Episode 3 – Daddy…He gone

Hi everyone, it's Fat Billy here. Thanks for coming, listening to our podcast. If you want more podcasts, you can go to patreon.com slash spoutelore, where you can give us some money. And I like money, so I can buy snacks. 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 half-elf, he shifts his shape and wields a spear with great might. Billy's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart. Best in bread. 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- Oh shit!

I saw you losing control of the pause and play function. It was great. Hello everybody and welcome to Spoutlore. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Good morning everyone. Okay, okay. Oh. Why did I think I got to go first? Sorry, do that again. Alright, playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello. Playing Ving, the half-elf, druid, Paul Oppers. Hi everybody. And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai.

Hi everyone. Well I really expected one of you to interrupt one of the other people, that was… I was doing the comedy math on it and I was like, I don't think any of it actually leads to a bigger laugh than we already have. Oh my god. That shows incredible restraint. Thanks. I jerked off right before. There it is. And we're back. Oh, that's why you were like, I'll get here at 8.30, you guys get here at 9. Yeah. Wow. I see. Don't check the camera in the studio. Don't look.

Sean, there's so many warnings on your phone. We're getting hella alerts. I'm just getting movement alert, movement alert, movement alert. Something's happening in the corning. Oh, it started again. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh. Billy was tricked into confessing all of his sins in exchange for marbles.

On the back of Gale, Ving gripped on for dear life as she approached near supersonic speeds and heard tell of how the battle against Thronebreaker, King of the Thunderbirds, was going. The answer? Not great. We then arrived at the island of Hibernia. I thought we were going to have a calm little, we arrive at the beach and we slowly approach the council showing our deference in preparation for this tense negotiation. But no, Gale came in hot.

Like Robert Downey Jr., she arrived with ACDC playing in the background. Superhero landing. Right on the stone, the Oval Council approached, demanding to know what Ving was doing here. And he said, get ready for this. And then he dumped all his friends out of a bag on the ground and his dad and his old infirm dad. The negotiations began. This is Dathaniel. He was the Ranger King, but at the time of the Geshes swearing was not.

The man that you thought was the Ranger King was in fact a god and not a man at all. So your Geshe was broken the day it was sworn. So sick. So sick. Fucking great idea. The one person that seemed the most unhappy to see you was, of course, Stonai, King of the Selkies, who still hates Tuck. A lot.

Tuck eventually got Stonai to back off using the Truthless's new move, Deathless, after being shown the reality of Dathaniel's killing of Ileana, his history with Ileana, and his betrayal by the agents of the Gibbous Man, as well as the true aspect of the Gibbous Man. Truly unsettling. Even as you guys were describing it, you'll notice I had no part in that. Like a man made of shattered glass and the glass made of eyes with darkness, mist, and threads of light all spreading out from it. Yeah.

Being shown that and being told by Billy that that is the thing that has led you to this current state. Isolated, alone, cut off from your ways. An empty shell of what you used to be. And if you spare Dathaniel and Ving and let us go kill the Gibbous Man, we can put all this right. Grimshay agreed to swear an oath with Billy that if you guys pursued the Gibbous Man while you pursued the Gibbous Man… They would leave Dathaniel and Ving alone.

And Grimshay, in return, got Billy to swear that you would in fact destroy the Gibbous Man and free everyone. Then you went down to the beach and spent some time regaling the people of Hibernia who were treating you as near legends with tales of your adventures. Billy blessed the exams of a young man named Liam with a marble and became a sort of… Seeing stone into… Yeah. Yeah.

Gave out blessings to all of the people at this party in the form of all of the marbles from his jar before realizing that he wasn't getting those back. Those are going to become family heirlooms that get passed down. Oh, yeah. Those are going to be mounted in things. Oh, yeah. Like on staffs and tools and stuff. We bought those at a fucking dollar store. Tuck in… I found them at a bazaar. What was that store? The store that's like… Yeah. One coin. One coin. Oh, general store. Oh, one coin.

We bought them at general store. We bought them at general store. You can always find marbles in general store. Oh, yeah. One coin. They're impulse buys by the counter for kids. Exactly. And it's always like Billy's like, can we get more? I will work harder to be good if you get more. Tuck told his stories and showed off feats of strength and explained the origins of his magic axe. Mm-hmm. While Ving told stories of the beasts of the land.

Using his powers to create fantastical images in the fire and smoke. And the evening ended with a beautiful night's sleep under the pallid gray fog of Hibernia. I forgot. There's no stars. A beach fire at night on Hibernia has got to be the most dismal and depressing thing. It just adds to the fog. So everyone's just like, hey, Dan, where are you? Can't see you. You have a fire in the fog. The fire smoke just goes everywhere. You can't escape it. It's just everything smells like smoke now.

So we just kind of passed out by the fire. Yeah, exactly. You just asphyxiated next to a campfire. Mm-hmm. And that is where we individually crawled back to the tent. Yeah. And that is where we find our heroes now. Or rather, where we find them is in the fanny pack. I like to think that we're in the entrance, like where we used to camp out. Yeah. Oh, yeah. In the servant's quarters zone. Yeah. We just didn't make it further. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't want to wake mom and dad. Yeah, exactly.

But then you are woken by mom and dad, or rather, one of them. I mean, it's Perel. It's Perel, mom, or dad. Who can say? Perel's mom. Yeah. And you get kicked in the side a little bit, Tuck. Hey. Severna. Hey. Whoa, hey. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hands to yourself, buddy. Hands to yourself. Oh, no. What, June? Come on, fans. Someone do a calendar of the week. We're going to spell her. Please. Whoa, hey. Please. Whoa. I haven't heard that voice in a long time. Tuck, wake up. Please.

Do a calendar, please. Somebody, please. Somebody do a calendar of the week. We're going to spell her. Oh, no. Are you okay? Tuck. What? Get everybody up. We got to talk. And I wake up, and Perel is wearing. He's wearing fuzzy slippers, and he's holding a skillet, a huge skillet of eggs. You remember those skillets from Arrested Development that buckled the table? Oh, just like a huge cast iron skillet that's like a tray. Whoa. I didn't know Perel was so strong.

If you look underneath the pages, the pages crunched out underneath. It's shaking. You just hear shh. It's all the pages ruffling. They're all ruffled together. Get up. Okay. And he turns and goes back into the fanny pack proper. And then I wake up. I shake Billy awake. What's going on? Who did it? I'm like, Billy, Perel made his. He made a big breakfast. Oh, boy. Where is it? Where did it go? He took it into the other room. Hurry up. We don't want to miss out. Okay. Okay. Let's go.

And then I wake Ving up. Billy, spit it out. What? Ving. Ving. What time is it? What's wrong with your voice? Are you okay? Sorry, I can't remember. What's wrong with my voice? Am I okay? Perel made breakfast and Billy is freaking out. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Did you check his hands for visible poop? Oh, no. And then you hear from the dining area, Perel yelling, you soap. You soap, Billy. Wash your hands. Invisible poop. Visible poop. Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Ding, ding.

Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Ding, ding. He's already put his hands in. And I imagine we cut forward to sort of the study, the observatory area of the fanny pack. And it's got the vibe of like the first talk at a business conference where people are like getting stuff from the buffet table and like, you know, pouring coffee, getting cereal out of the little like twisty gumball machine style thing at a hotel. There's Perel has like opened up a bunch of pages.

So like there's other people milling about. Yeah, exactly. It's like waiting staff bringing you stuff. There are chairs set out around the lectern that was set up when Morris first arrived. And Perel is standing there checking some notes. All right, everybody. Is it like your birthday or something? Like what's going on? We just I think that a lot has happened over the last little while. And what we could really use is a restating of the stakes. Amen, brother. Okay. Everybody gets him.

Everyone's got some food. Everyone's got something to drink. Yeah. Tuck has one of those like buffet plates that is piled too high with all of the stuff you didn't want. Because he's like, I'll eat all this stuff and then I'll go back for the thing I do. This is a classic buffet technique. You fill up on the stuff you hate. Yeah. Nobody else do that. I do it. I for sure save my favorite thing for the end. Yeah. When you'll enjoy it the least. Yeah. What do you mean?

You eat all the stuff you don't like first? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even at a buffet. The less fun stuff. So like, well, actually I do have like a bit of my favorite. I always make sure. And then I have like my salad and the good stuff. You looked around like, is that okay? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we're describing like the Paul and Jessica, you're describing like classic buffets.

You have some soup, you have some salad and then you have a bunch of stuff. No, no, no, no. I'm saying you eat the like, oh, I don't really like chicken Parmesan. So I'll eat. I'll take some of that first. I'll take it first. To get out of the way. Because I have to eat. You have to eat one of everything. You have to eat a bit of everything. You gotta eat one of everything. What if it surprises you and it's really good, you know? I guess.

And then you're like, oh, if I hadn't eaten something I didn't like, I wouldn't know. And also you don't get the value of the buffet unless you eat one of everything. Yeah. You have to get so much of the proteins. To get the value of the buffet, you have to devalue yourself. There's a direct. You gotta make yourself a garbage can. Yeah. I'm starting to think that I'm wrong for only eating the stuff that I like. Get a buffet. But what if the stuff you like is undervalued, you know?

Like, what if you really like cereal? It's like, no, no, no. Cereal's cheap. Like, you gotta eat the expensive stuff. Snow crab legs. Yes. I feel like I'm going crazy. This is the conversation that's happening at the buffet table. As we're telling Morris what our logic is. No, but I like roast beef, so I just go for the roast beef. Yeah, but you could have that any time. Why not throw some prawns on there, too? I don't like prawns. Yeah. They look like prawns. They look like prawns.

They look like shit, dude. It doesn't matter. We're not talking about what we like. We're talking about maximizing the buffet. Okay, okay. And Burrell starts banging his fist on the lectern. Buffets are not about what you like. They're just about how much you eat. It's about how much you can do to yourself. Buffet is French for self-loathing. Morris shakes his head like, I've been so blind. I can't believe how wrong I've been. He starts grabbing prawns off the table. Text plate.

These are truly terrible. Text plate is just danishes and prawns. Danishes and prawns. Billy's so upsexy, loves the danishes. He's like, wow, take them all, don't you? All right, all right, everybody. Now here we are at renaming the steaks and eggs. Yeah. We're here to talk about what's been going on and figure out our plan moving forward. And he reaches down and he picks up a book from underneath the lectern that's like a big atlas.

Like it's really wide and really, you know, like when you look at an atlas and you're like, that's too big. And he kind of tosses it out in front of him in the air, in front of the chairs. And before it hits the ground, it begins to unfold. And it becomes sort of like a 10 by four table. And you hear like, as pages start folding and form, what you would recognize from the scant maps that you've seen as a 3D release. A brief image of the Eastern continent. Whoa. Wow. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I found it on a bookshelf. Can I Spout Lore on the world? What do you mean? I don't know. I've never seen a map of the whole world. If you're going to Spout Lore, it needs to be about a specific thing that you want to know. It's about the Eastern continent. About the Eastern continent? Yeah, that you opened up on. Do you want to do that one? I don't know. It's just the thing that he opened it up to. I'm just wondering what you guys are trying to do.

I'm just trying to learn from this. I want to know about what the world is. Stop. Hold on. Don't pour them right on the… Oh, my God. I just need to know if you're trying to answer a specific question, because that's what Spout Lore is for. No, but I kind of just want you to describe the shape of the world. Can I roll to understand the shape of the world? You can look with your eyeballs to see the shape of the world. Is there a mountain range that we're looking at?

I mean, it's an entire continent. Oh, okay. Yeah, there's lots of stuff. Well, at least the continent as we have seen it. You can see down at the southern, quote unquote, bottom part of the table, the principalities start below the Great Forest with a mountain range and a bay on either side that sort of become this large diamond shape almost. Where Mudlark is, there's a little hot dog. There's a little hot dog, a little frog. Yeah. They're just always there. Frog. Eating a hot dog.

And he looks up. He's like, whoa. They run away. Some of the first stuff he said, too. Oh, my God. So, Perel, he points far up the northern coast. He points to a little paper bay and goes, Two months ago, we were here at the Tower of Adernac Allwater, attempting to recover my magic with the help of you, my dear friends. While in that tower, we got my magic back. Found my dear lover, Morris Wadge. Right. He bows and goes, hello there. Okay. No one else is happy. Billy's clapping. Morris.

Billy's clapping. And then Bing and Tuck are like, don't call him your lover in front of Billy. What are you doing? Is that not okay? No, it feels overly sexual. Oh, you could love somebody with a… I see what conversation it's bringing up. I see it. We also discovered a casket made of ice in a pillar above a magically potent source of water containing at the very bottom a piece of Lillian's moon. Mm. Mm-hmm. That casket was broken from the inside out.

Footprints leading out of the tower, or out of the room, presumably into the tower and into the world. Spooky. And that was probably Adernac, right? Mm-hmm. That was in that? Everybody nods. We think so. It would be surprising if it wasn't. Oh, and when he pointed at the… You can see little billows. There's some smoke coming out of sheer city and stuff. I feel like the map is a little bit dynamic. Oh, totally. Oh, there's little paper waves. Oh, yeah. Oh. I love that.

I think it'd be really cool if the Atlas opened up to what the world looks like right now, but you can flip back through the years. Oh, yeah. Whoa. That's sick. I forgot. I actually did have a thought about this. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay.

Graves is there like you can see like little pillars like between the continent the mccall the western and eastern yes because the sea of graves is really old yeah the sea of graves is of yeah mysterious age people just are always aware that it existed and yeah I liked it he points at the at our neck all waters tower and the papers go like and like zoom in a little bit on that region yeah as everything uh reforms god's so sick man he's so good at origami again the book the book is doing it I am not doing this uh and then from the tower we traveled and the pages go following his finger across the tundra is it the kind of thing where it's like forming like a path where we went yeah you can see like the pages like dog earring to make like footprints as it travels across the land cool and there's like a little bit of like a little bit of like a little bit of like a little bit of like little uh you know paper caribou that run by and all that shit nice from here we were approached by quote unquote dathaniel the ranger king who tasked his son larongar vinga with taking down the court of the wood by manipulating the runes in the heart tree in heartwood city a little dathaniel shows up and tucks licks his lips perceptively who's that little paper papa uh dude look at your dad dude I'm looking at you man looking at you looking at my dad and I hate it from there we traveled to pages shift to the great forest where meeting with dathaniel and his talon we entered the forest hijinks ensued and we destroyed the heart tree in heartwood city you see a little fin like looking angry a little boy eating shit or whatever we also discovered beneath the tree the body of the true dathaniel learning that the false dathaniel was perhaps or most likely absolutely was the gibbous man there's so much equivocation in that one statement I have to make it clear I was inside the bag for all of this stuff and then we were betrayed by wendy met a fancy elf who has been mortally wounded and disappeared a beaver got lost a beaver cat got lost and is really mad at us that's important too thank you I like the idea that perel is still assimilating a lot of the details so you can't tell what's important and we're like reminding him throughout so we're like don't forget about the beaver cat a man is floating around somewhere above this map attached to a bunch of birds a man is floating around somewhere above this map attached to a bunch of birds a woman Let's not forget, guys, as we come to some very important story plots.

There's little origami birds carrying it out. After this was destroyed, we met and fought the Gibbous Man and a bunch of freaky, gross imps. Tuck got some rag from the Gibbous Man that he seems really attached to. Fuck you, dude. I'm just saying you met and fought a god and that was what you got from him. Yeah. Tuck's really on the rag right now. From here, we traveled to the island of Hibernia. Zooms in on the island chain where we are now.

Having spoke to the Oval Council and completed slash nullified slash transferred the Gash from Ving to all of us. Oh, did we actually? Is that what I did? Either way, what we do know is that now we have to pursue the Gibbous Man in exchange for Ving and Nathaniel's freedom. Correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Perel steeples his fingers on the lectern and looks at you all, which brings us to today. And the next question, what do we do now? Can I have some more holiday sauce?

There's unlimited holiday sauces for everybody. Thank you. Dude, he says it's for everybody. There's only one little pot. Whoa. I didn't get any of that. I was saving my favorites for later. It's actually pretty good. It's pretty good. It's pretty gross, guys. Don't worry about it. I was saving my favorites for later. As good things are disappearing, Morris puts down his plate and goes, I knew it. I knew there was a flaw in this system. You know what, Morris? I'm thinking you might be right.

I'm never trusting any of you again when it comes to buffets. You see Tuck put the roast beef in his backpack. No fair. No fair. That's the second part of the buffet, Morris. You steal some of it for later. You steal some of it for later. What? What do we do now? Well, make more hollandaise, I guess. And we can go back and get our actual favorites. And then you hear tap, tap, tap coming from the hallway. Wait, look. Dathaniel has emerged from his room. He's holding onto his Blackthorn staff.

It looks like in the walk from his room to here, he has become unbelievable. He's unbelievably exhausted, but he looks at all of you. I think I might be able to help. And cut forward a few minutes so we don't have to watch Dathaniel walk all the way to the front. And you're gathered around. He's standing in front of the 3D paper relief of the Eastern continent. I remembered something. While I was there under the tree, I was vaguely aware of the Gibbous Man's perceptions.

And while I can't tell you his whole story, I can tell you his whole story. His whole plan. I can tell you that. The war. And he points to the principalities as the pages shift and move to focus on the place where all of this adventure started. Oh. And he looks at all of you and says, there is a war down there, right? From what we've heard, yeah. The Princeps of the Firefield Principality started it or something. I think they invaded one. What did my wife say when she stabbed me?

So the Princeps of the Firefields, which I think we actually said are two people. It's like brothers. Yeah. Have invaded, I think, the High Spear Principality. But they're going to war against the other principalities. At least the closest ones. And when you say the Princeps of the Firefield Principalities, he snaps and points at you. Says, yes, the Firefields. The Princeps. The Gibbous Man needs that invasion. To succeed. I don't know why.

But I do know that if you wanted to stop or slow down the Gibbous Man's plans, finding and stopping the Princeps of the Firefields would be a good place to start. Whoa. Did you remember anything else? A feeling, even. Can I use Spout Lore on this, maybe? Yeah, totally. Or discern realities, maybe? Yeah. So 2d6 plus wisdom. Can we all discern a reality? From Dathaniel? Yeah, depending on how many questions we get, yeah. All right. Does someone else want to do it? I have negative one wisdom.

Negative one wisdom's pretty bad. Oh, I'll discern realities. That makes sense. He's your dad. Yeah. You could probably get him to do stuff. I can read him. I can guilt him into things. Four. Wow. I got five. I shouldn't have said guilt him into things. Okay. So on a failure, Dathaniel, when you ask him if he remembers anything else, he always, he holds onto his black thorn and closes his eyes and it looks like he's really trying to remember something. And then he looks up at all of you.

And for just a moment, the eyes, like the light reflects in his eyes and you see a blue eye and a black eye. Whoa. Whoa. And then he shakes his head and he goes, no, I don't. What was that? He like moves over to a chair and sits down. Okay. I think he saw through me. He saw us? Just for a second. I was able to lock him out, but I think so. Just now. Just now. For just a second. Well, it's okay. Cause we saw him too. So at least we know that he's watching us. He has the ability.

I'm making lemonade here, but that's not bad. That's not bad. I'm just trying to calm his dad down now. Yeah, exactly. It's totally fine. It's not your fault. Cause he looks like Nathaniel. If you look at Nathaniel right now, he's like, he's got his head down. He looks furious. Yes. This thing. He's the strongest person. He's never been so weak in his life. He's not used to being such a broken man. And there's definitely stuff he's not saying right now, but he is angry.

His physicality is finally reflecting the shattered man that he's been his whole life. Yeah. And also like him being so angry. It being vulnerable is like such a Nathaniel thing. Totally. Maybe injecting a little bit of my dad. All dads. All dads. Dads across the board. Capital boomer dads. Oh yeah, for sure. And more just the boomers. Not millennial dads. Yeah, not millennial dads who go, no, I don't want to. I don't want to emote. Asked a question directly by their therapist and say, no. Yeah.

No. Not millennial dads who in counseling, cause emotional outlays performative. Wow. I'm really glad you're in therapy, man. Thanks. Stick with it, pal. And as you're all standing around Nathaniel looking furious, Morris goes, all right. And you all turn and he's, he's shoving roast beef in his mouth. He's got Tuck's bag and he's just eating. Hey, what? What are you going to do? Get back. Get. That's my fucking backpack. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. All right. All right. Big guy.

And he reaches in, takes the roast beef out, hands the bag over. And then Tuck turns to Vang and he's like, he's playing by the rules of the buffet. Learn from the best. And he, uh, he wipes a bunch of roast beef juice off his face. Get that roast beef. There was one other thing that Perry and I realized his plan as you have laid it out to us is to, uh, enact a conjunction of the spheres, correct? To have the realms crash into each other? Yeah. To stabilize reality for some unknown reason?

Not unknown. What's the reason? He wants to become whole again. Oh, he wants to get himself off of this plane. Yeah. When, uh, when Lillian freed herself, she chained him to the material plane. So his, uh, I think his aspect is shattered now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What we figured out was that the only way he could make himself whole is to cause all the realms to merge back into one and then he can re-assimilate. Right. And that's confirmed or is that a hypothesis? Uh. Hypothesis. Will you, Sean, you tell us? It's a hypothesis. Okay. It's a hypothesis. That is your best guess. And it's a very good guess. It's an informed hypothesis, but it is not confirmed because the gibbous man would not tell you his plan. Yeah.

But Morris, that's why you were stuck in the… In the margins of reality. Yeah, the thaumic realm. The margins are a good way to put it. I was shoved into the gap between the words of reality. Yes. Yes, right. So if his plan hinges on the conjunction of the spheres, in his diminished state, it is very likely he has no control over when that happens. Oh.

It's impossible that in his attempt to cause more chaos and to disrupt this reality, he might be going after the High Spear to disrupt communication across all land. It's not impossible. Because the High Spear, I don't know if the fans remember this, but can you remind them what the High Spear is? Right.

So to remind the listeners, the High Spear, which we described, it's the namesake of the High Spear Principality, is a glass-shattered, sharded wizard tower that hangs above the city of High Spear and in antiquity, in the Golden Age, was created by a wizard as a method of ensuring everyone within its reach could communicate flawlessly, easily. Yeah. Spoken language sounds the same to everybody within the High Spear's field of influence. Yeah.

And it's how we, as players, never have to explain why we understand everyone. Exactly. The party went to McCall in Season 6, and everyone could talk to everyone else, even though there are McCall in words, and written language, everybody just understands it. Yeah.

Because his thing is, I just, yeah, when you started talking about that he's near High Spear, the war is near High Spear, I was like, this could be part of his plan, is that, because that would be very, very, his thing is like to mess with everyone. Yeah. He wouldn't fuck with everybody. Yeah, totally. Right. If no one can communicate anymore. It would really mess everybody up. It would, I mean, for the podcast sake, it would be really annoying.

If we were all speaking different languages all of a sudden. Yeah. Because all three of you would speak a totally different language. Yeah, a totally different language. That actually makes a lot of sense, because his whole thing has been obscuring knowledge. So what better way to absolutely shatter the knowledge foundation of the world than to make it impossible for us to communicate with one another. There's a lot of eggs in that basket. That is really cool, though. Yeah.

If the High Spear goes down, the three of you could not speak to each other. We would just have to do a bunch of, what's that game, charades? Yeah. Yeah, like bees. Yes. Let's do our dance. Yeah. But we'd have to describe charades in an audio medium. Maybe. Sorry, I just said Jessica try and dance. Try and? She's dancing, bro. No, I'm not. Okay. That's kind of a dance. She's dancing like a bee. I think that's what she's trying to do.

Yeah, it's hard to dance pretending I have like six legs, my only of two. I thought you were pretending to be Billy. It's hard to dance when you have a perfectly round ball. Yeah. Oh, this is okay. Actually, here's something that we're running up against is character knowledge versus player knowledge. Do the characters know about the High Spear? We might not. We might not, but I bet Perel and Morris do. Oh, right. They were around when it was being built. There's understandings.

Yeah, or when it was up. Yeah. So they would clue into that. Yeah. He said that the princeps of the Firefields are attempting to invade High Spear. High Spear. High Spear. He could be going for the High Spear. High Spear. High Spear. High Spear. What's that? The High Spear? Well, yeah, we know it's that tower, but who cares? By the mall. It's a tower at a mall, dude. Are you worried about the fucking hot topic?

The tower was designed by a wizard in the Golden Age to create a field of flawless communication between different people. Did you never think it was weird that everyone on the planet spoke one language? No. I have never thought of it ever. Yeah. I just assumed everyone was like me. Yeah. Everyone speaks Faerie. Yeah. Wait, you're speaking Faerie? Yeah. Aren't you? Wait. Are you? I'm speaking Macaulay right now. Oh my God.

Then the camera shifts to like a third party perspective where it's incoherent. Unintelligible. Where Billy's language is just feral growling. Ving sounds like Nev Campbell. Wait. Nev Campbell? Ving sounds like Liv Tyler? Ving sounds like Nev Campbell in Wild Thing. And Tuck is just speaking Arabic. Yeah. Tuck's just speaking real world Arabic. Earth Arabic. Yeah, Sharmuta. Say more. Yeah. I just said the streets. That's cool. Honestly, I know so little. I know Habibi. And I'm in a show. Yeah.

Habibi. Oh, it's so sultry. And I some hummus. I know one of those words. Did you just say I sell hummus? No, I said I want hummus. Yeah, same. I know another one of those words. Did you say I want falafel? Yeah. Nice. I'm learning so fast. She's learning Arabic. Jessica's downloading Arabic. Yeah. Arabic as we speak. Yeah. Just. Just. Bing. Bing. Bing. Bing. Bing. Tuck just. Falafel. The whole time. Tuck doesn't even know Macaulay. He just is asking for falafel over and over again.

Ice Spears translating that into actual words. That would be a crazy mind fuck to learn that you have all like you and your closest friends. Oh, yeah. Speaking different languages. Oh, yeah. And it all depends on this like pile of glass. Yeah. Like we got to get there so fast. And Paragos. Paragos. Oh, fuck. Yes, absolutely. If the gibbous man wants the princeps to succeed, quote unquote, he starts doing air quotes on everybody's faces. Get the fuck out of here, dude. Those are wild air quotes.

In their invasion of the High Spear Principality and theoretically the capital of High Spear because why would you invade a territory without invading the capital? Maybe he's going for the High Spear. He's disrupting knowledge across the world. Communication goes down forever. Everybody. Then we're fucked. We can't do anything. I can't make any dick jokes. I can't make any dick jokes! We gotta get out! What language does Allison speak?

The amount of people that you're gonna be able to hit on is gonna go down wildly. Oh no. The amount of people you're gonna be able to successfully hit on will stay the same. Tuck punches through a wall and he's like, we gotta move now! Wait, wait, wait. Let's talk about this. Victor's behind the wall like, that's what's close. The two wolf eyes in the painting next to you. Wait, wait, wait. Let's talk about this for a sec.

So like, as Morris is talking about how the Gibbous Man is working, he has no control over the movement of the spheres themselves. If he did, he would have done it already. Yeah. So he's like, which means which means lost that voice completely. Oh my god, he's fucking with the tower! All of us are getting weird accents. So, that means that we're all working on the same timeline. Which means that things aren't as hopeless as they might have seemed.

If he has no control over the movement of the spheres and he can't force them to collide, because he would have done that long ago if he could, that means that we still have a chance to stop him. Heh heh. What? Tuck has zoomed the map in on the Panoosian Bay. He's like, looks like a dick in balls. Oh my god, it does. Guys, somebody stabbed me. The Bay of Panoos looks like a dick. There's like a little school of dolphins swimming and it looks like a little stream of pee.

Billy says that, and it's like, yes, Billy, that's pee. Yeah. It's nothing else. And that's, it's funny that we're talking about like, the story based on the, like we can see, Billy, like you see the halfling lands, you see a little paper, Wittershins and Sunwise. Mm-hmm. And then there's, I mean, what's east? We know that Panoosia is east, but what's east of Panoosia? The edge of the book. I thought Panoosia was, uh, uh. Yeah, on the map we've never gone further east than that. Can we scroll?

Oh yeah, let's do it. Can we scroll? Yeah. I mean, what's over there? Scroll realities. All right, Billy's little fingers are moving the. Roll it. Roll what? Oh. Reality. Spout Lore on the map. Spout Lore. Spout Lore. Okay, 2D6 plus intelligence. Intelligence? Billy has the highest. Who spelled lore out of all of us? Five. Okay, okay. Totally failed. Uh, I guess, this is, like, we don't have to roll for everything, cause you, you take a point of experience cause you failed. I did.

Hell yeah, I'll roll. No. But so what's the. Five. I'll take a point. No, you won't. You didn't roll anything. Time's discerning realities. Uh. I don't know what's going on anymore. Sorry. Okay, so what is the failure on this? Ooh. If you want, like, a bad thing to happen, what if it's like, as we're trying to flip the pages, it's like, all these, like, webby things. These, like, we see these, like, strings. Oh, the webs. They're stuck together too. Yeah. That's kind of cool.

I feel like we can't. Like, things are trying to form, like, as they have been forming topographically, even that there's, like, this web stopping it. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So it's like, maybe the gibbous man on that area has already, like. Created influence. Oh, yeah. Or he's locked it down. Uh huh. Yeah. Like, I do like that where the ethos of Dungeon World is draw maps, but leave blanks. Yeah. The blanks have been filled in and the map is being crunched down now by the gibbous man. Cool.

Where it's like, where we are and the awareness that we have of the world is so limited because he's already, like. Done so much. Yeah. Uh oh. Yeah. So sick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Moving the map to the east to the right hand side of the map and the land starts to scroll but as you get like past wipe your hands before you scroll this thing is expensive sorry as you get past Penusia I was wiping them on my mouth on my mouth his mouth is just the outside of his mouth is wet all the time a lot of maple syrup as you start to scroll the map the pages shift to the east past Penusia you see a little label that says Tervor the homeland of Aquaria lands with names you don't recognize and as these new lands are becoming clear the pages start to because you said the high spear affects people within its reach so as we move further away from the high spear we can't recognize you you you you you you you you you you you the language written on the map.

Oh, cool. That makes sense, yeah. Yeah, and also, like, if the Gibbous Man has already enacted his, like, anti-magic plans in those zones, like, its influence wouldn't hit there. Yeah. And maybe that's starting to creep in, so there's, like, the principalities and things around the high spirit, like, that's the thing, is, like, we can't understand each other until we're right under the high spirit. At some point, you might be, like, the sphere is shrinking.

And it's, like, it makes sense, because, like, that guy, what was that guy's name again? What guy? From Turvor. Oh! Oh, the big guy? The guy from up north? Yeah, who worked at the Husky. Oleg? Oleg. Yeah. Oleg's accent was so thick, because he's from a town that's, like, on the border. Cool, right? Of the sphere. Yeah. So that was the field starting to break down? Yeah. His accent was becoming harder to understand? Yes. That's cool. Okay, that's cool. Yeah. Okay.

So, yeah, we see that the name Turvor, the land that Morris and Perel know Aquaria was born in, the words, which you should be able to easily read, are in, like, a strange written language that you don't recognize. So blocky. And Perel points at it and goes, that's weird. And as you get further to the east, the pages become, like, blackened and cracked. And sticky. And there's, like, a weird kind of, yeah, Icarus, like, resin on the pages, and the words become impossible to read.

Morris, your map is broken. And he goes, what? I need to update it. And you see, like, leaking into the edge of the pages, like, whiteout or white ink or it's, like, fibrous threads that look like spider webs. This is to give this man's influence. So you see that this blackened edge is, like, crawling across the book, across the map of the east. And Morris, like, pushes everybody out of the way and, like, puts his hands on the pages and starts moving the map.

And you see that there's, like, this, like, growing field along the edges of this atlas that are blackened and sticky and covered in this white fiber. And he suddenly just puts his hands under the table and the table begins to fold back up and he slams the book shut. What the fuck was that? I don't know. Could he see us through the book? I don't know. He's a god. How does this book work? I don't want to get into it. Literally, the thing that we would understand the least. Yeah.

But I think I know what the next step is. What is it? And he walks over to the fireplace and he throws it in the fire. No! Oh. My game! There'll be other games, boy. Okay. This, Gibbous Man, is everywhere. We have to be exceedingly careful from here on out. And Tuck looks at Dathaniel. And he looks up at you. Just the darkest bags under his eyes. How much of a handle do you have on what's going on in your head? I hope enough.

Do you think it would be possible to put the ring on my dad and go sit somewhere quietly and then do a communion of whispers with him? And see what's going on inside of him? Uh, yeah. That's an interesting idea. Yeah. Dathaniel, I have an idea. Yeah. Uh, we have these rings that let us see each other's minds and hear things. Would you come with me to a, a quiet space and, uh, and give me some, some time?

And Dathaniel nods and pushes himself up on his staff and follows you to, where are you going? Uh, the, one of the paper outdoor areas. Oh, yeah, near the baseball diamond or whatever? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We're up in the stands eating hot dogs. Yeah. Oh, yeah. All of us gossip girls. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And Victor is doing that dog excited gallop where they don't like sprint, but they go like rocking back and forth as they run. I stole second, you idiot.

I'm stealing all of these bases and there's nothing you can do about it. Hey, bring back our bases. Never. They belong to Victor now. Oh, look, he's rounding third. And under a paper tree, Dathaniel lowers himself down and sits cross-legged. But like his face looks like it's pained as he moves his legs. What's the position that you're in? Are you guys like staring into each other's eyes or what?

No, we're both sitting on opposite sides of the paper tree with like one knee up and one leg straight looking out opposite directions. Oh, OK. Looks like the Kindle. OK, we put the rings on and I want to roll the move that I still have for sure. OK, good. Communion of Whispers. And Communion of Whispers is 2d6 plus wisdom plus wisdom plus wisdom spending time in a place. Papa's mind. Great. I got snake eyes. Wow. Fucking God. So you put the ring on Dathaniel's finger. I do.

And you begin this meditative reverie and you close your eyes and and and enter this liminal mental space and you see your father standing there hale and hearty like he was when you were a kid in a darkened wood. The shadows kind of flowing between the trees pooling almost. And you look at your father and he smiles but too wide. You look at his eyes and they don't quite meet yours and you're not sure where they're looking or if their eyes at all. You realize that's not your father.

They give his man. It's nice to see you again. You're gonna die. And he kind of smirks at you a little bit. You first. And then you are slammed back to reality. And Dathaniel like takes the ring off and throws it into the paper in front of him. I was gonna say grass, but there's no grass here. Throws it into the green paper grass in front of him. And like, I'm like, I'm gonna die. And like forces himself up on his staff. He's in my head. It's not safe for you to be around us. It's not.

I'm sorry. I have to go. Where are you gonna go? I don't know. But it can't be here. And yeah, Dathaniel is storming away. Is it, does anybody stop him? I mean, we're watching from above. Yeah, you see. So we're eating our hot dogs. You see Dathaniel get up from the tree and start storming. I mean, as much as he can in his weakened state across the field. Something happened. He's really mad. You don't have to run. This could be, this can be, you don't have to sacrifice yourself again.

This is something that we can all do together. He stops and he doesn't look at you because he's such a moody fuck. Well, and he's being like, shielding his eyes now. Yeah, he's not looking and he says, I'm not gonna get you killed. And he leaves. I let him. Yeah. When I was a young boy, my father. My father. He took me into the city. To see the marching band. I think we can. I don't know son, but it'll be soon. When you're coming home, dad, I don't know when. We'll be the Gibbous men.

We'll be the Gibbous men. Men. This is Vegas singing to himself. And the cat's in the cradle. And the cradle and the broke shattered moon. And then you. And then you. And then you got Billy and Tuck in his womb. And then you cut to Dathaniel who's walking through the hallways. And he's like, my boys just like me. Right, okay, what we see is a full musical number montage. This is amazing. Billy and Tuck are doing the side step. Yeah, in the stands.

And we see, you know what, let's just lean into the montage thing. We see Dathaniel go to his room and start packing a bag. Shit. Yeah, we see it because Billy is following, with the gossip girls. We're in the walls. That's the montage you guys watching him in the hallway. He's packing his bag. I always feel like somebody's watching me. And you cut to Tuck and he's like, I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. He just pushes a hole through the wall. I'm sorry. Oh my god. I got so freaked out.

I'm so sorry. I wrecked the wall. I was so fucking scared in there, man. And I think we can comfortably cut forward to Dathaniel's room. Empty of all personal affects. Broken and now abandoned physical recovery equipment. And sitting on the bed, Ving, holding something that your father left for you. It's a long strip of leather about half an inch wide and two feet long. Looks like it's supposed to be worn around the wrist wrapped several times.

And you realize that Dathaniel has been like wearing this. Ving noticed it wrapped around his fingers when he would draw his bow. Oh, yes. He would move it to different spots. He thought it was just his warring ranger strap. Yeah. And on the inside of the band you see written As root and soil I bind myself to you. Bear, wolf, and cub. Hmm. And Perel. You hear from a painting on the wall. Oh my god, it's so sad. And then you hear Shh.

You guys can come out here and share this moment with me in person, you know. You hear thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump. And then Morris walks by the open door and goes Oh, hello, Ving. Oh, hello, Morris. Ving, gang. We didn't see you there. We were busy doing something far away. What is this I see on your wrist? A gift from a love long lost perhaps? Or something else? Of great value. What could we know of such gifts left behind by ones with lips so full and thighs so thick?

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Do you want this? No. No, it's yours. You keep it. But Tuck did consider taking it. He's like, thank you. Can I wear it at night? I'll wear it. Tuck leans in like in a weird way and then he goes. You smell my wristwatch? Oh, my God. And Perel. Perel walks forward and puts a hand on Ving's shoulder. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Right. I'm really. His dad just left. I'm really sorry. For what?

You get reconnected. Then it turns out that your father wasn't your father, but the malicious sky god that's trying to kill the whole world. Then you do get to reconnect with your father and it doesn't really go the way you want it to. And then he goes away. I get. I mean, yeah. I mean, I didn't really have an idea of how it was going to go. I was hoping for closure, but him leaving. And trying to fix things on his own. That makes sense. It feels like some sort of closure. I guess.

I don't know, man. It feels like it's the thing he was trying to do the whole time. He just keeps. He just has always been. Sacrifice himself. I think that's what made him such a hard warrior. I guess some people are. They only really know themselves. Through the oaths that they keep. And the duties that they have. And Morrison Perel look at Tuck. That was very apt. Are you feeling okay? And Tuck's like, I don't know. It feels like something's just. And there we go. There we go.

Inspiring me to be more. He's back to normal. Okay. Well, we're going to give you some. Peace. And they. Wait, I want. Yeah, I should have just a reaction. I like the idea that Bing says that. Wait, guys, I need to have. Let me just like sum up this moment here. Daddy. He gone. And everyone nods sagely and starts. You know what? I didn't. I didn't expect to feel like this. But I wish him all the best. Let's get out of here. We got places to go. Where are we going? You guys never decided.

We never did decide. So like, okay. Yeah. So if we went to high spear, like, I wonder if Perel and Morris would be able to like. Oh, like. Do some work to kind of bring back more of the arcane stuff. Like what? Oh, I want to know. The high spear creates like a magical cognitive field that blankets the whole world. Almost like a broadcasting. Yeah. It's like a broadcast tower. It's basically a radio tower. Yeah. That beams like a translation spell into everyone's head.

What if they use that infrastructure to try and collapse the pocket dimensions that all the wizards escaped into to cause them to come back in, which might bring magic back into the world. That's a great idea. Yeah. Or if they fail. Kill everybody. Every pocket dimension just crunches on the wizards. It's like flipping on the hydrant. The hydrant collider. Oh man. Is that something you. Oh, cause you guys don't. I like that plan. That's a very good. I think that's really cool. I like it.

I feel like we need it at this stage where it's like the gibbous man sounds like he's got people on his side. Yeah. We need. Yeah. And it's like, if it's just the three of us, like we don't really have magic like that. No. No, absolutely not. And I feel like we need it. Yeah. Well, yeah. And that was the whole, that was your whole plan. Like from when you met Maggie at Wickport, this was what your plan ended up being was get the wizards back to create a magical field. Yeah. Okay. I do like that.

I feel like that makes sense narratively for where we might be going. And then the war on the way where it's like two birds with one stone. If we fuck up the war and like the Princeps plans, like if we just kill the Princeps, then that also works. Yeah. Yeah. And then we can just go to the high spear and then try and do this magic thing. I think that could be a Perel and Morris thing too. Is like, you know, Hey guys, I bet he's going for the high spear. Oh yeah.

They like, I would think that would be what we're intuiting as players. They would tell us for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I look at like Morris and Perel, where do we go now? Oh, well the, I suppose if. We're going to pursue this war situation. Mm-hmm. We should probably know more about the war. Oh yeah. Yeah. The Princeps of the fire fields are attempting to invade. High spear. High spear. Yeah. High spear. And Perel goes high spear and they look at each other and go high spear.

And Morris goes, I can't believe we didn't think about this before. If the high spear is projecting a magical field over the planet and Perel cuts him off and goes, that might be a good idea. And they go, Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes.

It to step in the room with her eyes closed trying to get out of the room we'll just be out in the pool so the question perel says is we need to find the princeps is that where is that our goal do we find the princeps well yeah I guess do we go to the attacking do we go to like the black glass side of things and try to like destroy it from within or do we go to the high spear side of things and try and defend it like that feels like the two paths that we could take yeah is there a clear uh side that we are on between the two principalities well the princeps are with the gibbous man so we're on the opposite side yeah that is a good way to think about it those are sort of the two well I guess there's three ways to do it go to black glass and try and like infiltrate the city and try and figure out what's going on like politically or join the war effort man yeah like be like oh we're here to fight yeah oh we're mercenaries for hire right our fee is five five gold coins a day you gotta undercut the competition so we can get in we gotta get in plus per diem which is one brings us up to five brings us up to five all right we never have been paid to so we've never gotten a paycheck I'm still looking for dental yeah and then the other side is going to the high spear side and being able to fight the princeps and then we're going to the high spear side and being able to fight the princeps and then we're going to fight the princeps and then we're going to fight the princeps and then we're going to fight the princeps and like hey we're actually mercenaries for hire yeah and we will help you and we know what's coming let's drop perel and morris off at the tower yes that makes sense if they're working on that side yeah and then we go back to the fire fields yeah so you're you kind of do both things yeah like no no I I think that's a fine way to do like more drop morris and perel off the experts at the magic thing and let them deal with that yeah and then we go do the other side and try and so chaos and discord and the enemy and honestly that's totally our bailey with yeah we're so comfortable with this I feel like if we showed up and we were like hey high spear we can defend you they would put us in jail right away but if we show up on the other side and just try and fuck things up that's more what we're good at right that does make sense and if we learned anything when we were under the tree and also when we beat the shit out of that old lady which is that our skill set is just in creating a game of chess and we're like hey we're going to do this we're going to do this we're going to do this hopefully there's a bunch of animals that are being caged and we can convince them to riot and morris goes that actually makes perfect sense so here are the two choices and he holds his hands out before you come with us to the high spear a place of great magical ingenuity and spend days weeks maybe months trying to decode the best way to turn this ancient artifact to our benefit or the second one and that's where we're gonna end it for this week we don't high five a second hand yeah thank you for joining us everybody my name is Sean O'Hara I've been your game master joining me as always playing tacoma dome the barbarian Abdul Aziz so long playing ving the half elf druid Paul Oppers take care and playing fat billy the halfling thief jessica tie see you later thank you to aaron reed of vancouver sunday service for our intro and outro music if you would like to hear the music produced by aaron personally under aaron charles reed or acr you can find him at aaronreed.bandcamp.com and if you want to hear all the music produced for the show by aaron and written by abdul and myself you can find that at soundcloud.com and thank you to all of our supporters around the world without you this show would not be possible so if you want to support the show and gain access to a whole bunch of cool bonus content check us out at patreon.com slash Spout Lore or Spout Lore.com slash money please and thank you finally and most of all 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 time's abreast in revelry and though our journey may be a conclusion we will We will not leave you without a resolution Return next week to hear some more Whilst you commute or do your chores And for you I'd gladly spout more