Episode 9 – The Nature of a Rock is to Chill

Gather round friends, let me tell you a tale of three heroes, noble and bold A brute, a druid, and a thief who is but nine years old You know them by name, you know them by deed, their quests are famously daring So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight Fingers have health, he shifts his shape, and wields a spear with great might Billy's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts So gather round friends, and listen close For the tale's about to start Welcome to Spout Lore, I'm your Game Master Sean O'Hara With me as always, playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai Hello!

Playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz Hello!

And playing Shathane, the Elf Ranger, guest player Mark Robertson When last we left our heroes, they were traveling through the forest of one tree With Perel, the spirit of a wizard, trapped in the body of a spirit fish They had followed the tracks of the tree that Shathane scared off at the end of last session To the source of the forest, which is the forest of the halfling thief Which is an enormous tree called You, who told you that this tree You told You?

You's on first, let's just get out of the way So You told You, all, told all of you people that this tree in the forest was them but also their children And they wanted you to take a sapling, which you now have in your possession, and plant it somewhere nice And we named it Gary Gary Oak Because Abdul names everything Gary By…

It's honestly not intentional You know, I know, it's the only name that exists In my mind, yes And told you that Ving was apparently in the presence or possession of a spirit called Wasp Which, knowing the way the spirit world works, could very well just be a big ol' wasp, who knows Yeah And explained to you that you had to travel through the forest, to the hills, to the plains And on the other side of the plains would be the nest of Wasp, which is where Ving is apparently And…

We can take care of that whole journey with a Perilous Journey roll Something to consider when you're figuring out the rules that you'll take during the Perilous Journey roll is that Shathane will succeed Regardless? Regardless Okay Yeah So, as we've said, the rules are Quartermaster, Trailblazer, and Scout Oh, Trailblaze Trailblaze? Yeah Scout? Scout, Quartermaster The traditional roles Yes Oh, but first, Billy, do you want some granola?

Yes, please Yeah, okay Okay, there you go Thanks I lean down and I like pop it into his mouth Yeah, you get the sensation of eating, but your hunger is still kind of there Huh But you still feel satisfied having chewed on some granola I close my eyes and I like pretend really hard like I'm still eating granola Okay And I'm like, maybe I'll be full after this Yeah, maybe, maybe Okay, so yeah, everybody roll 2d6 plus your wisdom Okay 11 Ooh 9 9, okay, perfect And Shathane gets a 10 10 plus Yeah, so like you get to the edge of the forest with the identical yew trees all the way down At the edge as you cross out into a very bright day that contrasts pretty sharply with the extremely dark night you just walked out of Whoa Whoa At the edge of the yew forest, yeah, it is extremely bright now Wow Oh my god Yeah The light that Perel was casting dims significantly Holy shit And even he's blinking his like spirit eyes like, whoa, I hate this place I don't know, I kind of like it, I'm getting into it It's just It's like, there's this thing you can do where like you can go to like a play called the Enchanter of Zo and there you can bring an album with you and you can play it at the same time and the album syncs up, it's wild, it's how this place makes me feel Okay Yeah I'll have to check it out when I have a body in the real world Yeah, I was kind of telling these guys, you were just sort of overheard that Alright, well, I'll just go fuck myself then Yeah, you should So you are in an area with like rolling hills and you see a hill rise up in front of you Not super high, maybe like 40 feet, like it's sort of a steep walk but not so steep that you couldn't do it And right at the top it just is like a solid wall of mist Hmm, okay, are there any rocks around me?

Yeah, there's just like a rock on the ground Okay, so I take it Rock goes, hey, hey Oh, are you alive? Yeah, this is a spirit world I put that one down, I pick another one up What are you doing? Oh, you're alive too This is a spirit world, what do you think? Okay You just can't come and walk and grab people? Okay, I'm sorry This guy's just picking people up, he's just gonna throw people around I'm sorry, I'm just gonna do one thing, okay?

Okay Okay, and then I kiss the rock, I'm like, you're cute And then I throw it into the mist And it goes, poof And like a little, it punches right into the cloud Cloud goes, poof Hole opens and then closes back up And then I pick up another rock But you see the rock rolling down the hill, like out of the bottom of the cloud Okay Oh, oh god And then it comes back down to the bottom Well, it's definitely not gonna kill us for going into it Sure, okay But what it is, it's a spirit world It's a spirit world It's a spirit world It's a spirit world It's a spirit world It's a spirit world You see a grove of other trees that are growing a little bit more wildly.

And on the branches, you see big fat fruits that you recognize as waffles. Waffles! Okay, I run over. Oh, sick! Yeah. Well, Billy, are you on the back of Perel and do you jump off? Yeah, I jumped off and I yelled waffles. So Billy's running off to these waffle trees in the distance. I can't quite… It's been a while since we've talked about waffles. Did we decide that they're like big purple apples? Yeah, absolutely.

So they're these big fat purple apples, almost as big as Billy's head these ones are. Wow. And you see the trees are moving and you hear them talking to each other. They're like, yeah, so this crop's coming in pretty well, don't you think? I like the way these ones look. These ones… Oh, look at this one. This one, you know, it's small now, but I think it's really going to come through. I think it's really going to come through. Excuse me. And they kind of go, oh, a person. Yes. Hello.

My name is Fat Billy. I see you have many waffles. Can I have one, please? Oh, I don't know. You know, we were just… It's nice to meet you, Billy. My name is Waffle. This is Waffle. This is Waffle. And back there, that's Waffle. Oh, wow. Nice to meet you. And they're all like, oh, yeah, yes. Hello. Hello. Nice to meet you. So you're hungry. Yes. Interesting. We don't get many waffles. Folks around here that eat in the way that you people usually do.

But like my mother, Waffle, always used to say, you have to be kind to those in need. I'm so in need. I have one. And Waffle, like, brings down a branch with just the fattest, juiciest looking waffles you've ever seen. Oh, my gosh. And shakes a couple loose and plop, plop, plop, plop. Four big old waffles right on the ground. Oh, my goodness. That is too kind of you. Oh, it's nothing. It's nothing. You know, if you give, you shall receive. But that's not what it's about.

That's not what it's about. It's just about, no, that sounded sinister. A lot of us spirits, we're not used to conversing with humans. A lot of the things that we say can sound sinister, but they're not. I guess at this point we have caught up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, more people. And they're like, ooh, look. Oh, wow. Wow. These trees have an unusually sunny disposition. I like it. Yeah, it's just, you know. The nature of the waffle tree is to give and sustain. Cool. I like that.

And, Billy, you figured out the hook style you have to believe to play the game. So you bite into that waffle. Oh, it's so delicious. Wow. What do waffles taste like? A plum. Oh, it was like a plum apple, wasn't it? I thought so. Or like a grapple or something. Yeah. I think it was a grapple. Like a grape apple, yeah. So, oh, it's so good. And you actually feel you are eating it. Oh, my gosh. Like, unlike the granola earlier. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

Which you're like, okay, maybe that means that, like, it's not actually granola, but it's like a projection of granola. You know what I mean? You're kind of thinking about the weird spirit world. But this spirit waffle, oof, it's going down good. Cool. Yeah. I ate it all. Okay. Waffle's gone. Yeah. I guess I pick one up. I'm like, Billy, do you need another one or can I have this? You can have it. Okay. I eat it. Also, my pockets are full of rocks. The rocks are like, hey, what's going on?

Yeah, because it's, I don't know. It's nice. They seem to have, they seem nice. So I just took some of them. This is talking rocks. Yeah. It wanted a talking rock. Yeah, yeah. When I was, when I lived in McCall, I had a pet rock that I would pretend was a dog. Yeah. I put a leash on it, dragged it around. This is, and this is just, this is legit a pet rock. Yeah. So I have a few of them on my pockets. This is a talking rock. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think I'm totally amazed that a spirit in the spirit world gave you something to eat and you ate it and it was good and you're not dead or turned into that thing already that I'm. I just pick one up and I take a little bite out of it too just to see what's going on. It tastes great. It does. And so something that you would sort of remember, because your experiences in the spirit world were based on a not great thing.

So your experiences with spirits were very John Wick where it was like, tell me what I want to know or I am going to kill you. But something that you know about spirits is that they generally follow their nature. So like the spirit of a, of a fruit tree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The spirit of a forest is to obscure and hide and spread. So that's why, that's why you think you was so weird because they were like, you are lost in my forest. This is how it is. I will not give you things unless you help me spread. And they don't have like individual evil, evil intent or plan. Yeah. It's nature. Just, um, wolf, wolf got a hunt. Bird got a fly. What's the deal with these rocks? Why are they so fun to be around? You're just like talking. How cool would it be to be like?

I, it's highly likely that no one's ever thrown a rock before these rocks in this world. Yeah. So you picked it up and it's like, what the hell? It got to fly. Yeah. It got to roll down a hill and then see his friends at the bottom of the hill and be like, holy shit. He's the bet. He's the coolest. You know, those birds, you know, those birds that we see sometimes. I did that. Get this. Yeah. Yeah. So that's just, yeah, that's like the rock.

Then it was like, what do you think the nature of a rock is? I don't know. They're chill. They love you now. I don't know. The nature of a rock is to just chill. Chill. I got, I put one on my left shoulder, one on my right shoulder and I got one on top of my head. I'm like, Gary, Larry, Chad. Gary, the tree, the tree looks over at you. Yeah. Gary, Gary, the oak tree. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. You're okay.

Instead of you being named Gary, I point at the rock. I'm like, your name is Terry. All right, man. Sounds pretty good. I'm just, Hey man, I'm just here for whatever, you know, just having a good time. Tuck only knows six names. Gary, Larry, Terry, Chad, Linda, Bruce. Those are all the names he knows. Yes. Every time he learns a new name, it pushes out an old one. God, it's so hard. I only got six. That's how it works. I barely know my name. What is it? Is it Turk? Turk. It's Turk, right?

The wapple trees are like, so what's going on? What are you guys? What are you? What are you all doing here? We don't see a lot of people. We're looking for our friend thing. Oh, he's a tall elf boy. Oh, another person. Yes. Wow. And he has long hair and it's gray. Have you seen him? Yeah. We heard he was hanging with someone named Wasp. Oh, and they all, they do the same like branch shaking thing where they're like, Oh, Wasp, huh? What? What's up? What's up with Wasp? What's up with Wasp?

Wasp is a tough to. Tough to deal with. Hmm. You know, B. Oh, we love B. Yeah. B is great. B is spectacular. Butterfly. Oh, just a delight. But Wasp. It's always just about Wasp. You know what I mean? Give us some specific examples. It's just like, you know, we, B is always happy to help out. You know, B makes honey. Bear eats honey. B is cool with that. Wasp makes honey. Kind of. You want to call it honey? Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of.

Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. To each other. But no, not for anybody else. Just for Wasp. If your friend is with Wasp, it means that they made Wasp unhappy. Yeah. And how they did that, who can say? Pretty much anything makes Wasp angry. So how would we go find Wasp? Do we just go up that mountain thing? Yeah. Unfortunately, the Misty Hills, that'll be, that'll be the way you go. And past that is the plane. Past that's the Dust Bowl.

Yep. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's where you're going to find Wasp. Man, I can't wait to rip through all these different environments. Almost no time to spare. Is there any way to attract Wasp? Sugar, meat. The usual thing that Wasp's like. Sugar and meat. Just the usual thing. Wasps, they just love to eat. Okay. They love to take. I take, I pick up the Wapple Core and I just, I'm going to carry that with me. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

If you hold onto one of those, Wasp loves Wapples, which is why we're here now. We've, we've come to use Forest for protection. Cause Wasp, oh, pushy, pushy Wasp. If you use one of those, they'll, they'll come right out when you get to the Dust Bowl. Okay. All right. Cool. I'm going to put it in the basket with Gary and then I'm going to hug the Wapple Tree. Thank you. Oh, you're so welcome, child. So welcome. Wait, does this tree have a face? Oh, sorry. A what? What is it talking out of?

You just hear it talking. Okay. Yeah. No face, no eyes. Nope. No face, no eyes. And then one of them kind of looks at, at Perel. It's like. Without its face. Looks how? Well, turns its whole situation to Perel. It turns its situation. Yeah. It says, is that Koi? Is that Koi? Is that you? Perel goes, oh, uh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yup. No, it's not. I'm sorry. I, your friend is here, but. Oh. Be sure to release him somehow at the end of all this. And the Wapple Tree goes, oh, you know what? Never mind.

Koi's kind of a dink. Really hard to talk to. Never remembers our name. Tough to deal with. Anyways, good luck. Okay. Should we kill this Koi fish? Oh, uh, um, it's up to you. Okay. And Perel goes, whoa, hold on. No, it's okay. We got the, we got the go ahead from the Wapple Tree. Let's just get going. How about. I give him a slap on the arm. I'm like, let's go, buddy. Let's just get out of here. Let's go. And, um, the Wapple Trees go, okay, bye. I go, bye. My name was Tacoma. Oh, nice. Tacoma.

Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, little one, Billy. Yes. And you, taciturn one. You can call me Shathane. Shathane. We will remember that, Shathane. Enjoy the Wapples. We've met before. That's fine. You can't remember me. That's fine. And they wave their. Wapples at you as you, as you head up the hillside. I like the idea that Shathane has met all of these spirits before and like threatened them and they don't remember it. Who knows how much time has passed and driving him fucking crazy.

Yeah. And everything that I tried to do before when I came through the first time I've now realized was just a giant fucking mess and waste of time. And, uh, well, where you're starting to realize you're like, oh, apparently bumbling your way through. This world is more effective than moving through it with purpose. Great. Spectacular. Apparently wandering like these assholes have always done and just saying hi to everything.

The look on my face when you picked up a rock and then threw it must've been like, what the fuck? I hate these guys. Um, do you want to write down three talking rocks on your, on your inventory? Terry, Larry and Chad. As long as you hold onto these dudes, like they're, they're there and they've got like, you know, voices again, like you don't see any faces on them, but they do talk. So you head up the hillside and, um, the grass under your feet feels nice and smell. Everything smells good.

And you see use forest stretching out at the base of the hill for an indeterminate distance. Wow. And you see chunks of it above other chunks and below. And I turn around and I look at the forest and I pick, Billy up and I'm like, everything that the sun touches will be yours one day. So I'm going to have to stay here. No, I, it's a reference to a, uh, like a play that I saw one time. Wow. Yeah. That sounds really cool. It's called the lion King. Wow. Amazing. So he was king of this place.

I don't get it. I liked it. It's a reference to a thing that you saw and nobody else knows. Yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a play in McCall. It's very popular. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's based on another play called Hamlet. Wow. Which is about pigs. You guys must have some really cool things going on there. Yeah. We should go there one day. Sure. Lots of entertainment. Yeah. So you head up the hillside and, uh, you get to the wall of mist and you walk in and it is cold. It's pretty chilly here.

Yeah. It's pretty icy mist. Shathane though, as the scout and Tuck is the trailblazer. You are able to pick your way through the hills pretty easily. Actually the rocks as you're walking, they are like, Nope, Nope. Don't go that way. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're going to get lost. You go that way. You got to go straight. Oh wow. This is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. They know the total, the total sum total of knowledge of all rocks. Each rock knows. Yeah. Rock rock. I'm rock. That's right.

Well, I mean, I guess, I guess I'm Chad now. Yeah. You're Chad. That's pretty cool. Here's what I like about you, Chad. Cause you're the bad boy of the group. They've never, they've never thought of themselves as individuals until now. Yeah. I'm like really fucking. You guys are introducing individualism to the spirit world. And they're like, Whoa, Chad, you're the bad boy. Terry, you're the sensitive one. And Larry, you're the, you're the one that, uh, whatever. Justin Timberlake was.

They're a boy band. You made a boy band out of rocks. Out of these three rocks. With the waffles found by Billy. Sitting in your tums. You're all feeling pretty good. Larry, Terry, and Chad are helping you walk your way through the misty hills. And while we're walking, I'm like kind of like sorting through my inventory and I see the red leather book. Oh yeah. I'm like, I wonder if this would be any different in this world. Oh. So I take it out and I open it up and I flip through it. Damn. Okay.

What's that? What's that book? So the book is the book. You found a red leather book in the goblin tower. Like beginning of season two. You guys have never, well, you opened it and it was blank. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you never opened it again. So what is in it is a lot of writing, a lot of entries, way more than you expected. There's formulas, there's different diagrams and drawings. Whoa. Are you just like going through this thing? Yeah.

I'm just flipping through it. So there's one entry that you stop at. And so it's just writing like, I'm in my workshop, the light of a single lamp, my books on the wall, my work in front of me. Yeah. Yeah. You get the idea that this is the writing of a wizard. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I spot what's on the page and I'm like instantly steer it away from our donkey fish friend. And I'm like, do not let him see this. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, then I, you and me drop back behind.

Do you want to be involved in this, Billy? I think I'm, I'm still on the wizard. He's like riding on Perel. Yeah. And I'm like, keep him distracted. Oh, okay. And so I'm like, okay, well, hey, Perel. Yes. You know, now that I ate something, maybe we could talk about some spell work stuff. Really? Yeah, sure. Oh, that's very exciting. Okay, great. And he starts going like, okay, so you know that feeling that you're starting to close your eyes like immediately.

Perel's like, so the feeling that you feel when you're like, when you collect this magical energy, that is called thalmic energy. And he's just like talking and talking and you're like, oh my God. Do you want to roll a charisma? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay so it's a pretty stark criticism of my character voice and he also does want to distract so that these guys can can look over that book yeah so I guess constitution so I can both focus and distract yeah absolutely okay so 2d6 plus constitution and not fall asleep I should have got six six I'm sorry can we help well how would you help uh I give him terry what terry the rock okay how are you helping billy in his distraction of perl here's what I'm thinking is like billy's trying to focus and stay awake he's so bored he keeps like falling asleep yeah but if he had terry with him terry would be like oh it's pretty talking around okay all right so yeah that that works for me so like as you're walking away you're like hey uh yeah if you're gonna learn here's how about terry hangs out with you yeah how about terry hangs out with you he's really good at he's a class clown cool okay I don't I want to try one of my roads can I try that light and I didn't mean touch glows with divine light oh yeah so we'll we'll do that we'll do the bond and then if you want some light just so you can see a little bit better no I was thinking of light light light light the rock up so he looks more cool and more distracting more interesting yeah um yeah we could do that we are opening you are opening yourself up to two times the failure basically that's okay this is this is how we fucking play no risk no reward okay all right so yeah roll your 2d6 plus your bond with billy nine ten eleven all right so billy gets a plus one and gets a seven and do you want to you want to do your light thing 13 so terry lights up uh with what is the light that shathane casts look like um well here everything it's quite bright out yeah like a yellowish white light in the atmosphere and then he uh he gets this like awesome sort of purple sort of glow bluish purple little twirling sparkling whoa we spent a little more on the cgi for this one so some little sparks come off from time to time and then they just die down to little embers and then they come back again as he gets more interested he looks around it's like yeah yeah it's like looks so cool yeah you look awesome rock is like terry's like oh man I look so dope check it out larry chad I look sick and I hold them up so they can see them like oh my god do you look so cool man good job good job they're not even jealous because they're all one thing they're just like that's sweet wow it's so pretty so I'm just gonna look yeah here you go So on a seven to nine, are you actually trying to learn or are you just like trying to stay awake basically?

Well, Perel, how about we just go through the theory for now and we do the practical stuff later. Okay. Okay. So on a seven to nine. I like how you said that and then you immediately were like, oh, I'm already so far in over my head. I think that's the thing is like, you know, that if you let him go on, Perel is going to become very dedicated to taking you under his tutelage. Okay, whatever. We're probably going to kill this fucking guy later anyway. So like he is really getting into it.

He's like, so Thalmic Energy. I know how I work it. I don't know how you work it necessarily. Being how you are, being a fairy. Or something. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But it's just that's something that we need to talk about as well. We need to figure out exactly what you are and what you're capable of. And he's like really digging into it. And Terry's just like, yeah, man. That's cool. That's cool. So that is happening. Perel is like really getting into it with Billy.

And he's walking too. So like, are you guys walking while you're doing this? Yeah, but we're walking behind them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did that thing where we were like, you know, like when you're on a date. When you're on a first date with someone, but you're with another couple. And then you like, just like, you and that person slow down a little bit. Totally. And you drop behind. And you try and grab their hand and they pull it away from you. Exactly.

I'll give you a quick overview of the first few like pages that you guys can look at. Evil wizard shit is what it is. What you get is that it's not written narratively, but it's very descriptive. It's less like today. I did this. And I woke up and I have been thinking about these things. It's more like I'm here. This is nearby. I feel this way. Like, it seems like it's contained thoughts. Like it's like images and experiences, but they're described instead of transcribed. Okay.

I flip forward to some of the diagrams. It looks like they're written down because someone is remembering them. Some of them are unfinished or misremembered based on your Conan, the barbarian style adventures. This is definitely. This is definitely congruent with magical formula that you've seen in the past. Wow. Yeah. What do you think? It looks like evil wizard shit. This is the exact kind of stuff that people were doing, that wizards were doing when they ruined the world.

When you served with the Rangers back in the day, like a hundred years ago, the Rangers would go out and clean stuff up. You know what I mean? Like there were basically special forces. Exactly. So you've seen this stuff written in blood on the floors of places that were lived in by people that you took out. Yeah. And it looks a bit more like when the.

As the wizards started to be defeated and pushed more into obscurity and they had to sort of sit in the darkness and do their training and everything in obscurity. We couldn't go to a wizard library because we burnt them all down and ruined everything. This is how things were sort of transferred back and forth just through memory and then through lore. Yeah. Actually, go ahead and roll me a spell, Lord, if we want to make this stuff law, basically. Yeah. Ten. All right. So this is absolutely.

Something that strikes you is like, oh, this is not written like a book. This seems like a dream journal, almost like it's descriptions of dreams. And it is so stream of consciousness that you think that it wasn't written, but it just sort of happened. And you think that that's what this book does. Like it basically transcribes the dreams of someone nearby. Okay. I want to flip through and read the last narrative entry. The last entry about what happened to this person. So the last.

It's not quite that clean cut. So I got an idea. Yeah. So if I'm going to, I'm going to close the book up and I'm going to get really, really, really close to Purell. And I'm just going to open it up. Does the ink look darker than if I go way, way, way, way, way further back? So you do see as you, as you move closer to Purell, you see some of the diagrams resolve a little bit firmer. And one of them that was, that was some, that seemed unfinished.

When you were further away, seems to finish itself as you get closer. Oh, fuck. No way. Shit. Yes. There's so many questions in my head. Yep. And you won't get answers to any. I'm whispering this to you. I have so many questions. It seems like your head is full of mostly questions. Blowing my mind. It doesn't seem like it's very difficult. So this is something, maybe something I kind of recognize that spirit or that wizards could, would have books in their libraries that we.

Would see and like, Oh, this library library is full of empty books. Yeah. And at first we just left them. And then when we realized that that was actually, we didn't, couldn't see and understand what was on there. Then we, then we, then we collected and destroyed them all. It's almost like the books, like these books are ways to mine your subconscious for lost information and incantations. Like, cause wizards live for a long time.

They learn and remember lifetimes worths of information over and over and over. And it's all, it's all still in there, but it's like, it's hard to remember things from a long time ago. So they have these books like all over their, their homes and it kind of just like catches whatever like pieces come through and dreams and it like categorizes it basically. It's like Google keep. I don't know. It's basically a Google drive, but, uh, but for the cloud. Yeah. It's, it's cloud processing.

Billy, you're on Perel's back and he's like, so we. Would build devices and machines and apparatus to align the thalmic energy, which would allow us to make magical works larger and more complex and stronger than anything that we could do with our own bodies and minds. Do you understand? Why would we do that? Why can't we just like, you know, kind of blast it out of our hands and then, you know, not worry about all that other stuff that people don't care about. Well, yes, of course.

Like you can just work the magic through your own body. Cool. Yes. Very cool. But I'll give you a hint. If you want to lay waste an entire battlefield, this machine is a machine that lays waste an entire battlefield. People at one time using energies and, and incantations that were intended to help and heal. Yeah. That's, that's kind of where my mind's going. Like, why do we have to do it? Be a machine. Like, why can't we just like, you know, pull it out of our soul or our butts or whatever.

I get Billy like a lo-fi. Yeah. He, uh, he closes his eyes and says, yes, if you're looking to do nothing more than create a flame or, or make something cold or hot or taste one way or the other. Cool. Then yes, you could just work it from through your body. But if you want to do, yes. You want to make a flame that burns the world. I did not do anything like that. That was not what my work was about. Of course not. That's why you were in that box. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Chaos. Let me ask you this. What were you trying to save the world from? The exodus. Instability. When the wizards left, they left holes in the world, in reality. I tried to stop it. At least some of it. They didn't like my methods, and so they imprisoned me. Who's they? Everyone. The people of the principalities. Like, which ones? Well, I remember this happening, so like, which ones? What do you mean you remember this happening?

Well, I just remember like… Yeah, Billy, what do you mean you remember this happening? Well, it was just like a kerfuffle of things, and, uh, you know, people rallying, and I mean, I didn't join in, because no one tells me what's going on, so I just like hid in the barn all the time. Because there's things happening. Well, if you're speaking of the halfling lands, outside the principalities, there wasn't much that I could do. My power's only extended so far.

In the Riverways Principality, when it was still the Kingdom of Kinos, before the old monarch died, in what is now the Riverways Principality, I was trying to stabilize a number of tares in what you now call Wi-Fi hotspots. Wizards First. Such a ridiculous, short-sighted organization. And I was trying to save people. To do that, yes, some people needed to leave, and some people may have gotten hurt. Unintentionally. But I was doing work. I was doing good work. And then they imprisoned me.

Destroyed it all. And then the world got fucked up anyway. Was I just supposed to not try? Is that the way the world works? Move an entire river to stop one wizard from doing good. What do you mean move an entire river? They cut off the source of my power. The river? Yeah, so the Wittershin's River used to run a different way. It used to run around it or whatever. And they moved it over. And that's where I can't remember. What was it? The, like in Mudlark. That whole place was part of the river.

That was part of the Wittershin's? Yeah. Whoa. They moved it quite a ways. Wow. Holy hell. And that not only brought ruin to the trading of the city upriver, and altered the entire ecosystem of that region. It sapped my tower. Of the power necessary to do the work I was doing. Wait. A tower? Is this the spire in Highspear? No, that was another tower. That wizard. It's a mystery.

It's a mystery that we didn't trust the people that ruined the world, that broke the world, that twisted the world, to fix it. I was close. I was close to making a breakthrough. And then they just, they moved the river, they tore my tower down, they buried it, but beneath the mud, they imprisoned me. That part has left me, I will say. The frustration I poured into Billy, the ambition, that part of me is gone. I now only want to help. And I know that what I did was unscrupulous at times.

And now I will help in the way that I am best able to. I will not. I lean in, and I put my hand on his horse shoulder, and I'm like, still doesn't sound like a fucking apology, bro. I'm sorry that your friend was hurt. I will set things right. Thank you. I appreciate that. Now we should probably get going. And we should hug first. I, in this form, I am incapable of hugging. Hug me, do it.

He just like, and he just kind of moves forward and pushes his chest like against you, like his shoulder area. And I hug him, I'm like, make some arms. Make some arms. This is gonna take a while. Wrap it around my beefy torso. He just like, Billy, just hold on. And he like, goes up on his hind legs and sort of moves his arms, and they bend in ways that horse legs can't bend around you and says, is this what you wanted? Does this work? And then I grab his, I guess, horse face now? It's a fish.

It's a fish face. I grab his fish face and I like, kiss him on his forehead. I'm like, you are forgiven. Thank you. Cool. Perel. I forgive you. Thank you. It's not often that people get to, you know, right the wrongs of their worst days. And I'm gonna lean into Perel's ear so nobody else can hear, and I'm gonna be like, I see you, shapeshifting wizard. He, uh, he goes back. I lean into his other ear. You are a brother now. And then we do it at the same time. I see you, shapeshifting wizard.

You're one of us. He goes back down on his, on all fours and backs up. And it's like, all right. You're a pretty horse. Let's move on. You're a piece of shit. Let's move on. Let's, let's continue forward. Perel, I'm really proud of you. Thank you, Billy. You're welcome. I'm proud of you too. You listened to that whole lesson and I think you maybe started to learn something. You're the fucking stupidest wizard. Uh, all right. Evil piece of shit. So you guys carry on through the misty hills.

This is over. Terry is still with, uh, Billy kind of glowing nicely. So beautiful. Larry and Chad are like, yep, no, we're going the right way. We should, we should got to go to the plains, right? That's what you guys were saying. I fucking love these rocks. These rocks are great. And they, um, when you saw the hills, you were like, wow, that's a big zone. That's a big hill zone over there.

And, uh, they lead you through it in a way that makes it seem like it was a lot smaller than you thought it was. And you come out of the mist onto, uh, the edge of the hillside. And it goes down to a plane that stretches out in front of you. Any plants that you would see in the plane, any of the grass or the rocks, everything seems totally blasted as if a wildfire ripped through here. Wow. Very recently. Everything's blackened and charred. There's ash on the ground. What the fuck happened here?

Dang. Oh, shit. Probably a fire. Do fires exist here? Fire? Uh, you can only assume that there would be fire spirits at the very least. Yeah, I guess, like, the spiritual core of what is fire in our world. Yeah. And then when the fire spirit encounters the dry grass spirit, sometimes it doesn't work out so great. Yeah. I guess I want to discern realities. I want to find out what happened here recently. Yeah, sure. Go ahead and roll 2d6 plus your wisdom for discern realities. Five. Plus wisdom?

Uh, one. Six. Can someone aid him? Uh, yeah, yeah. So you would roll, how is Billy aiding? Just also watching? Yeah, I, how about I will go down to the dirt and I'll start digging around. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Nine, ten. Nine. Cool. So that gives you a plus one, which makes that a partial success. What happened here recently? To figure this out, I'm like, dances with wolves, grabbing the ground and tasting it. What does it taste like? And Billy wants to know what it tastes like.

Yeah, so I, and I see him do that and I do it too. There must be something. I'm feeling the wind. What's going on? So, uh, Larry is on your shoulder. He's like, oh man, yeah, fire came through here for sure. Looks like fire was pretty hungry too. Burned it all up. That's fire for you. Is fire dangerous? Uh, is anybody really dangerous? Okay. It's just hard to say, man. You know, it's just like fire burn. Fire gotta burn. Okay. Well, how wide is this plane? Can we run across it real fast?

In the far, far distance, like just over the horizon, which looks like it comes much sooner than it should, you do see smoke. Okay. Like the, where fire is now. Potentially, yeah. Okay. As far as you can tell. Which way do we have to go? Do we have to go in the direction? Like straight across. You basically said, like, cross the hills, cross the plane, you'll be at the dust bowl. Do you guys want to just make a, like, a fucking crazy run for it? Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. So what, um…

Perel, how fast can you run as this weird giraffe fish horse? He, um, he, like, uh… Can you make your legs really long, Salvador Dolly style? Can you make yourself slightly bigger and more useful? You see the muscles in his body shifting, and he does get wider and stockier, but, like, longer. He's, like, towering over all of you now, and he said, I'd hazard I could go pretty fast. Cool. He's still got the koi face. Yeah, he's still got a fish face. And sort of fish…

And his, like, his fish, like, mustache thing is, like, long and luxurious. Cool. He's got a fin going down his head now. Like, he's giving himself, like, racing stripes. Holy shit. He's got a fin going down his neck, but not on his back, so you can sit there comfortably. And then he's got them going down his sides as well. Perel, you look fucking sick right now. He, uh, smiles a little bit with his fish face, and he stomps a foot. Yeah, I go, like, I give him a high five.

His foot is enormous now, and he's just like, yeah, man. This is, this is how they get you. This is how… Man, anyway. Look at this guy. He does look cool. Yeah. He, Perel, crouches down in his new super badass, like, race fish form and gives you room to all hop on. This is awesome. Yeah. Where's Tantamile? Is she gonna get on with it? Like, I haven't seen her. No, she's not. She's, uh, Beavercat.

So she's come to the spirit world, and she's now with the Beavercats and just basically doing what they do in the spirit world, which is, like, curl up and nap and occasionally walk around and… Is she able to, like, will she answer a call or anything? Uh, no. Not really. She's just acting as the, uh, as the, the communal form of Beavercat in nature. Cool. Is she gonna be able to find us? Does she, like, when we leave?

When we go back, she will just appear and, you know, sort of extract herself from the communal form and then become her individual form, and then we'll all kind of slide back. Yeah, Perel, you all hop on. He stands up in his, uh, fish horse form, and you're all, like, 20 feet off the ground now, basically. He's gigantic. And he starts padding down the hill, and then he starts picking up speed. You all grab on, and he is hauling ass now. These three rocks are like, woo!

Yeah, I'm holding, uh, I'm holding Larry and Chad up, and I'm, like, gripping his torso with my legs as hard as I can, and all three of us are going, woo! How's Terry feeling about this? Terry? Um, well, I'm just holding on to, like, Tuck's belt or whatever, and I have Terry in my other hand, and I'm like, woo! I'm also kind of scared, but Terry's loving it. So, uh, Perel's going pretty fast. Like, how are you, how's everyone holding on? Strength. 2d6 plus strength for Defy Danger? Fuck! Six.

Ooh, six. Can I roll it again? No! What? How's Billy holding on? I have his belt. Okay, so, also 2d6? You're also holding on with strength? I guess. Yeah, 2d6 plus strength. Five. So the rangers don't just range, we also had a cavalry. I'm using my cavalry skills, so I guess that would be dexterity? Yeah, we can do dexterity. You kind of know, like, what to hold on to and when. Nine. Nine. Seven plus two. Great. Okay, so, Tuck, here's what happens to you. Woo!

You're riding, and, uh, you've been, you've been, you've been thus far ignoring… I am losing my mind. I'm so excited, it feels like I'm flying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've been thus far ignoring the feeling in your gut from the ghost route, and as you're riding, you're like, yeah! Woo! I love my life! You, uh, you feel in your stomach, you feel that, like, like a real gross gut feeling. Larry and Chad start sinking through your hand. Whoa, what? You're losing your hold on them. Okay.

But not through anything that they're doing or anything that you're doing. Billy, you're holding on to Tuck's loincloth, the back of his loincloth, basically touching his butt, I should mention. Yeah, that's fine. And you feel it start going through your hand. What the… You're losing your hold on that, and then Larry and Chad fall through your hands completely. No! No! And you fall backwards through everyone.

As Perel rips forward, you find yourself hanging in the air, and Billy, you see Tuck, like, basically go through you, Chathain, you see the same thing, and then Tuck is just floating behind. And Larry and Chad hit the ground, they go, oh, whoa! I'm like, ah! Oh, no! Oh, no! And Billy, you see in the distance, you see, um, the smoke over the horizon get darker and thicker and richer. Oh, no! And then you see flames start to lick up over the horizon. Fire is approaching. What do you do?

Thanks for listening, everybody. That's where we're gonna end it for this week. This has been Spout Lore. I am your Game Master, Sean O'Hara, and with me, as always, playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. No, I actually don't remember. Playing Tacoma Dome, the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Wow, I'm embarrassed. And playing Chathain, the Elf Ranger, Mark Robertson. Hamburger, ranch dressing, some hot sauce, cornflakes, and then fry it.

Thanks to Aaron Reed for our amazing intro and outro music. Thank you to Adam Coble and Sage LaTorre for inventing the game Dungeon World. Yeah! Thanks for that. You can find that at dungeon-world.com. Just type in Dungeon World in Google. It'll be there. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week. 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. It would probably be pretty tasty.