Episode 4 – Ship in a Bottle

If you like what you're listening to, then you're going to love patron.com slash Spout Lore where you can be part of our You want to say any of the right words? What? You said patron.com patron.com If you want to support us in our stonk pursuits, I'm so sorry. 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 outweighs their smarts. So gather round, friends, and listen close for the tale's about to start. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Spout Lore.

I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello, everybody. Playing Valkyrie, Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Hello there. And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Hi, everyone. When last we left our heroes, they were recovering from a mutiny. The ship trying to careen into the rocks of the Devil's Grin. Ving stopped the boat from crashing.

Billy caught a erstwhile mutineer leader, Eggs Benedict, physically removing a memory from his mouth before he drowned in the sea. Uh, every, people got everything back under control. Some remaining mutineers were thrown in the brig, including, uh, halfling pirate peanuts. And temporary repairs were made. Wrecks were plundered. Uh, we got some interesting loot, including a broken compass, a sword, and a book of sea shanties.

And then, uh, everybody stood around Billy while he very nonchalantly explained that he was that he pulled a memory from a man's head and, uh, proceeded to read that memory in front of everybody, discovering that Eggs was working with Bobby of the Centaur in some respect as a, as just a smuggler doing smuggler stuff. Mm-hmm. And discovered the identity and then later on location of a place called the Four Frost Islands. Oh, yeah. Some sort of snowy, icy pirate haven.

Uh, then we undertook a perilous journey. Uh, Ving navigated, Billy scouted ahead, and Tuck, uh, managed the provisions alongside Ted, uh, the somewhat violent and unstable ship's cook, I guess? Yeah, he'll fly off the handle, but he will make an Eggs Beignets that'll knock your fucking trunks off. Eggs Beignets. Is that a thing? Yeah, probably. It is in our world. What's Beignets? A Beignet is a donut. It's like a kind of, uh, egg donut. Yeah, yeah. Kind of New Orleans donut.

Yeah, with eggs and hollandaise sauce on it. Yeah. Yeah, egg donut as I'm into this. And on day five or six of, uh, Ted's delicious culinary journey that he took everybody on, uh, Tuck and Ving discovered, uh, mutineer Peanuts in the brig howling about something. And upon arriving, she asked, you see it too, Ving, right? The deer? And Ving then did see, uh, magnificent golden elk putting together that the entire crew has been eating food laced with ghost root, plundered ghost root for days.

And that is where we find our heroes now, seeing a spiritual elk in the brig. Did we all see it? You all saw it and then it disappeared. Oh, whoa. Holy shit. We're all high on ghost root. All right, everyone. Question everything. Question everything. Billy's really high on ghost root. Well, I'm so, I have been eating Crow's leftovers. Oh, no. Billy's been seeing spirits for days. Just hasn't told anybody. That's how he found the shortcut because he's like, she's just speaking to me.

Oh, that's actually kind of sweet. Billy was like watching the ocean and the spirits were like, come along, Billy. Yeah, I'm like, oh, yeah, totally. And Crow is the same. He's just like, you sure are learning the ocean root pretty, pretty quickly. Oh, yeah. And he's seeing Billy like with flowers in his hair. Yes. Oh, his actual spirit form. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. So it's at this time as you all realize, oh, something's up.

You hear, ah, and somebody behind you falls out of their hammock like slapping at their body like, get him off, get him off. And you see a puff of like bright green moths like leap off of their body and then disappear. And then it's like, hold on a second. And he walks over to his axe and he picks it up and he's like, fellas, are you here? Yeah. What's up? Oh, man. I miss you guys. Oh, man. You don't have to miss us. We're always right here. What? And then you can't hear them anymore. Fuck.

Whatever you do, don't forget to most importance. Your life hangs in the back. Well, there's something about floating when you're in the spirit world when you're on ghost route. Oh, right. I was floating. I was floating. It definitely happens in the spirit world. That's what you know for sure. Billy is all nervous. So he's like, everyone, strap yourselves down. Make sure you stay here with us. Put on whatever harness you can find. And so Billy's like tangling himself up into like a fishing net.

Yeah. If everyone, if you see like animals or whatever, it's kind of not real, but it is real. I want to gather everyone around, get around. We need to talk about something very important. I have a really good business idea. I think you guys are going to, I have so many cool apps ideas. I've been thinking about them for a long time. Like ideas for appetizers? Yeah. For different apps. Lemon curd. Try it. Try it with fish. Cause lemon, you squeeze lemon on top of the fish. That's really good.

Shit. I squinted his face. It scratches. Oh, wow. And you hear, come on, everybody. Gather around. Vig's got some great ideas here. And you look and there's a horse next to you. And then the horse disappears. Holy shit. And Maggie comes stumbling up from like where her captain's quarter is. And is like, Hey, everybody. Out of curiosity. How are you? We're all fucked on ghost route. Okay. So it's not just me then. There was a hedgehog in my quarters that was singing to me.

Do you remember the song? Nope. I don't. What do we do? Here, this helps. And he gives her some halfling pipe weed. Yeah. And she takes a huge huff. I don't have enough for everybody. Quick, blow that into somebody else's mouth. And she blows it like out the side of her mouth. Like, get away from me. Okay. I don't know shit about spirit stuff. Is this going to be dangerous? Not if you secure yourself to the ship. Billy is nuts. Billy is even more tied in than before.

Could I do something that Billy's doing? I just pictured him going around with tacks and nailing everyone's shoes to the deck. Everybody be secured. Get trapped. Get trapped. Tug is just like, all right, I think we can all agree that whatever's happening right now is for sure Ted's fault. Ted did it. Nobody else. And Ted is like laying limp in his hammock. Like his peg leg hanging down. He's like, yeah, I did it. What are you going to do about it? I'd do it again too.

He's waving a knife in the air. Come and get me. Okay. I mean, halfling pipe weed is only going to last for a few minutes. We need to get this ship under control. How long do the effects of ghost root last? And Maggie throws her hands up in the air. Fuck if I know. Bing was like, I was actually talking to the badger right there. Yes. Well, now that you mention it, ghost root, metabolize, metabolizes differently in each person's system according to their spiritual alignment. I'm fucked.

Can I have somebody can Spout Lore about that too? Okay, that's pretty good. That is actually a good idea. I'd like to Spout Lore about that. Okay, but what were you going to say? I was going to say I had an idea for the episode where it's an undertake a perilous journey role where we just have to get up to the top deck. Yeah, a bottle episode. We just have to get up to the top deck to anchor the ship. Yeah. And like make sure whoever's helping it isn't directing us into walls or whatever.

Our rations are four uses of halfling pipeweed. That's really funny. That's pretty good. We should definitely do something like that because everybody's just so freaked out. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so I'm going to Spout Lore on this. How long the effects last? Yeah. Eight. So for these kinds of like spiritual communing purposes, we're going to have Ving knows that ghost root in its purest form is the one that lasts the longest.

But since this was adulterated as it were sort of in the food, it was all mixed with a bunch of other shit. It's probably not going to last as long as traditional ghost root, but that is all you're going to get from that Spout Lore. But you know for sure that it's not going to be like a tuck in the spirit world kind of thing where he ate a whole root and flew through the spirit realm for like eons. You look over at tuck and he's like, guys, I'm flying again.

He's just hanging in somebody's hammock lying on a person. Look, I'm light as a feather. No, you're not. I promise. Okay. Okay. So here's what we're going to do. We are going to do some undertake a perilous journey roles to try and get you guys back on deck. So you're unfortunately on the bottom deck because that's where the brig was. So there's two decks above you before you get to the top. Oh my God. I love this side view. Yeah. Steve Z's who style of the ship. Yeah, exactly.

So it's going to take you one perilous journey move to get to the stairs one to get up the stairs themselves one across up one across up. Holy shit. Who's going to scout ahead and who's going to navigate? Gosh, scout is my job and I have to get out of my net. Okay. Scout ahead 2d6 plus wisdom. 12. Okay. I am the and I tell myself Billy, you're the trap expert. You know what's going on here. You can get yourself out of this mess and on a 10 10 plus from us go ahead.

You get to choose two from this list. You get the drop on whatever lies ahead. You defer discern a beneficial aspect of the terrain a shortcut shelter or tactical advantage make a discovery notice a danger. The first to get the drop on whatever lies ahead and discern a beneficial aspect. Yeah. Okay. So shortcut could be that you just know you find a way to get up to the second deck without having to get to the stairs first. Yeah, it's as I'm getting out of my net.

There's a floorboard that's loose that you see above you like a loose board. Yeah, everyone we can if you're small enough you can fit up this way just climb up the net. It's all here giant sailors across the okay. So you get the jump on whatever lies ahead as well and Billy you look up like up the beam that goes to where this loose for floorboard is and you see a glowing red spider in like a glowing red web right at the like crux of the beam and the board is like yeah come up this way.

Don't touch me. This is a shortcut. You should come up here. Okay, everyone do not go that way. Who's gonna who's gonna navigate? Because you could still deal with this spirit spider. I'll navigate spirit spider. Get over here and he picks up the axe. He starts just you know when you take like I don't know like your hand one of the Swiffers one of those Swiffer dusters and like go into corners of rooms and stuff. He's like get over here Swiffer duster with the duster and Chad.

Yeah, fight that spider buddies. So you're hacking and slashing. I'm navigating. You don't navigate of a physical a living thing. I'm navigating the water the waters of my heart my friend hack and slash. Yeah, Ted. Okay that roll your damage one. Well, you you start waving your axe at this glowing red spider and you tap it with the axe and it goes. Whoa, what the fuck and it scuttles away spirit axe bitch. You hear Larry Terry and Chad go. Yeah, fuck off. These are my boys here bro.

You don't want to come around here anymore. This hole in the wall is ours and now the way is temporarily clear as you see the spider starting to weave a web in a wide perimeter on the roof, but you have some time to try and get through the roof. All right, I slipped through. Well, somebody's got to go. Somebody's got to navigate the course. Someone's got to lead the way. Dang it. Okay. Okay, I'll go up through the thing. Everybody make yourself super skinny tall elves. Let's do it.

Duty six plus intelligence to navigate. He's looking at it like make a hole bigger. You know would make woods less make hole bigger to okay. Stay guys six on a six minus mark XP. Okay. Oh yeah, great. So what's the failure here? Snakes come out of my eyes. I'm be like follow me.

I know this and he's like and everybody sees that and literally freaks out and he's just turning around like what what in this thing and every time you look at something the things like their face everyone's running in every direction. I know follow me. Follow me. Why am I following you? You should be following me. Bruno's like there's demons on this ship! Just crashes into a pile of boxes and is gone. So everybody's now separated. It sounds like Billy you run off.

You see snakes come out of Ving's eyes. Yeah, I rolled down. I don't know under somebody's hammock and I'm clinging on from under there hiding like what is happening? Where's Ping? Tuck do you just start barreling through the ship? Yeah. Tuck hokey. Hulk runs through the ship with TLC in front of him. Smashing people out of the way. And now none of you know where on the boat you are anymore. I look under me at the floor and it's turned into like waves of sand. Like, no.

You can see like scorpions scuttling along on the sand. Porn scorpions. No, not again. Yeah, Billy, that's what you feel. You feel like this hot desert wind blow, ruffle your hair, and you hear like… No, no, it's too soon. Don't take me back there. So what do you do? I climb up the hammock and try to pull myself up the beam. 2d6 plus dexterity. Nine. Nine, okay. What's the partial success? I do get halfway up, but I slip and my shirt collar gets stuck in the wood. Like in a chip in the wood.

Looking down at the sand and porn scorpions. Yeah, you're hanging there and you feel yourself, just all your weight is pulling against the shirt that you're on. And you see the scorpions sniffing as much as snorpheons. Snorpheons. Snorpheons. We're all actually high. Not a snorpheon. You see them sniffing at the base of the pillar and start climbing up the beam. No, get away from me. Get away from me. I tuck my legs up. You see them clip in their little clickers.

One of them is like, we will get away from you for a story. Okay. Oh, you want a story? Okay. I can tell a story. No problem. I have so many. If I just calm down and look in my memory. Oh, Lordy me. There was once a Wilhelmina and she was great at farming beets and carrots. And one year the big bear came and he ate all of them. And then her family didn't know what to do because they relied on those beets and carrots to get them through the winter. And so the family starved.

And they start clacking faster. Yes. Yeah. Stupid humans. Yes. They, uh, they, they, they died and the winter came and there was a big snowfall and it covered up their little shack and no one found them until spring. Yeah. The end. Roll 2d6 plus charisma. 12. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Stupid, stupid Wilhelmina. Yeah. Pretty silly of her. All know that hoarding food for the winter never works like that stupid ant. We will help you.

And they climb up the beam and they start clicking at the spider to get the spider. Okay. Okay. Okay. And they start trying to help you up from your little thing. Thank you. Scorpion. You are free to go. Small one. Thank you. You have the heart of a scorpion. Okay. And they, they get you to a point where you can scuttle up to the deck. Okay. And now you're on the, you're on the second deck. You got one more deck to go until you're on the top thing. You have two snakes in your eyes.

Half in half out. And it's kind of fucked up because you realize that spiritually they're melding with your spirit at this time. They're using out of their mouths. You can see out of both of their eyes. So each of your eyes has two eyes right now is for the first time in his life. See sick snake sick. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Give me a 2d six plus constitution. See sick spelt s e sick. Nice. 2d six plus constitution to see how you handle this. I got 10. I like and I don't throw up.

Yeah, you don't. You're not. You're not too sick, but you still got these snakes in your eyes. They're my footing. Yeah. You find your footing and now you just got to figure out how to get to where you were trying to go. The snakes are moving a lot. So you snakes. I speak to them. Oh, parcel turn, bro. Bro. What are you doing? Dude, that's what it sounds to everyone else. But to them, it's like. Yo, what's up, man? Oh, you know, just fucking vibing in your eyes, bro. Yeah. Slytherin. Yeah.

Trying to get through to the material plane. You know, I. Hey, you got a good sense of the material plane. What? My sense of material plane right now is a little fudged up. If you know what I'm saying. I don't. Guys ever get fudged up. You guys want to get fudged up. He puts some halfling pipe weight up to his eyes. Are you trying to you're trying to inoculate these snake spirits? It's in some way. I'm trying to use their sense.

If they're if they have a good sense of material world, I want to use their snake sense to help me find my way up to the next level. Okay. Because I can't see shit really. It's all over the place. I want to hone them into users. There's snake senses to get me upstairs. Um, so you could roll to defy danger wisdom to try and use the senses of these snakes to get where you're going. I got seven. Okay.

So you kind of get them to calm down a little bit to stop moving around so much so you can see through this. Yes. They're like, okay, bro. Yeah. Yeah. But you got to you got to promise us that you will help us out when we when this is all good so we can get through the material. Do you promise? I promise. Put out your hand. He puts out his hand. And both of the snakes whip around and bite on your hands. All right. The meaty part of my thumb. Yeah. And they inject a little bit of venom into you.

You feel this like spirit venom into your body. What the fuck? Vinc sucks the venom. I'm out. Hey, hey, hey, no, bro, bro, bro. Put that back. He blows the venom back. That's part of the promise. It's how we do it. Okay. All right, let's go. Guess what, guys? What? I saw some big fat, juicy spear rats up on the second level. Fuck. Yeah. He just like leans forward and lets his eyes lead him. Yeah. And they lead you through.

There's a bunch of people losing their fucking minds between here and the stairs. And one of the people that you pass on your way to the stairs, you see behind the stairs near. A kind of darker section of the ship is tuck, who seems to be losing his mind. Tuck, you've crashed through everything on this deck to the back of the room. And what do you see when you get here? So tuck is sort of freaking out because the tree tattoo in his arm is actually turning into a real tree.

Oh, there's like branches growing out of it. And like the base of it that is like dying is actually like it looks like rotten flesh. Yeah. I'm going to go back to him. Oh, yucky. Yeah. Gross. So yeah, there's like, you're standing there by yourself basically. And there's like branches that start sprouting out of your arm. And there's like lush leaves that are starting to blossom and bush up on your arm. What do you do? He's kind of just like, just freaking out. Yeah.

Thing, what's going on with my arm? Why is it turning into tree? Dude, you're just high. It'll go away. Follow me. Okay. It's fine. Okay. Actually, that looks pretty significant. Wait, is it going to be like this forever? I don't know it, but it does seem like a metaphor. Let's just keep thinking about it as we go upstairs. What's a metaphor? It's like an analogy or a simile. What's a metaphor? I don't know. It's for whatever you want. Oh, fuck you. I'm done. I'm taking three. One.

So I cut, I grab one of Vink's flaps and I'm like just seeing leaves and stuff. And I'm like falling because I can't see anything. Okay. Then give me a defy danger wisdom, I guess. Kind of vibe your way up. Okay. Two to six. Six. Do you want to aid? Yeah, sure. Two to six plus bond. Nice, eight. Okay, cool. You guys get to the stairs. You pull Tuck around like to the stairs to get up to the next deck. Tuck, you're holding on. He's leading the way. Everything's fine.

The leaves have fully clouded your vision. Oh, whoa. And you feel like you can't move your fingers anymore. And you look back and Vink, you see that there are like leaves and branches fully encasing. And you're like, oh, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. Tuck's hand and like up to the middle of his arm. Vink, I'm blind. I can't see anything. You're turning into a tree. Oh.

We cut to Billy. Billy, you've climbed out through your hole in the floor. And you get to the top and you see Caroline. Yeah. She's sitting on a box. She's got both of her hands on her legs and her eyes are wide. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. It's me, Billy. Why'd you come out of the floor? Because it was faster. Listen.

I'm pretty sure we all accidentally had some ghost root. And so anything, like question everything. If you're seeing stuff, it's not real. Just like, close your eyes or something. So wait. That's why you came out of the floor. Oh. Are you a hallucination? What? No. I'm real. Are you a hallucination, Billy? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I touch her face. Just stay on that box and if something tries to talk to you, just ignore it, okay? She nods and goes, alright, alright.

She pulls both of her legs up onto the box she's sitting on, sits cross-legged and starts to meditate. Oh, that's smart. Okay, maybe I'll try that while I walk. So I'm like touching the wall as I walk, I'm like this is how people meditate. Think about their breathing and the floor under me or whatever. But I can't see where I'm going so I'm going to peek. One eye at a time. Hell yeah, wink blink technique. Yeah, it always works. Give me a 2d6 plus wisdom. Nine. Nine, okay.

So you're walking and you're trying to meditate you're wink blinking? You're touching the boat, you're trying to get in tune with things and you've been feeling more acutely than some probably you're like yourself being pulled between like rippled between the material and the spirit and you feel for a second a sensation that's very similar to when you have entered the ferry you feel yourself like vibrating on a precipice and you're about to fall in. Not right now. Not right now.

We're just going to stay with the little boy here. We're just going to stay with him. We're just going to stay with the little boy in the little boy body and he loves gravy. He loves to he loves his friends. He loves his two awesome friends. And you keep walking and you're doing the wink blink and you see like the deck ahead of you. You see a bunch of like glowing roly-poly bugs like roll across the floor in front of you and you wink blink again and you are standing in a snowy field. Fuck! Fuck!

Oh no! Give me a 2d6 plus 2d6 plus wisdom to try and get a hold of what's going on. Seven. Then yeah, you close your eyes and concentrate and go no, no, no not yet. And you wink blink again and you're back below deck. Well, was Billy in the Winter Wars? Winter Wars? Why do you think I would answer that question? I thought it could be. I want to know. Yeah. Too bad. Oh. You just kind of put it there to everyone. I want to know where I went. Yeah.

Listeners, if you think that Billy was in the Winter War, write us at www.winterwar.spellore.com slash Patriots. But yeah, Billy, as you're like wink blinking yourself out of this frozen field, you see just at the edge of this frozen plane a figure in a long white cloak. And then they're gone. Oh, dang it. Oh my gosh. It's all so useless. And the roly-poly bugs are sitting in front of you. Now, like, you okay? No, I'm not. That was weird. Move. And they pop up into balls and they roll away.

And you're in front of the ladder. You found the ladder. All right. Up I go. Yeah. And we're going to cut back to Tuck and Ving. Ving saw Billy go up through the hole in the ceiling and he was like, it's okay, buddy. I saw Billy go upstairs. He's going to come over and open this latch any second now. Come on, Billy, Billy, Billy. And you're standing there for what feels like six weeks and the hatch doesn't open. It doesn't open. I'm hungry. There's somebody new here.

Yeah, it's Bruno standing there like, yeah, man, he's going to come for sure. And then cut forward another 10 minutes and there's like a group of pirates who have gotten to the stairs and we're all just waiting there. Yeah, he's definitely, he's definitely coming for sure. I can't wait for Billy to come. Save us. Hey, does anybody else think maybe we should try and open this hatch ourselves? Mutiny. Get him. I'm going to try and open the hatch. Oh, we can open from down here. Yeah.

Why do you think we would lock? Anyway, and you see this, it's the chunky mutineer, the older dude from, he's got like short cut gray hair and a long walrusy mustache. And he like hobbles up to the ladder. He very shakily grabs onto one bar, very shakily grabs onto the other bar and starts slowly putting his feet down. Putting his feet on the ladder. But then the second step, he instead of alternating feet, picks the same foot up again and he's just halfway walking up this ladder. I got it.

I'm going to get it. Other foot, dude. Other foot. What do you mean? You move your other foot too. Oh my God. And he puts his other foot back down on the ground and starts picking the other foot up. So what do you guys do? What do you do? Do you all just stand there? I mean, I want to give this, I'm going to give the chunky monkey guy some halfling pipe weed. I don't know, man. I haven't done that stuff since I was like 25. I grab him like a kiss and blow it in his mouth. That's the stuff.

I'll miss that. Okay, here we go. And he puts both hands on both bars at the same time this time. One step, two steps, alternating feet. And then you hear people in the crowd being like, Doug, Doug, Doug. He's doing it. Everyone's chanting a different name. Charles, Charles, Charles. T-Bow, T-Bow, T-Bow, T-Bow. And he reaches up and you see him wobble back. He tilts back for a second. And he grabs on. And he reaches up and he just pushes it open because it's not locked at all.

And he opens the door. Yeah. Fully. Yeah. Yeah. I did it. Charles. Doug, Doug. I did it. Frank, you did it. You hear that, Vanessa? And he points at the sky. I did it. And he tumbles up out of the hatch and you hear him start running. I did it. And then you hear a crash and a yell. Yeah, are we still in just the middle deck? Yeah. I don't have enough weed to get out of this boat. So you guys climb up out of the deck onto this. The one that's just below the top deck. And you climb out into a…

Can I get a… Like a bug sound? Like a flying bug sound? You climb up into a lush, humid jungle. It sounds lush. It is lush, bro. It's fucking humid in here. It's so lush. Maybe it's lush enough to hotbox the whole crew. Yeah. We could be calling hotboxes whole bird. By God, that's Bruno. By God, bro. I think you're right. Let's do it. Yeah, I mean, why not? That makes sense. It's the only way. Okay. Bruno gets everybody to give him some space. I know what I'm doing.

Wait, Bruno's in charge of this hotbox? I'm always in charge of the hotbox, bro. Hand it over. All right, I trust you. He takes it. And he… He pulls out what looks to be some sort of long glass and metal tube that he's been carrying on his person this whole time. I don't know what I'm doing. He hands it over to me. God damn it. Okay. I got too scared. It's too much pressure. Whips it up like an expert. Makes like a third lung and water jug with an old two liter pop bottle or whatever.

Gets a brazier down. Throws it in there. Lights it. So you're going to use all of your remaining… Pipe weed. But if you get this, then it's going to clear at least you and Tuck. Oh, sick. Okay. Light it up. All right. 2d6 plus wisdom, it seems like. Nice. Well, yeah. Nine. I'll help. All right. How? I bite into an apple and I turn it into a bong. Yeah. Perfect. You're going to make an apple out of a bong. He starts eating a bong. A bong a day keeps the doctor away. All right. 2d6 plus bond.

Plus bong. Nice. 11. Beautiful. 11. Yeah. Eight plus two. Wait, is this three? That's a two and a three. Oh, shit. Yeah. These are d6. That wouldn't make any sense. Abdul, you need glasses. I failed. I failed. Mark your point of experience. Okay. 12. I failed. Guys, I'm high. So, yeah. The seven to nine is only one of you is going to be clear enough to actually be effective. Okay. I'm the one over the brazier. It's probably me. Yeah. Totally. So. Ving, leave me behind. Ving, leave me behind.

He's talking to Bruno. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Leave him behind. Take me with you. I can help. Oh God. And you feel the snakes in your eyes start to recede and they go, remember bro, you promise. I remember. And they disappear. Whoa. And you can see clearly and tuck. You see just a bushy bush where his arm used to be. Wow.

And his eyes have leaves covering them as well. Oh my God. Wow. And we're going to cut to Billy. Billy, you find the ladder. You haul yourself up it. Yeah. It takes so much longer than you think it's going to. Yeah, because his perception of distance is changing. So he's like a foot off the ground, but looks so far. And he's so scared. Yeah. You look down six inches and you hear like, ka-ka! Yeah. On the top of a mountain. It's a canyon down there. And the wind is blowing so hard.

It's like a hurricane! It's like a hurricane! Shifts to a wide shot. And he actually is, Billy is blowing in the wind. Like there's some sort of hurricane wind down here that only Billy can feel. Whoa! You're going to have to roll something to get up this ladder. 2d6 plus a dexterity. 10. Good lord. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah, you are used to climbing up high places. And spirit winds only push you further up the ladder. Oh, yeah. You feel the wind kind of catch you under the butt and pick you up.

A couple feet. It's all these flower petals that fly up around me. Oh! Wow, we all really like that. And you feel your feet gently touch at the top of the ladder. Crow. And you look up and you see wood. Because there's still, you're still on the last deck before the top. Oh, shit. Where am I? God, I've never been, I'm lost. And Billy, you feel, you're starting to get pretty high. You're hungry. You've been traveling for months. Months. You're starving. What do I have?

You have nothing on you that you can, that you can eat. I'm going to go find a snack. Mm-hmm. And, oh man, it's perfect. You start walking around looking for something to eat and you find yourself in a beautiful orchard full of ripe, fat persimmons. No, no, stay away, Billy. Those aren't real. Oh, they smell so good. They're so juicy and ripe. Cover your nose. So Billy sticks both fingers up his nose. Yeah. He's like walking around. Like, don't fall for it. Oh my God, don't trip, Billy.

No, don't listen. And one plops right on the ground in front of you into the soft green grass of this orchard. Oh my God. You can see the juices leaking out. No, right away. Okay, and as you're running away, you hear Hello? And you're swarming around the persimmon, the juice. And what's leaking out on the ground is a single wasp. Oh my God. Oh my God. Run away. Wait a sec. It's actually freaking Justin. You seem familiar. Who? Where?

And it goes, and it flies right up to your face and starts flitting around. I know you. Billy's going to try to meditate just like Caroline was. Yeah, hit the ground and just meditate right away. Yep. Okay, 2d6 plus wisdom. Okay. Eight. Okay. You do it. You meditate and you close your eyes, sit on the ground and start trying to align yourself out of whatever fragment of the spirit realm this is. And you hear, be seeing you. Good one. I mean, wasp seeing you. Fuck.

And yeah, you, the buzzing slowly fades and you open your eyes and you are sitting on a pile of burlap sacks. Oh, I've never been so happy to be here. Man. How many grudges did we maybe create when we were in the spirit realm? At least one. A wasp. Yeah. Yeah. Ving definitely has grudge with the eagle for sure. Yeah. Oh yeah. Eagle. Who thankfully it does not appear has arrived at this boat. Every time. Yeah. Ving hears like any like, but who knows?

I feel like this event might be creating some turbulence in the spirit world that we might have to be dealing with later on. Yeah. It's like, there's like a pinpoint like convergence because we ate so much ghost, like so many people ate so much ghost through that. It's just like, it's like a beacon. Yeah. World. Yeah. All the spirits are coming to like take a sniff. Yeah. Cause they're all like, we can get through over here. Yeah.

Uh, so Billy, you see that you're now, you just see the boat for a second for a merciful moment. You just see what is actually around you. Uh, and you see that the ladder to the deck is close, but so far you even see light, coming through actual daylight. So you're going to have to navigate your way there. So give me a two D six plus intelligence. Wow. Whoa. I have no intelligence and it's a 12. Fuck. You rolled two sixes. I did. Wow. I love two sixes. Oh, so nice.

So Billy is doing the safe thing and he's, uh, like army crawling on the floor. Cause he's like, just stay in touch with the material world. Nice. Just stay as close to the, to the ground as you can. Trying to take in every actual physical sensation. Like, Oh, sawdust. Oops. I cut myself. Like just really trying to stay grounded and you find yourself at the base of the ladder. Beautifully. There are people rolling on the ground, seemingly struggling with some sort of spirit.

You see Ted finally is just like, Oh, he's like punching open air in front of him, but it seems like he's really in the middle of it. He's got a mouth full, big, beautiful white teeth. Spirit teeth. Yeah. Uh, and the ladder's right there in front of you. And we're going to cut back to tucking Ving. Oh, Ving, you can see tuck. You're a tree. I'm full. You just feel like a tree. Okay. Got trees for eyes. You got a tree for a hand. Stay with me, buddy. Don't get rooted.

God, this is the highest I've ever been for sure. I feel like a tree. And then, you know, there is one more deck above you before you get to the top. Okay. We're at the, there's a whole line of people who are freaking out attached. Like, it's like a hand on hand. Yeah, exactly. I'm the high. I'm two times high, but it seems to be working. Yeah. And you're still in this kind of like jungle zone. Do I need to navigate then? Because I'd have to get to the next one. Yeah.

Yeah, Ving, get us out of the jungle zone. Cause I'm stiffening. 2d6 plus intelligence. Hold on. That's hilarious. All right. I'm box car. Holy two sixes. Fuck. Plus intelligence. Hell yeah. Zero. Woo hoo. On another navigation. Okay. On another intelligence rule, you avoid dangers and distractions and make good time reaching a point of the GM's choosing before you need to make camp. You're not going to have to make camp. Oh man. This is like, and the thing is the lineup of people is so long.

Yeah. And you thankfully get to the ladder through, uh, all of these like dense, like jungle, like mangrove trees and vines chopping them out of the way. He's just like hacking people's belongings up with him. He's got the sword, the sword that he found and he's just hack. But you dad, you do get to one point in the spirit leaves and you hear something move through the trees next to you. Everyone get behind me and it moves off into the distance. I chase it. You chase it. I want to chase it.

Okay. You got Chuck, Chuck, Chuck. Fuck. What's your name? No. Yeah. It's Chuck now. Cause how much wood would a wood? Yeah. If a woodchuck could fuck wood and then he goes to fist bump, but he just touches the air. Cause he's, he's blind. Come on, man. Where are you? Uh, yeah, you're going to go, you're going to chase it down. Well, I just want to say something. All right. Uh, this is going to be another navigate. Oh God. Okay. Who are you? I got a 10. So fucked up. So fucked.

Uh, get back here. I want to help you grow. Then you're pushing through this like spirit foliage and you know that you're coming to the edge of the boat. You can tell. I stop. I listen. I look, I feel you look and you reach out and it's just like impenetrable. There's just air in front of you and you see the moonlight passing through the dense jungle. Oh, so cool. You see what looks like an elf and they make the quickest eye contact with you and then they dart into the trees and they're gone.

Is this your thing? We're going to cut back to Tuck. Sick. Tuck, Ving has run off into the trees. You think you can hear kind of. I ran into the, the room closet. I can hear a lot of rummaging around in there. Now, Perel's in there. Oh, what are you doing? Get off of me. But I don't hear help. Oh man. Yeah. Where's, how's Perel doing? Do you think? Can we cut to Perel for a second? Yeah. Perel's just on the front of the boat and he's looking down as the water passes by.

Can you be looking at his hands? He's like his webbed hands. Yeah. His hands are webbed like a frog's hands and he's just like, Oh no, he's reverted. He's reverted to the fish form. That's why it's webbed. Oh, cool. I love the fish. He's coy again. Yeah. His hands are like shimmering with like golden orange scales. They're like webs in between his fingers. He's like, Whoa. And that's, he's just, his mouth is just opening and closing. Like he's trying to stop himself from jumping into the water.

It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, on his chest as he like hurts a little bit he's just like whoa and we cut back down to Billy Billy you find yourself clamoring up the ladder yeah can you roll one more thing for me a defy danger dexterity 10 we're I'm killing it we're all rolling we're having so much fun this is so good at being high and Chuck is just blind this is the best you've ever maybe rolled and it's so low stakes yes to the get to the top deck and after scaling this insurmountable five-step ladder you roll out onto the deck and the actual sea air touches you for the first time in what feels like decades oh my god breathe again it's real the ocean is real and actually you take a breath and you breathe in this deep brining air around you and you feel your body calm and your vision clear a little bit and any like you know the roly-poly bugs that followed you up the ladder start to shimmer and fade around you and there are some people on the deck but they look like they're just exhausted they're sleeping now people are like hunched over stuff you see Perel his floral day coat flapping in the wind at the front of the boat as he's flexing his hands and he's like no no no no no no no no no no no and you see crow high up and he goes Billy are you okay yeah what is going on down there I'll tell you in a bit okay you're safe I'm good I just have to check on Perel okay I'm really fucking high it's Billy yeah I love I love you man I love you I just love everybody I'm having a great time and you find Perel at the front of the boat and he hears you coming and he whips around it's just me oh Billy oh Billy don't listen to whatever you see no I won't I can't be that fish again you're not that fish I can't be that fish again you're the wizard Perel oh I can't be that fish just lay on the floor let me just wrap you up in your coat like all nice look at you with your human face and your human hands and no fish scales anywhere hold on and he rolls over onto his side and he works a little bit and works his mouth and he spits out onto the deck a triangular silver coin oh what I didn't eat that and he points it Billy I want to be clear I didn't eat a coin I know I think Koi did though oh oh oh okay I think that's it I think that's all that's in there yeah you want me to rub your I'll rub your back here you go oh thanks Billy that feels great yeah that feels great giving you a little back rub thank you so much and Maggie stumbles up behind you and she's breathing deeply too and you can see her constitution clearing in some way and she's like wow that was bad huh it was pretty rough um seems to help once we get up top here okay wow great uh so everybody else below deck probably still losing it yeah okay all right we should probably go help him we're waiting at the next one okay we saw Maggie go up any second now she'll be coming in intrepid captain wouldn't let us down this time and uh yeah she comes down and she does open the hatch for everybody and sees all of these all right let's let's get everybody cleaned up huh we're covered in shit stuff like whatever was down here you smashed into it I know but that time that we were waiting under the Billy hatch I think it was like from our perception years being invented cool ranch Doritos in the time that it took you guys actually formed a community called cool ranch we fashioned like clothes ourselves out of skins quote unquote that we found old sacks and shirt totally yeah there's been a war between the two tribes and some people died and then tuck comes out he's still blind and he's like I've lived a thousand lifetimes and everybody comes up onto the deck one by one everybody's breathing in this sea air and this spiritual perception is finally clearing from their vision tuck you feel but don't see the leaves fall away from your eyes and your your fingers soften and start moving again oh god holy shit and your tattoo is just a tattoo I'm soft again guys and I'm in a soft face and everybody is standing on deck and you realize you've just been drifting for like hours and hours and hours who knows how long and yeah it seems like you've drifted off course a little bit and Maggie goes all right everybody she's standing up on a box all of the crew gathered around everybody sweaty and and pale and just kind of wearing whatever they had on them or whatever clothes they made out of whatever spirit materials they thought they saw some people have gotten married and divorced in the time that they lost yeah all right everyone I think we can all agree that that was pretty fucked Ted you're off rations and Ted goes I think that's smart next order of business is get back on track and get to the four frost islands what do we say yeah everybody goes actually you know what first let's maybe take a break everybody get some rest yeah yeah and they go and they very gently drop the anchor hoping that the mechanism doesn't fully come loose this time and the tuck has to lower it down hand over hand and he's still so fucking hung over like spirit hung over yeah 2d6 plus strength three experience you did this yourself go ahead and I wait six because I have three strength so someone can help me I'll aid you yeah totally yeah there's no yeah no reason you can't three no five six I got six six well I mean this is technically a situation in which so funny in which somebody can aid and aid because I mean if we're all fucked right now I'd love to see has gone to pick up that triangle coin and he sees both of you struggling and I also struggle got six you can't do shit you also got a six yeah oh my god go sprute so six three sixes three sixes three oh no beelzebub oh man it was like tuck started lowering it and then it started like slipping through his fingers because his hands still feel weird and then ving ran up and was like oh I got you buddy and then got sucked to the edge of the ship as soon as he grabbed it yeah billy had gone to try to help but he slipped on a banana slipped on a banana and uh skidded up into your guys's legs yeah and slammed into ving who slammed into tuck who dropped the anchor ted's there with the is it ted right who was in charge of the rations and he's like I swear that was the last ration I'll ever touch he's eating a banana ted I'm not gonna eat at all I promise uh so I think you drop the anchor so fast that the boat goes like and something falls over the side what is it to be lost forever fucking ted I hope oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh okay I mean it could be ted uh oh actually okay um something below deck<|cy|> something below deck smashes is it the liquid gold it's the liquid gold so if you go below deck to figure out what that was somebody comes up and is like what is this and it's like bulging out of the seams in the thing cuz it's like it's gold now it looks like a giant nugget of gold yeah so really thin and brittle yeah if we wanted to sell it we would have to be like super sneaky about it yeah exactly shit yeah uh but everybody takes a break if you've lost any hit points which I don't think you have feel free to replenish some stuff what's black from knights embrace a black spire rises oh can I try and commune with him right now it's doing a resting yeah cuz we're so close to spirit realm maybe I can figure out how to do it cuz we still have some ghost read in my system is the dumb thing that tux says to vang where he's like ving this is I'm pretty sure cuz I have a little bit of ghost root left in my system I can figure out how to do this things like yeah whatever knowing full well that cosmologically metaphysically not connected at all yeah so tux trying to find a way to connect with black spire using the pick I guess 2d6 plus wisdom six I'll aid yeah okay yeah d6 plus bond 11 yeah so I think maybe ving has to be close to do that at least for now and it is also probably because of the ghost root that it's working right now you what does it look like when you're trying to do this thing how do you do I the tiger I mean I don't know I just remember what it's like to be in presence with whoever I'm trying to reach out with whoever's been marked and I close my eyes and I wait for them to come to me so I try and think of black spire close my eyes and I think about wrestling of in the desert and and feeding him shiny crunch and that one tea party we had together that no one was involved what he's being saw that memory what the fuck and um yeah you see but don't feel your eyes like blink open and you see in gray scale basically high rock walls ancient rusted machinery and you feel like a deep like rumbling as you draw in breath and he that back out and you feel a question like on the edge of your mind and then the connection is broken he's curious today so something's going on with that yeah he's exploring he's exploring the mind or maybe I don't know he's curious about something else uh what are tucking or what are billion being doing with their quiet time um Billy's playing with his stuff what stuff like he because he took the triangle coin a parallel coughed up so he he's taken a packed his stuck basically and it's just a slight Yeah, there is.

I need somewhere to put this coin. I feel around the teddy. Are there any seams or pockets? There are seams. There seems to be one seam that is separate from the seams that would actually hold the bear together. But you would have to open it up. Yeah. I'm going to open it up. So you take your little knife and pop the seams on it. Inside is a small rectangular kind of beat up burnished metal box. What's inside of you?

The box itself doesn't open up, but there is on the side what looks like a little crank that folds out to the side. Okay. I crank it open. You start cranking and it starts to play a very quiet Macallan lullaby. Aww. It reminds you of the feeling of being held and watched over and cool desert air blowing in through the window on a moonlit night. You could probably shove your coin in the bear now too. I do that. I feel bad now taking it from Jake.

Yeah, so you jam your little coin in there with the music box in the bear. Was it the triangle coin that you put in there? Yeah. Cool. It's still kind of sticky. Smells pretty bad. Gross. What the? I forgot to wipe it off. Billy, wipe coins off. You're finding fish. Sorry. What's Ving doing with his quiet time? He's doing a little commune with the whispers of this part of the sea. He's never been to this part of the sea.

And in this part of the sea, I mean, everybody would see this when they come up. It's given way on the Macallan coast side to like, you see this place that we talked about, the pillar lands. Yeah. Yeah. You can see the pillars far off in the distance. The desert is giving way to like rocky, rugged, dry mountains with like the towering peaks of the white clouds far, far in the distance. Oh, I really like that there's like, you know how we look across to Washington and those mountains are huge.

Yeah. And then sometimes the clouds are behind them and then you're like, those look like way bigger mountains. That's like the white mountains are like. Yeah. Yeah. Massive. They tower over them. That's so cool. And far, far to the east you see, you know, the edge. The edge of the sea of graves. And it's starting to get colder. Like it's not as dry and hot as it was in Macall or closer to the coast further south. It's starting to get a little bit cold. Yeah. He stopped seeing.

There's like albatross that are off the shore of Macall and they'll go out really, really far, but he hasn't seen one for days. Yeah. Yeah. The ecosystem is starting to change. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Roll plus wisdom. Be granted a vision of significance to me or my allies and the spirits around you. On a 10 plus, it's clear and helpful. On a 7 to 9, it's unclear.

On a miss, it's upsetting and traumatizing. Ving's got his wooden necklace with Cloudpiercer, little bird. And he's just kind of got that. He's got it in his mouth. He's sitting there quietly. Four. Five. Four. Wonderful. He's still fucking wasted high. He found some more half-weed. So you're sitting there meditating, trying to commune with the spirits. And his mind is just, his thoughts are, he can't get there. He's just like, to-do list.

That thing I said, I wish I didn't divorce that person I met in the bottom of the decks. Man, that whole life I lived, I really messed that up. Yeah. And you're seeing all the things that you saw. You're seeing, you know, scorpions, the desert, your friend turning into a tree before your very eyes, Billy lost in a snowy field, dense jungle, biting insects, the image of an elf in the jungle, in the moonlit trees, and then steel gray waves.

And then you see towering above you a wall of fog, impenetrable, endless, consuming. The fog rolls towards you. I'm scared. Black prows, emerge from the wall. Whoa. Crude by hearty, brutal looking people. And then you see pitch black eyes. You feel teeth on your neck and then nothing. Whoa. Oh, God. 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.

Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Take care. And playing Fat Belly, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone. Thank you to the incomparable Aaron Reid for, for our amazing intro and outro music. All of the original music on Spout Lore can be found on our SoundCloud account. Thank you to all of our supporters from around the world. If you want to support us on Patreon, go to www.patreon.com slash speltlore or speltlore.com slash money, please.

And you can find us online at speltlore most places. We'll see you next time. And so ends the tale of adventures three who tried their best they could. And though dumb and scared and lost they be for times of rest in revelry And though our journey may be like a conclusion We will not leave you without a resolution Return next week to hear some more whilst you're commute Or do your chores And for you I'd gladly Spout Lore