Episode 23 – The Fanny Pack

If you like our show and you'd want, and you want to hear some more of our show or similar shows or content that didn't get into the show, go to the Patriot and there'll be some of that over there. Oh, that was good. You bailed on yourself. 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. Billy's a thief. His tiny size does mask the largest heart. Best and brightest. They may not be, but their friendship, their ways, 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 your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello, everybody. Sorry I yelled at you, Jessica. Thank you. Playing Bing, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. I'm also sorry I yelled at you, Jessica. Thank you. Playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Thank you. When last we left our heroes, they arrived at the outskirts of Sheer City, part of the free territories of the North.

They arrive at the city and stop at Yorick's, a motor inn on the outskirts of the city, run by an old ass orc named Yorick. Run. Possibly run into the ground by. Yeah. Possibly squatted in by. Yes. Also, orc is in quotation, marks too, because he was really asserting that he's for sure an orc. Definitely specified a lot. His orcishness. They spent some time in Yorick's, a dusty old motor in with no other customers or visitors of any kind.

He upcharged them on everything or tricked them into paying for multiple things, including a bottle of alcohol that he just referred to as old blue, which we then all decided was distilled with the magical waters. Uh, found in the frozen North soaking up magic from long, long ago and locking it in the ice deep beneath the surface. Perel slammed it, which sent him into a drunken stupor slash, uh, drunken master, drunken master vision.

He was absolutely plastered and used his ion candle to meditate on a subject using something called the boundless thought principle in which he folds his mind into many minds. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. There are many possibilities at once. He came to suddenly said, I know how to get my magic back and then immediately passed out. Uh, and Ving was a penis on his forehead. I mean, everybody took their time to draw a penis on Perel's forehead.

And then we rolled him into the recovery position because we're friends. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Leaving him to, uh, to heal in a previously boarded up room that York cranked open for you with mirrors on the roof.

Roof and shag carpet on the floors Ving attempted to help by calling on the elements and spirits and instead received a troubling vision of Cloudpiercer the Thunderbird in danger fleeing towards the city of Shire running outside to see his friend Ving saw Cloudpiercer descend through the clouds followed closely by Thronebreaker king of all Thunderbirds oh yeah that rack focus when you zoom that you move the camera towards a character and zoom at the same time on his face as Thronebreaker came in from the clouds behind him oh yeah like this yeah and Ving took on a magical bird form made of moonlight ice and concrete gravel parking lot debris yeah garbage Tuck and Billy hopped on and rose into the skies passing through the cloud cover and finding a pitched battle a Thunderbird civil war of sorts the storm itself lashing out in fury a battle was undertaken Tuck did a Thor Ragnarok style jump off the back of Ving's bird form it was the coolest thing I've done probably all season yeah it was amazing yeah I said it's gonna be painted on the side of a van someday yeah oh absolutely before I jumped I said someone draw this I told the fan I said someone do fan art of this and then Tuck yelled remember me and jumped I hope Trevor driver's doing that on the side of the side absolutely that's what he's doing yeah next time you see his truck it's gonna have an airbrushed painting of Tuck fighting Thronebreaker Tuck shattered Thronebreaker's bezoar causing the immense massive Thunderbird to flee and Cloudpiercer took you back to the roost of his forces in the mountains where you can find a safe place to rest and heal for a moment as you discussed your current quest of heading further north to the jaws and the glacial tower of Adderneck all water cool and he wrapped up this beautiful reunion explaining to you that he had recovered something that you had once lost and brought to you a simple leather fanny pack and that is where we find our heroes now he stands there for a while with the fanny pack in his beak I take it from him I hug him his neck a big wing comes up around you enveloping you in a feathery hug so this is so it is it's this is yours then right this is yours there's only one way to find out and then Tuck flips it open and whoop whoop whoop whoop it unfolds into a tent it's our house it's there's only one way to find out Tuck says again and he walks inside and on the shelf is a butternut squash absolutely rotten I like the idea that it's gone through the rotten phase into a dehydrated perfectly preserved it still holds some of that shape yeah hot what was I doing with this Tuck says was I jerking off to this or what was the thing Billy looks away I don't want to talk puts a hand on your shoulder yes yes you were was I yeah you were like you bought that gourd because it was the shape of a woman and you were like it's for me laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing okay so by way of an actual reintroduction into the space instead of immediately rack focusing on a shelf with a rotten butternut squash kidding me no we're keeping that alright so yeah you head back in and you see almost exactly as you left it a sitting room with couches and chairs a fireplace a painting of a very arrogant looking wizard with mutton chops and a mustache mustacheless beard above the mantle beneath is like a brass plate that morris put there it says morris wadge a man ahead of his time you know what it because I remember it did say morris wadge master of arcane architecture but it does now say morris wadge a man ahead of his time wait what yeah the plaque says something different what yeah and uh you see a kitchen a small kitchen with a little potbelly stove cupboards a drawer that is absolutely full of stolen rags and uh various detritus like forks and spoons and stones yeah smells like a barn in here it does and it still has like the charcoal uh circle I drew around it being like billy's room right all your handprints yeah yeah it's got a flap on the other side leading to another section presumably but with a note pinned to it that says danger room do not open and it's toggles that are keeping it closed right yeah it's just wooden like tent toggles can I discern realities yeah absolutely great seven eight so you get one question off the discern realities list okay I remember it being bigger thing says and then tuck puts his hand on his shoulder he's like it's because you've grown buddy what happened here recently what happened here recently uh you look around and the thing that you are like really surprised by is how much everything looks exactly as you left it the butternut squash is seemingly worse for wear for some reason but like all the stuff you go to your drawer and everything is where you put it where things were dusty where you didn't clean they're still dusty in those places and you're 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 I'm so sorry but there are some spots that you did dust that are undusted like it's it seems like a lot of this place is precisely as it was when you left it ving's apothecary that he had set up with mason jars yeah they're like some of those should have been gone bad they're still good yep yeah and maybe one is like a couple centimeters to the right you know but besides that wait what why the right why senate what's a centimeter thing says I don't know yeah the standard unit of measurement here is a gall's 10 there's a half empty jar of uh mirrors's red pepper jelly yeah is it still good tuck dips his finger and taste it yeah it's still good billy dips his fingers in it you realize that it was done in the mudlark style which means that it was never good to begin with it was already fermented past any reasonable consumption what else could have gone bad in here tuck starts tasting things diving into the fridge what what are you getting dice for I don't know to figure out what's gone bad you can just check you know I mean if you want to discern realities to get actual information for sure but you don't have to roll the taste of thing okay uh yeah tuck just starts tasting things yeah most stuff tastes exactly like you'd expect it to taste and then tuck goes most of it tastes exactly how I would have expected it to taste but there is a little bit of there's a little pang of like uh a heartburn no there's a little pang of nostalgia because you're tasting a lot of the flavors that mirrors used in his cooking oh billy's taking the the red pepper jelly to his drawer and he's having alone time ving's gonna try and make a what was his thing yeah I'm gonna try and make a with based on my memory in the tastings I'm gonna whip up some pie we need some food yeah we're all pretty beaten up so ving starts the half day process of making paella I'm just gonna wake up with quick paella and as you're all standing there an enormous bird's head pokes into the room is is everything all right I didn't he looks around and goes I don't know what I expected this to be but it wasn't this I remember you having a fanny pack and I forgot that it did this do you want to come in I don't think that I can I am I'm grown now I'm a I'm a man bird I'm a full grown bird man do you have a wife or a kid or something I have yet to find a mate oh so you're still a virgin I I am a warrior above all things whether or not my cloaca has kissed that of another bird is beyond here or there the battles that has been my primary concern oh yeah the storm halting throne breaker and his heralds what happens if throne breaker wins the storm scours the planet all right kills everybody yes it is all throne breaker and his wish for is the destruction of the storm well how do you win what's your plan I've been fighting so long I scarcely wonder if I remember something has to be able to stop the storm I I fear it is throne breaker's death should I spell laura yeah yeah go ahead does someone not fucking stupid you're all unfortunately stupid so I think that anybody has an equal chance wait wait a minute because I have a special move because I'm a bard bardic expert when you first encounter an important creature location or item which I guess is the storm yeah you can ask the gm one question about it and the gm will answer truthfully the gm may then ask you what legend song or tale you heard that in what are my things again gods and their servants legends of guitar heroes past and histories of the grand world would lily encounter as a god yes yeah yeah okay and wouldn't like throne breaker he's probably going to be the one who's going to be the one who's going to be the one who's going to be the one who's going to be the one who's going to be the one who's going to kind of considered a servant of those gods yeah he is a servant of the storm the store I would say that counts yeah which is a god in its own right yeah how do you stop the storm sean that's a very interesting question because there aren't any stories like this really this is all these are connections that tuck is trying to make himself based on his experiences and his knowledge god connections I have to it's just I have to go to my mind palace which is just a this is a question I'm going to ask you I'm going to ask you I'm going to ask you I'm going to ask you down pizza hut where he does brain crosswords he's just sitting like word searches in his own mind in the booth of a sit down pizza hut he's got one of those kids drawing yes tables I connect the dot he's making his own connected dots remember so many crayons scattered and broken crayons and then a menu that you can color on and everybody else in the sit down pizza hut looks like tuck but wearing different clothes so there's somebody in a pizza hut uniform that's like wait so okay so here's what I'm thinking so you guys went to this moon rock right yeah and that was like part of uh lillian's like uh mind and spirit like where savarna was no not savarna the other one under the under the tower but he goes but savarna though uh so no not that one the one under the fort oh right where storm and norman was yeah where we fought the the magi right where where yeah where we killed roth yeah so there was a moon piece down there right!

And that was like a big thing of like grief yes that infected billy and everybody while we were fighting right it made us all really sad when I smashed it with the axe yeah yeah yeah so what if the storm is connect because you're you're the knife glows in the storm yeah so what if the storm is connected to another piece of the moon oh yeah and if you destroy that would that end the storm another talk just came and put pancakes down it's like so so I gotta find whatever piece of the moon is connected to the sadness and then kill it I I don't know I guess okay it's got to be moon stuff right it's got to be moon stuff yeah and then it cuts to like what tuck is actually doing and it's he's standing there with a with looking at the knife the waiting knife and going like moon stuff moon stuff I just imagined it coming back to tuck and he's just standing there stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck It's gotta be moon stuff.

Yeah. And then it cuts to like what Tuck is actually doing. And it's, he's standing there with the, with looking at the knife, the waning knife and going like moon stuff, moon stuff, moon stuff. I just imagined it cutting back to Tuck and he's just standing there mouth agape, eyes wide, not saying anything. Bing is making a paella. Tuck, oh, he looks back. Oh, he's in his mind, Dinah. Oh, give him some time. Okay.

So, so knowing what you now know about the shattered moon and the remnants that fell to the earth, the storm might be able to grow in strength due to a proximity to some sort of fragment of the moon. Oh yeah. Cause it was initially being powered by like the eye of the storm, which was a confluence of magical energy from the sea and spirit energy from the spiritual plane, but is now out and free and just either thrashing wildly, or looking for something maybe. Uh huh. Yeah.

So we can track down the piece of the moon that it's connected to. It could potentially. Yeah. Stop it or slow it or destroy it. Or we could anchor it back in the sea of graves. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah. Maybe you could find a piece of the moon and use that to lure it back to the sea or something. So I guess I tell cloud piercer that. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. I'll share this with my flock. Cool. And we will see what we might find. But I understand you have somewhere else that you wish, to be.

Yeah. Uh, Billy's, uh, been crying into the jelly. He's like, yeah, we have to go up to the glaciers to look for a wizard. Right? Yes. Past the jaws. I can, I can facilitate this flight either personally or, or I can send you with someone else. I prefer it was you. If you have the strength, he nods. Maybe this pie will help in 10 hours. Ah, yes. The pie will strengthen me for the flight. For the meantime, rest. The battle has ended, but many are wounded. We, we need time.

So please, I will give you your time alone. Your friends will be here shortly. Okay. Thanks. Cloud piercer. He nods his big bird head and then looks like you can't see his body, but it looks like he awkwardly backs out of the, the tent. His beat kind of scratches along the ground. His big wings are flapping to try to do the backwards thing. I want to give him a, I have the bird necklace. It's made out of wood. Oh, I'm like, wait, I like run outside. Like, can you watch this stuff? Tucker?

Like, how the fuck do we cook? We've never instantly that scene in Mrs. Delphi. Your boobs are on fire. But yeah, you're standing on the edge of a, of an airy with cloud piercer towering above you. I just, I just, wherever we go, I just wanted you to be able to find us here. I've kept this close and show him the thing. And then I, I, I want to manipulate the wood and turn it into a shape of a man or an elf. Oh yeah. To change it and then give it to him to wear. Cool.

Can you remind us what this like medallion necklace is? It's a little wooden necklace that I got from Aquarius. Yeah. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then was connected to cloud piercer cloud piercer and allowed you. Yeah. To stay connected to him. Yeah. I don't know what I'm doing here, but I want to make it, um, the shape of the three of us and give it to him. And so he can find us wherever we go. Yeah, totally. We can just call that like an eye of the tiger type use. Okay, cool.

You put it around his neck. So he's got this tiny little necklace around his big, huge bird neck. Yeah. But you get it around his neck and you can tell there there's a lot, the feathers make him look a lot bigger than he is. So he's got a skinny little neck under there. Yeah. Very well. I will. I will. Treasure this always being. It is very good to see you again. Always. A lot of things have changed. A lot of things are going to change.

Remember why you're fighting with the side that you are fighting. I will. The connection's always there. And if there's anything that we can do, please let us do it. Thank you. Come back in 10 hours. I, I, I, okay. Billy, he comes running out with like pot lids, all smoking. And he's like, then you have to come back in right now. What are you doing? He's on fire. Tell me you're stirring the risotto. Tell me.

Cloud piercer watches you run back into the tent and turns and walks into his little cave. Presumably to go to sleep. Yeah. And you walk in and tuck is smashing the pot with his ex. Cause it's on fire. Putting out a fire with his ex. It's like, I've tried sneak up on me. You fucking fire. I don't see a tree in here. Stove is trying to kill me. Probably 15, 20 minutes later, uh, Perel and Maggie walk in to the tent. Maggie striding in, looking around like, oh, there you are.

Oh, I'm so glad you're safe. That was, these birds are huge. And Perel walks in behind her with his arms straight out and his legs like locking as he walks. Are you okay, buddy? They fly so fast and so high. He's so hung over and it's cold. And my head is going to explode. I'm going to go. And he just walks right over to the couch that he used to sleep on and gets on it and curls up into a ball and grabs the back of his robe and pulls it up over his head and immediately goes to sleep.

I put a bucket next to him. Thank you. And then I grab a blanket from the back of my head. I'm like, Oh, I'm so tired. There's a wicker basket full of like different fuzzy blankets that are clearly from an Indigo and I cover him with it. Yeah. And he pushes it off because too scratchy. My skin is on fire. And he starts snoozing away. And so you guys are just going to have a dinner or is there anything you want to share? Like a dinner, a chill time. Yeah. Yeah. It's 10 hours later.

Ving is covered in sweat, too exhausted to eat. She's like, there. It's like, didn't turn out that great. It gets fine. Yeah. Right. It's one of those meals where it took so much of the day that by the time you eat it, it was never going to be good enough to justify. Yeah. Billy has his pie spread out on his high chair table. He's like fistfuls into his mouth. He thinks like an actual toddler. And Maggie looks over at the danger room. We don't go in there, Maggie. What is it though?

It's a danger room. Clearly. What do you, it's the only thing that's clearly labeled in this entire, but danger room means there's something dangerous in there. Yeah. And it's a room and you just sleep next. You guys were just sleeping next to it. Yeah. Hey, I have a question. What? It, if the thing with the box that led to this whole thing that was, uh, imprisoning and she kind of thumbs over at Perel quietly was that there wasn't enough magic in the world to maintain the wards on the box.

So you had to take it to the hot, hot spot at the vault to keep those wards going. Yeah. Why does this still work? Do we Spout Lore? Uh, yeah, you could Spout Lore to be six plus intelligence. Oh, wow. Holy shit. Fucking hell. Yeah. I'm so smart. 11. Just for context, Jessica, what was your role? Uh, 11. What's your modifier? Zero. Okay. So smart, barely smart enough. Uh, okay. So, so using that information, what traditionally has continued to empower magical objects?

Uh, ice crystals, crystals, crystals. Yeah. Uh, magical water field. Oh yeah. Water arcane stuff. Wow. Honestly, when I asked this question, I thought the answer was so clear. No, we could fit tuck shots, Sean up. And he's like, he looks at billion things. Like we can figure this out. We have brains. We have brains and we have so much brains. Yeah. They're filled with knowledge. Yeah. Okay. So stuff that holds magic crystals, the crystals. And then we look at Maggie. She says, no objects.

People. Is it the PP monster water? I think I literally just said it. We were hardly listening. Oh, the vaults, the stone boxes within the vault being, uh, Ward stone where it's no way. Guys, come on. God, dude. Why are you asking such hard questions? Well, we also told you dot to tell us within the vault. Yes. Is why is the vault where the vault is? Cause it's at a tower. It's a hotspot. This tent is a hotspot. This tent is a hotspot. Is that what it is? Is danger room, wifi hotspot.

And then tuck pushes Ving to the ground and he goes, I thought of it first. Are you racing Ving? I'm not racing. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Are you racing Ving to the wall? Danger. Maggie holds, stands up and holds her hands out somehow. I have one of those things with a rope with two balls on the end of it. Roll two to six plus dexterity. Nice eight. It means that Tuck starts running past Ving.

Ving throws a bola at Tuck. It's a bolo tie. Yeah, it's a bolo tie that he throws and starts running past Tuck. It wraps around Tucks legs. And Tuck falls but grabs Ving and pulls Ving to the ground. I grab Ving's pants and I pants all his pants down. I was going to say. His whole ass is just out now. Billy's launched himself out of the high chair. Paya flies everywhere. There's shrimp and dewy sausage, peppers all over the place. I'm going to get there first. Tuck throws a book at Billy.

Just like a plush baby book? No, no, no. He throws like a big book. He reaches over to one of the shelves. Because there's bookshelves in here. And he throws just the first book he grabs. Yeah, 2D6 plus dexterity. At his son. It's four. How does Billy not get hit by a book? The book is… Tuck grabbed the A encyclopedia, which is the biggest one. And it was too heavy to get to Billy. So it just doesn't get near him. It just arcs and hits the ground. So Billy gets to the flap first.

And Maggie is there. And she reaches down to grab Billy. Whoa, I fight back. Oh, no. Okay, yeah. 2D6 plus dexterity. Jesus. Sick. I got a 12. Yeah. I do the thing that cats do. Where he flips onto his back. So that he's scratching at her arms. Whoa, what the fuck? Let me go. Let me go. All right, all right, all right. Everybody stop. Everybody stop. And I land on all fours. And there's peace for a moment. Yeah. And Tuck's… His face is wedged into Ving's ass. Bare.

Tuck is nostril deep in Ving's holes. All right, stop. What? We already know that this is dangerous. Mm-hmm. And now we suspect there may be a hot spot somewhere in this thing. So we gotta be careful. Leave it alone. Okay? There is… Okay. A tiny fart. Okay. Ugh. Fuck. Okay, fine. We already have a thing that we're doing. We already have a dangerous wizardy thing that we're going to do. We don't have to do this right now. What would the hot spot do? Just for me. What is…

If there's a hot spot in there somewhere… So a hot spot is a place where a wizard left the world, basically. It's where they, like, fucked off and did their own thing. Maybe more popped out through there. Yeah. Through here. And it… It becomes sources of concentrated magical energy. They can be tapped. Yeah. It sort of leaks out. So, like, a wizard will be able to sense it and sort of, like, power up almost. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And then any arcane objects will also power up.

So, like, those blue crystals you have, are they doing anything? Oh. Did I hold on to those? Perel took them. Perel took them? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the… When you went to the hound, Perel was like, I'm going to hold on to these. Okay. Because Billy kept putting them in his mouth. Oh. Yeah. Right. Because they taste kind of sour and acidy. Yeah. Like a battery. Yeah. They taste like putting a battery on your tongue. Okay. I take Perel's little pouch and I… Okay. Just relax.

I got to check something. Just your pocket, Perel. I just don't. And he just takes his pants off completely. Whoa. No, no, no, no, no. And hands you his pants. And then curls back up. He's under a blanket. Yeah. He's wearing underwear. And I pull the pouch. I'm wearing a pouch of these crystals that we got from that sniper that tried to kill us at the fort. Uh-huh. And I dump it out. Yeah. What do they look like? They look like crystals. Are they glowing more? No, they just look like crystals.

But something that you would remember, basically, is that they kind of always look like crystals unless they're being utilized in some way. Tuck puts one in his mouth. Yeah. It kind of tingles. Same. Yeah. I put the other one in my mouth. Is it more electricity? No. The ones that you have would taste the same. I light the ion candle. Wait, that one's already flamed out. Yeah. He burned that one out during his meditation. I realized that I just, it's another candle that's shaped like an owl.

It was already half melted. I shall light the ion candle. It smells like apple cinnamon. This is from Home Sense. I got it from a winner's Home Sense. There's a winner's side. I got two. I got some shorts. I thought everything was magical. But I mean, you guys being even somewhat slightly capable of abstract thought would think that these crystals, if they are batteries, as you have… They're already charged. They're either already charged or they're fully charged now being in this place.

What if I wrap, like tie a string around one of them and throw it into the room? Through the toggles? Yeah. I like that. Interesting. Interesting. Can I try it? You can try it. Let's go defy danger wisdom. Seven. Seven. Shit. Good. So I grab a loose thread from one of my rags and I start ripping at it and tying it around one of the balls, one of the crystal balls. And Ving and I are just watching you like parents that are watching their kid do a science experiment. Totally.

And then once I have like probably 20 feet of string, I toss it under the flap. Yeah. So you have to like kind of pick the flap up and like shove it under, but you push it through and you immediately feel resistance. Oh. Oh. So I kick it as hard as I can. Yeah. And you're just kicking a rock against what feels like a stone wall. Oh, this is stupid. Tucker goes, use shadow dance to push it through. Do I have it? One second. You'd have to do fairy child, but you probably. Is it a new day?

I think I'm out. I am out. I know that from last time. Oh, right. Yeah. Is it the same day? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it took 10 hours to make the pie. Yeah. You guys have been resting for a long time. Yeah. So you're probably up pretty late. It's two o'clock in the morning. This is, I actually made, took too long to make Thanksgiving dinner when this is exactly what happened. I had to wake everyone up in the house and the dinner was awful.

It was a thing where we kept falling asleep and Vin kept getting hurt that we were dozing off. Uh-huh. Which unfortunately means that it has not been another sunrise yet. I have to wait, Tuck. Fuck. I know. We can wait. You know what? We need some rest. No. Fuck this. Wait. No. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. And Perel wakes up. I was about to shove it in with the axe. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not going to work. I run up to Perel's face and I hold in my hands. It's not going to work.

Perel, why isn't it going to work? It's classic Thalmic architecture. What does that mean? All those words. It means that, so the danger room exists when you're opening the door under incorrect circumstances and the other spaces exist when you open the door under correct circumstances in every other circumstance, the space does not exist. So we have to open it the right way? Yeah. And if you open it the wrong way, then the danger room, but you're not opening it all.

You're trying to shove something through it while it's closed. So it's not there. Would Morris have even thought of this eventuality? Yes. Someone trying to shove something in there. Look, Morris, I love Morris and also I hate Morris more than anybody else in existence. The painting jerks a little. You shut the fuck up. Don't you say anything. I love Morris and I hate him more than anybody that's ever existed, but he was a very, is, was, he's very good at what he does.

So he prepared for the eventuality that someone would try and shove something through while the door was closed. Tuck tries to shove it in. You're not going to fucking tell me how to use an ax, bitch. Nice. What are you trying to just 2d6 plus strength? Yeah. I'm using the handle of the ax to like push it in. Yeah. Cause it's a spirit ax. Uh huh. So maybe it can slip through. But like magic and spirit is like oil and water.

So yeah, if magic is, if this is the oil, maybe it can push through the water. Does that make sense? Yeah. Go ahead and roll it. 2d6 plus strength. It makes sense that Tuck would try this for sure. Yeah. It really does. Eight plus three is 11. Yeah. So you push with all your might. Like it's like, you can see all the muscles in Tuck's body. His body's straining. He's starting to sweat. It's just the most. For a second. He's cut. For a split second. Oh my God.

He sweats out all of the water weight in his body. Yeah. Uh, for this moment, there's a field of mist around him. That's all his water weight. It's like the produce section at the grocery store where the mist machine turns up. It's this massive, like grunting, this crescendo of force and pressure and effort. And at the very height of this. This physical exertion, the ax moves an inch and a half. Suck on that. Perel. Perel kind of like starts to unhang himself.

He's, he's hang over undering himself. Yeah. And he goes, what the fuck did you do? And he goes over to where the string is and he lifts the flap. And if you were looking, you would see the string. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do that again because I don't know what's going to happen. He's got the most serious face I've ever seen.

As an academic, as a professional, as a master of the Thaumic arts, I'm begging you to not do that again. Don't. Tuck's eyes and Abdul's eyes are flittering around the room. Should I do it? Tuck keeps pushing. Okay, fine. Keep pushing, I guess. I don't know if you're trying to lose your axe or what the deal is here. Will I lose it if I keep pushing? I don't know. Oh, can I tug on the string a bit to see if the ball comes out or not? The string does not move. Whoa, don't do it, Tuck.

Pull on this. Pull. Why did I say it like that? Pull on this and Billy holds out his finger. He holds out his finger, which has the string on it. I pull Billy's finger. No, not that. Ow. You just pick Billy up off the ground. The string. Okay, and I grab the string. I put the axe down. I start tugging on it. Yeah, 2D6 plus strength. This is like we found a fucking nuclear reactor and we're shoving gum into it. Yes, yes. You guys are throwing rocks at the elephant foot in Chernobyl. Snake eye.

Amazing. Jesus fuck. Yes. String snaps. We all three of us fly across the room. No. And I slam against that wall. My ball. And yeah, the crystal's gone. All evidence that the string was ever passing through anything is gone. It seems like the string severed at the exact point of transgression and is gone. Okay. Billy's doing that thing where kids are laying on the ground in a tantrum and he's kicking his legs and going in a circle. Like flopping around. Yeah. Just like a three. Three.

He's having a floppy tantrum. Uh huh. Yeah. I think Pearl's probably pretty pissed too. Those crystals are pretty cool. He's standing there in an open robe in his wizard robe. Open underwear tank top underneath. What? Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Now I have to. And he walks over to the bookshelf and grabs a couple of arcane texts that are there and he goes and he sits in a corner and he starts opening them and writing stuff down. Great. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Billy goes to Pearl.

Can you get my. Can you get my bulb? I don't know. I don't know anything that's happening in here anymore. Fucking hate that stupid fucking Morrison. Goddamn stupid ass fanny pack. Just build a house in a normal place where the laws of reality apply. You stupid bitch. And then Tuck goes over and he taps the nameplate. And he's like, why did this change? Yeah. What do you mean? This changed. This used to say something else. And now it says something else. Yeah. It says a man before his time. Now.

Before it said master of arc. Can architecture. Is he still around? Is he listening to us? Is this painting real? I, I, I mean this so seriously. I need you all to leave me alone. Sean or Pearl. That's where we're going to end it for this week. I'm your game master. Sean O'Hara. I'm going to go put my fist through a plate glass window. No, no, it's just Perel. Perel's just like, I just need you all to go away. Like 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. I don't know. I'll get back to you.

And he kind of like crosses his legs and puts a book on his lap and seems to fall into a stance similar to the one that he took in your X and that you've seen him take like in meditation. Oh, this is, this is serious business. I just, there's a, I have a lot of questions now and I have to see if I can answer them. And I don't know what's going on in this fucking fanny pack anymore. I hate this thing. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to go. I'm going to go.

And I just need to do a little bit of work. So that hate is not going to help you work. You need to put that aside. Hate always helps me work. Do you know how much wizard progress has been made out of spite? Yeah. And what happened to the wizards? I'm just saying if you accept Morris and what's happening in the situation, the place you're in, it's going to go better than hate. Yeah. Cause you know what the opposite of hate is Perel? That. And he points at the gourd. I don't hate that gourd.

I, I, I hate that gourd a lot. I maybe put too much of the gourd in the paella. You put it in the paella. Okay. I'm just going to, I'm just going to try and do some calculations here. Okay. Okay. Do some breathing too. I'm going to breathe. I'm going to take a breath. I'm going to have a little bit more of the paella. It's it is delicious. You did a great job. We're going to leave you alone in soon. Thank you. Really soon. We're going to leave you alone. Yeah.

We're going to leave you alone soon. Perel. Pretty soon. We all back up. Yeah. And we stare at him. Is this far enough? Uh, yeah. And he just starts flipping through a bunch of books and trying to, uh, work on some stuff. What are you guys doing? I guess we could just like hang on the cliff and give him the tent. Yeah. I, I'm down with that. I also do have to sleep. I was electrocuted quite badly. Yeah. I think we need to actually rest. We can take a rest. Yeah. You guys can sleep for sure.

Maybe you can go sleep with, uh, cloud piecer. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. We can cut to the morning easily unless Ving wanted to go out and do something with a knife. I was just going to commune with the knife outside and commune with the whispers of the land. Yeah, absolutely. Great. You go out on the cliff and you see it is quite gray. The cloud cover does reach below the mountains, but you see the night sky above you, the moon, the coronet. The stars. They have the knife. Is it glowing? Faintly.

Faintly. In, in the way that it is like it, it seems to be reflecting moonlight, but not giving off a light of its own. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I want to spend time in a place making know of its resident spirits. Yep. The moon. Roll plus wisdom. You'll be granted a vision of significance to you and the spirits around you. 10 plus. It's clear and helpful. Seven to nine. It's unclear. I guess six. Six. Uh, so on a six, that's just a six. Yeah. So on a six, that's just a straight up failure. Yeah.

Can we aid him in this? Yeah. If someone's out here with him, you can, you can tell me how you're trying to aid him. Yeah. I'm out there with him and I'm babbling about the stars. Uh huh. Oh, cute. Yeah. Very cute. What's some star stuff that Billy's saying? So that one is, uh, the small bear and that, that star right there is the nose. And if you connect all the other little stars around it, it makes it like fat little body. Oh my God. I see it. Yeah. It is.

And then underneath it are the pine cone, uh, constellations. Uh, see, it's making a nest and then the mama bear, which is over there, I think might be on the other side. There's clouds everywhere else. Yeah. I don't know. Is it like a thing where Billy is like, as he's talking, it's like the thing where Billy's play becomes real and you start seeing the stars like moving. Yeah. Yeah. Like Hercules. Yeah. That's exactly what I was imagining. I love it. Uh, 11. Excellent. Yeah. Huge.

Whenever you try and connect to the spirit world, it's always, it's a very risky thing. Like you're reaching out across these places that, and it's so often been a traumatizing experience that you feel that like pressure building, like a balloon that's been blown up too much. I'm hesitating going in. Yeah. And then the presence of Billy helps calm you and pull you back from like the edge of connecting to the harsher parts of the spirit world. That's makes sense. The playfulness.

Thank you, Billy. You're welcome. I'm glad you're here. And you notice you have the knife in your hands. The blade is resting on one hand and the handle resting on the other. And you notice as you're like moving the blade around, the light is growing and dimming depending on what direction it's pointing. Hmm. Like a compass. And it's ever so imperceptible and maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's under the full moon right now. It's also my light sight. Maybe I can see. Yes.

You can see the differences in the light in that are imperceptible to anybody else. But you do notice that the light does seem to be sensing something. In the direction possibly of the moon chunk. And Billy continues to talk about the stars. And that one is based on a tiara of Rosneald. I don't, I think. I don't really. Honestly, I don't know that much about these. I'm just kind of guessing. The only one I knew for sure was the pine cones. And even then. Yeah.

As Billy continues to speak about the stars, he's getting sleepier and sleepier. Yeah. And then I fall over with my jelly jar and I fall asleep. Grab them, let them down to the ground. Yeah. Put a fur on them. And Billy is all curled up to sleep on the edge of this cliff towering kilometers above sea level. I'm stuck out here for the night. Tuck climbed into a nest and is sleeping under the wing of a Thunderbird. Oh yeah.

And you see nests dotting the cliff side and birds are coming and going like there are massive birds swooping above you and alighting on high up nests. And their wing beats fill the air as the night carries on. Morning comes. Tuck wakes up with his arms around a Thunderbird. Yeah. The Thunderbird gently kisses Tuck's neck. He goes, Alison, no. Good morning. You mammals are so warm blooded. Alison, no. Being a billiard in the other room. Billiard. Who's Alison? I got my eyes shoot open.

Good morning. What? What do you mean? Who are you? You just crawled into my nest and fell asleep. You're so toasty warm. My name's Gale. Are you a Thunderbird? Yeah. I'm a Thunderbird. I'm a Thunderbird. I'm a Thunderbird. I'm a Thunderbird. I'm a Thunderbird. I'm a Thunderbird. I'm a Thunderbird. I'm a Thunderbird. Are you a Thunderbird? I am a Thunderbird. Okay. Gale is like sky blue and she has an emerald bezoar. Nice. Wow. Shot through with like almost lightning bolt shapes. Oh, cool.

Like kind of through her back. Yeah. I got some of those too and I point at like the electricity burns across my chest. Ooh. Tough guy. Thanks. I think I might have killed Throne Breaker. Oh. Kill Throne Breaker? Unlikely sweetheart. Okay. Okay. That's fine. Very familiar. I smashed his bezoar. Oh yeah. No, you did a great blow to Throne Breaker for sure. Okay. But he'll be back. Okay. I think you knew that. I did know that, but I guess I wanted to live in the fantasy that I did more than I did.

No, I understand that for sure. For sure. Whatever. Why you ask her about her? I'm being serious. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. 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.

Chest and he's like at the coin shards and he's like this is kind of like a bezoar yeah except there's a demon in it oh that sucks does it hurt and she like gets way down close and her big eye is like right next to it I don't know I never asked does this hurt you tell me bro I don't think so I think it's just in there oh cool I can't tell if he feels pain or not I wish I could tell you if it hurts but I don't know sweet well I'm gonna go get something to eat okay bye she unfolds her wings it's like an actual gale force wind like blows so much shit off this cliff and cloud piercer pops out of the cave I see you met gail she's like she is one of my most trusted lieutenants and an absolute danger to everyone around her she has to build a new nest every morning we honestly we told her to stop building nests because every time she takes off all of the debris hits the nests below her so what conclusions did you come to did you rest well are you healed yeah I'm healed back up to 21 hit points do I also heal up yeah yeah tuck still has a minus one to wisdom because of his terrible dreams oh you had a terrible dream yeah yeah where now you watched everybody in pinewood be consumed by a fissure in the ground including my family including your family yeah and people that definitely weren't at pinewood yeah just everybody you know being killed in front of you right okay ah typical morning yeah but then you also apparently dreamt about allison or as you were waking up you imagined you were with allison one of those like midpoint wake up no allison was in the dream actually being killed in the fissure no interesting okay moving on I suppose glad you think so so cloud piercer says what's what's what next ving tells them about the knife and how it seems like it possibly is pointing towards something that might help us find a chunk of the moon but it's not clear it's meaning murky interesting if I am sending my flock out to attempt to track down a piece of this moon is this knife something that might aid us I was gonna say is it okay if we uh temporarily maybe not it's a waning knife yeah I don't know I think chimes might kill us if we give it away but what do you guys think like this might help them like defeat throne breaker like if we give it to them yeah for a bit okay but oh maybe it's like but you must give us something of yours to make sure it comes back like anytime you give somebody a knife they give us a coin coin that's the superstition to pay for the friendship so you don't cut your friendship interesting well I'm not sure that I have a coin but as I said the sea brings many things to the thunderbirds so perhaps in exchange you may rummage around in my stuff oh and roll for a treasure uh so are you agreeing to this you're gonna lend cloud piercer the waning knife in exchange for rummaging around in the sea this stuff I think so that's the offer that he's giving us this is that magic knife that uh um god gave you right yeah this is a magic knife that the patron of sailors gave us uh I think it belonged to his son and it is made out of his wife's body so you know it's pretty important to somebody and us yeah damn and he said he would kill us if anything ever happened to it and you're gonna give it away okay we trust you with our lives and claude piercer nods very stately thank you for trusting me with this do that thing when you bow really low and hold the blade up I do not have hands I'll just put that on your necklace thank you so much snap and so you may rummage around in my stuff please enter my roost I go in and it's like a teenager's room like it's a!

Absolutely cram full of shit there's like food waste everywhere there's like animal bones so cool something that looks like a fucking like there's like cow skulls all over the place whoa holy shit this is awesome I technically feast on the storm itself but due to the nature of such storm I have been forced to take sustenance in other ways cows cows are amazing and the only thing you have to do is be quick because the humans do not like when you take their cows but the trick is is if you fly fast enough they cannot stop you this is his new trickster form he's got really good at stealing cows and so he sweeps a wing over all the like branches that are bound up there's just like fucking shit in their stuff so uh who's we're gonna do it one time we're gonna roll on this should I just roll this a sealed glass vial filled with red liquid oh I pull that out a jar a mason jar of stuff I smell it you smell it and your your vision is immediately flooded with an image of a blossoming field of frost flowers in the boreal reach that you visited as a boy billy what do you smell can I smell billy smells uh god what would billy smell are these like nostalgic smells yeah kind of uh billy smells a wild strawberry field that he used to visit in secret in the woods uh yeah tux smells it what does tux smell the vent outside a pizza place yeah yeah the only way that you would be able to know what this actually does is if you drank it because there's no way for me to tell you without you knowing I take a little bit being drinks like a little dropper amount yeah you get a little sleepy but besides that doesn't seem like there's any discernible change right now oh any discernible effect really okay we'll see how that settles before you know we always got to try it slowly yeah okay cool thanks so you're just gonna take that little bottle of goo huh yeah okay I liked to play with that bottle of goo I hope that you treat it well and the knife this belongs to a god I'll find other goo and now our trade is complete whoa abdul gave me the waning knife now I can stab okay our trade is complete our bond has been forged the agreement has been set and you have given me a thing and I have given you a thing and so we understand that our union has been linked starting to understand less where to well we should probably check on perel oh right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's morning time very well then go check on your friend okay so I bust into the tent he's asleep perel wakey wakey eggs and bakey I'm making my big hangover breakfast what'd you learn okay well what did I learn what did I learn he's got a book he's eating a big hangover breakfast he's drinking some oj so here's what I think I have learned one the crystal is to all space and time no I I think theoretically no billy you have like eight of them had now it's an uneven number that is true there are only seven now okay billy here you go these seven are yours you can keep them billy turns around to ignore tuck billy no you thought it was cool when I was shoving it in and then tuck rummages around his backpack and he makes like a little he rips a page out of the book of sea shanties and then he makes a little like paper boat and he's like also I'll give you this and it's billy's tiny baby hand grabs it and he he plays with it that says nothing and now we'll never know what that sea shanty was yeah what significance it might have held it was called rich bitch mcgee it was about the richest pirate in all the seven seas and how everybody hated him so the weird thing about magical architecture is that the space that morris creates using thalmic energy he's channeling thalmic energy into the plane when he creates it but he is not creating new space he is just fitting more stuff into the same space okay you know what I mean okay so we're inside of a fanny pack that's like this big right now exactly but it seems like there's more space in here and not because it is just expanding endlessly into like a pocket dimension or something like that it just exists in the same molecular space that makes no sense it's magic billy oh of course it doesn't make sense but the danger room is a connection to another place that does exist oh but I don't know where that is where did I shove the thing that's the thing out of this realm entirely oh like outside of the universe whatever whatever paper thin infinitesimally small little razor of reality that morris is able to fit all of this stuff into you popped it through that some fucking how into another existence entirely it's gone it's elsewhere that's pretty cool that's pretty cool and then I high-five bing and I go for a high-five with billy and billy taps his hand while looking at the boat yeah and my other theory is that I don't even want to say it because it sounds dumb it makes me mad pours him another cup of coffee come on just say it's okay morris might be in here somewhere okay billy turns around for that can we look for him I don't know how he's in the painting no he's not in the painting he is the painting he's not he's not the we run up to the painting big over I go I had the idea first no I'm gonna get first okay here we go 2d6 plus dexterity okay then that's a 10 got him okay so I get to the ground like a rhino I slam through the chaise lounge and I skid into the fireplace beneath the no not the chaise lounge you fucking idiots and then billy tries to catapult off of tuck and I throw a book at billy all right 2d6 plus dexterity 12.

He grabs zed and it's like a razor yeah does billy try and dodge out of the way or does he just get absolutely just get smoked knocked out of the air yeah I backhand tuck I'm so sorry and now everybody's hurt and on the ground yeah I have the wind knocked out of me oh god he's got me in the painting tuck billy is a child no I'm not I'm very old and I deserve a lot of respect okay so we're just supposed to start whipping books at you now yes I imagine billy saying yes as he gets up and pulls exactly what happens so billy pulls a knife he pulls a knife he's like morris was you not to feed us and then I go to stab the painting I love it do it billy you don't have to roll to stab it the painting's not fighting back roll to stab it all right 2d6 plus dexterity I guess I got a six billy got a six is anybody gonna help him oh yeah I launch him okay throw him as you stab throw him at the painting 2d6 plus bond nice oh boy you slam him into the pit I was very excited do you throw billy into the pit like billy's got his knife pulling back to stab but he hits it as his knife is pulling back I've gotten stronger I'm winded again and you've done backhands you're right you're right and uh the knife goes spiraling out of billy's hand he hits the shattered remains of the chaise lounge lands on an encyclopedia it's only a and z he doesn't even have the whole set uh it's a and there's a book called two and then c and z and uh yeah you hit the ground and the painting is just like hanging by the edge of the wire that it was on like teetering on the on the wall which of course as we know all the walls are made out of the same leather that the fanny pack is made out of yeah and it's just hanging there he's mocking us look I'm laughing and then it falls and behind it is some sort of door whoa I knew it I knew it the door's about I'd say one and a half feet by one foot bro that son of a bitch and he goes up to it and he like tap it's got a very weird interface like the door is very strange there's a lot of stuff going on and he's like oh my god I'm gonna come up with some kind of a puzzle box I think I'm gonna come up with some kind of a puzzle box be cool if it was like those like old trunks where rich people would hide lockbox yeah so you have to like pull a lot of things out that's exactly what intricate weird yeah explain more what this is it's like it's locked using like sliding panels oh puzzle box this drawer doesn't open oh now I've moved this and this drawer opens so the whole thing is like a complex puzzle box yeah and perel's looking at it and he kind of taps it and puts his ear to it and slaps it a couple times and rubs it and then smells his fingers.

Gross. It's a safe. Oh, shit. It's a safe. He put a safe behind a painting like a gauche, tacky asshole. And we never checked, but of course he put a safe behind his painting. I'm gonna check. Oh, yeah, do it. Yeah. Get in there. I'm gonna use tricks of the trade where I pick locks. Here we go. Five. What? Plus two is seven. Seven. Oh, nice. So I still am able to unlock it, but the GM will offer me two options between suspicion, danger, or cost. Well, it's gonna be danger and cost. Okay. Hmm.

So I think Billy starts manipulating the safe door. And you know, it is something like, oh, you pull a drawer out and inside the drawer is a key. Is a key. And the key unlocks this panel. And inside this panel is a little like cushion. And if I open this panel, there's a little metal dog. And I put the dog on the cushion. And then the dog moves along a little track to another door that he scratches open with his little mechanical paws. Wow.

It's like a very complicated and every time something happens like the dog scratches open the panel and inside there's a little tea party. Yeah. And someone pours the tea every time one of those happens. Pearl goes, oh, but it's a key. And then the key opens. And it's like watching Billy just open an advent calendar. Yeah. Like a Blatchkey kid who came home and found a Canadian tire bag full of advent calendars. All 24 in one sitting. Yeah.

And as you're getting further along in the advent calendar safe, there's like an inlay of a tree and you turn this in the inlay leaves begin to fall down the panel and they pile up and then a fucking bird comes out of the leaves. You're like, oh, something is about to happen. It's almost like there are clues in the safe door itself. What's going to happen? Okay. So you come to two final mechanisms and the mechanisms are it's like a little split like a ping pong thing. Pinball. Yes. Oh, pinball.

Yeah. If you let the ball move to the left, the ball becomes the sun and a field of crops will grow. And if you let it go the other way, it becomes the moon and the tide comes in. Oh, great. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Which one do I want? I do love crops. Yeah. But the sun is hot, so I like the moon. You know what? It's been a while since I've seen a field of green. So we're going to go to the crops. Oh, we're with you.

So you the ball rolls down a couple shoots and lands in this outline that kind of gives it like the rays of the sun and little like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, like wheat kind of pops up from this part of the panel. And you hear some movement from behind the flap. Wait, which flap? Which one? The danger room flap. Oh, shit. And the toggles one by one start to turn and fall away. Oh, no. Shit. Okay. And fall away and fall away.

And then from the bottom, the flap starts to roll itself up until it reveals darkness. And then inside, a growling. And that's where we're going to end it for this week. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara, joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome, the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So long, everybody. Playing Ving, the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. Take care, guys. Playing Fat Billy, the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone. Thank you to Aaron Reed for our intro and outro music.

You can find Aaron Reed's music at aaronreed.bandcamp.com and you can find all of the music produced for the show at our SoundCloud. Just speltloresoundcloud on Google will take you to that place. Yeah. If you want to get a bonus campaign, access to monthly streams, bonus content, art, gift boxes, and a whole whack of shit, go to patreon.com slash speltlore or speltlore.com slash money, please. And thank you to all of our supporters for supporting us and thank you to you for listening.

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 abreast in revelry. And though our journey may be like a conclusion, we will not leave you without a resolution. Return next week to hear some more whilst you commute. Or do your chores and for you I'd gladly Spout Lore.