Episode 5 – Bookworms

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

I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz Hello Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers Hey! And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai Hi!

When last we left our heroes, they had descended deep deep into the ancient sewers beneath the eternal flame of the west, Makal And had just been traipsing through ankle deep shit for most of a day Ving communed with the spiritual personification of the history of Makal's bowel movements A giant sluicy shit A giant sluicy shit, who was helpful in pointing you in the direction of what you were looking for And letting us know that the mine was there too Yeah That's very helpful And also letting you know that there were monsters lurking within his shitty pissy depths The Chules!

Three half-man, half-crawdad lobster-looking motherfuckers Yeah Who you were thankfully able to…

Escape from due to Billy's quick thinking with a convincing illusion Thereby bypassing the second of two combat encounters presented to you Within this adventure The first one being a monster that we never figured out what it was, or what it was called And don't wanna know Don't wanna know, I'm not gonna tell you Yeah And we ended with you finding the disused mine itself Which we determined to be of giant make and model Uh It was a classic giant model mine It was a 1972 Hemi giant mine We get down in the mines and we dig classic cars out of the rocks And traveling across some old but sturdily constructed catwalks Finding on a far away ledge the skeleton of what appeared to be an injured and deceased giant miner Billy using his fairy magic Swapped a shitty piece of baklava With a obsidian tusk An onyx tusk Cause their bones are made out of onyx Cause their bones are made of stone Dark black stone Sorry, onyx is a kind of rock, it's not just a Pokemon, right?

Yes, and it's a stone, yeah Okay Uh, so now, uh, Perel in his hip satchel His stylish, yet contemporary hip satchel Contaz It's leopard print Cool Yeah, but it's supposed to be Look like it's made out of leopard skin Stuff in the city is made out of leopard skin This just isn't Yeah, the, that's actually why we got clocked by the jackal kids Cause they were like, look at this dipshit Stupid fanny pack Uh, so yeah, Perel has a giant tusk, which is pretty cool And as you were reveling in the discovery of an ancient skeleton The catwalk behind you began to collapse Oh yeah And you began to escape And that is where we find our heroes now, running for their lives down a collapsing catwalk What do you do?

Shit, shit, cheetah-chee, cheetah-chee Yeah, I'm holding, I'm holding Perel and Billy and running as fast as I can I'm running on all fours, you know how you do that thing like You're pretending to be a chimpanzee Ah, ah, ah It's slower Sure Definitely slower It's a little slower Uh, okay, so what's everybody doing?

Billy's being carried by Tuck Yeah, I'm just in his fist He's like running and I'm just like Like a handball Yeah Yeah, Billy's in one fist and actually Perel is in the other one I've got him by the crotch No, no, no It was the most convenient way to scoop him up Yeah Yeah Okay, so what are you, what is Ving doing?

Yeah, I'm doing cheetah-chee Alright, uh, 2d6 plus, I guess dexterity Dexterity Yeah Eight Alright Thank goodness And I'm just, yeah, running hard Seven Okay, so two partial successes Which to me says that you're going to get to safety but not where you want to be Well, one thing that is like get to safety but not where we want to be is if it starts collapsing from ahead of us too Both sides And we have to like take a different route Yeah, totally, that works for me Like it's collapsing in the direction that you thought that the vibrate might be There's a hanging pipe going by Yeah, we have to jump to the pipe Oh, fuck No, it's like coming down from a wall from somewhere else and then passes under the catwalk where you are It's like three pipes side by side Oh Does that make sense, Jess?

Yeah No No I'm so bad at infrastructure No, it's It's basically part of machinery further in the mine Oh, so like ancient pipes? Exactly Yeah Oh Running across below like the bridge that's collapsing Yeah And a section of the catwalk still like just hanging off the pipes but no supports underneath And now you're all standing on these three pipes suspended, who knows how high in the air Can we describe how we do the jump?

Yeah, please do Yeah So he uses his legs and he bends them and then he like springs up as hard as he can and then aims for the pipes You're describing a jump I didn't realize that I didn't realize that when you did the description that it was just a jump Just a jump When thinking about where I am and where I would like to be without having to step there I coil and tense my muscles before releasing the kinetic energy that I want to release Before releasing the kinetic energy that I've gathered therein Taking my body from one place to the next Wow Cool You're a scientist I want to hear how Ving jumps now Yeah He just closes his eyes and falls forward Oh Trusts in the pipes below Graceful Yeah Clang, land on the pipes Yeah, stomach winded Yeah, so now you're all hanging on a bunch of pipes Not hanging, standing on a bunch of pipes An untold distance above the pipes An untold distance above a terrible fall The pipes continue into the darkness They're holding you They're like doing that Brrm, brrm, brrm Like as you're walking them it's resonating in the pipes And they're kind of shaking a little bit But it doesn't seem like it's gonna fall Should we discern realities?

Yeah, let's do it So Tuck, yeah, looks around the mine Eleven High plus Reality is discerned Wisdom? Wisdom, twelve Three questions from the discerned realities list Uh, what Is the way To The library? I'll give you that one for free It was the way you were going Nooo Well it seems that I have burned a question, my friend No, no, no, no, no, that's fine Um I just realized why this connects to the library Why?

The library was part of the mine Oh, they moved into the mine Yeah, they moved Cause they moved into an old mine section Yeah Right So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So So okay okay oh I thought you were just like giving us like a vague answer no no I'm saying I'm saying that it was it's going to be where the pipes lead where is that oh okay say that one more time and I'll do it without jessica cutting you off I'm so sorry no no oh no it's the first half of your state oh no jessica and I have been together for 15 years I'm used to that I'm just bragging I do too I love you I'm sorry I thought I thought you were done and I was like hold on I have pulled that a lot in this game yeah I know this is just fun uh okay so yeah it's going to be wherever these pipes like where the pipes converge so where do we think the pipes would converge I'm thinking like maybe a forge or a refinery okay like why would there be pipes I was thinking that the pipes like carried broken up stone and it would end at like those tracks that have the carts on them oh yeah it's like well I mean like yeah because I think what you're saying is that it's like where the stone that they would mine yeah ends up as I said it was a quartz mine right yeah that's what I said oh it's a quartz mine yeah I said it was a quartz mine so this would so you're saying that it might lead to where all the quartz goes to be tracked out of the mine yeah like kind of crumbled up quartz like kind of goes through the pipes yeah and then it just dumps into carts yeah I my idea was what were you guys saying I was just trying to think about it like what were you guys thinking about it like what were you guys thinking about it like of a cool thing that why they would be mining so many quartz I feel like it would have to do with the light because the quartz was used for oh my god yes are there like bioluminescent quartz or like glowing quartz yeah oh maybe the quartz in mccall glows or maybe like some kind yeah deep stuff maybe that's why the lighthouse still works because it's like if you get like really pure I'm gonna say it's called sunstone sunstone oh sick cool if you get really pure sunstone that's like all one phase like is basically like a perfect crystalline structure it has to be the perfect environment it can hold light forever so they use the most perfect piece of sunstone they had ever found pure brilliance and then the way they cut it yeah can keep reflecting it in infinitely yeah and so and then they put that in the lighthouse and that's why the lighthouse still functions yeah I'll bet cool that's really cool so that's what they were mining it was sunstone yeah not well I think I think that it ended up being you know like mining it ended up being a lot of quartz but they would find sunstone yeah fuck yes yeah and then be like add two more years of quartz totally yeah sunstones are based on a real thing what is it it was a type of quartz crystal supposedly called sunstone that the ancient nords used to um navigate so when it was cloudy and they couldn't tell where the sun was they'd hold up the sunstone and when they pointed it at the sun it would brighten up that would make so much sense because mccall would have been on like I mean like they were a coastal town so they could have traded with like sailors yeah you know it's an ancient port city so like tons of other places would come and like they would sell like the little pieces of sunstone which were still super valuable but then they would have these like you know very rare big ones that like you know people used to the back in the day of really rich people what you could have um glasses made of them first because the sandstorms would come up and so you could navigate through sandstorms oh fucking so that's so cool that's really cool yeah that's why the city's called the eternal flame of the west because the sunstone's still going there's so many different sources of light here that we've already discussed that we haven't found yet yeah I really like that yeah and then when the god of the flame moved in he was like no it's called the eternal flame of the west and then he was like no it's called the eternal flame of the west and then he was like no because of me because of my because of my because of my flames revisionist history exactly because of my flames bro and they could have done that because like the morgani library had been burned down so many times that like original scripts may have been lost long ago yeah and to answer a question that I think paul asked earlier I think that they moved the library into this mine purely for like safety's sake where it was like instead of the light because light is bad for books so they were probably like it needs to be dark as hell and also preferably not burned down for the so they were like a stone complex we'll do that and then we'll build it inside the complex old and forgotten mine uh tight so cool sunstone mine love it the pipes go to uh the central like track system so that's question one what's your second question jesus this was all a discern reality fucking shit we got too excited what should I be on the lookout for again well I'm not sure because I mean like the answer is an easier way to get to the library like maybe there's a way that would be like more beneficial or easier for you to travel what if you know the rock wall is kind of thin in some areas so like we could maybe see if there's a way we could cut through oh so we can get in without having to climb back up or something oh I see get like if it is it possible to get in at a lower level yeah interesting instead of going up to where the opening actually is could I just cut through with my ass yeah and then we could edge our way around yeah what if ving talks to the rocker studies the essence of the rock to find out where it's thinner yeah and to find out where there's like a room on the other side yeah so you get down you find your way down the pipes and down the steps to the central track system there are all these gigantic uh metal carts with wheels on tracks that go off in a million different directions levers and pulleys and gears big old barrels they used to drink their grogs out of yeah huge barrels there's a skeleton half in a barrel with its legs sticking out a giant skeleton yeah I do in the cake stand yeah what does perel do he's like wow look at that and he's wearing a tank the giant's wearing a tank top that says spring break zero zero zero one no there's no there's no giant skeleton down there you saw the one that was available um so you're in this central section and you know like the giants are just giant uh and this floor of the mine spreads out um to steps that basically ring this level and it looks like if you were to look at the construction that basically every time they dug a new level down they moved this contraption oh so sick like they just went so the track section would lower with it and then they'd move the tracks around so they can move things to different parts of the track so they can move things to different parts of the parts of the mind so cool and if you go and heft yourselves up like three levels you find a spot where ving you've got your hand on the stone wall and you can feel that it thins in a certain in a certain section about three steps up yeah and the the rocks when they're this deep they they're interested in things and in this part of the in part of the world because of the dwarf people who turn into rocks so they have conversations with the rocks as well so rocks can be lonely so he's talking to the rock and figuring out which part is lonelier meaning it's deeper and further away from people uh-huh there's a lonelier rock yeah exactly the rock is like oh yeah there's a way over this way yeah it's like grumblier in his throat too he hasn't talked to anybody for a long time oh hey it's it seems like you haven't been chatted at for a while oh oh!

Not for a long time well do you mind if we just poke a little hole through your your sweet little face I would welcome it destroy me what is happening now we've got a mess of kids there's a spirit like of this mind basically like it is the spirit of this entire place and it's thick as rock usually is but it's not like you know eight meters it's like a meter which is like a meter which is like a meter which is like a meter which is like a meter which is like a meter which is like a meter which is like a match for the power of larry terry and chad cool and you can feel through the vibrations in the stone you can feel an open section about four feet from where you're standing axe marks the spot buddy defy dangerous strength here we go and the 10 plus or seven and nine is going to determine whether or not anybody hears I guess oh yeah I but I do talk to terry larry and chad I'm like hey buddies and I'm whispering at them I'm like can you guys try and be a little bit quieter this time yeah bro shh cool you know what quiet means though right uh yeah man yeah no I I'm aware it's um it's like soft let's yeah like mud like break it softly right break it soft okay bro make it sound like soft swing me make it sound like mud okay swing me bro nine nine I'll aid yeah um how maybe billy just chance How many bond you got?

Just one. So it's six. Okay. I did not sing it quiet enough. Quiet, quiet, quiet. Okay. Market point of experience. Yeah. Maybe it's like you pull the ax back. You swing, smash, you swing, smash, you swing, crash. And there's a librarian who you've never seen before sitting at a desk, like moving, like just writing on a piece of parchment. That's like that scene in Indiana Jones when he's like looks at the stamp and every time they hit the wall, he's stamping. It lines up perfectly. Yeah.

Puts the stamp down. And then just a bunch of stones collapse in on one side of this librarian's office and they turn and look at you wide eye. Hey, we're from civil works. And the librarian gets up and starts to move towards the door. Oh, no, you don't. Dash in and grab. Defy danger dexterity for that one. Oh, God. Fuck. Oh, wow. Six. She starts moving towards the door. Ving dashes forward and grabs like one shoulder of her robe and like her arm.

And you feel those like iron cord muscles underneath her skin. She just does that real Kung Fu like wrist block, like moves your arm. And then she's got you in a hold. A little help, guys. Tuck's like, oh, my God, my cup runneth over today. She's using librarian. She can I do shoot first still? Oh, yeah, totally. That's what I'm saying is now like she's got Ving, but she's distracted by Ving. Yeah, I have a big rock in my hand and I'm like, just no. Twelve. Yeah.

So deal your damage, which is a D8. Six. Six. Pretty high. Four. A fairly low level librarian. Yeah, I think you can. I mean, they're very strong. They're very strong. I don't think you're definitely not going to kill her, but I think you're going to really stun her. Yeah, I think I hit her square in just above the temple where you die, but it still hurts a lot. She's going to have a big like welt and she just is knocked out. Yeah.

So she like she gets hit in the head, slams into the door and just crumples on the ground. But she's like, like the fitful breathing of the unconscious. What do you do? I go and I pick her up and I put her back at her desk like weekend at Bernie style and put her pet in her hand. Yeah. And then I, I, I write in front of her. It was all a dream. Can I roll plus charisma to get her to believe that? Sure. No, absolutely not. She's not stupid. She's concussed now, though.

She's going to believe that she wrote down. It was all a dream. While she was asleep. And that makes her memories false. Yeah. Roll it. Whatever. Defy danger. Charisma. Go ahead. Well, failure. So that's a failure. So mark a point of experience and that's going to come back to bite you in the ass. She's like, I don't write my hours backwards. Oh, God. Tuck's writing is like a little kid's lemonade stand sign. He pulls out a crayon from his belt. She's a librarian.

Like she has a master's degree in literature. She knows how to write. This is not my fucking writing. It's all a dream. And as you're in the office, Perel looks at the gaping hole that you smashed in the wall. Like, what are we going to do about this? Do we just leave it? Why don't we just lock the door? Perel's like, oh, yeah. Sorry. I had magic for so long. That's how I want to solve all my problems. Yeah, we could just lock the door.

Is there anything cool in this room that Perel wants to take a look at? Perel is like vibrating with excitement. Yeah. Okay. Put it away, man. I just, I realized I only brought my hip satchel. I don't have enough. I didn't bring any bags or anything. We warned you. We said where we're going and you're supposed to bring a bag. And I said, I didn't think we were just going to jump down the hole right away. But you were like, be right back.

I'm going to go put on my clothes, which I thought meant big backpack. No, I said, be right back. I'm going to get my disguise, which is any points at the mustache on his face. That's no longer there. Oh, I lost my good mustache. Okay. All right. Fine. It's fine. I'm sure there's a bag somewhere that I can steal. And I'm sure there's another fake mustache lying around somewhere here. There must be. That's what I was thinking.

Do they just have books or do they have collections of everything, including hats? Oh my God. I'm joking. I'm joking. But if I find a book on haberdashery, I'm taking it. All right, let's go. Let's go. So we go outside. So there on either side of you, there are other doors and chambers. You're not sure what level of the library. You're in, but the room you're in is cavernous.

In front of you are rows and rows of enormous shelves that stretch from the ground all the way to like 80 feet in the air to the ceiling in this room. And all of the shelves are very sturdily made. They still have carved designs on them, but they all seem to be made of the same very, very dark brown, rich wood. And they're just packed with books. Absolutely packed with books. And a balcony runs along about 40 feet.

And those balconies connect to the shelves in places by what looks like old repurposed mine tracks. Cool. You're lucky because you don't see any librarians right now. Everything and everything's lit with those magic crystals, non flammable light sources. Sick. If anyone wants to Spout Lore about the wood. Yeah, absolutely. And if I Spout Lore on something from the history, then I get to use my wisdom instead of constitution. Nine. Nine. Okay.

So what you know is that this is a wood from the great forest. It is very rare and it's called ironwood. It's extremely durable and it's non flammable. What? Yeah. Cool. That's so sick. Yeah. So at some point the librarians had some sort of trade agreement with the great forest. The elves. Probably. Yeah. And they had this wood shipped over here and they made shelves out of it. Cool. And that's what all of the shelves in this place are made out of.

So you see this and like, this is worth a fucking mint. This is expensive. That's maybe that's how they save the books during the burning is that there's these like shutters that are also made out of ironwood that you can close and it seals the books off. So smart. Like even if the whole building burns down, there's the books in the shelves will stay safe. Right. So there's like fire doors that separate the different sections. So if a fire somehow broke out in one of the rooms. Yeah.

Slam, slam, slam. Or maybe it's. Hey, would it be? Make more sense spatially if it was like each shelf had like a fire door. Oh, yeah. Slides out and slams down. Yeah. A little hidden thing. Yeah. Fire starts and the library turns into a Batmobile. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. Clang. Maybe there's like a kind of a mechanism inside that you can trip and all of them close. Yeah. Like the clattering. Yeah. Clatters all the way down. So sick.

But since this library is so old and so packed, there are sections where, you know, there hasn't been a fire here. For a while. So we've just got books stacked over here. We've got books shoved in carved out sections of this pillar. So if there was a fire, they'd probably still lose some stuff. But it seems like maybe they're being cautious, but a touch arrogant. And Perel is like running up to the shelves, running his hands over them, looking at all the books like hands on his face. So excited.

What section are we in? I want you to roll a discern realities and that'll determine. I did the last one. I did the last one. Billy, go up. Billy can't read. I can't read. All right. I'll take this one. 26 plus wisdom. Oh, great. I got six. Oh, sure. I'll help. Thanks. Because you guys have been working on reading together. That's true. Fuck. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I.

What we did text just off looking off it into the distance yeah um or he's he took out the moon knife the waning knife and he's got he's focused on the door jam up the lock and he's just jammed it in the stabbing it into the wriggling it around in there yeah that's pretty fuck now I don't think anyone's getting out of there so um maybe he's going down to each door and stabbing the lock just to be sure locking ourselves in also you absolutely have closed off your only exit so you're stabbing locks ving and billy are up at the shelves like no no no tuck you take care of the locks we'll we'll read this and then you're all like ah I see another language huh interesting my kryptonite a language I don't understand although you guys have probably we didn't really talk about why you can understand everybody that speaks in mccall I think they speak a lot of common there yeah it's a modern city it's a very metropolis yeah and then I think you're like hey tuck hey we just realized that we can't really read this what does this say and you look at it and it says art theory and history so one you know you are not in the right section of course you're not in the right section you don't know where the right section is and then what you hear is on the far side of the room you hear a door open and two voices conversing hide hide How?

Where? Behind all these doors that you just destroyed the locks on? Ving's going to squirrel Chi up and get into a cart. Squirrel Chi? Hell yeah. Fucking shit. Oh my god. I just like that you're like, oh man, we're all in danger. And Ving, what do we do? And he's jumped up. Ving, hide! How do I hide? We can all hide together. Yeah, I guess so. I'm just going to need you guys to roll like a basically defy danger… Hide. Hide. Dexterity. Eight. Holy shit. I think that you all see…

You see Ving Mario double jump wall style like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing up into a cart. And Billy's like, oh yeah, great. And you run up, like you climb up the shelves really dexterously. And I squeeze myself in on top of the books. Really pancake myself. Just in a shelf? Yeah. They won't see. Think like a book, Billy. What does Tuck do? Well, I pick up Perel and I just… Throw him up into the cart that… I catch him. As big as… He doesn't make any sound. He really tries not to.

But you can see his face. He's like… It's just everything is open. Even his mouth. But he's not making any sound. He knows how important this is. Exactly. What does Tuck do? I guess he just climbs up the shelf to the cart that… Yeah. Yeah. To the cart that Ving went into. It's a pretty tight squeeze. But you're able to like duck yourselves down. You all are holding your breath. Trying not to make any noise. And you hear the two voices. Get louder. Until they pause right underneath you.

And they're picking books off the shelf. In the art history section. Like, no. I think the… I think the artifact that we've recovered. Is actually of the… The early epoch style. And they're like just bickering about a thing that they have. And they don't seem to be leaving. Can we roll to wait? Quietly? Yeah. I don't think we've ever done that. Yeah. You don't have to roll to wait quietly. But I will say that they're going to be here for a good while. We're going to wait. I'm going to wait.

I'm going to wait. Billy falls asleep. Yeah. Billy is the best sleep Billy's had. Because he's not freezing cold. Yeah. It's so cool down here. Yeah. And like… This page is really soft. If we're going to wait. I'm going to commune with whispers of the library. Sick. Ooh. Fucking red. We will find some shit out where we need to go. And who's going to have it. So read communion of whispers for us please. When you spend time in a place. Making note of its resident spirits.

And calling on the spirits of the land. Roll plus wisdom. You'll be granted a vision of significance to you, your allies, and the spirits around you. Ten plus vision will be clear and helpful. Seven to nine. The vision is unclear. Meaning murky. On a miss. The vision is upsetting, frightening, or traumatizing. GM describes it. Take minus one for it if a miss. Great. Okay. Yeah. Roll to D6 plus wisdom. Jim. Describe how you are communing with the whispers. Of the Margani library.

Being of elfin born blood and mind. Cool. A lot of the skeleton of the library is stone and then also ironwood. So he's communing mostly with the ironwood and resonating with that. Tying it in with the great forest. Yeah. Nine. All right. What does a library sound like? What can I help you with? Hello. Great library. Shh. Please. Please. I'm a library. I'm sorry. What are you looking for? We are looking for a section of your great library where you contain the wealth of knowledge of magic.

Oh, okay. So that would… And it just starts spouting off a bunch of very complicated and confusing like librarian technical language. Okay. And what you have determined by this conversation is the organization of the library. So you're saying that the Margani library is super complex and extremely confusing for everybody except the librarians.

And it's the kind of thing I think like name of the wind where throughout the centuries there have been head librarians, master librarians who have had differing philosophies on how the library should be structured. So it's like stacks on stacks, sedimentary layers of like leftover organization structures in one section of the library. Every once in a while, someone's like, we got to tear the whole thing down.

We got to tear it down, reorganize everything, but they never get done before they die. And then it just changes again. Oh, yeah. So what it does tell you is what you're looking for is probably on the third level. Third level. Yes. And if we want to really find out, we need the knowledge of a librarian themselves. Yes. You would have to speak to preferably one of the head archivists. Okay. Sorry. What level are we on? I know I can't talk to the librarian. I'm just wondering.

What level are we on? What level are we on? You are currently on level six of six. Oh, the very bottom. Is six the most bottom one? Six is the most bottom one. Okay. I'm also not talking to the librarian. He is not speaking to me, but I am providing this information freely as a spirit of knowledge. He could be asking. And you hear it push up its spirit glasses out of sight. Adjusted glasses? Oh, I'm not wearing my glasses.

Oh, you know, I thought I was wearing them and I touched them, but it turns out I don't have a face. Thank you. Great library. Oh, it is ever so my pleasure. Enjoy your time at the Margani library. Wait a second. You're not librarians, are you? Shh. I see what you did there. I won't tell. Just don't fuck around. We never do. Okay. Bye. The pages ruffle as the spirit of the Margani library dissipates through the room. Oh, I like that. Cool.

And actually, when that happens, you go, wait, was it in front of me? And then it's gone. Oh, interesting. I like to think that the spirit of the Margani library would act like a library in itself. So it's actually like a singular presence that flits around the library and goes to like shelf to shelf. Oh, it's through the books. Yeah. Okay. So you know that you're three levels below where you need to be. Yeah, we need to get up halfway there. And these two fucking dunces down below.

Well, I mean, they're extremely smart. They are just bickering between one another about what sounds like the very minute details of an artist's life. Oh, man. You know, it says that that her parents died at 17. No, I believe it was 18. Please. You fool. You absolute fool. You moron. Oh, my God. All we can do to not just tell him to shut up. Yeah. Yeah. So it's that it looks like they're settling in for a good long argument. Billy's asleep just out of his arm of arm's reach on a shelf.

And then all of a sudden, you feel the cart under you go click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, and start to move away. Oh, Billy. Chat. Billy's out. Yeah. Billy. So we're moving away. Yeah. You're moving away from Billy. You're moving deeper into the library. Somebody's calling the cart. They're going to find us. Oh, no. Bill goes to sleep. So what do you do? We're trying to scream, whisper back. Billy. Billy, wake up. Billy. Okay. I take a. Are there any books in the cart?

Actually, Perel. So it's so funny that Billy's just snoozing. Perel is like, and he reaches into his hip satchel and he pulls out a little baklava and he just throws it at Billy and he hits just above Billy's head. So like crumbs sprinkle him a dusting of crumbs. Yeah. Drift down to the floor next to these bickering librarians. But Billy, you're startled awake by the smell of honey and dates. Oh. And. You realize that the cart that your family's in is leaving. Billy.

You see them click, click, click, click, click. And I just like wave by like. Yeah. Vang's just waving. Oh, boy. So we've got two different situations. Billy is stuck in a shelf by himself. People down below might know he's there. Yep. And you are being currently pulled towards somebody that will see you. Now we blind them first. What do you do? Let's stick with Billy. You see the cart disappear. You see the cart disappear. Down deeper into the library. Oh, shit. What do you do? Oh, my God.

This is very risky. I could try a scape route. Oh, yeah. When I'm in too deep and need a way out. Name your scape route and roll plus dexterity. Okay. Name your scape route first. Oh, shit. I think I'm just going to have to like crawly crawl my way out. Yeah. You crawl on the tracks like because we're on a track. Yeah, exactly. Great. That sounds like a perfect move. Yeah. Oh, fucking hell. Nine. Perfect. So what is a seven to nine with the scape route? On a seven to nine, you can stay or go.

But if you go, it costs you leave something behind or take something with you. The GM will decide. What would you take with you? A book. Worm. A bookworm. A bookworm. Ew. But it's a little caterpillar. They're called bookworms. They're called bookworms. But they look like caterpillars. Oh, where is he? He's like on your shoulder. And you just feel it like inchworming along. You don't see it yet. Okay. But the camera sees a little bookworm inching along.

So, yeah, you're scurrying along this track. Yeah. As the cart pulls away. Your cart is pulling away. You thankfully see Billy dive out of the shelf onto the track, grab onto it like a squirrel, right himself and start running towards you. We can just get out of the cart and join him on the track. Yeah, potentially. Billy's a little harder to see than a seven foot tall barbarian and his shape-shifting husband. But sorry, formerly shape-shifting husband. I shape-shift up here, man.

And their, I don't know, brother-in-law from a marriage that has since fallen apart with a sibling you don't talk to anymore. That's the vibe that Perel has for me. Totally. Have we gone around the corner already? No, but you're about to reach. Like an intersection. Like one of those, what are they called? Roundhouses. Yep. Kind of things. Like it's going to hit and then spin and then go in the direction. I think it's a good idea to stay as up as we can. Yeah. Since we didn't go up.

What if we jam the cart? I was thinking that too. Yeah. Yeah. But which caused a lot of people to be like, we should probably go check out that broken cart. Which, I don't know. That could be a distraction. Yeah. Yeah. Like the sound of it screeching to a halt. Yeah. Okay. That's a decent enough plan. Yeah. As good as it's going to get probably. Yeah. Uh, somebody roll something. Yeah. I was going to jam my harpoon in there, but also with all these fails, don't want to lose this harpoon.

Trying to think of something else. What about a big fat book? Yeah. Yeah. Like you just grab one. The biggest book I could find. Flip it open. So it's like a wedge and jam it in the tires. Yeah. That sounds good. Yeah. What? Dexterity for speediness. Eight. Okay. So you grab a huge book that says, uh, animals organized alphabetically and he starts reading. Oh, animals. And you just jam it in the wheels and the card in front of you. Well, yeah. Can I keep that one and go get another book? Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Sorry. I want to learn about more animals. You got to do this fast. Book G sticks it. Wedge cheese sticks it into the thing. Book destruction style. Yeah. Uh, and you know, it hits and it looks like, um, when a stack of papers goes into a photocopier, it's just the pages get pulled.

It's just the pages get pulled underneath one after the other and the wheels start going like as the cart is slowing down and screeching on the tracks and you're pulling up to a balcony now we hop off and you are safe as the cart goes through the wall screeching like a fucking bat out of hell. Um, and maybe it catches the book on fire a little bit. Yeah. There's more destruction. It's just smoking now. Uh, and Billy, you make it along the tracks to your family. Hey guys. Sorry. I fell asleep.

That's okay. Books are boring and Perel speaking quietly cause you're in a library. Oh, sorry. So what do we, what do we know? What do we know? What's the next step? We need to get to level three. That's the magic section. What level are we on now? Six. Ooh boy. Is it up or down? Up. Uh, okay. Let's go. What? Where? To find some stairs or something. Okay. How do we run quietly and without being seen? Uh, moving quietly is called sneaking and it is something Billy is a well-versed in. I believe.

Yes. Is there a move that's like sneaky? Defy danger dexterity. Yeah. Not much. Six. If anyone wants to help. Yeah. I'll aid. Thank you. Talk is going to aid with a sneaking thing. Just lift them off the ground a little bit so his feet don't touch. Yeah. I guess cause I'm the biggest, I would be the most likely to make noise. Yeah. So I'm trying to like match Billy's movements. That's how I'm aiding with the sneaky. Billy's crawling like a actual raccoon. Oh yeah. I guess I'm doing that too.

Okay. Nine. Sweet. Cool. So yeah, that's a seven to nine on the defy danger dexterity. All right. Get low to the ground. Everyone. Oh, I crouched down and oh, I mean maybe since it's a library like, but it's built in an old mine. It's not like it's a streamlined construction. So maybe it's like, okay, we've made it to the fifth floor, but we have to get off on the fifth floor and find another way up. Oh yeah. That'd make sense. If it's not. It's just like a clear cut tower. Yeah.

It's like, yeah, totally. It's a bunch of, it's a bunch of rooms that are just strung together. They would file follow the veins of quartz. Yeah. It's cool. That is cool. So it's like an ant hill almost, you know, it's got like tunnel chamber, tunnel chamber, tunnel chamber. Yeah. Very sick. Yeah. All the big chambers are where they found flares. They're called flares of sunstone. Oh, so cool. Cause then they were like, whoa, we got a little bit of sunstone.

We're going to dig this whole area out. Yeah. Can you hear the tendons in my clenching fists? Audience? That's great. Okay. So yeah, you get to the, you find some stairs and you're like, great stairs. And you go up and you find a door that says five in McCall and Tuck goes, that says five. And there's nothing up for. Is it a hand? Yeah. That says five. It's just five fingers carved into the wall. Yeah. This one says five. And then I go for a high five with, thanks man.

But yeah, there's no stairs that go up another level. So Perel's like, ah, I think we got to find our way through the fifth level now. Well, then we do. We do that. I'm going to do trap expert. Oh, good call. Yeah. Just in case. Closed door. Yeah. 11. 11. Great. So you get three hold from trap expert. Yeah. To spend as you see fit. So first question, is there a trap here? And if so, what activates it? On this door? No, I don't think there's a trap. Sweet. What else is hidden here?

Well, I imagine you like are up against the wall, like sneaking in to peek into the chamber and you see the bookworm. Oh, crawl out on your shoulder and crawl onto the wall and crawl into a circle like a hole cut in the wall that looks like it was carved for for creatures that size. Oh, shit. Did you see the bug? Yeah. What the heck was that? Can you catch it? I can't. I'll go up to he goes up the hole and starts sucking. Hey, buddy. He's not responding to my kid. He must not be from the forest.

Defy danger. Suck. Suck. Constitution. Okay. I'm going to try to not hyperventilate. I'm going to suck this worm off its body. Yeah. What if he's going to tell on us? The dexterity seven constitution. Oh, okay. Seven. Okay. Thank God. So you you suck. You suck this worm. Yeah. And no, you go. It's like stuck in your throat. I'm trying to say sorry to it. Can Billy reach in Ving's mouth? Get it. Get it. Get it. Defy danger. Dexterity. Dexterous hands. Holy. 14. That's what we got. Box cars on.

Billy is a throat surgeon. Wow. This is what I wasted my role. So funny. His hands are small. It's like about as wide as a throat. So it's like pulling out a piece of spaghetti. Yeah. Sorry. And you're like, and it's this tiny little worm. That's like a caterpillar. It does the inchworm thing. Its head. It's like front section is red. And then the rest of its body is green. What? What do you want? What are you following us for? Oh, man. Billy's just interrogating a worm. Who do you work for?

Yeah. Why did you follow us? Are you evil? Billy can't talk to worms. So that's a really good place to start. Can I talk to this worm? I mean, McCall's not really a foresty place. So I guess you would have similar creatures. I was wondering. If somebody would like to Spout Lore, that's a good place to start. I'll Spout Lore about this worm. Yeah. Because you grew up in McCall where you know the bugs. I got some stuff. Here we go. Holy fuck. Billy's going crazy. Please. Six plus intelligence.

Six. So I need an eight. I will. I will. There we go. Vink seems like somebody that would be able to. There was a worm just like this. I knew from back in the day. They're thought to be extinct, though. So it's weird that we would see it making it a historical thing so I can use my wisdom instead of my intelligence. Oh, sick. Smart. Sean's mad. Paul. Paul. Paul. Oh, five. That's a fail. Oh, man. I wanted to tell you guys about this worm. Can I aid? No, unfortunately not.

Please, I've already asked him. Well, actually, as is the way with narratively based games. Yeah. It doesn't mean that you don't know anything. Oh. It doesn't mean that you don't get what you want. It just means that something else also happens. Okay. So Perel kind of like pushes forward and he looks at the worm that Billy's holding in his hand. He goes, oh, I've heard of these things. Where are they? It's kind of a straight. It's kind of a funny name.

I guess it's a little on the nose, but they're called bookworms. If I'm not mistaken, I think they're kind of magically resonant in some way. What? I have no way of knowing anymore, but I assume that this worm is magically resonant. And what they do is they is they crawl around the library and they let the librarians know when books are out of order. Oh, cool. Somebody comes down and they rearrange the books. That's how they work. Oh, they're like a living Dewey decibels. They're smart.

They transmit information. They bring messages between the different sections of the library. Wait, does that mean that the worm knows that we're here? Hey, worm. Can I try talking to it? You can try, but it's not a fairy. It's a little worm. Dang it. Oh, yeah. I guess Ving can talk to similar creatures. What do you want to say, Billy? I just want to know, will it tell on us? Are you going to talk to people? Do you do? Was you telling us? It is my. Beauty.

And a little piece of silk shoots out of the worm into the hole and it fishing lines itself out of Billy's hand into the hole and disappears from sight. I was going to squish it. And that's where we're going to end it for this week. You little book rat. You're about to get tattled on by a caterpillar. Fuck. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Thanks for joining us for Spout Lore. With me as always playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So long.

Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Take care. Playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Aw. Thanks to Aaron Reed for our intro and outro music, which thrills me every time. And thank you to all of our supporters around the world, which thrill me every time. You can find us on the internet at speltloremostplaces. We'll catch you next time. And so ends the tale of adventures three, who tried the best they can.

Though dumb and scared and lost they be, for time's abreast in revelry. And though our journey may be like a conclusion, we will not leave you without a resolution. Return next week to hear some more whilst you commute or do your chores. And for you, I'd gladly Spout Lore. See you then. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.