Episode 4 – The Well

Now the round friends let me tell you a tale of three heroes noble and bold A brute, a druid, and a thief who is but nine years old You know them by name, you know them by deed, their quests are famously daring So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight Fingers have health, he shifts his shape, and wields a spear with great might Peely's a thief, his tiny size does mask the large's 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, and joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz Hey, what's up? Playing Ving the half-elf druid Paul Oppers Excuse him Playing Fat Billy the halfling thief Jessica Tai Hello When last we left our heroes Where was the start and end point there? We had that Avatar ending where Ving… I fell through the… Oh, did some waterbending? Yeah And then fell through a well Ving did waterbending That's pretty sick Sorry M.

Night Shyamalan We're fucking stealing your IP You bitch Does not belong to M. Night Shyamalan The greatest movie of all time Avatar the Airbender by M. Night Shyamalan Avatar the Airbender Is that what it's called? Yeah Avatar the last of the airbenders Colon, Croaching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Colon, I Know What You Did Last Summer Semi-colon, James Cameron's best movie yet By M. Night Shyamalan His name is in the title twice An M. Night Shyamalan joint But where was the starting point?

Breakfast Oh, you escaped from the light guard After breaking into the council hall In the Deep Ward Talked to the codex Then escaped Then went to your apartment Yes Gave Ving a flea bath Yes Mite bath And gave Kaj an aneurysm Yeah And then yeah, you had breakfast And went and hung out with Perel at a cafe Gave him the bad news That the entrance to the well Is in the heart of the Tepel Tower Is in the heart of the territory Of a gang called the Jackals Turned out to not be the heart Turned out to be one of the far ends But still inside You found a street barricaded by three Kids, small children Teenagers Over 18 but still children Over 18?

So 19 Okay Sorry, 18 plus Okay But still too young to be doing this shit And you mopped the floor with them And did a real classic Shoot me in the leg so they don't know that I'm a I'm a leg so they don't know that I let you pass Kind of thing Right Broke in And Ving did some waterbending Pulling water up from the disused well Carving a circle out of the stone above it And triumphantly falling down a well One of my best falling down a well yet Yeah So far Thus far So that is where we find ourselves now Ving, you're plummeting down a well On a perfect circle of stone What do you do?

I'm just gonna punch out the side And force my I'm gonna use my strength Oh, you're gonna stop yourself from falling Yeah Oh, okay, cool, cool, cool, yeah Okay Great Defy danger Strength Strength, yeah Great 2d6 plus strength Uh oh Seven Great So you just throw your hands out to either side And catch yourself on the walls of the well? Yeah Dig my fingers in Dig my toes in What What style are you using?

I'm using starfish style Learned at the sea of graves From the great Pilar I love it Ving Cheese calls the pods starfish style Seeds, hats, arms, legs out, very pointy And then he goes Are you horizontal there?

No, I start vertical and then I go horizontal But it's nice because we can get a measurement of the well It's as wide as Ving is when he does this It's a pretty wide well Yeah, that's thick It's a super wide well Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero down with the axe yeah like smash it into the wall grab a handhold smash it into the wall again totally do ice climbing but while destroying uh municipal works yeah an artifact yeah I can just climb down because it's like like nice rockiness and also I'm making a ton of handholds that's true totally uh just every time he's in just like heads up down there heads up down right rock rock ving's just getting nailed by rock yeah uh perel standing at the edge of the well he's looking down like wringing his hands get on my back should what should I be going should we are we prepared for this okay here you could either stay here in jackal territory and deal with that or you could come with me and get on my back I guess I didn't think we'd be all right we're leaving I guess I didn't think that we'd be going into the well so fast we always go in the well so fast I don't have I didn't bring anything with me why you didn't bring your well hat I feel like we're just rushing into this all right I'm like hey I'm still like just only like three steps down the well what do you want to talk about perel why are you so scared well I mean we're going into a disused well that's been closed for at least 100 years maybe two some of us are already in the well can we speed this up okay all right okay fine okay fine takoma grab me okay I take him and I put him on my back he wraps his arms around your neck wrap your legs around my torso okay he does that your torso is very wide I know I'm in a bulk phase again all right so ving is I guess using strength yep to continue tuck also probably using strength yes billy more dexterous yeah tuck 13 yep um 12 oh shit yes that's six oh no is there any way we can aid you oh yeah yeah yeah okay aid I throw my harpoon up here I'm slipping I'm gonna throw my harpoon up here I'm slipping I'm slipping I'm slipping I'm slipping I'm slipping I'll catch it okay so billy roll 2d6 plus bond set my rope please eight okay great so ving throws his harpoon as he starts to fall yeah I'm slipping I'm slipping I'm slipping and uh it goes up and billy snatches it as it flies in front of him and ving starts falling again the rope snaps hot billy also falls off the wall because he weighs five pounds and then billy gets stuck in the crook of like a rope and he's like oh my god I'm slipping I'm slipping I'm slipping I'm slipping I'm slipping like tuck's body yeah oh hi hey tuck's got so many people out of he's like andre the giant and the princess bride this always happens it always happens it's always with perel you're doing a great job he's like patting your chest thank you so it uh you you descend this uh the tube of this well for a good long amount of time uh descending at least 100 feet tuck takes a deep breath he's like brings back memories I think tuck used to spend time in a lot of sewers but not ones this deep yeah I think he went through a real sewer phase like what would he do in the sewers I don't know it was a lot of make-believe play I'm a rat I'm a rat I it would it started as necessity where he was like he would use it to sort of escape from fathom he would mostly use it to escape from fathom because fathom would always corner him because tuck wasn't fast fathom was fucking really fast for how fat he was and tuck was not fast so he would get cornered down like dead end alleyways and stuff but he did there are greats all over the place fathom was always way bigger yeah too fat yeah so fathom's fat was like really strong fat so it was hard for him to like squish into greats but tuck could squish into greats like nobody's business so it's tuck more flabby yeah nice when he ran there were so many centers of gravity moving all over the place his like just so many rolls slapping yeah I don't know and you come to the base of the well and it opens up on either side into what looks like an ancient sewer pipe that's like eight feet tall with a little trickle of water that's sitting in the base it looks like when ving called to the water in the well he was pulling up water from a few different directions oh cool and at the bottom there's a huge plug of stone that's cracked in several places and it's at this point you all come to the realization the only source of light is about a hundred feet above you what about the axe pitch black except for the axe that magically lights all that it sees and the knife and the knife but tech just wants to leave that it's back okay he's scared of losing it yeah but I will say in the months that you've owned the waning knife that you've at least had possession of the waning knife you've realized that though it looks like it's reflecting the light of the moon it's not a light source okay so we can't use it to light our way no good I mean like but you can look at it in the dark and be like wow you could probably read porn really close up yeah or anything billy yeah anything I just like just based on what I see in your pile I don't have that much that much just looking at the same few porns over and over again I was just looking for my truck book and found your fuck book yeah billy I have the one copy of love and loss that we stole from aquaria and a mud affairs that we stole from the mayor's house well and whose dirty books are those well guys let's get down this filthy sewer moving forward big was gonna fucking throw me under the bus for owning porn it's not porn what is it it's animal mating rituals billy calls it porn yeah I like the fact that billy calls most books porn because he thinks that they're all porn based on the books that he's seen yeah so how are we going to do this oh yeah I guess fucking didoy perilous journey uh so we are going to use the moves from perilous wilds that we've been using so scout ahead and navigate so one per who gonna scout ahead who gonna navigate should I scout ahead with the light yeah and your trap expertness oh yes perfect and ving might be good to navigate since he has a connection to all the water the water that's in there that's yeah totally yeah so uh billy roll 2d6 plus wisdom please oh no what was that what was that it was only a five well shit so on a six plus you mark an xp so do that and just to see what exactly what happens ving go ahead and roll navigate and we'll see plus wisdom plus intelligence for now oh fuck just go ahead and mark it experience it we're doing really well this is great everybody and perel's like I told you we shouldn't rush in the well this is what happens when you rush what did I say what did I say you know what happens when you rush places perel is you save your friend from a fucking dick monster who took over his body across a sea of graves where are we I don't know which way to go where are you're all just bickering in this ancient sewer and you are just walking around being idiots smashing your way through things yeah I guess we're kind of like meandering oh yeah I I made a little willow the wisp but I'm more like playing with it yeah tex trying to catch it I'm like bouncing around like a little balloon yeah can you toss it to me and I'll see if I can bat it out of the air with the axe okay two d six plus dexterity what no absolutely not I got seven nice so what happens uh you succeed I guess what happened at playing with your kid your kid has a treasured memory oh my god what write that down point of experience absolutely not well you cut it into two now we have two lights I feel like I look away for five seconds to find out a rule and you're all rolling dice and failing and succeeding okay so you're walking down the you're walking down the sewer uh-huh for like a ways and you know uh tunnels pop off on either side like it looks like you connected to this old sewer system it stinks pretty bad maybe some of this is still kind of in use and but just that well specifically wasn't and uh you see that the way ahead gets kind of sludgy thing is and billy are like walking through it like stomping through this sewer and you're like oh my god I'm gonna die I'm gonna die sludge and it starts really sucking at your boots oh no and then your feet start stinging and you're trying to pull yourselves out of this sludge and the sludge is like wrapping up around your legs oh no I'm starting to pull you this is a normal shit holy shit what is this you don't know but it's like what looked like a big pile of shit sitting in the middle of the sewer starts to rise up in different spots like weird pseudopods of slime start lifting up and billy and ving are being like grabbed by the sewer and you're like oh my god I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die pile of goo what do you do oh my god uh fuck wait but I'm never caught by surprise oh oh baby yes okay so and made a face see this is this is why I'm glad you remembered this okay so ving is ankle deep in this goo I'm fucked but billy like flips and cartwheels out of this goo once it starts grabbing at him cool moves billy thank you your beer boots do unfortunately stay behind so now you're barefoot in this sewer ving roll a d10 10 oh whoa fuck you take 11 points of damage sure and yeah the pseudopods in this goo are coming up to like lash at you what do you all do oh man those shoes it's so hard to find doll shoes small enough to fit billy okay I'm gonna fight with honor and roll my for my chi holds oh yeah my ving chi holds yeah so 2d6 plus constitution great eight okay so that means that you get two chi all right and one of my cheese I can use to leap over across a physical obstacle or break free from bonds another confinement oh fuck it sick cool wow so what does this look like I uh gather my ving chi what does that look like it's a like a dance have you ever seen the three amigos so he crosses one hand on one shoulder another hand on the other shoulder puts his hands on his hips and then thrusts his crotch forward and goes chi you're describing the first half of the macarena and then the second half is just a humping motion yeah so the end of the macarena it's the beginning of the end of the macarena fuck the middle of the macarena this is ving chi style uh and then he puts his hands up like a monster on one side of his body and then moves them across and then flicks them down and now it's like backstreet boy style in sync backstreet's back all right all right and so how and how do you break free of the grip of this goo he uh hunkers down into it gets down into the floor and then uh launches his self up grasshopper style oh and I have the harpoon so I launch it up into the ceiling oh yeah oh so you're just hanging from the ceiling and I get up into the ceiling and swing down to the side where they can't get me cool and pull like yank on the harpoon so it flies out of the wall right in your hand and you're getting good with that thing thank you and tuck is a little bit turned up a little bit hey it's not that hard tuck respects martial prowess I guess so he's realizing uh yeah so this goo is now reaching up on either side and becoming sort of this tentacly pile of sludge that's moving to either side not really sure what to do yet have I heard of anything like this before you've heard stories but nothing you can specifically remember oh god unless you make a roll 26 plus intelligence uh fine mark a point of experience I wish I could remember things more specifically yeah so you're like wow what the fuck is this thing I don't even know and it snaps out a pseudopod and grabs your axe and starts trying to pull it I pull it away all right and I'm like that's mine uh defy danger strength I guess nine I'm gonna do an aid by looking off a chunk of the floor with my uh spear and throw a big rock at it so you start yanking back on the axe like no this is my axe uh and ving throws a big rock at it we're so good at fighting and it actually it reaches out and grabs the rock what like the pseudopod goes bloop and then like off the axe and snaps out to react and grab the rock that was thrown at it billy oh slingshot oh here we go but you see that you hear like uh like a hit and run sound and then you hear a hit and run sound and then you hear a hit and run sound and a popping and you see the the rock start to dissolve I take my axe and I smash a bunch of shit off the wall to make as many rocks as possible because that distracted it right I mean in terms of that defy danger yes okay it's not like ah that's its weakness rocks well I guess this is what tuck thinks plus strength it's eight nine ten uh so yeah tuck starts smashing apart the side of the tunnel and some rocks fall down and it starts reaching out to the side of the tunnel and it starts reaching out to the side of the tunnel and it starts reaching out to the like make sure the rocks don't crush it but also pulling them into it and it's just dissolving rocks and you see its mass increasing as it absorbs these rocks I want to take all the all the all the all the rocks ving takes all the rocks that's absorbing and elementary mastered and pushes it back okay yeah all right walking it back down the hallway okay 2d6 plus constitution for elemental mastery nine I'll aid throw keep throwing rocks at it yeah here we go wait in it yeah I'm slingshotting yes slingshotting the little rocks this thing hates rocks good plan tuck eight okay nice yeah so you succeeded that makes it a 10 and so you're just pushing the rocks away it's you said it's absorbing the rock so it's full of rock so I'm using that to like move it you're moving this thing down the tunnel with rocks like the the tunnel starts pick like picking up and waving and it's yeah rolling it up rolling thing it's rolling it through the floor it's mixed steam rolling it yeah it's rolling it like play-doh like into this little tube and it's rolling away and it's like a little bit of a mini-money mode that's not the way to go boom yeah and there's a tunnel you find another uh side tunnel as the one that you're in continues forward there's one to your left that continues to the left and what you push it down that way his left side of the tunnel is the one that you're in left or my left the royal left okay we left go right can tuck collapse that tunnel yeah certainly 2d6 plus strike seven okay you collapse the tunnel and tuck is stuck on the other side no no no no I really painted myself in the corner over here so ving does a tai chi push down the tunnel with this goo monster and tuck starts smashing at the top of the tunnel to collapse it slicing through what appears to be some sort of vital water pipe for some sort of system and now ice cold water is pouring into the tunnel oh what do you do I don't know we could just run away yeah okay I'm gonna call this a defy danger wisdom as you start to blindly run through these tunnels to avoid the water that's rising around your ankles can we follow the water who has the most yeah you could follow the water yeah plus one I have plus two yeah oh and I'm the one who knows about water yeah that's an interesting idea yeah follow the water and knows where to go trust in the water water is the way okay wow it's 11 okay holy shit fuck yeah yeah you're just sprinting basically being like I hope this doesn't get really bad and you uh are running blindly for two three minutes and following the trail of water as it moves in greater volume down different pipes and you throw your arms out to either side to stop tuck billy and perel as you come to the edge of this tunnel you're like oh my god I can't believe it's like a huge underground like cistern is this the only way out it appears to be and the volume of water behind you is getting aggressive billy it's like around it's almost to your shoulders basically I'm gonna drown I picked billy up and billy's out of danger yeah I put him on my shoulder oh I got really scared I'm gonna drown oh I'm fine it's ankle deep water yeah for you but billy comes up to your ankle uh yeah so um tuck is basically acting as a break water and it's spreading out on either side oh yeah I should just like wedge myself into the pipe I'm already hunched down a little bit hey you know what this could be a good opportunity for what impervious oh yeah one of tuck's new classes which we do go over in the character creation episode so I can use unbent unbowed unbroken where I just take a hit uh you didn't write down one of those moves dude did you you just wrote down their names huh you just wrote down their names huh you just wrote down the names of the moves I wrote some stuff to remind me of what they do yeah uh-huh can you tell me exactly what that move does to it says unbent unbowed unbroken and then there's a bullet point underneath an empty bullet point does that happen to mean something special to you I think I got distracted while we were writing uh so what unbowed unbent unbroken does when you prepare yourself to endure some hardship without fighting back roll plus constitution oh sick 10 10 on a hit you can either take half damage or you can completely completely ignore one other I'll effect and on a 10 plus you can also defeat expose or frustrate your oppressor with your stubbornness there isn't really an oppressor but basically what that means is the I'll effect is all of you being shoved into this cistern yeah so you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything you can't do anything spot in front of him.

And maybe the frustration to the water is that it's actually creating a nice mist for the people in front of me. Yeah, it's like a cooling mist. Yeah, it's pulling out like toxins out of your skin. You all feel dewy and rejuvenated. It's a nice water. Perel's like rubbing it on his head like, ooh, this is nice. Stop doing that. What? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that you all live in a condo with a bathroom and a shower. You don't have a bathroom in your studio apartment?

No, I have to go to the cafe downstairs. To what? To shower? Okay, guess what? Haven't been able to shower for a little bit. Oh my God. And guess what? We knew that. You could have just used our bathroom. We all shower there at the same one after the other, not at the same time. Would you all let me use your bathroom? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, that's great then. I'm sorry. I didn't want to intrude. Anyways, where are we?

And so, yeah, you're on the edge of this pipe that empties into some huge underwater cistern. I was thinking of using WorldTalker to talk to the water and communicate with the water and see if this is going into the bottom of the library or if there's a place that the water likes to go out of here and what the system is and just kind of get the goods on the cistern from the water. Yeah, totally. So you just want to talk to the water that's in the cistern, I guess? Yeah. Yeah.

It seems like clean water. Oh, no, it's not. No? Oh, wait. Well, the water from above, the water from that pipe was pretty clean. But the water is sitting in this old cistern. It's like, Hey, what's up, bud? Whoa. How are you doing? Oh, same as I ever was. Just sitting around. How long you been down here? You sound a little stagnant. Been down here for as long as anybody's been down here. I am the result of a thousand baths. I am the child of a thousand flushes. Ew.

As long as water has passed through man, has passed into the earth, I have been here. Ving's like, We don't want to go in this water, guys. Is it the only way, though? Where do you flush to? Everyone flushes to you, oh great water. It all flushes to me. And where do you flush to? Hey, you guys tell me. Where does this go? Because I don't know.

I feel like, because the thing that we do know about this weird entrance is that it's part of an old mine that like this sewer probably adjoins to somehow. So what do we think that is? Should we discern the realities of this cistern? Yeah, you can discern realities. Great. Holy shit. 14. Nice. I guess what should we be on the lookout for? What here is not what it appears to be. And what is about to happen?

So what I'll say is that what here is not what it appears to be makes more sense for where you want to go. Okay. Because the water explains that this is the end point for most of the sewer tunnels in McCall over the last like thousand years. This is a settling pool. Yeah, exactly. And it is very aware of where all the pipes go. And there is a pipe that it describes on the far side of this cistern that burrows deeper into the rock.

But at some point within the last couple centuries, part of that pipe was broken. Broken through smashed out eroded and that empties into a huge space that you can only assume is like this old mine is the library in the mine. No. Well, like basically what you're looking for isn't an actual like door. It's an entrance that the library might not even be aware of or they're like there's no fucking way. Anybody is going to get through that mine because it's such a pain in the ass.

So we're not even going to bother boarding up this old hole. There's a bunch of like librarians like they're like, there's too much shit and piss down there. No one's going to be gross enough to come through. Not unless they're a complete idiot. Some architect comes out and he's like, oh my God, fuck. It's just shit and piss down there. Forget it. Not worth it. It's no one's coming through that. Holy fuck.

And what the water tells you you should be on the lookout for is there is a creature living in this cistern. No. And what is what is about to happen is if you touch that water, it's immediately going to come for you. Okay, we need to get across to that one right there across the cistern. Yeah. So it tells us which one of the openings it is. Yeah, basically being you can see it in your mind's eye. Thank you.

You separate says tool of beautiful wonder and amalgamated beauty from centuries of waste. Thank you so much. I am the history of the city contained within the birth of millions. Now you can continue. You can get across however you want, but there's something under the surface. A compost monster. Can I just just so I understand? Yeah, we went down the the disused like wells pipe like yeah, it's feeding pipe and then that ends at the cistern.

Yeah, which is where all the waste of the city goes and then on the other side of this, there's a tunnel that goes to a shitty pissy mine that on the other side of which is the library. Yeah. Okay, this is a secret entrance to a. Very secure place. It's like so really out of the way where they're not just going to be able to put like police caution tape across the door. That's like don't enter our ancient library, please.

Yeah, so that's the situation and there's something living under the surface of this disgusting shitty piss water came when you get across the cistern without touching the water. The water is a lava. Do you want to use your harpoon? Oh, yeah, always. Yeah. So what's the what's the plan here? Gonna throw the harpoon across and use the rope to shimmy across the gross water.

Yeah, if you tie the rope to my waist, you guys can shimmy across while I hold the water back and then we'll just swing you across. Yeah, it's done. How long is the rope on your harpoon miles? Okay, I yeah, because this is the kind of thing where it's like, well, you could try and find another you could ship try and shimmy across. Oh like edges around climb around could element try and like freeze the water.

You could try and just swim across and book it like or we could can I try can I just climb like that? Yeah, Billy probably could shimmy across. Yeah. Yeah. I'm already doing it. Okay, Billy what? I just that's how I would react to you like just dipping around the corner. Yeah, what I'm already doing it. Tuesday six plus dexterity because it's like a pretty narrow. Yeah, but floor is lava. I'm good at this. Oh fuck. Well, I guess someone's falling in the shitty piss water.

I got five and I fall in immediately tuck goes Billy and I'm like, what and then his just his center of gravity like he loses balance. Yeah, and my shoes. Oh, yeah, Billy's barefoot to not that it matters because he's completely submerged in shitty piss water and this is like as being is like uncoiling his rope and getting ready for throw Alex about 20 feet should be no Billy splash. I'm sorry. Yeah, and Billy like dips under the surface. Oh no. Yeah, I've been okay as he's diving.

He launches the spear in the side of the in the side of the wall and go dives in ties around his waist and I'll take it water. Yeah, defy danger dexterity for that because that's a cool move seven. Okay, so you do that you slam the harpoon into the stone underneath the pipe. You have the rope tied around your waist. You do this all in the air talk. You see this I'm so impressed with things physical. He's like hot.

Yeah, I mean it's like it's a platonic sexual attraction that where you're just like, you know, when you're like you just see like a ripped dude and you're like, wow, what a masterpiece of a human form that is this is so fluid. What is Perel do when he notices Tux boner? It's I don't have a half chub whatever tonic thankfully, it's a little too dark in here the platonic boner.

It's on a calf chub, but yeah, you sploosh right under the surface of the water grab hands grab hands and the seven to nine is what you feel in the vibrations of the water as you touch the surface is you feel something swimming very quickly towards you and you see it through the murk shit in the piss. What is it? You tell me I want to know what you guys think it is. What is it? Oh my God. I was thinking is it's a terrifying gigantic stone crab. It's a stone crab.

Another stone crab starts licking his fingers. Do we want to do stone crab again? No, it would be kind of fucking hilarious stone lobster. It's got the flappy tail to rock lobster rock lobster boy. All right. Yes, it's a rock lobster actually. Let me let me find a creature.

Okay, so you see this thing swimming through the water towards you mostly you see it in your like half kind of spirity sense, but you see two pairs of razor sharp claws and like a head that's chitinous like a shellfish, but with some strangely and unsettlingly human features and then the mouth full of like mandible parts. What the fuck is that called? And it's just booking through the water towards you get the action.

You actually feel vibrations through the water in a couple parts of the system. No tuck. I pull I pull him up because the harpoon is in reach. I reach down and I just yank them both wind it up. Yeah. Yeah. No, I just pull so hard like a beyblade to the plus strength letter rip eight.

Yeah, you pull them out of the water just in time and you see this like spiny chitinous shell like crest the surface of the pool before diving back in and you see you see two other forms press the water and dive back in underneath. Oh gross and things are sick.

There's just that weird like, you know, there's something just under the surface like you can see the water moving as they swim around and they're getting really close to just basically circling in front of this pipe kind of binocular by discerning realities. Yeah, or spelt luring. Yeah, probably Spout Lore makes more sense to get info on this thing. Wait, what is it with intelligence? Six paid and what do you do as the water? What the fuck are those things? Yeah, two to six plus great bond.

Perfect. So seven. So it's interesting but not useful. So what you do know is what they are. They're called chules and they're sort of a half man half shellfish creature. They have really really powerful claws and they're semi intelligent to they have this sort of like like primordial intelligence sense little crabs that got down here and then they ate so much human shit that they got intelligent. Yeah, they're vicious.

I mean, I'm not going to tell you any of their weaknesses, but what you do know is that they're fucking vicious gross. Yeah, what do crabs not like rocks? We'll throw more rocks at them. Can you ingratiate yourself to them? Good try. I was going to say like could I switch objects or you can make an illusion? Oh, yeah, chase. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, work for the light guard. It'll work for the chuds. Yeah. Okay, so for the chuds it actually also might be cool shul. I like chuds.

It's not a chud and yeah, a lot of this like a lot of the specific names and stuff come from Perel being like, oh man, I've heard of these things. Why don't you tell us that? Why do we have to stand here guessing? I don't know. I wanted to see if you would get it. Okay, so I'm going to create a convincing illusion to make it them chase that what's the convincing illusion? Look like it looks like Perel because I'm kind of mad at him for like withholding that info.

Yeah, it's such a dangerous time and I make him look really stupid like he's in his like flippers and like little like bikini thingy and his water wings and he's like Billy didn't why would you bring that up again? I didn't know that we weren't supposed to dress like that at the beach and he just like like goofy in one of those old cartoons about going to the pool. He's like, oh, and he just dives into the water goes up bends and down. Yeah, but starts the illusion.

I guess it's probably swimming fast enough that they can't catch it. Yeah, and deep enough. Yeah, yeah, going all over the place. All right, guys, we got to get across. I don't know how long I can hold it. We could also just swim across if they're distracted. You could try and super poopy. Well, I mean, we're going to have to go through that shit mine. Anyway, Pearl's like, uh, do we have to? Yes. Yes. Pearl, you want your magic back, right? Yes, I do. We're literally only doing this for you.

Yeah, and also because we're bored with our day job. Okay, and then he does a dive very similar to the dive that the illusion Perel did. Okay, so can I swim for everyone? Like if we get on you like a little boat? Yeah, and I like motor. Yeah, so 2d6 plus strength, I guess to swim as fast as you can hard as you can. Oh, God, Lord of Water, please help me. That one has to be rewrote. I don't know. Nine plus strength. Yeah, 11.

Yeah, and Perel's like, wait, and he's trying to catch up to swim like choking on shit water, but you get to the other side. You find it. You see a pipe tuck reaches up, grabs it, yanks himself up Andre the Giant style with all of you on his back, and you're on the other side. Cool. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Did you guys get shit on you? Oh, yeah. And then Tuck spits out a little nug of something. Oh, I can't be too. Okay. Good job. Not swallowing that bow. Thanks, man. I swallowed others.

So you find yourself on the other side of the cistern. Ving, you follow the directions that you were given by the history of McCall's bowel movements. That's how he self identifies. Oh, yeah. No, this thing has the deepest respect for the information contained within people's butts and urethras. And you come to this. It feels like this pipe that you're in is like it feels almost more ancient than the other pipes that you've been in. Like this has been here for at least a thousand years.

And you come to a section of it that's been smashed through by time, by people, by the elements who's like corrosion. Yeah, it's just collapsed in and you feel as you're walking towards the section, you feel cold air blowing down the tunnel at you. It feels nice. It doesn't smell like shit. Oh, so you come to this opening and you'd have to like hop on a rock, hop on a rock, shimmy across. But you see an old rickety wooden walkway rising up like out of the dark, like the gloom.

The water is trickling down into the base of this mine, but you hear it pattering quite a ways down. Okay. And there's like what looks like an old miners catwalk system. Oh, yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it smells cool and damp and there's like a faint whiff of shit, but it's far enough away that you're like, okay, finally some fucking respite from waiting through people's diarrhea. I imagine it's like we open up and it's just so deep. It's like Moria. Yeah. Yeah.

You can hear like the ting ting. Hello. Hello. Hello. That's an echo, Billy. And you hear screeching in the distance, the flapping of dark wings. Oh, my God. I mean, there actually probably are. There probably are monsters in this mine. That in mind. Okay. All right. I won't do that again. Yeah. In the far distance, you hear like why is there a wolf down there? Oh, mine wolf. Yeah. Look out. It's an iron wolf. I eat iron. Iron wolf is the name of a band that came through bar last week.

Actually, they said it said that the lead singer is a lycanthrope. Yeah, man. The billeting system fucking sucks. Yeah. He had to stay with you guys in cash. He was not happy. And yeah, so you have this like rickety walkway to make your way through the mine. I guess this is probably going to be one last scout ahead and navigate to get through this thing. Okay. So who is scouting ahead? Who's navigating? Well, it makes the most sense if you scout. Okay. Okay. I'll do that.

And I'm like the most light. Yeah. Two to six plus wisdom. Please. Whoa. Holy shit. Ten. Yeah. Nice. So on a ten with the perilous wild scout ahead, you get to choose to you get the drop on whatever lies ahead. You discern a benefit beneficial aspect of the train, a shortcut shelter or tactical advantage. You make a discovery. You notice a sign of a nearby danger. I want the tactical the second one and the discovery one. Okay. So you find something cool. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And we'll do navigate now as well, just so we can kind of build it all. We'll navigate. Yeah. So navigate is plus intelligence fail. Oh, no. Is that three? Yeah, I got three. Yeah. So you mark XP. Yeah, sure do. Okay. So let's talk about the cool thing that you find first. Okay. So you are in an ancient mine. So you are stumbling through walking along these old walkways at times when you're walking, they're like kind of swaying as you're stepping across. I tell them like, don't step on that one.

Step over here. Yeah. Hold onto this rope. Exactly. And I think in terms of history because it's so deep. Maybe it's a giant mine. Oh, that's a cool idea. So the walkways are really wide. Yeah. Though old still sturdily constructed. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe there's like a remnant of a giant thing. I'd be fine. Maybe it's a dead giant. Oh, shit. Like do we see it just or at least like a skeleton of a giant. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. Because this is this is like the or a car or whatever have been gone for a long time. Yeah. One of the ridges on the like along the mining wall. There's like a skull a giant skull. Yeah. Magina fell. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Far, far down like the light from Tux axe lights up this this ridge far down from a catwalk. And there is a it's not just a skull. It's a it's more of a skeleton. Okay. Like there's the head, the neck, the chest, both arms.

And then one of the legs is snapped in a place and that bone has fallen away. But there's just this massive like 30 foot tall skeleton. Whoa. But their bones aren't bone. It's onyx is because we said their skin was like black. And I think they're their bones are black as their bones are black. But it's actual like stone. Whoa. So like would it shine like onyx almost? Yeah. The light from the axe is like reflecting off this skeleton. Wow. This midnight black skeleton. Spooky. Yeah.

There's some tools there too. Like you can see like what looks like a metal helmet of some kind like an enormous pick like huge taller than Tuck easy. And it's got like stuff. It looks like it has some possessions that was left with it, but it's kind of out of reach. You'd have to work to get it. I don't want to risk it. Oh, wait. I could switch to switch. Oh, yeah, I think it's going to be like like a crane game. Okay, like you're just going to be like, okay, you take this.

I don't know meat pie that I've had in my bag. It's like my last baklava. It's filled with shit. I'm like, I guess I don't want it anymore. And then Billy looks at us like right. I don't eat this. He's looking at other people for advice. I don't. And then I tell myself no, Billy, you don't want to eat this. And so like, yeah, I'm going to use my fairy child move to switch to objects within view. So I don't know how I do that.

I just like I I drop the baklava and then I like feel like the air the spirit air. Oh, my fairy air. I don't know. It's like air. You guys can't feel but I feel it. It's like like just blowing up at me and then I snatch my hand and in it is one of the canine teeth. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I give it to Perel. Here you go. Whoa. So it's like it's big huge. Yeah, like almost like a saber tooth. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wait, wait. They're descended from orcs. So they have tusks. Oh, so it's even bigger.

Holy shit. Yeah. So it's one of the bottom tusks on an on an orca. Okay. Yeah. Well, I'll catch it. It's really heavy.

He grabs it and he's just cradling it in his hands like I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I it in half it means he loves it the most the wisdom of king solomon or whatever it was as interpreted through yeah we'll share custody yeah I just want to study it yeah you can hang on to it study the essence of a giant oh but you can't shape shift anymore I can study the essence of whatever I want you can keep studying essences but he can't shape shift into a giant oh that's disappointing god damn I can learn a ving chi yeah you can learn to fight like a giant oh giant style boom boom boom boom you just say boom boom boom boom boom v544 I'm gonna kick your bum uh and yeah prel throws it in his bag and it's just like wow this is this was this is incredible in his fanny pack yeah in his hip satchel you know I gave up my baklava for that so I hope you enjoy it I'll get you another one billy cool and as you can see I'm not going to be able to do that because I'm not going to be able to do it you're walking away and prel's just like wow whistling and you feel a rumbling in the walkway under your feet uh and I think tuck probably notices at first uh-huh you feel a rumbling and you hear like a crashing and you look behind you uh-huh and the walkway has started to collapse behind you oh my shit and collapsing is rushing at you like a wave of falling stone and steel and wood oh my god sprint yeah I start running and I sprint sprint I start like picking people up as I go I'm running and you all are like you're just picking people up under your arms I'm sprinting way ahead thing is running ahead and I think that's where we're gonna end it for this week I wanted to roll the file and I don't care my name is Sean O'Hara I've been your game master joining me as always playing tacoma dome the barbarian abdulaziz goodbye everybody playing ving the half elf druid Paul Oppers oh shit bye and playing fat billy the halfling thief jessica tie oh no thanks to erin reed for our amazing intro and outro music and thanks to our incredible incredible supporters from the world over you can find us on social media at Spout Lore most places we'll see you next time and so ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can though dumb and scared and lost they be for times of rest in revelry and though our journey may be like you 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