Episode 9 – The Hulks of Ships and Shadows of Broken Vessels

Gather round friends, let me tell you a tale of three heroes noble and bold A brute, a druid, and a thief who is but nine years old You know them by name, you know them by deed, their quests are famously daring So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight Fingers half-elf, he shifts his shape and wields a spear with great might Billy's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart Best 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 Yeah, cool.

So Tacoma Um, is leveled up. Yeah, so I have nine. How many do I need to level up? Seven plus your current level, which is two, so nine. Okay, so I have nine, and do I get more hit points? It's like last time, you get to increase an attribute by one. Well, I have plus two strength, zero dexterity, one constitution, plus two charisma, and negative one intelligence. But we don't use, really, our intelligence, so… No, you certainly do not.

I feel like I should just go for charisma again, since I'm really building up this board thing. If I, I mean, like, that's not the most, uh, horrible thing in the world to do. You, you, there is always the potential. What is the most horrible? Yeah, let's start with that. Just tell me, and I'll do that. Well, dumping all of your points into one attribute's probably not great, because then you're really good at one thing and suck shit at everything else. God, so boring to distribute them evenly.

If you want to be charisma guy… Uh, no, I'll, should I, okay, what, what do you recommend? I, well, what do you want Tacoma to be good at? Do you want him to be good at fighting? Do you want him to be really tough? Um… Like, do you want him to not fail every intelligence-based role he's ever made? I don't think I've ever made an intelligence-based role. You did, and you failed all of them. What, have I? Yeah, you've done a couple of spelt lores, and you failed them. Oh.

Remember when you tried to investigate the stone box, and now you think there's a genie in it? Fine, I'll put it in intelligence. You don't have to! No, that's not what I'm saying. Do what you want to do. That's fun. Yeah, this is, it, it, yeah, exactly. If your character is, uh, confident, but misinformed, like, that's great. If he wakes up with, like, a leveling up feeling in that day, like, I think I'm, I've reached a new thing. I'm gonna be more charming than ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then stubs his toe. Or more buff or whatever. I, I already have plus two strength and plus two charisma. Oh, that's a lot. I mean… I, I'll do intelligence. I'll put it in intelligence. I'll bring my intelligence up to nine and plus two. Hmm? Nine and zero, sorry. Yeah, I was like, hold the fuck on. Um… And, uh, I get to pick a move, right? Yeah. And just for the record, um, last time you leveled up, you picked the move Metal Hurlant. Yeah, I'm gonna change that.

Yeah, you, cause you didn't use it. I haven't used it yet. Yeah, you found another move that you would like, which is called… It goes to 11. Yeah. I'm gonna just take that one. Yeah, which is a move that lets you do, um, some sort of performance and convince, potentially, an enemy to, or somebody to attack their closest ally. Mm-hmm. So you just make somebody fight their friends with music. Yeah. So I'm gonna do that and, um, my love for you is like a truck. Yeah.

Which is the one where you like, you know, break a chair over your back and go, look at how tough I am, and someone goes, ooh. Mm-hmm. Your goal is to get fucked. You're gonna do that better by smashing a chair over your back and making them wet. Jessica, what do you think? I agree. Okay. I, maybe, I'm, uh, I will take Wide Wanderer, actually. Okay. Cool. Yeah. That's a cool move. Actually, no, I'm gonna take My Love for You is like a truck. Yeah, so I'm sorry, guys. No, I'm done. No, it's good.

All right. Do you have a! There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman. There's a woman.

There's a woman. There's a woman. Rex is a neighborhood on the edge of town where all the boats used to be until the river dried up and the lake went away. And now it's just a bunch of boats. Muckraker's in a boat. The biggest one in the Rex. Can you take us there? I can. But I want in. In what? I want in on whatever you're doing. You can't be in this, man. But I want to come with you. But do you really want to come with us? Yes, I do. This is the last.

This is my best chance to write what was wrong. What? He like turns away very dramatically and says, I already said too much. Anyways, if you want to find out where Muckraker is, I got to come with you. That's the deal. Well, this is the strength because this was like a seven to nine, right? Like it was the seven. It's nine roll on the connections. So there's strings attached. And the string is, is that he's coming with. Oh, right. Okay. Okay. You can come with us for, for like a little bit.

Not the whole time. There might wait. How far should I let him go with us? How about we talk about it? Huh? How about we all talk? Okay. One sec. Mears. And so I'll stay. I'll be here. I'm going to like waddle over them. We're going to, we're going to talk. We're going to powwow. Billy, did you see the back? Flip it work. It was pretty sick, but I have something more important to talk about. Oh my God. What? Um, Mears wants to come with us. Who the fuck is Mears? That thing over there. That one.

And Mears is like, he's got a knife in his hand and he's like trying to flip it blade to blade. Try and catch it like a cool guy, but he like keeps like almost cutting his hand and dropping it and picking it back up. Wow. That guy looks tragic. How, how I do. I know, but he, he seems disturbed. I think he just needs a pal for a little bit. So we could, we could take him with us and then lose him. Yeah. I can see. I am pretty good at scaring this specific kid away. Yeah.

So we can just scare him away when we're done. Well, I'm fine. If that's what you want, Billy, I'm on board. Okay. Might just be easier this way. Yeah. Let's take him. Okay. All right. So yeah, I'll waddle back to Mears. Hey there. He's like leaning really cool. Trying to lean cool against the wall. Uh, you can come with us. Yes. For now. Okay. You can't do anything weird and you have to keep to yourself and you have to do what we say. Uh, okay. Yeah. That works for me. Cool. Okay. That's fine.

All right. Well, let's go. Whoa. Wait. What now? Yeah. It's like, it's like one o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody sneaks in the day. You can't sneak when the sun's out. Fine. Fine. I mean, you're already, I'll meet you guys back here. Well, you know, sun should go down in like four hours. Are you? Fucking serious. Four hours. I thought, I thought you, I thought I made it clear. You do what we say. And I said to leave now. But the sun's out.

Kid, I swear to God, I know you're scared and I know you feel like you're weak and alone and you look stupid and your arms are weirdly long for your body. Now hold on. Hold on a second. Your feet are just the, like they're. Oddly small for your arms. Look, I was with you at first. And your ears are huge. And your nose. He's trying to help us. Tuck, tuck. He's a tuck. This is a pep talk. No, this is being a little mean. We're taking you too far. Okay. Move on to the next part of the pep talk.

Okay. I know you feel like all that stuff is wrong with you. Okay. And it is. But if you look deep inside, you're going to realize that the daytime is the time that we have to leave or I'm going to punch you in your fucking face. At least can we go scope out where we're going to be sneaking? Can we do something? Can we do something? Can we do something? Can we do something? Can we do something? Can we do something? Can we do something? Can we do something? Can we do something?

Can we do something? Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, we could like case the joint. Let's case the joint. He leads you off through Mudlark proper. And in the distance, you see like the mayor's quarters, which are, you know, slightly nicer, two floors, et cetera. And he leads you outside town. This big flat is a very muddy place, but you can see the little dip where once the river bank was. And you can see that this was where the river actually was.

And in this river is a collection of ships of various sizes that have been buried in the mud over time. Row boats and larger vessels and pleasure craft of certain kinds and trading barges and stuff like that. Oh, Billy, grow up. It means like a yacht. Perverts. Whenever I have sex in a boat, I call my dick the pleasure craft. That's gross. You're gross. And he's like still leading you up. And you see maybe three dozen ships of various sizes sort of leading up. This is the Rex. Cool.

On other side of the ships and sort of in between, you see people digging in the mud. Everywhere from like one ragged individual to like a group of two dozen people digging in various plots of different sizes. And everyone that you see has this sort of mudlark. And you see people with a very dirty look where they're like malnourished, worn down, very dirty, very pale. Yeah. Sort of crappy looking people.

So when you guys walk through a man covered in furs, a tiny little ball child and a hulking brown skinned man, you're definitely drawing some attention on the way through town. The ship's around here, but we got to be careful. Mark Raker has eyes everywhere. We never know who could be working for them. Are you working for him? No, I believe you. I believe myself. That's two of us. That's two people that believe that I'm not working for Mark Raker. Oh, oh.

He like crosses up a street and he's like looking real cash, but like still kind of spy-like. Like he's casting his eyes about a lot, but he's trying to look neutral. He's like a 12 year old trying to act cash. Yeah, exactly. He's like, yeah, I'm all cool. Don't worry. I'm all good. I'm all good. I'm all good. I'm all good. I'm all good. And he points like kind of nods his head in a direction. He says, that's it. And there's like a galleon, like a military warship that is buried in the mud.

It's sticking out of the mud at a weird angle, like kind of pointing up. So the bow of the ship is pointing up in the air. The hull's pretty muddy and worn, but you see written in very beautiful flowing script, clear water. And he says, that's it. Oh, that's the clear water. Can I Spout Lore? See if I know anything about this. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. 2d6? 2d6 plus your intelligence. Oh, this is where I reap the rewards of my zero intellect. 12. Holy shit. Two sixes? Yeah. Damn, dude.

This one might be a nine. So on a 10 plus on a Spout Lore, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the subject relevant to your situation. I've said the name, the principalities a couple of times, and you guys are currently in one of the lower principalities. What the principalities are is there are five small territories that were once one large kingdom run by a Monarch. And when that Monarch died, they left in the will that their territory was to be split up into five.

So each principalities run by one of the children of this Monarch. And this warship was an operation during the time of that Monarch and was sort of keeping an eye on the river that was here to keep out smugglers and to allow trade vessels through and that sort of stuff. So it was the river of such strategic importance. Yeah. Because we've talked about it runs right down from the former capital trade route. Yeah. So it like the river basically ran from the capital all the way down to the ocean.

Is it is this connected to one of those infinity rivers that the halflings use? Yeah. So it is. And it is part of the infinity river. The Wittershins and the sunrise. Sunwise. Sunwise. Yeah. So when the river dried up, all the ships were left here. So the clear water was stuck here and it was abandoned, obviously. But you could say it had somewhat of a revival. Yep. As a house. Yeah. There are rumors that you have heard through stories that the captain of the clear water was in fact a smuggler.

You've heard that there are trap doors and secret means of ingress and egress in the hall of the clear water. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. So you will take a plus one forward when you act on that information. Oh, cool. Nice. Yeah. I heard all of it on this speed metal album. It was a good album and it was not a lot of people knew about it. But. There's this band called Rancid Fat that they're pretty big in the underground scene McCall. And one of them, their dad was like, he had a lot of war books.

So they just like lifted text out of that war book and they made it into lyrics. It's a pretty good band. You should check it out if you ever have a chance. What's their most popular song? I feel like I know them. It's like. I think probably the most popular one was. Well, well, well, well, yeah. Yeah. I remember that song from when I was a kid. Yeah, that's cool. Can we. Go. Okay. Because this is like, that's, that's it. See and look, see, look over there.

Any like points in there is a group of roughnecks keeping an eye on the, on the clear water and you see people kind of walking around on the decks. He's like, this is. You can't go in right now. It'd be a death. It'd be a death wish. All right. All right. Suicide mission. Yeah. I'm kind of siding with mirrors. I agree. I think we should probably wait for the cover darkness. All right. So you guys, if you can't stick around here, this is to this, this neighborhood, it's basically for locals only.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, is there like a cafe we can go to? Yeah. You can go back. If you go back to the town proper. No, I don't. I don't want to do that. That's a long walk. Yeah. And I'm a tired. I'm hungry. Are any of these boats selling sushi? Well, I mean. Yeah. Not sushi in particular. It's kind of hard to get fresh fish here. Well, you can get a. Is there any sort of restaurant boat? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Calm down. Okay. I'll take you to. Okay. There is a sushi thing. Technically.

Let's just come with me. I'm getting hungry. Angry. So what's the name of the, what's the name of the food boat? That food boat works. Yeah. Food boat. Okay. So you go. There's like an upside down food boat. A fat hauled, like kind of Viking vessel. They have. It's one of those totally upside down with a door like smashed into the side. Wow. They just smashed out one side of it. Wow. It's in the shape of a guy. It's in the shape of a running guy. Yeah.

There's like a, there's like a, like a little statue on top made out of like driftwood and stuff like that. It says food boat underneath. So yeah, there's like a, there's a counter inside and there's a little steam and pot and they're rolling stuff up behind the counter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's these little tubey balls and the tubes are being cut up into little, uh, fat little sushis. Oh my God. One please. Wait, you're ordering one sushi? Yes. Five please.

And some other ones. The rolls? Yeah. Okay. Tubes. Uh, after I order them, I want to go and sit down at the table while you guys are ordering yours and then pull out all my own food and mason jars and a bag of nettles and start eating those.

So the uh the uh the the man behind the counter who's like a quite a portly uh bald looking well bald he's portly and he's bald looking his hair is uh thin and a light color enough that when he turns his head you can't tell if he's bald or not oh oh wow that's crazy that guy's like a magic trick no yeah look at that guy's head yeah a lot of people think I'm bald but it ain't true yeah I just gotta tell people I ain't bald yeah but when he turns his head he's completely bald that's crazy I know it runs in my family we got thin hair and it's still technically there though see you want to feel yeah see wow yeah it feels really thick it does I know it feels so thick I'm really jealous I didn't get to feel it you want to feel it little boy well wait let me rephrase that here here you go that is nice yeah thank you why are you guys touching his hair nettles nettles eating like grass you is that what ving eats yeah ving just eats like plants no matter what foraging yeah cool yeah oh yeah because you don't have to eat right no right I always have my own food oh yeah I was gonna say because I don't know if we talked about that but because you have sustained by the earth or by mother nature sustained or something I just walk around eating miners right so it doesn't mean that like you don't have to eat it just means that you eat whatever's around I know where food is always I like that a lot um thanks for touching my hair uh but get out please what wait I ordered five tubes plus some yeah but y'all aren't from here and uh what I'm sorry I just this is this neighborhood is I could get in a lot of trouble with her feeding y'all well I could just get in a lot of trouble you could get in a lot of trouble for denying us food right now how's that sound look I just I don't want any trouble neither do we we just want sushi brad I'm a child would you really deny a child some food in this situation yes I would he's a rescue I am a rescue you we're all rescued I'm gonna start to cry you guys no no no you dick you made billy cry look come on come on you gotta understand just a hard work in business but you have to understand is that when billy starts crying he doesn't start for 45 minutes stop there's gonna be a u-shaped hole in the side of the boat in a second if this guy doesn't get some sushi yeah dude I'm gonna throw you out that fucking door by your hair people are looking now and he's just like look just calm down kid calm down I'm just saying I just can't okay get out wow well he's gonna have to make a roll like he's he's just he does not want to serve you billy you can aid whoever is doing this in that you are like weeping okay what how we could ask him to let us eat in the back with like the staff can we get something to go but if this is a parlay if you're trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do you have to offer him something oh something that he wants he wants billy to stop crying he does want billy to stop crying is billy honestly crying or is he fake crying billy's like fake crying but he's getting to the point where he's like real crying okay so he's just yeah yeah okay cool saying that you will get billy to stop crying would be leverage okay yeah seven eight this is okay okay okay fine fine fine you y'all can y'all can eat in the back room you just got to get this little boy stop crying stop crying little boy okay and he like waves you behind the counter and takes you into the back and uh he brings five sushi rolls for billy one sushi roll for thing and I haven't ordered yet can I just get a bowl of I don't know whatever meat this is yeah absolutely you better believe it boy thanks and mirrors is like I'm not we're not I'm not I'm not gonna get anything and he like walks into the back with you okay and he's like looks really nervous you pay I assume yeah five coins for everything five coins what this is a lot of fruit I'm a hard-working boy and y'all are putting me on the on the radar a dagger is like less than one coin I'll cover it you guys are you sure yeah I did this I did this to myself okay yeah would he accept uh like the coins for the festival oh the like trash money that we got he you like hold the coins out and he does that thing where he closes your own fingers and pushes them back no all right these things are garbage yeah good luck even redeeming these at the festival wait are you serious well I don't know I'm just saying a lot of people come from out of town they're probably looking for money coins oh god jesus fuck anyways enjoy your food and he leaves you in this like dingy dingy room and yeah so the the sushi is like like swamp leaves like like skunk cabbage I'm done skunk cabbage with some sort of like chunky like paste and then the meat is like very pale and translucent almost hey guys have you tried the chunky paste I just got a bowl of the meat but it like have you ever had udon it just tastes like udon just the noodle you're just eating and you hear um uh a russell not russell but like a commotion from the front of the restaurant who's russell uh yeah russell's here look out uh and uh you hear the owner whose name is morfo well hello lieutenants is there anything that I can help you with and you hear a voice kind of mutter like quietly speak quietly says oh well I I don't think I would know anything about that and then you hear him like let's just why don't you come over here I'll show you my finest wares outside and you hear him like lead somebody but you hear like the clank of um sword on leather armor we should probably head out you guys yes and mirrors mirrors like mirrors like looks out like peeks out and he turns when he says it's the militia it's the guards we got we gotta go mirrors why aren't we supposed to be here muckraker controls everything does he control the mayor he controls everything wow there's a huge revelation I can't believe we didn't even have a chance to talk to him I can't believe we didn't even have a chance to talk to him I can't roll for it you didn't know any of this coming in you just thought that you would go you just thought you would break into mudlars hq without knowing any of this kind of we play most things pretty fast and loose mostly I need we need a way out to hide or leave okay um there is a like higher up because it's sort of like everything's kind of arced up here um there's like um a hole of the stove that's been punched out for um for smoke and stuff but it's probably like 11 feet in the air should I just wait how wait do you want to turn into something yeah okay oh yeah right yeah you can turn into animals and stuff yeah yeah so what are you doing I'm gonna turn into a dragonfly and go uh up out of that hole in the roof wait you can't lift yeah that's like a straight up there's something really cool how big was the hole big enough for everyone to fit through I was probably like tucking fit through you can fit through if you turn into something mirrors can fit through billy can fit through tuck cannot fit through fucking anything seven feet tall five feet wide I was thinking an anaconda oh yeah the big snake and I'll push you through the hole yeah does that um how do I get up there does a big snake fly work with uh the environments that you're in the hole why don't I turn into smoke that can carry people well a couple reasons are there hippogriffs uh you that idea is copyright remember you can yeah you can turn into plants you can turn into turn into it I'll turn my hands into tree people and I'll grow them uh I'll I'll turn my hair into my hand into a chair and then I'll and then my arm into a tree and push them up and out of the thing and then grab it and then I'll turn my hands into it and then pull myself up so you can turn into a tree yeah shaped like a chair okay sure sure yeah I could have just said tree that makes sense you can you can turn into like a plant thing and carry people out yeah that makes sense yeah okay I'm fine roll it yeah roll it I'm very nervous go go gadget arm six plus my wisdom I think yeah seven eight eight so you get one hold okay so you can carry one person out that's damn shit obviously it's billy all right wait you're leaving me alone with mirrors oh wait no but okay so here's how we can do it so you can either spend a hold to carry billy out or you billy can make a roll because now you have this like method of escape you can climb up or something like that I can take mirrors and you can use me yeah we could just chuck mirrors somewhere yeah mirrors is he didn't helpless you're an adventurer yeah true true all right so uh that'd be a defy danger dexterity I think I got 13 damn nice yeah so up and out how does billy just scurry up billy um uh somehow light-footedly runs up the tree oh so graceful parkour oh just oh I parkour is out and away tickles so much yeah up through the hole and you so when you um you're like up on the roof billy and mirrors are on the roof and you're and I'm holding on to it and you're hanging on the edge of the roof oh yeah I'm hanging on to the edge of the roof yeah so I just suck myself up cool cool uh myself up yeah yeah that's why that sounds and out and you and you look down and you see the owner of food boat morpho talking to two members of the guard and like pointing inside oh shit yeah okay you wanna you wanna warn us yeah I'm gonna yeah so I peek back through the hole I'm like guys uh we have to get out of here really fast I think they need to get out of here really fast I think they need to get out of here really fast I think they need to get out of here really fast I think they need to get out of here really fast I think they need to get out of here really fast I think they need to get out of here really get away with stuff when we tell them to go down and distract and get to lead them over there while we oh I see gotcha gotcha gotcha they're not gonna murder mirrors can mirrors just like walk out as if he's a local he kind of looks like them it's true mirrors can you do mirrors can you do that oh ah and uh so mirrors like slides down uh the side of the boat and runs around to the other side and you hear him yelling at the guards like oh thank you they kidnapped me what they kidnapped me and they're over there they went that way and he starts like running in a different direction great and he's like come on come on come on and the guards are like oh and they they run after mirrors okay cool I slide down the side of the boat and turn into a boar's face I want to turn into a boar to try and dig it's mud right can we dig him out of the boat wait so you're all the gore wait wait wait do we need to do this or the guards gone the guards are gone let's get the fuck out of here I'm just gonna walk out the front any and uh morpho comes back and he says you and then I just hold his face with my hand and push him straight into the ground dumb fucking bitch and and you just walk out okay um yeah I'm gonna I try to slide down but I end up tumbling and rolling off the roof and into the mud oh no billy oh it's fine it's fine yeah so you guys are you guys are free of that situation okay are you okay yeah I just I have to I'm like deep in the mud so I have to crawl up yeah yeah so um I'm licking a tissue and trying to wipe off your furs thanks uh you see some people uh sort of keeping an eye on you guys we're a group in a in a shadowed corner of a nearby wreck what do they look like they look like a couple real rough motherfuckers oh man it's like um a short guy and a tall guy you see them like moving their hands in a weird way down by their sides and it looks like they're sick um they look a lot like a woman um a woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman Yeah, so we'll run straight.

And also, I'll make a shitload of noise or whatever. Is that a bad idea? No, that's a fine idea. Is it? Yeah, you can stay behind and you sort of… Because you guys will be back in a few hours. At least that's the plan. Billy, you're so brave. Tinks! Roll a defy danger dexterity, I guess, to hide. What is that? Is that a one? One sec. Pathetic. Seven, okay. Okay, so how is Billy trying to hide? There's no plant life. It's just mud and then the wall. So I'm just going to sink into the mud.

But I guess maybe not all of it covers me. So my ears poke out. There's not enough room to hide comfortably with all your stuff. So you're going to have to get rid of something. I guess I could get rid of that beautiful cloth I stole. Yeah, so you're going to have to ditch it, throw it in the garbage or something. Maybe I'll give it to one of the guys. I'm going to get rid of one of these guys. Okay, yeah, no, that works. Sure. Okay, yeah. I'll just tie it. I'm going to tie it around my neck.

Okay. All right. Beautiful. How do I look? Beautiful. Great. Now let's scream and go that way. Okay. Oh, my God. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run. Mark, lock, lock. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! You hear, Billy, you hear, like, you see the tall guy and the short guy walk past and they go, was that them? I think so. And he said, okay, I guess we should go.

And they run after them and you're left alone buried in the mud. I want to push over a barrel of watermelons on the way out of town. All right, yeah, it's a classic, like, Hong Kong cinema foot chase. Like, they're crashing through carts of food and stuff like that. Sweet. Nice. Yes. And you guys, you've led them away from Billy. What's your plan? Oh, do we meet Mears? Mears is in the wind. Oh, he's gone. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. You know what else is in the wind? This dope scarf. Check it out.

So they're chasing you. You're being chased by a tall guy and a short guy. Both short cropped hair. Both pretty scarred up. But just them, right? Just them. Can we lose them and then chase them? Should we take them down an alleyway and ambush? Can you turn into a thing that I can hide in or behind? Smoke. A bush or something? Can you actually turn into smoke? So it's inanimate natural objects in brackets, plants, and rocks. Okay. So it's mostly plants, mostly rocks. Okay.

Probably like, yeah, like sand. It says sand, the sea, and the stone. Okay. Is that smoke? No, not yet. Okay. Not yet. I guess not. We can hide in an alleyway. Yeah. Oh, you turn into a rock. Dead in an alleyway. I'll hide behind you. Okay. And when they run past, I'll pick you up and murder them with you. Whoa, wait. What if we just take their clothes? You're an elf. You're a seven foot tall, obvious foreigner. We can take their clothes and then murder them.

Not a lot of people in Mudlock look like Takama. Yeah, we should murder them and take their clothes. I'll murder them with you. Okay. And take their clothes. And what's your plan with the clothes? Just out of curiosity. I'm just going to put them on. You're going to stormtrooper them? Yeah. Just squish a helmet? Yeah. Just be flat. What's wrong with that idea? You're basically taking a shirt and pants and saying, hi, I'm the guy that works for you.

Do we want to question them about why they're following us? Should we murder them and then question them? Yeah, we should get some answers from them. Okay. I'm just saying nobody's going to believe that either of you are from Mudlock. Really? Are you telling me that if I don't take a short man's clothes and wear them as half pants and a half shirt and then walk out into the streets, people are not going to be like, oh, oh, I recognize you from the market. Is that what you're explaining to me?

That's what I'm trying to explain. Fair. All right. What do you turn? Okay, what's going on? They're coming around the corner. I'm going to turn into a big piece of granite. Okay. Okay, sure. Roll your 2d6 plus wisdom. Six. Eight. Eight. So you get one hold and you turn into a big rock. Are you turning into a rock? Are you turning into a rock person? No, I want to turn into a statue that looks very similar to him. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, So it's a very rough. You're basically a rock in the shape of the rough shape of a person. I just say, hold still for a second. Poof. Yeah. But there's no holes for the arms. So it's just like you're just a monolith. Okay, cool. Yeah. Okay. So I will hide behind him. Do I have to roll for that? Sure. You get plus one dexterity. Five. Dexterity is zero. Can I help by being a rock? Slightly fatter rock. That's what the plus one was.

He got to get the plus one from hiding behind you. So that's a failure. So how does Tacoma fail this? I guess I'm like just giggling a lot. So they run around the corner and they see a big rock like leaning against the building. And yeah, they hear like. And the rocks going. Shh. Is he just back there? So they like you hear like as they like draw their weapons and they just step around the court. They step around the rock and go high and you like are standing there like one of them just swing.

He swings his sword and he catches your axe in the right way and sends it sailing down the alley. God fucking damn. So you're axless. Wait, can I pretend that I'm not me? I'm shitting back here. I'm doing this shit. I have to shit in public. I'm fucked up. I'm so fucked up. All right. The short guy goes, that's enough. And he swings his sword at you. What do you do? Can I rock punch him? He's got to deal with this situation first. Okay. Okay. So here's what I'm going to do.

I'm just going to take it and I just put my forearm up so that he steps. He's going to stab you. He stabs you? All right. Roll a defy danger constitution. Eight, nine. All right. Since you rolled a constitution, he is going to stab you. Yeah. You are going to get cut. So roll a D6. Three. So you take two damage as he cuts you in the arm, but you are free to act. So I pull his sword out of his hand. In your arm. With your arm? Yeah. Oh God. I morph the rock up and squish him up against the wall.

Oh damn. Yeah. Not murdering squish, but like a rat. Oh, you're just holding. Oh, cool. So you're just like restraining him. So that's your hold. Yeah. Turn back into Ving. With my spear up against his throat. That's dope. Okay. But there's the other guy and he swings a sword at Ving's back. I block. I try and block it with the sword that's embedded in my arm. So his sword gets ripped out of his hand and it's in your big arm. Yeah. I love this. That's cool. Yeah. All right. That's weird.

I block it with the sword that's in my arm. All right. Also, ow, because it kind of jangles around your arm a little. Yeah, really hurts. Yeah. Totally. Okay. I'm going to pull it out of my arm now. Roll a D6 again. Six. You just voluntarily took five points of damage. Why? You yanked a sword out of your arm. Okay. Well, I'm going to leave it in there. Okay. Jesus. All right. So there's a sword in your arm. All right. Fine. I'm just going to hack and slash. Okay. Sounds great.

With the dagger and the sword that's in my arm still. Okay. Great. Roll hack and slash. Six plus what? Strength. Eight. Eight. So you'll deal your damage to him and he'll deal his damage to you. What's his damage to me? D6. Two. Cool. So one with your armor. Okay. Yeah. So you deal seven damage to him, which, yeah, describe how you take this guy out. Oh, do I kill him? Well, yeah, you've taken him out. You can kill him. You can do whatever you want with him. Okay. Take his clothes first. Yeah.

He can't take his clothes first. You can't strip him naked and then kill him. Make fun of his penis. Yeah. He lifts his sword to take another swipe at me and I lift my arm sword up and then just smash him in the balls with my foot real hard. Okay. Like way too hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel a lot of stuff break and pop. Uh-huh. And he starts crying. Shit. Okay. Okay. And he's, he's on the ground and you've got the guy up against the wall.

So, and that's, he's like struggling, but he can't, he doesn't want to get stabbed in the throat with a spear. Are you following us? Muck Raker's got her eye on you. Her. Uh, his. You idiot. No, hit there. Muck Raker's got their eye on you. You fucking idiot. You told us. His face gets all red. He's like, shut up. You shut up. You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die.

You're going to, you're going to leave Mudlark in a pine box. Yeah. Wow. That's really some, that's, that would be a really impressive feat considering there are no pine trees in this godforsaken shithole of a place. Muck Raker's got lines on lots of stuff, including pine for boxes. Oh, thanks. That's more information that we didn't know. Get, son of a. Just let me go. Just let me go. Or kill me. I'm dead anyways. Can you tell us how to get to Muck Raker? No. How about that? How about no?

How about yes, or I'll do this to you, and then I lift the other guy up. Hmm. And you want him to take you to the place I get you in? Yeah, tell us how to get in. You have to understand, if I do this for you, that's it for me. I can't come back to Mudlark. Yeah, that's awesome. Dude, this place sucks. Yeah, but I can't, it's hard to get out of here. Why? We can help you. The roads are real dangerous. You can help me? Yeah, do help us. We'll help you. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Okay, okay, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. You help me get out of here, and I'll help you get in. Okay, cool. Deal. All right. I lower my spear. Great. I kiss him on the cheek. And cut to Fat Billy buried in the mud. What's Billy been up to? Still fading. Well, Billy lifts his head up and gasps for air, because he's been stuck in the mud for like a minute or two. Yeah, totally. And he's going to make his way very silently, very stealthily to Clearwater. Okay.

So the sun's gone down, or it's starting to go down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lanterns are coming on and torches are being lit and the usual nighttime village stuff. Billy, you're creeping through under the hulks of ships in the shadows of broken vessels and stuff like that. The hulks of ships in the shadows of broken vessels. What's the name of the metal album that I learned all that stuff from? I'm gonna creep behind the garbage cans.

There's some even more wrecked piles of lumber where it looks like ships have been moved to be further away from the clear water. The patrols around the ship are pretty consistent. Men with torches on the decks up top and a couple walking around. You can either try and go for it. I'm gonna try to find another way. Can I skirt around the perimeter of clear water and see if there's a different little window or hole or something like that?

You get around to the back end of the ship where it sinks into the mud and you see down, just at the edge where the ship starts to sink in, what used to be like a porthole that's half buried, but it looks like it's just big enough that you could probably squeak through. Ooh, I'm gonna suck it in and try to get through there. All right. A thick dude with a torch walks past. He's like right in front of you, like passes within a meter.

And then he walks past and you scurry across the intervening space and squish your little self into the hole. Nice. And you are inside the clear water alone. Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. By yourself. It's dark in here. It's fine. And everything's tilted at a weird angle. That's fine. This looks like it's some sort of storage room. So there's like barrels kind of stacked up, but they're all pressed up against the bottom. And as you like step, you can hear that the decks below you go down further.

So there's sort of a buried section of the ship, you assume. Is the floor like on an angle? Yeah. Yeah, everything's tilted pretty drastically. Okay. But you hear muffling, muffled voices in the next room. Okay. I'm going to get on all fours and crawl up. All right. And I'm going to listen. Yeah. So you hear a softer woman's voice, a deep, rich voice. Those are two separate voices, a soft woman's voice and a deep, rich voice having a conversation. What are they saying? It's a wooden door.

Isn't there like a gap in the door at all? Can I just press my ears up against like the bottom part of the door? There's like a gap a little bit higher. You can see the door up on the wall. Is there a way I can climb up? Yeah, you could like move. Everything's on an angle, but there's like rigging, like cargo net. Cargo net sort of along one wall. All right, I'll try that netting. You creep up hand over hand on the little nets. You kind of peek through. What do I see? You see Maggie Cole.

Knew it. Bitch. Speaking with the orc. The lady orc? Yeah, the lady orc. This is a fairly richly appointed kind of office, like a sitting area. The deck's been built up a little bit, so it's more like it's been terraced. So there's like, you know, little steps and then a platform, little steps and then a platform. And she's got a desk and a very nice plush chair.

And I mean, like you're a kid, so you don't necessarily know too much about all of the things that are decorating the wall, but they're very eclectic. A suit of armor that's very fancy looking. Tapestry on the wall showing things that you would never see on the wall, showing things that you don't understand, things you've never seen. What? Just a lot of sex. It's just sex. Yeah. Stop saying that. And I'm like, wow. Wow. It's art. Oh, I don't understand it, but it makes me feel weird. Yeah.

So there's like. It's battle sense. Look at these people wrestling. So there's like, it's just a lot of stuff. And you can see Maggie's kind of stressed out. Okay, bring him, bring him in. The orc leaves. And Maggie's like, I'm not going to do this. I'm going to go to the orc. I'm going to go to the orc. I'm going to go to the orc. And then you hear like a scuffle and she comes back in holding by the scruff of his neck, Mayor Etienne Boggins. There was a break in earlier and we found this.

And she holds up the metal case. Oh shit. And. There's doobies in it. Yeah. Yeah. The metal, the metal case that Billy stole from the mayor. Caroline, did he have anything else on him?

And she comes forward with a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, that we found this in his house. Thanks for listening to Spout Lore, everybody. I've been your Game Master, Sean O'Hara.

With me, as always, are players Abdul. How do we want to handle these kinds of situations where we Spout Lore? Paul. Put it like a huge reaper. Spout Lore! And Jessica. Does he die? I gotta know. Thanks to Wes Lord, our technical producer. Thanks to Aaron Magoo at Heckler's Bar and Grill for letting us record in the Heckler's Upstairs Lounge. And thanks to Aaron Reed for the amazing intro and outro music that he has provided. Thanks for listening to Spout Lore, everybody.

We'll see you next week. And so ends the tale of Adventures Three Who tried the best they could Though dumb and scared and lost they'd be For time's abreast in revelry And though our journey may be like a conclusion We will never know We'll 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 I don't understand. This belongs to some large man. I don't know. He says that… He defecates in it.