like, the influence of the Gibbous Man is probably, like, it has a weird effect on spirits. Also, he's molten the obsidian into its core. Yeah, you can see there's, like, bubbling obsidian kind of in this thing's scales, the molten lava scales. And you do, Ving, this was something that you're sort of just realizing, is the iconic and the spiritual, like, the iconic plane and the spirit world are distinct.

Places their energy is distinct, and some scholars think antithetical to one another. But it seems like the obsidian and this iconic influence is corrupting or infecting the spiritual nature of the coal and the elements around it, which should be impossible. It seems to be what's also happening with, like, these, like, rust monsters, too. Yeah. Because that's nature's price, it's a spiritual thing, but it looks, they, this is not normal for spirits. Yeah, they're not acting within their nature.

No, yeah. It's almost like the spirits themselves, and they're vessels, like, are possessed by icons, which should not be possible. And that is terrifying to you. That makes sense why, um, like, they're rusting. Because it's like, it's killing the the minerals in, like, the iron can't survive this, I guess. It is an impurity. Yeah. It's, like, naturally corruptive. Yeah. I want to stop the snake. It's done its job. I need to end it.

It's like, and I'm refusing this request, and I feel like I have no control while I'm ahead. Yeah. I've learned in the past to let it go. I want to try to, as a request. To dismiss it, yeah. To dismiss it. Totally. Yeah, it, like, it comes up out of the earth and, like, rears its head, and it kind of, like, shakes its body in this really slow way, and molten stone and obsidian are, like, sloughing off of it. Dripping. As it looks down. Geysering. Yeah. Okay.

2d6 plus request to dismiss this thing. Eight. Right. So it succeeds, and it looks down at you, and you can see like, these massive glowing eyes, and it connects with you. And it knows the wisdom in this. It knows the wisdom in sending it back, and it accepts. And it falls down all over Ving. Oh, yeah, and he's just wreathed in lava. Yeah. Molten stone. Because you're impervious to fire, right? Yeah.

I like the idea that, like, it hits you when you kind of, like, stand up and there's this cape of molten lava flowing off of you. Cool. Can I throw some at some of these creatures? You could use elemental mastery for that, for sure. Oh, I want to use nature's fury when I utilize my command of elements to combat your enemies in my damn hand, which does ten. So I just want to, like, throw a spear of lava that will solidify in the air. That's really cool. Cool.

We've let- have we always- remind me, have I made him roll elemental mastery for combat? No. If it's an element that he describes as using- yeah, right. If it's in the environment. Yeah, and you're covered in lava, so yeah. You've also, like, allowed him to have an infinite bandolier of elements, basically. No, I have not allowed. It's just you guys keep saying he does have one. What are you doing? Shut up. You're the one that made it fucking scorpion, dude. You made a fucking scorpion.

I look like a stupid idiot out there. I had to be saved by a little boy. A little fucking boy. A little stupid little stupid boy. I was the one who looked like you out there. The fattest boy I've ever seen. That just saved me. And Billy's just watching this, like- From a lot of fucking lawn chair, dude, because you gave it a scorpion tail. Billy's just got his arms straight by his side watching you say this, like, uh. They are fighting. They are fighting. D10. Uh, yeah.

No, you gotta roll- so this will be hack and slash. We're kind of past the honeymoon phase. Oh, for sure. Oh yeah, what's the opposite of honeymoon? I guess it would be volley, because you're like striking from a distance, right? So it's 2d6 plus dexterity for volley. But it's a d10? Oh, that's for the damage. It would be a d10 for the damage, yeah. Seven. Okay, seven to nine. Go ahead and roll your damage. Ten. That's a ten. Holy shit! Uh, so- Fuck! Ten. Yeah, you torched this thing.

So you still take damage from it. Uh, so go ahead and roll a d8. Six. Six damage. Ignores armor too. I hear ya. And, uh, so the other one- we- oh wait, we've described two. There's the centipede, there's the spider shopping cart. Yeah. What's the third one look like? The lawn chair. A bunch of lawn chairs. You know when, like, when your uncle can't get- figure out how to throw his lawn chairs away, so he just piles them up? I'm gonna repair those someday. It's fine. Sure you are.

Uh, yeah, and you, uh, that thing's like scuttling up the hill. It like crawls over Tuck and the centipede one. To get to you. So disrespectful. Come on, man! Tuck's stuck under the centipede one cause it's so heavy. And the lawn chair monster's butthole's right on your face. Yeah. Like, like smears it down your face. Yeah, it smears this oil rust sheet across my face. Oily, rusty latex. And Tuck's just scared to move cause he's still got like that point of that sword that goes- Yeah.

Uh, but it gets over Tuck and the centipede and comes careening towards you as you like form this javelin out of the lava on your body. Hurl it through. It explodes. Shatters into pieces, but those pieces fly forwards with the momentum. And kind of like jam into your body. Oh. And you can feel the rust start creeping across your flesh. And any metal- you look down and you're like, oh fuck! Cause like this is not a thing that should happen to people. Your flesh shouldn't rust.

And any metal pieces on your armor start to flake away as well. Ugh. Oof. But it is destroyed. And now the last one is on top of Tuck. M4 looks down. He's like, do you need help with that? And Tuck, full of toxic masculinity goes, nah, I'm good. Okay. I'm going to go see if anyone else needs help then. Boom. Boom. I love that Tuck has like been emasculated by us. He's so mad about it. Tuck has been emasculated by a broken mini-fridge. Like he's freaking out at a living appliance. Yeah.

No, no, I'm fine. I'm good. I'm good. I got this. Just let me die. Don't look over here anymore. I got this guy right where I want him. Ow, ow, ow. Yeah, and M4 stomps away to go see if he can clear out- cause there are a couple other rust monsters down there. You drew the attention of a good group of them for some reason. For some reason. He's the obvious threat. And Tuck, yeah, you've got this thing. It's snapping at you. Your chest is rusting over. Billy killed it, didn't he?

No, Billy killed the other one. I killed the cart. Oh, shit. Yeah. And then you tried to kill it, but you did like two damage or something like that. Fuck. Yeah. Okay, so it's still alive. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Tuck didn't realize that when he told M4 to fuck off. Shit. Come back! M4? M4! Cause it was still two, I guess cause it was reconstituting after like the other centipede crawled over him. Yeah. And then it just like started snapping at him again. Ah, fuck! Ah! Yeah, just one more hit. Okay.

Here we go. This is gonna redeem everything that's happened so far. Uh-huh, let's see it. I wish I had a move that did that. What? What? I was just thinking about Black Spire's like his like… Sunstone blast? Oh, the Sunstone blast? His little Yeah. I wish… Is that the sound he makes? Yeah, the little flashbulbs that goes like So cute! Yeah. Like this. Oh man, where is he? Yeah. Can we cut to Black Sp- no. Can I commune with him right now and ask him to- I don't know why you would.

This is the- Why would you make yourself less aware? Blast March, show me how to do that. As you're like fucking arteries being chewed on by a metal monster you're like, just a sec, I gotta take this. Tuck is like, a simple hit will not regain my toxic masculinity. Uh-huh. I need to do something so cool. So he tries to commune with Black Spire with the purpose of, feel free to veto this, getting Black Spire to do the Sunstone activation cause that transferred to his like, things in his chest.

What happened when you did that last time? When I was dreaming, he was showing me how he could do like, Sunstone breath. Yeah. It was like these like, flashbulbs of incredibly intense Sunstone light and then when I woke up, the coins were glowing with like, Sunstone light. Uh-huh. I do like this. I wanna commune with him. It's pretty cool. And you said, It's kinda cool. You said that there was a corruption in the spirits that was an iconic corruption. So you're like, it's already allowed. Yeah.

No, that's not the part that's not allowed. You already allowed it, Sean. So Tuck punches himself in the face to fall asleep. Wait, hold on a second. Hold on a second. Sean. Uh-huh. I don't have any balls anymore. My husband-wife took them away from me and my son sliced my dick off too. That was not our intent. No, what I was gonna say was that your girl let me do that. No, what I was gonna say, no, the part that I think is ridiculous is the making yourself unconscious.

You've already set up the fact that this void connection happens when you're awake too. Why would you make yourself brain damaged in the middle of a fight? Oh yeah, just stay awake. Just don't do that part. In order to do this. Okay, I'll stay awake. It's still barely makes sense. But Tuck, he does the thing where he takes a breath. And it all goes slow-mo. Yeah. This thing snapping at his face. He like looks over at Ving. He's got this like beautiful like symphony of lava around him. Uh-huh.

He looks over at Billy. He's got like six more grape suckers in his hand. Hey, work. Get those from… I'm not telling you. That's too much sugar in one day. Tuck's having a hard time. It's almost bedtime. That's too much. This is gonna give you bad dreams. Tuck's just like, wow, this slow-mo thing is taking a long time. It's usually not this long. Uh, yeah, so, it's slowing down and this is the connection with Black Spire attempting to take form.

Yeah, and it's like the camera like zooms in on his face and he like closes his eyes and attempts to connect through the void with Black Spire. Yeah, okay, so this is gonna be a 2d6 plus wisdom. Uh-huh. And then we'll see what the dice say. I need a dice. I dropped all of mine. No. No. We couldn't even I couldn't even… Tuck Abdul tried to find the die and realized it was one of the little ones and got so wrong. I fell into the tiny crooks in my closed fingers and couldn't be grabbed.

You just get like stuck in there? Ew, no! Here, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it. He's good, he's good, he's set. Here we go. 2d6 plus wisdom. Okay, okay, okay. This is cool. Black Spire. Oh, thank god! Oh, no. That's so funny. Oh, man. Wow. Wait. So cool. The die are directing this episode. Snake eyes. Fuck, how the fuck did that fucking happen? Did you sleep with the die's wife? Fuck! Fuck! So what does happen? I can't fucking believe that happened. I'm actually sorry.

But it's really funny. Yeah. But I'm also sorry. I hate this feeling. I'm so sorry. It's so funny. It's so funny. It's the worst role you've ever done. It's the worst. I know what I'll do. And it was so cool. It's so cool. Don't worry, I know what's gonna happen. I'm about to be murdered. Okay, what if we just wipe Sean's memory? What if we stop the recording and beat the shit out of Sean? Okay, so go ahead and roll two six plus wisdom. You get a plus five.

So you try, you're like, okay, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do a thing I've never done before. I'm gonna commune while awake with my dragon bro halfway across the world and summon some sort of Iron Man chest beam. Yeah. Basically, that's what he's doing. We all know this is gonna work. One, two, three. Oh no. I'm just getting stabbed. But there's a huge, like you're holding this thing, like you are like, wait no, I'm still in a fight and you have to like hold it back.

But I don't think that the failure is necessarily straight damage. I think you hear a rending crash from below. What? And you like turn towards the yard and you see like smashing through the side of the mech bay is a rust covered warmac. It is like got these tendrils of rust sort of in an Art Nouveau style crawling up its body and almost like reaching into the air and it tears itself out of the bay. There is another threat on the field.

Oh, and when it tears itself out, there's like a howl comes out of the pipes. Its pipes are like It's like so in pain. Yeah. You said that the pipes have the faces of animals on them. Sometimes, yeah. These ones kind of look like all tendrils of rusty spider legs coming off. It's just all gross. Yeah. Look, it looks like it's got like a fringe of like crawling spider legs on its back. There's like smoke pouring out of them. Yeah. Yeah. It took took Fuck. Billy, what do you do?

Billy, I got dibs on the big one. Dibs. You just gotta get this little one off me and then I'll be A-OK. Oh, no. I will defend. I'll use defend. Yeah, defend. Defend totally works. Yeah, I roll plus constitution. 2d6 plus con. To protect Tuck from this thing that is just slowly murdering him in front of you. Nice. Twelve. Oh, fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. Wow. Holy shit. This is fucking crazy. I just pass these ones to you. So on a defend, I believe you get a play anymore.

I don't want to play this game anymore. Billy does is he commutes with Black Sparrow. Okay. He like touch tone dials the chest. He just opens Tuck's mouth and starts yelling into it. Black Sparrow. Yeah, so I think you get three hold with defend on a 10 plus. Oh, shit. OK. I'll deal damage to the attacker equal to my level. So you're level five right now? Yes. Yeah, so you can spend that hold and deal five damage. Great. Well, are you still using your like burning sword?

I am and I'm going to try to cut its head off. Yeah, totally. What's in its side of it? You can try and rip it up through it. Oh, yeah. That's what I do. Oh, you don't even have to roll. You just deal your damage. You spend the hold. You grab the sword. Yank it up. Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. And it splits up the top and now it's kind of like got two halves that are waving back and forth. Oh, like T-1000. Yeah, it looks like it's barely staying together.

It's like trying to the two halves are like grasping at each other trying to pull it back together. And it's like little spider legs that are trying to like reach each other again. You see them like once in a while they'll like blink and then yank and it gets a little bit closer, but it's holding it's having trouble. Can I redirect an attack from Tuck to myself? Absolutely. Yes! I can do it! Tuck, believe in me! I do believe in you. What are you doing down there? This is my fault.

Can you get up and get your head in the game? He's taking damage for you. Fuck you! And it like peels itself off of Tuck and you can see like it's little legs are like pulling out of Tuck's flesh. And then it like rears back lazily and flops towards you. Yeah, and I'm being like, hey, come here and suck my D! Whoa! Brilliant! I wonder where he got that from. I bet you can't beat me up. I bet you can't get me, you stupid little worm. Great. Yeah, it's gonna try and attack you for sure now.

And I'm swinging the hot sword around. It's cooling off. You're basically doing a what are you waiting for? Yeah, I've seen Tuck do it enough and he's like, I'm gonna make Tuck feel really cool. If I do Tuck's moves successfully, that'll make him feel better about himself. You try to get this thing to attack you and you get your wish. It is attacking you. How are you defending yourself? Yeah, I'm defending myself with a sword chopping away at it.

To be clear, this is defy danger because it is attacking you. Okay. Defy danger dexterity. Okay. Five. Five. Shit. So this thing's gonna bite you. Okay. You're taking a d8 of damage. Okay. One. Okay. Yes. It's barely nicks me. Yeah, and it slices you with like a jagged piece of metal. Yeah. And you can feel like the little cuts start to like harden and rust on your, and your flesh is like flaking away. Ew. Ew. What? But it is now wide open for an attack.

For my last hold, can I give a plus one to that ally? Yeah, totally. Which ally? Ving. To Ving, yeah. Yeah, I assume. Yeah, it's distracted. I assume. It's distracted trying to attack Billy. So what do you do? Tuck's like, yeah, I didn't want that plus one anyway. I see what Ving's up to. You called, you called the other one. You want the other one. Tuck's still under it. Uh, Ving, this fight has been some might say embarrassing, but now's your opportunity to kind of end the current threat.

Uh, this half split in half centipede monster made of metal is trying to attack Billy. What do you do? I just walk up and tear it in half. Whoa. Cool. Cool. The rest of the way. Yep. I didn't know that. That was an option. That's so cool. It's awesome. Hack and slash. 2d6 plus strength. I got nine. Nine. Could Tuck aid me? It would be funny if Tuck was just like kicking at it from the ground. Yeah. Ving's like pulling it apart.

And Tuck's underneath it, so as Ving's trying to rip it apart, Tuck comes in from the other side and touches his hands. Great. That's, yeah, ten. Ten, there you go. So strong. Yeah, roll your damage. Careless Whisper plays while we do it. Yeah. Your eyes meet. Um, which is a d6. Three. And enough's not quite. Fuck. Are you kidding me? It's still alive? Not quite. Not quite. But your eyes meet. You're like pulling it apart. It's, it's, it's armor has been like rent apart basically.

You're now just the juicy Tuck. Organic iron parts. Come on. Uh, yeah, Tuck uses um, he uses his scrap of ass to disengage and go right after the big one. Oh my god. You don't have to disengage from this thing. It is attacking Billy. I'm fine. I have 17 hit points. I'm here. We're here. Tuck. Tuck now. You guys got this, right? Yeah, Tuck does that. He's like, good teamwork, Ving. As he's like pulling it apart, he sees the big rusty thing through the bug. He's like, oh yeah.

And Tuck goes running down there all set. Oh, oh, what are you doing? What are you doing? Thanks for your help, Ving. Make sure Billy's okay. I got that. Great. Yeah, you run down the hill. M4 is down there. He had a full ego death during the last 30 seconds. Tuck, you run down to the yard. You see M4 is dealing with like a group, was dealing with a group of other rust monsters that were harassing people.

Like he just, you come down and you see him stomp on one, just crush it into pieces, pick another one up, hurl it into a building. It crashes through the brick wall. And Tuck goes, teamwork makes the dream work. And he turns around and he gives you a thumbs up. Oh, his new thumb. Yeah. And you see the rust covered Mac stomping out of the cave. I'm running right for it. Great. And Tuck, it all goes slow motion. Okay. And Tuck closes his eyes. Okay.

And he tries to connect with the box fire one more time. You can do it birdies. He's sprinting. Yeah, he's going slow motion while he's running full tilt. Full tilt. Has this ever happened? A thing that might not be possible. There's no way to know. I don't think we've done this. He's gotta believe. And Tuck's like, this is the only way to make everyone think I'm cool again. I bet you all the Harriers saw that embarrassing fucking thing. They totally did. Yeah. So he's gonna try to do it again.

Okay. I love your face right now. 2d6 plus wisdom I guess. He's gonna try to do it again. Alright, roll it. 2d6 plus wisdom. You know what? What? I think we're gonna bring your new move into play. I think your abject failure the first time around tells Tuck that this might not be possible. Oh, breaking the law. So maybe you need to spend to take a debility to make this possible. Yes.

So, kind of based on his kind of ability to sort of just muscle through the rules of the world, we created this move called breaking the law where I can force an impossible thing to happen like when I force the little magic crystal battery out of the fanny pack, but I have to take a debility to even attempt it. Yes. To be clear, it's not to make an impossible thing happen, it's to make it possible. Momentarily while I make a roll. Yes.

So I will take an ability to consti- I have so many constitution moves. Charisma. I'll take a debility to charisma. Oh, interesting. Because if I fail at this, I'll look like such an absolute like, cuck. You're just gonna cuck yourself in front of all these people. Coma-dome. Fuck. Fuck. In my mind- Oh no. Coma-dome. In my mind when I said cuck, I was like I'm gonna cut that out, I don't like that word. And then you said that and I was like, well that's too funny. Gotta keep that in.

You have to leave it in now. Okay, so I have a- now I have a minus one. To charisma, and I will roll. You're basically like really focusing on bending the possible laws of reality. Yeah. Yeah. The camera turns to a shot where like as soon as he closes his eyes, you see like the fabric of reality start to like twist. As he like reaches out to like Black Spire to like kind of make a connection between the two of them. Cool. In this like very inideal circumstance. He wants your lucky dice.

Give me your dice. Give me. Achoo! Achoo! As the reality is twisting, I like that we see that crystal battery like boom. Oh! Pop into your void. Oh cool! That's where it went? It went into like the void in my head. I don't know, yeah. That's cool. That's interesting. Yeah, that's so cool. Or maybe it's just- Like it's just drifting around? Yeah. Yeah. And there's like- there's also like a little fragmentary like floating dust mote of ward stone.

Oh, from when he cracked the- From when he cracked the box. Yeah. Cause that's the other kind of impossible thing that he's done in the past. Yeah. Okay. Tuck. 2d6 plus wisdom. 2d6 plus wisdom. Please, please, please. He's sprinting full tilt. It's so slow, Mo. He's- He's giving it- He's sprinting full tilt. It's so slow. Where are you going? Why do you look like that? What are you doing? He's like, please. Please. Let this work. Please. You'll be intolerable if this doesn't work.

And M4's like, metal as fuck. And then yeah, Tuck's running full tilt, closing his eyes, reaching out to his best friend, Black Spire. Wow. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm telling you, you're overrolling the die. Oh, man. Tell my guys. I need this to work. No, it's slightly better than last time. It is. It's slightly better than last time. I got a 4. You got a 4. I rolled 3 on the die. It's plus 1. Okay. Is it salvageable? I don't know.

Wait, do you roll with anything? Do I take a plus 1 for anything? No. Do we use our discerned realities from before? We would have had to use them. From a thousand years ago? We would have had to use them a long time ago. Tuck's slow-mo suddenly comes back to regular speed as you just get backhanded across the yard by the rust mac. So sad. But you do see Heartbreaking. Anybody watching for just a moment would see a gentle flash of light from Tuck's chest. Whoa! As you slam into the ground.

Tuck skids for like 40 yards. Just on gravel. There's like chunks of stone coming out of the But your legs are up behind you like that. I'm full scorpion. I forgot I gotta look at the damage How much damage do you take? Oh no. Oh no. It's so many. What is this? It's a roll of d8. That's one of the bad ones. And then you roll another. No. 6. Plus 5. No! Okay so 11 damage. Minus your armor. Minus 3 so that's 8 damage so I have 11 hit points left. Oh no.

I literally have in the last few minutes lost 15 hit points. Oh my god. That's a lot of hit points. Okie dokie. Billy and Ving. We're stunned. What is he doing? This is hard to watch. You guys are still fighting that other one. Oh yeah Billy this stand up heat thing is still trying to bite you. Oh fuck. So annoying. I'm trying to rip it open. Yeah and I just shove the sword deeper into it like trying to carve down it. I'm like limboing with almost stabbing Ving.

Great yeah this is hack and slash 2d6 plus strength. Yeah. What is going on? These are cursed dice. Wow. Holy shit. Two. I failed. It's another snake guys. Fuck. Yeah fuck. It bites you. You're getting stabbed and like raked by this thing's legs. Oh my gosh. So roll a d8. 4. 4 damage. It's just leaving like trails of like blood and rust down the front of your body. Oh Billy. And you were also already pretty fucked. Up I believe. Yeah I reopened all my stitches. Oh no.

And Steven Doctor is not good at giving stitches so they were already falling out. Yeah. Ving. Yeah. You're like holding onto this thing but it's like parts of it are moving towards Billy that are like independent of what you're holding onto. That's so gross. But you've got it held. What do you do? When Billy reefs a knife up through is it still a hot knife? I think it's pretty hot. Yeah. So it's maybe melting the metal a little bit still. Yeah a little bit yeah.

Okay one of you use that liquid metal to use nature's fury. I'm gonna utilize the element of iron to spread weakness back onto him. Yeah use the molten metal against it. And making it gummy so I can rip it in half. Sweet. Hack and slash 2d6 plus strength. Okay I got 9. 9 yep. That is enough. So go ahead and roll your d10 damage. But you will be taking damage from this. Great. 10. 10. Roll a d8. 7. Oh! Whoa! I have one hit point. No! What? Yeah. What? I have one hit point now. Holy fuck.

Okay so you uh you basically like grip this the top half of this thing and like in you realize that you gotta get a good hold on it. But in holding it you're like digging the metal into your own hands. And it's because it's as it's like the it's feeling the heat. Yeah. It turns from Billy and just like launches its legs backwards. Oh! Yeah it just completely flips around. Yeah.

Yeah like you know when you're like holding the worm and the worm is like it feels like facing a different way all of a sudden. Yeah. Like it just flexes towards you. And digs into your body. Do the legs like go through? Yeah I think they're like. That's a lot of damage. 7 damage. Yeah like your legs or something. And the rust like it goes through like your feet like into the earth.

But you do like get this thing right where it feels like the the like leverage point on it is and you just rend it in two. And the clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk. Oh shit. It falls apart as you rip it in two. Jesus Christ. Ahhh! Oh my gosh. Yeah. And you are fucked up. Can I help? Can I help? Have a poultice. You guys would have to basically run away. Like to apply a poultice in the way that would help you would have to get out of here. Can I use escape route? Yeah. Yeah you can use escape route.

Am I able to bring Ving with me? I think no in the past escape route has just been for Billy yeah. Can I make a fairy circle? Yeah. But you would be taking yourself out of the fight. If Ving takes one more hit he's fucked. He's dead. Yeah. I'll make a fairy ring. I like that he's like off the ground by like four inches with all this metal throwing his body into all different spots. It's just like What is happening to me? 2d6 plus dexterity. Fuck! Ahhh! Four. Okay. Okay. So fairy ring.

What is a failure with fairy ring? I mean this ground is like alive with spirit right now. Oh and with like demonic influence. It's just it's poor poison. Yeah. And like the fairies don't want to take root here at all. Yeah and Billy can't he can't like summon it I guess. Mm-hmm. Fuck. So you just yeah you can't so what is the six what is the failure? What's the hard move here? Oh I think it's you feel the earth beneath you after being carved out. Oh shit.

By the lava spirit like you feel like fuck and then oh maybe the there's a rock slide. Oh from the cliff above? Yeah. Oh yeah. Maybe like we feel the ground shift but nothing moves but then we still hear it like it rolls. And there's like a small rock like it rolls down the hill past our heads. Like in Jurassic Park with the cup going boom.

Yeah totally it's like it feels like nothing's happening for a second but you see the rock tumble down from the top and you look up and you see just a wall of stone rolling towards you. How do you protect yourselves from the rock slide? Wait do you still have that thing where you can shift into the fairy world? Yeah. Shadow shadow wait no cause I Do you still have the one where you can take people with you? I would have to use a fairy child and I don't have any left.

Oh you don't have any fairy child anyways. Cause Shadow Dance I think you needed fairy child as well. How long have we been fighting? We could no. It's night. It's night. I can try elemental mastering from this as like a last ditch effort. Oh like cover yourself in like a dome or something? I let me think of something sorry. Yeah no this is a tough situation. So there's M4s in play but he can't get there in time?

Yeah cause you guys are basically like still up near the mine mouth and M4s down in the yard. And you're down there closer to him. Yeah and I'm maybe fuck passed out I don't know. No you're not passed out but you're basically doing the like Okay. I think trying like to just try to elemental master. A bloodied hand and stop and create a wall of a protective dome. A dome of the stones that are all around. They might just I think that might be the only thing you could do. Yeah. It is risky.

Very risky. I mean the elements are already kind of out of control. Yeah. Ving reaches out with a bloodied destroyed hand and I'm gonna try an elemental mastery from this pierced ground and stop these rocks. Gather some rocks around me. And Billy is here with me. Okay 2d6 plus constitution. 7 plus 3 is 10. Holy shit. Okay. Two of these. Yeah. The effect I desire comes to pass and I avoid paying nature's price. Yes. So you do not retain control. Of the avalanche.

Which I guess you don't really want to. No. You're just trying to get it past you. So you reach your hand out as this wall of stone is coursing towards you. Threatening to crush you, Billy, Tuck, everyone. And like a hand, a boulder out of the boulders like a boulder hand. Yeah. In front of my hand. Yeah. Stopping when things are bouncing off. Yeah. Flying over top. Oh like a hand forms in front of you? A hand. Oh cool yeah. Like it comes out of Out of the boulders. Sick.

It comes out of the mirror of my hand. And you're shielded by this yeah this wall this torrenting wave of stone. It does launch down into the yard. I think M4 takes a good smash from it cause he's trying to come up the hill to help you. Right. Oh are we in like an iron giant scenario where M4 sees the rocks coming and sees Tuck like getting up? Oh yeah. And then just steps in front of Tuck and takes the hit? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Yeah that's totally what would happen. Yep. So there is Okay.

He goes I'm metal as fuck. Oh yeah. You soft as mad. Me metal as fuck. And so I think what we see is the rocks coming down. Ving holds up the hand of stone and grabs Billy and pulls him in. And like the stones flow around you. Shoot around you off down into the yard. And this wave of stone destroys buildings like it's just crushing the refinery. Like a smoke stack. Boom into the yard. Buried under the stone. You hear Master Lee in the distance go My investment!

And uh just before the wave hits where Tuck would be M4 like spins his head around like his head is spinning back and forth. It looks like he's doing calculations. Yeah. Whoa. It focuses. One of the lenses focuses. Yeah. And M4 having made some calculation turns to the side and steps in front of Tuck and disappears under the wall. Of stone. And that's where we're gonna end it for this week. I'm your Game Master Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz.

So are. Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers. Take care. Playing Fappily the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai. Bye everyone. Thank you to Aaron Reid for our intro and outro music. You can check out Aaron's original music at aaronreid.bandcamp.com where you can also find his special Soft Bug Ego Jazz. Yeah. Yeah. So good. We'll include a link to it in the description. Yeah. Link in the description. Check it out. Great. Aaron's probably one of the funniest people alive.

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