Season Twelve: Dreams

Hi, Spoutlorians, Abdul here with a quick pre-show announcement. If you haven't heard, this coming Monday, August 26th, is the day that we will be launching the first season of our bonus show, Mall Brats, on a brand new public feed with newly scored and remastered episodes. Launch week is going to be pretty huge, with a brand new episode dropping every day. And we're also doing a collab with our friend, the incredibly talented artist, Casey Golden.

Where she'll be drawing the cool treat kids in her own amazing style. Launch weeks are hugely important for new shows. So we're asking all our listeners to please go and subscribe to the new feed, which is live right now. And when that first episode drops, listen, rate, review, all that good stuff. We genuinely love this show so much, and we think you'll love it too.

We're also going to be doing a bunch of launch week giveaways for listeners of the new show, where we'll be giving away custom Spoutlorians. They're merch packages from our friends at Fantasy by Numbers, with amazing pins and ornaments and coasters, all with custom Speltlor art on them. And also, one lucky listener will win the one-of-a-kind cool treat kids character art that Casey is creating.

If you'd like to enter to win Casey's gorgeous artwork, or any of the amazing merch packages that we're giving away, all you have to do is click the link in the show notes and head over to the new feed and subscribe. Then, when the first episode drops on Monday, you'll be notified when we release a new episode. So, make sure you sign the review with your Discord or social handle, so we can find you to give you your amazing Speltlor memorabilia. From everyone here at Speltlor, thank you so much.

We hope you like the new show. See you next time. 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. Finger's half-elf, he shifts his shape and wields a spear with great might. Billy's a thief, his tiny size does max the largest heart. Best and brightest, they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts.

So gather round, friends. And listen close For the tale's about to start Hello everybody and welcome to Spout Lore. I'm your Game Master Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hi, I'm Abdul Aziz playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian. Thanks for listening to my podcast. We're all feeling a lot of feelings since the last episode. But most of all, my feelings are really important. All right, playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers. God, my feelings.

Hi everyone, thanks for listening to Abdul's podcast. I'm some other guy. Playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai. Hey, it's me. Definitely here for Abdul and his loss. Jesus Christ. This is not real. Listeners. This is not real. It's not real. It's not. I'm not like this. I mean, this moment is really happening. When last we left our heroes, they had joined battle against the massive and mighty Razortusk and his porcine hordes. The battle was a raging one. It lasted the entire episode.

I'm not even sure that I thought it was going to, but it was a tough one. Crows, halflings, pigs, crows, pigs, halflings, Ving, Billy Tuck. Razortusk, crows, pigs. They were everywhere. Ving took to the skies briefly in a sort of hang glider made of spirit birds. That was cool. Yeah. Billy did a switcheroo on the helmet of Razortusk, putting himself onto the pig's back and doing a sort of pig rodeo. Yeah. For a while. Tuck spent most of his time trying really hard to land a hit on Razortusk.

Yeah. And getting embarrassed over and over again. Wild Bill was doing some. John Wick style shit with some hand crossbows. And the battle finally turned when Tuck and Billy dealt enough blows to Razortusk himself to sort of slow him down to the point where Tuck used his new truthless move, the lie to eliminate or disrupt the enchantment on the armor. Billy, Ving and Tuck in the last moments of the battle surrounded Razortusk and got him into a position where Billy was able to ask him.

If he wanted to be free, Razortusk thankfully agreed and Tuck tore the armor from his body, freeing Razortusk from his apparent servitude and also the hordes of hogs from their servitude of Razortusk. The battle was victorious. Our crew survived the hogpocalypse, the final hogpocalypse. Yeah. But it was not without cost as Wild Bill, legendary halfling, succumbed to wounds. Sustained in the battle. Billy did his best to carry his old friend through this trying time.

But unfortunately, his wounds were too great and his time on this earth has ended. And we join our heroes now. Billy, what are halfling funerals like? They go back into the land somehow. It's an option. I also thought they could like carry them across the bridge. And. Lay them to rest in like this little. Patch. I don't know. Like. Oh, you know what? There's an apple orchard. Like a couple orchard as in like a few apple trees. Yeah. Yeah. Waffles. Yeah.

So there's a there's a grove with a few wapple trees that halflings are carried to. And buried. And buried. Yeah. So we see the crows, the people of Lone Tree Hill. The halfling lands have gathered. And we see Bill being laid to rest. Soft. Fertile. Ever with soil. Cast over his body. Laid in a woven reed basket. With a woven top. And he has returned to the place. From which he was born. Bing is slowly eating one of the apples from the tree. Dude, what the fuck are you doing?

This is the best waffle I've ever had. Yeah, dude. It's full of dead halflings. What the fuck are you doing? I can't. Bing, you're supposed to wait until like kind of after the service to do that. It's kind of fucked up that you're doing it right now. What? What? Okay. I'm sorry, Billy. I thought it was over. It's so loud. No. It's a time of silence. And you're supposed to like. The river sings a song. Well, it doesn't really sing a song, but you just like listen to the gurgles.

You make meaning out of it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. So there's. There's. Christ. Just watch. Just one more bite to finish it. Holy shit. I didn't want it to go rotten. It was. It was going to turn brown. Oh my God. It's not. What? Do you want me to waste it? It's not as good after if it's brown. There's halflings turning around looking at us like, like as if we were in a movie theater like shut up. Shut the fuck up. What is wrong with you? Bows its head. He's like, yeah.

He's pointing at him. Up. Putting a hand on his chest. A halfling turns around so mad and you're like, yeah, it's tough. There, there. It's tough. He does. Keep it up, bud. And then things. Turn into a moment of silence. Yeah, Tug leads over to Viggo and goes, you're embarrassing me right now. Welcome to my world. Fuck you. I don't know why, but Viggo's just he's not dealing with his emotions very well right now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm sorry. Can you guys not fight right now?

Can you fight after? You're right, Billy. It's so weird. You're right, Billy. That's my fault. Silence falls again on the service as the halflings and the three are surrounded by the sound of the river. What the fuck do you mean that's how I feel? We jump forward. I think we jump to the end of a feast. There's a wake, basically. For all the halflings who died. Oh, there's like a mass wake. There's a mass funeral. Oh, so we're right. So we're in.

We see the orchard and it's the soil is like cast over Bill's grave and filled in. And then the camera pulls out and there's like a dozen or more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then. Yeah, it's so sad, but the graves are so cute. Jesus Christ. I don't. Tuck doesn't say that. He thinks that he's like, this is so sad, but these are so cute. It's so fucked up for me to think this, but I can't help it. They're so cute.

And yeah, I think we come in at the end of a feast and like the halflings are continuing their their celebrations of the lives that were lost, telling stories and and crying and laughing and sharing food and drink. There's some heavy cream going around. Oh, heavy cream. Yeah. Whoa. And Billy's licking his lips, looking at it. He's just like, Billy, that's heavy cream. I know. I dream of it all the time. Dream of cream. Yeah. What else? What do you dream of? Oh, the weird dream.

Well, Ving, what do you dream of? You dream of cream, right? I mean, in a way, Billy, all dreams are dreams of cream. I thought so. We cut to a memory of Ving's dream where Ving is laying in a loincloth, lounging on a chaise lounge as a tree with the head of a goat feeds him bananas top down. Takes him whole. Just takes a whole banana. I just dream about normal stuff, Billy. Yeah, just normal stuff.

This is really funny because in Tuxedos, he's like, so everyone else has nice dreams, I guess, and I'm just the one that only has the one nightmare. Right. This hasn't really come up in a specific way where someone was like, well, I have dreams about a variety of things. Oh, but we know about his dream, right? Yeah, you guys do. But I don't think anyone's ever said what they dream about. Right.

And the vibe that I am imagining as being this, where we are right now, is that you three are like, all right, time to go. We have some things to do. Yeah. I think Ving and I talked and we're like, we're going to let Billy have his time here for as long as he needs. Exactly. Yeah. This is where he needs to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Billy's hacking at a tree with his sword. Take that. Whatever. What you got there, pal? Nothing. I'm just having a fight. Hey, bud. What? Hey, bud. What? What?

They just baked new cupcakes. Don't even care. There's muffins. There's new muffins. I don't care. I don't even like muffins. They're savory muffins. I don't care. I care a little bit, but I don't care that much. Hey. What? Tuck kind of leans down and he does the thing where you kind of just scoop and take them out of the situation there is. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, do you need to talk about this right now? No. No, it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing I want matters. What you want matters, Billy.

Just because what we want, isn't always what we get, doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. No, it doesn't matter because everyone goes anyway. Billy, you can't keep everyone safe forever. No, it's fine. It doesn't matter. Like, I mean, it didn't matter when old Bill died either. Doesn't matter when wild Bill dies. Like all the Bills die. Billy, it's not your fault that people move on. It's just the way it is. Even you will change, Billy. Everything changes. Doesn't matter. Nothing I do matters.

He was supposed to live, too. He did live, Bill. No, he's supposed to live forever like me. Billy squirms out. He's like, put me down. I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'll put him down. Okay, buddy. Okay. The muffins are in. The second table. Thanks. Yeah. And we spend some more time at the feast. I think there's a real vibe of like, this is a community that is, like you are welcomed, absolutely, as heroes of the hogpocalypse. But I'm not part of them. Yeah. Yeah.

And like, they're like playing games that I don't, I'm not good at and that I've never played. And so, I'm not good at that. I've only ever seen. I just get like too sad and I want to go. You want to go? I think so. We can go. Vink shows you his satchel is full of mashed potato muffins. Oh, that's awesome. I show you my satchel. It's full of Yorkshire puddings and gravy. Such a wet bag right there. That's Tuck's bag. And yeah, Tuck's like, I grabbed a handful of recipes. Just a handful?

Well, his handful is, I just grew a handful. I grabbed a handful. It's two roast beefs. Yeah, Tuck's hands are like a foot and a half wide. It makes me so sad. What? Just the fact that like, you guys went through all of this. You all risked your lives to like save these people. And at the end, they were still like, well, Billy's not one of us. It's just not how it works. He's too different. Well, because they also in a way think like, Billy brings, he brings a lot of bad luck.

So they're like, yeah, well, you know, it was probably his fault they came here in the first place. Yeah. So you pack up and your plan is to head to Nana to see if there's anything you can learn about an easier way to get to the Gray Marsh. She's south? Like, is it ever what is it? Well, it's on the way. It's on the way, I guess. Yeah. We'll stop by. Yeah. I go back. I grab an extra pie. Okay. I thank Armand. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Armand is like, hey, I just want to thank all three of you for what you did for the Everwood Valley. Yeah. Don't forget what he did. I won't. I'm not, I, you know, I've been told stories. I had plenty of reason to be afraid, but I ain't afraid no more. Sometimes stories are just that. They're just stories. I'll tell everybody what you did. Thanks. You really don't have to. I will. I'll look out for you if I ever come back. Okay. I'll see you around. Okay. Okay. You take care. You too. Thank you.

Uh, bye. And he gives you that like kind of sad, awkward, like the, the white person nod smile. Yeah. Where he does the like closed lip downturn smile in a sad kind of wave and like turns back and joins the wake again, but like looks back. Yeah. As the three of you walk away and you travel through the night and the sun rises. Probably end of this day is when you'd reach Nana's. Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh, Billy can roll his, uh, very child. Yeah. Nine. Nine. So I get a three hold. Excellent.

And you travel for a full day. There is devastation. That's the thing is you're traveling through a devastated Everwood. The fields have been smashed to mud. There are pigs that are like wandering, but they look chill. Yeah. They look like almost lost, but every once in a while, you'll sleep pigs like come together and like get their heads close together and like, snort at each other and then all start walking in a certain direction. So cute. Do you guys remember where we came from? Yeah.

Near the end of the day, the sun is, is starting to dip towards the West. You see trees, the Everwood itself sprawling along one bank of the river and then covering the waters and walking up into the hills. This like ancient forest of kind of short ish trees, but it's more like with those old, primordial forests where it's like kind of short, but like really dense. Yeah. And on the edge of the trees, you see a tiny little shack with smoke puffing out of a chimney of like old mud and brick.

Can I make a suggestion? Absolutely. So I think we're like, at first we were walking in the forest where it's easy and I was like, no, if you want to find our house, you got to get close to the river. Oh, okay. Oh yeah. You like pass into the trees and walk for a while in the Everwood itself. Yeah. Yeah. So we have to like traverse on like the river, but a lot of it is kind of like cliff side. Okay. And her house is actually built into the cliff. Oh, I like that. Oh, cool.

Like roots of trees and cliff. Yeah. Nice. Like mud and stuff like that. Cool. Like a super halflingy. Yeah. Almost like some sort of bird. Ooh. Yeah. Is it like on the outside of the cliff? I think it's that, like there's an overhanging tree and you can pass by her house, but it is a slim walkway. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Cool. I like that the walkway maybe has like copper plates, brass, like it has old things that shouldn't be found here. Yes. Yeah. Leaving the path.

And she's got, she's got lots of potted plants in old like containers that she would have found in the river. Cool. And old helmets and stuff. Yeah. Ooh, that's neat. Billy, what's the deal with this lady? Is she like a witch or something or? Yeah. What do you know? It's like a regular weirdo. I'm going to spell Laura to find out more about Nana. Okay. 2D6 plus intelligence. Apparently not. Three. Yeah. Okay. So a failure, you get a point of experience. Oh, you know what?

Billy mixes her up with someone else. Oh yeah, totally. That could be it. What is it? So what does Billy think? You know, she does, she sleeps a lot, really sleepy old lady. She doesn't love to be bothered, but when, you know, she's nice. She feeds you a lot, which is why I come over. Okay. Yeah. Her house looks different though. You have a good rapport with her. Yeah. Yeah. I think she'd remember me. So you approach this small little halfling hut built into a tree.

You got to make sure you talk really loud though. She can't hear very well. She's really, really deaf. Yeah. Okay. We can do that. And as you approach, like you step on a twig, a good distance down her little path and you hear like yelling from the hut. Oh, it's- Who the fuck is that? It's just me, Nana. Who the hell is me? Fat Billy and two of his giant friends. Fat Billy, huh? You think after last time you can show your face around here, you little scoundrel? Wait, what? What? What did I do?

So knowing Billy gets this lady mixed up with somebody, what did Billy do to Nana last time he was here? This, like what he actually do? Actually. Yeah. Yeah. What is the thing he doesn't remember doing? Oh, he had a bunch of golden root. He stole a bunch. He stole all of it. He stole all of her golden root? Yeah. Cause she's got like all the bunches of it. All the pots of like planted things outside. She's like an herbologist. Yeah.

I spent eight months seeking out seedlings, growing saplings, all for the golden root, just for you to rip it out and steal it. Oh no. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know. Do you have any of that left? No, I used it all. If it helps at all, he used it really well. He made friends with a cat. So you're hearing, you're just hearing shouting. I'm a dog lady. Never liked cats. Too shifty. Sleep more than eight hours a day. You're just hearing shouting from like, in like through a window.

She has not come out. She's like, you and your giant friends get away from here. And don't you come back. Well, is, can I, I don't know. Can I make it up to you somehow? I don't see how you would. I don't see how you would. I don't see how you would. Who could? Can we like Spout Lore of things she might like? What does Ving have? I've got a rotten smelling lemon liquid. Oh, delightful. Well, who knows what it does? That's true. Magic carbonia water. I could give her, I only have three left.

Oh, those are rare. Uh, Tucker goes, hey, I have a, I have a broken puzzle box. Been carrying this around for like seven seasons. Do you want it? The puzzle box? Yeah. Yeah. There's a ton of different types of puzzles. There's a ton of different types of puzzles. There's a ton of different types of puzzles. You're like, oh, shit. Actually, never mind. We have a bad dream potion. Here, can I roll for it? I guess discern realities. That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. 2d6 plus wisdom. Great. Okay. Nine. Okay.

I'll aid. Yes. All right. 2d6 plus bond. Great. I got nine. Okay, perfect. So that makes it a 10. So you get three questions. I'm getting you to help me ID the plants because I'm like, I don't know. She's definitely a plant lady. She's definitely an animal lady. She planted these on purpose, hey? Yeah. She might like the hibernia water. She seems kind of witchy. Yeah. What is useful or valuable?

What here is useful or valuable to you is as an experienced fairy and poisoner and substance maker, you see all of the various pots and containers that she has planted along the path to her hut are all herbs that are used in alchemy. Like these are all, she is, if she cannot make potions, she is certainly trying to make something. What should I be on the list? What should I look out for? So Billy, you're like, this is kind of a trap expert thing almost. Sure.

You are looking around, you like look at a spot and you notice something kind of in the grass and then you notice a thing next to that thing and a thing like hanging on a nearby bush and you realize that the area around like in the woods and then like along the cliff side and down the path, there are little baubles and trinkets all over the place in a configuration that makes you realize that she has set something up here and if you were to approach any closer, it would potentially be dangerous for you, which lets you know that she certainly has knowledge.

Like some kind of ability? Yeah. If not ability, then expertise. Right. What? Here's not what it appears to be. So, okay. So you think back to you're like, okay, well, if this isn't the Nana I was thinking about, then this must be this other lady that I dealt with 200 years ago. Oh, wow. Oh, shit. So you're like, okay. If this is her, she should be long dead because halflings don't. What? Am I remembering correctly? Halflings don't have super long lifespans.

No, they just like kind of normal-ish lives. Yeah. Old Bill lived longest. Oh, okay. Do you tell us everything you just figured out? Yeah. I say something's not right here. She's like, now that's the last I'll say about it. Now you turn yourselves around and you get away from here. And the talk goes, okay, I have a plan. Careful where you step. Okay. I won't go any further forward. He picks up a rock and he throws it through her front window. Awesome. Great. Yeah. 2d6 plus dexterity, I guess.

And then he goes, plan initiated. Execution style. Execution complete. Six. Oh. So instead of smashing through the front window of her house, he breaks two pots. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That face. Exactly. Smashes two pots in the. Okay. So two pots of golden. Oh, no. Was that. You rap scallyards. I told you to get away from here. And the door like flies open. And there's this decrepit looking halfling woman. Oh, so wrinkly. She's got this like, sagging skin, just like ancient.

And she is wearing like a, a pretty like loose robe. And she's got white hair in like a bun on top of her head. That's like almost as big as her head. Cool. She comes out and she reaches into her robe and she pulls out a little glass bottle and she throws it. Whoa. And it smashes on the path in front of you. And. Like a mist. And then the mist begins to billow out of this spot more vapor than should have been able to be contained in this bottle.

And as you're looking at it, it's like billowing up and up and like horrible shapes and faces are forming in this mist. Holy shit. Oh my God. And you are terrified to see the thing before you. What is it? It is a creature beyond comprehension. It is teeth and tentacles and eyes. What do you do? Tick goes, Billy, get behind me. She threw a little glass bottle.

Bottle at us and then he takes out the dream potion that he's been carrying around oh cool and I go I got one of those too you old bitch and he like smashes that on the ground where this thing came out yeah okay roll 2d6 plus wisdom yeah let's say that he's got 10 okay what do you think happens when you throw this dream potion in front of this other thing I guess they interact because this is a bad dream potion which like brings memories back okay so then what is a bad dream that each of you sees in front of you oh billy sees the miles of blood soaked ice whoa what is tuxy he sees his one yeah the burning tree yeah the burning tree and like the cataclysm the cataclysm yeah like swallowing the land what does bing see uh ving sings tuck and billy die and calling for his help and his arms are rooted in the ground oh whoa okay oh can I make also a suggestion yeah like in each of the dreams there is a cloaked black figure within the dreamscape oh it's like each of your dreams is surrounding a single image of a black clad oh yeah that's good he's like in all of them uh-huh how do you resist this I used weaponized dissociation oh when you are subject to mind control or magic that influences your feelings you may choose to take 1d4 damage and ignore the influence whoa okay so I just want to not be scared I want to not be scared and just feel nothing like I usually do lucky 1d4 damage to 2 damage so you just shut your mind off from the fear and you see behind you the like almost like a projector on a fog lamp and you're like oh my god I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die machine fog bank like you can see through the dream oh cool and you can see nana on the other side also like clutching her chest looking at the cloud in front of her oh because I threw the potion so it's affecting her too she's like patting her robes looking for something and like like pulling plants out of pots and eating them can I uh try and see what the thing that she's afraid of is like try and look past my dream into hers totally um what would that be I mean I was gonna use the druidic lore to oh figure out what it is okay yeah do you want to do that then so yeah I mean if we mechanically works yeah so first you're gonna need to overcome the terror that you're feeling yeah no problem how is ving doing that I mean being the witness of the world the seeing all the horrible things that have ever happened at least numbs him to this terrifying yeah presence right to something that's existed in the world totally giving him some experience does that make sense yeah that sounds like a defy danger wisdom okay great 10 okay there are much more horrible things that have been will be and are than this trickery sees through the fear yeah and you are able to act I want to use druidic lore to consult the trove of ancient knowledge within me to examine the events of the world yeah right now 14 14 holy shit jesus christ okay so that means you just tell me I ask you a question and you just answer it okay great okay so billy how are you overcoming the fear before you uh attempt to protect your your family would tricks of the trade work on this I don't or no I think right now you are straight up defying danger because there is a danger before you that you have to like deal with before you can act sure yeah I guess he goes into his trickster mode he's like no I know this isn't real like what could it be and his mind starts like going into it and he's like I don't know what's like the puzzle of it oh the yeah totally that feels like a charisma ish thing sure yeah billy's like how do people affect people how do I affect people right how is she trying to affect me I only got six eight yeah totally ving has broken the enchantment on himself basically maybe he shows gets him to look through it and see the old lady and how afraid she is and that make billy less afraid nice I got 11 okay nice thank you so ving just points ahead through the dream and you see nana on the other side in a panic which makes billy realize that if she sent this thing out thinking that it was going to affect you but it's affecting her it must be a trick of some kind yeah that she she has fooled herself and you with the seven to nine you're basically like trying to pull yourself together but you are not like running screaming anymore ving you were going to tap into the druidic lore yes yeah consult the ancient knowledge and I got a 14 so then you asked me a question about the subject and whatever I say is true okay what is this what is she doing uh it's I uh like a last ditch concoction that she's been making for years and years and years and it's all the poisons mixed together all the spirits of all the plants she's ever messed with together in one thing mixed with the magical waters of the winter shins and all the weird things that are living in the cave and the crystals and everything in there all kind of coming together it's a very unpredictable last ditch release of all the spiritual and nightmare energy totally yeah it's like it's it's like the magical equivalent equivalent of bear spray oh yeah where it's just like get away from me and with that you're like oh it's a trick fully you just wait that's all that's now that you have all protected yourselves from this mental effect all you need to do is wait for the effect to end can I look to see what her nightmare is yeah absolutely in the smoke yeah this I think would be discern realities okay six plus wisdom seven okay so you get one question uh yeah what should I be on the lookout for yeah so you um you look through the nightmares that you have all confronted and denied you see like the black clad image of who you can only assume to be the one you all assume it to be um and on neil alison some sort of priest or the grim reaper um but you see on her end that form shifts into one of like a twisted crone with a shifting face coming to collect what is hers whoa holy shit that's sick that's awesome ving steals himself and walks through the cloud the nightmare cloud and approaches her ving dies ving breathes in a cloud of poison and is killed immediately you literally just said it was all the poisons why the fuck would you do that I don't know it's really cool my constitation that's so fucking hilarious roll a 2d6 plus constitution for sure I got 11 would have been so fucking funny if you got snake eyes ving dies he's just like well he said it was poison he knew it was poison then he walked into he goes to talk he goes hold my purse you see his face steal as he steps forward and the minute his nose enters the cloud he goes it's spicy it's spicy it's spicy in my soul okay ving you step forward through this cloud you feel you feel all of the poisons of the trades of the druids of the alchemists of all of them it's true you breathe deep in something about the seed that grows within your chest the cloud almost swirls around it it feels like and then you vent all of this vapor out your gills I feel the seed crack a little tiny bit and you stand before nana as she cowers on the ground looking up at you I kneel down she has tears in her eyes I offer her a rag a clean rag my cleanest rag the cleanest of my flaps she reaches a trembling hand forward and takes the rag we're not here to hurt you we can help I saw her in there I know she's coming for you we can cut forward to like I guess billy inside the hut and you two crouched outside the door I'm looking through all our glass bottles at all the things that are going on here and I'm like I'm going to take a break from this so his eyes are being magnified as he moves around looking through the glasses.

Wow, cool. It's so cool. It's like his eyes are changing shape as he looks through. What is this one? That one? That's Worrywort. What about this one here? Oh, that's Forget-Me-Not. It actually makes you forget. I know, the name is confusing. What does Worrywort do? What do you think it does? It's like anti-anxiety. Stops you from worrying so much. Is this just a piece of bread? That is just a piece of bread, actually. I wanted to see what would happen if I left it in a jar for a long time.

The answer is not much. And she's like shaking. She's still like her eyes are bleary and she's pouring a kettle, a little halfling-sized kettle into a little halfling-sized teacup. Can we use Amma's tea kettle? Oh, yeah. Oh. Because we've never figured out what that thing does. Here, let me help you. Okay. Let me make the tea. Okay. Billy is like, I've never made tea in my life. The camera shifts to Tuck and Ving and we're like, uh-oh. Oh, no. Does he know what tea is?

He's going to put potatoes in it or something. Billy pulls out the teapot and he takes his dirty shirt and gives it a nice dusting. Like, rubs it clean. Yeah, clean his dirty shirt. It's actually dirtier when he's done wiping it. Yeah. It's less dusty, but it's much greasier. Yeah. He wouldn't let us clean Wild Bill's blood off him. It's the last thing I have of him. Oh, wow. It was a pretty tense attempted bath time. Yeah. You've got war all over you.

That's just standing in front of Billy like a feral cat. Yeah. Billy looks around at all the plants that she has in her kitchen. He's like, I don't know. So he just grabs whatever is closest, which is just original. Dragon. Oh, he plucks a bunch of that into the pot. He's like, and then I put water in it and now it is tea. Just cold. I pour her some. Yeah. And she takes a sip of the little. Yeah, she got out four cups. So there's four cups and four saucers for everybody. Here you go.

And she takes a sip and goes, oh, that's quite nice. Billy puffs up with pride. Oh, thank you. Good job, Billy. And Billy passes out the tea and tuck and Bing. It's tasty. It's wonderful. Oh, yeah. Oh, did Billy do his Billy thing on it? Don't know. That's what I can say. You can say. Yeah. And you all begin drinking. Well, the three of you begin drinking. Does Billy drink tea? Yeah, he'll drink tea. Yeah, it's delicious. Well, fucking shit. Jesus Christ. I made this. I'm like a chef.

I'm a chef now. I'm a chef. I'm a very fine chef. I'm one of the best to ever do it. Also, tuck and Bing. That tea is gone in like half a sip. It's all a halfling size cup. That shit's gone. It's a little thimble size cup. Yeah. So, yeah. What do you do? You have any questions for Nana? Well, I think tuck wants to ask. What do you know of mother? Never was. Don't say her name. I just. I just wanted to know. I just wanted to know.

I just wanted to know about the plants and the animals and the things that I could do to help people. And she said that she could teach me. She could teach me the art. But by the time she imparted me with the knowledge, too much time had passed and everyone I wanted to help was gone. Who are you trying to help? My family. My boy was sick. He's gone now, so. What was his name? Trenton. Trenton, New Jersey. The old turnpike. I knew him well. And now. I'm alone. I'm alone. There's a woman.

She's just trembling. The tea is like, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. Have you ever thought of going back to the community? They wouldn't have me. Why not? They don't trust those they don't understand. You know that as well as I. I do. You're right. Doesn't matter how many times you try. It doesn't. But it's not so bad out here. I have my quiet. I have my plants. But you. How do you know of she? We've heard some stories. You don't seek her, do you? We might. We might have to.

You can't. There's someone worse out there. Yeah, there's someone hunting us. Something. And he is scared. He's scared of her. We need to know why. How did you find her? She found me. I want to know how. Okay. Can I roll for it? Yeah, totally. This could be a spell, Laura. Sure. With, uh. Intelligence. Seven. Okay. So interesting, but not useful. Sure. All right. She comes to those with needs. Yes. And desires that no one and nothing else can provide. She offers them a choice.

A terrible, terrible choice. If you need her help, she will find you. And she will offer it. But you must not accept. What was your bargain? I didn't know it until it had been made. A way to save my son, but no son to save. She stole your time? She stole my time and she gave me knowledge of the plants and the roots. Knowledge of alchemy. Medicine and healing. And now, no one to heal. There's still people that can use your gifts. She sets down her teacup.

Just because you've given up on them doesn't mean they've completely given up on you. She picks her teacup up again. She takes a nervous sip. She takes a nervous sip. Fuck, this tea is good. God damn, boy, this tea is fine. Thanks. And as she takes more sips of the tea, you can see her, like, settling into a reverie of sorts. Of course, you're right. She takes another sip. I could return. You could. I could put in, like, a good word for you. There's a really nice guy.

There's a really nice guy there. Armand. He's young and he doesn't really listen to all, like, the mean stories that the rest of the halflings tell everyone. It's kind of like a renegade. Yeah, he's kind of cool. I was something of a renegade in my youth as well. And then that Avicii song plays. It's an over series of flashbacks. So live a life you will remember. He's a skit. If you would send this Armand my way, I could help you. We can tell you where to find him. We're going south.

We could send word. I could send word with the birds. Oh. Oh, yeah. She nods. Wait, this isn't a trap, is it? Trap expert. Oh. I just want to make sure. It's a great question. So go ahead. Two to six plus what? Or trap expert. Can't remember. It's dexterity. Okay. Nine. Okay. So you get one. Okay. How? I give Billy the voice of all the trees and birds and plants around here. Oh. Yeah, both our spidey senses go up. So you get a point of experience. And Billy gets a question. Okay.

I guess, is there a trap here? And if so, what activates it? So. Let me answer this question using the thing that Ving said about giving voice to the trees and the birds. Sure. You are sitting here and you're like listening to this like, whoa, she's just going to help us. That's great. This poor old woman was done wrong by this creature. Mm-hmm. And the tweeting of the birds and you're like, you're just getting that vibe, that Billy vibe where you're like, what else is going on here?

And then Ving focuses. He's on the noises of the animals around him. Oh, it comes like into focus. Yeah. Like you stop hearing the forest. You stop hearing the birds singing and you start hearing the birds speaking the word run. Fuck. We jump up. You are outside the hut. We'll remember that in terms of framing. Oh, but Billy is inside. Billy is inside. Tuck and Ving are outside because this place is very small. Well, we're going to talk to Armando. Yeah, we'll go get him for you.

Oh, but you haven't finished your tea. Yeah. Are you quite sure? Yeah, it's a long walk back and I'd like to get there before the sun goes down. Oh, but you should stay. She'll be here soon. I sprint to the door, but I, oh wait, no, I want to charm. I want to charm her. Okay. Yeah. To give us time. Okay. If that's okay. Totally. Yeah. Like a thing happens for a second where like Tuck and Ving almost like rip the wall off of the cottage. Yeah.

And then we see you like tell us to like chill for a second. So we like stop. Like if Ving's got his leg up on the wall and his spear and like a crack in the wood. About to just wrench it down. Billy takes her hand. He's like, listen, I've been alone for a long time too. And I know that when someone leaves me, I worry that they won't come back, but we will come back. It doesn't matter what you say, dear. I couldn't run from her. Neither can you. And then she starts cackling.

Tuck grabs the window. Frame and rips the whole wall off so that Ving can get in there and get Billy as quickly as possible. All right. Defy danger. Strike. I mean, I know it's a little house, but six, seven, eight. Okay. So seven to nine. Yeah. It takes like a surprising amount. Like you yank once and the wall doesn't come off. What the fuck? But you get it off on the second. The second yank. Okay. You get it off on the second yank, bro. It only takes you two. Yeah. Done.

Uh, but the wall comes off. Ving, you reach in. You grab Billy. I grabbed him. Yeah. I put my hand up. He grabs my hand. There is a sense of urgency here and you all just start running down the path. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Before I tuck runs away, he grabs the teapot and then he tosses this old lady off the cliff. Okay. So you're, so first you're going to have to roll to grab the teapot. Okay. 2d6 plus dexterity to snatch it out of there. Yeah. 11. Okay. Yeah. You, you, you get it. Teapot. Yeah.

You got to try and grab her. Okay. What is this? 11. 11. Does it matter? Wait, I forgot to get something. He goes back for the teapot and then we just see. She like flies so far out and into the winter. Jesus Christ. And she's cackling the whole time. It's creepy. Oh yeah. It's insane. She's laughing under the water. She does not fight back. She like lets me grab her and throw her. And you start running. Okay. Yeah. So you hear her laughing.

She's throwing through the air and she hits the water and the laughing ceases, but you start running down the path and you hear the laughing pick up again. Oh, I love this. This is great. I love horror. It's a horror episode. We're doing a horror episode because guess what? The sun is setting again. Oh no. Fuck. So like you can see the light is starting to die in the Everwood. Oh my God. What do you do? Scramble up. Scramble away from the river. Into the Everwood? I don't know.

Can I ask the trees and the birds to try and help us out and just try and keep her there? Cause she's an unnatural force. Yeah, totally. In a very natural place. I'm going to use spirit tongue to try and convince everybody to slow her down. So spirit tongue, remember, is just the fact that you can speak to them. Yeah. It's not a rollable move. This could be a call of nature. You could be giving like physical form to the spirits to help. Yeah.

I guess I want to use call of nature to just call upon the spirits of the forest and create a barrier between us and her. Great. Create a dam in the water where she is or up on land. 13. Jesus Christ. Yeah, that'll do. Okay. So that's three requests. Yeah. I want to see if the roots of the trees can ensnare her. Like the trees all kind of lean in from across the river and everything. Yeah. Create just a giant cage dome. Like trap her into the river? Yeah.

Like the Nana lady or the Mother Never Was? No, the Nana lady. Okay. I don't think Mother Never Was is here yet. Okay. Or she is, we don't know. You call on the spirits. You raise your hands cinematically. And close your eyes. He dives his root hands into the, his nightmares come true. Yeah. Into the earth. And you are held there for a second as you call upon these spirits.

And the trees on either end of the river start to bend inwards, their roots and branches growing and lashing together to create this like latticework cage. That'll cost you one request, I guess, to hold her. But you see like, you hear the laughing, the cackling is still coming from the water and like impossibly thin and long. And you see like, you see her like, long arms are like reaching through. Whoa. Oh my gosh. As if she's like unfolding herself into this sort of. To like sneak through?

It's like, yeah, she's trying to like weave herself through the branches. Oh my God. You hear her like cackle and say, it really will just be easier this way. But she's held for a moment. What do you do? I want to make a fairy ring around thing. Okay. So that's 2d6 plus. Dexterity. Dexterity. 12. Great. Which means you can just leave the ring there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in here. I'm in. Yeah. Yeah. And what is the, what does this ring look like? It's stone. Okay. So you know, it's the roots.

Actually, the roots are spread out from the trees and they're, they've woven around us. Right. Like you're able to piggyback his call of nature. But I think what is happening now is like, you're trying to get them to. Sprout. Tighten their grip on her. Yeah. I'm trying to get them to sprout leaves to like fill in all the gaps. She's like wheedling her way through this cage. Gross. Like really long, thin spindly fingers. 2d6 plus three, which is your remaining. Request. Five plus three, eight.

Eight. Okay. So. I lose one. You lose one. So I'm down to two. Down to two now. Okay. So next time you ask them to do something, it will be with a plus two instead of a plus three. Thank you. And you see with your seven to nine, Nana has worked her way like halfway out. She is become like a stretched out version, but she's like reforming her limbs as she comes through the other side. So she's like halfway stuck. And her hair is really long. It's so long. And she's kind of like paper thin.

You almost see through it. Like the light from the trees as it dies is like shining through her. Almost mother never was. You don't know what she is. She seems so disconsolate. But you are also in the fairy ring. Yeah. But we're stuck here. You are currently stuck here unless you're able to do something else with the spirits. Like this tactic as the branches sprout and like tighten their grip. They have done as much as they can with her. She will get herself out. What do you do?

I want to use my bandolier and change gears and set the cage on fire. Oh, okay. What in the bandolier are you using to do this? The flint that I have in there. Oh, cool. Yeah. So this is an elemental mastery. Elemental mastery. Okay. 2d6 plus constitution. So sick. 10. Okay. So what does this fire look like? He throws it and she bats out of the air and it goes in the water. Oh. And she's cackling, cackling, cackling.

And then out of the water where the trees are touching the water burst into flames. And it very quickly like washes up in like a watery kind of flame. Oh, cool. Wave of flame just lick over the whole cage. Yeah. Engulf all the branches. She starts like making this like screaming, shrieking screech noise like steam escaping from a kettle. Oh, whoa. What did you got? You got a seven? Oh, no, you got a 10. You got a 10. Which means you get two choices.

I will choose the effect I desire comes to pass and I retain control. Okay. So you're paying nature's price here. My hands are dug into the earth. Yeah. Oh. So being like the fire, you see it like race up the cage. And I can feel it coming through the ground, through the earth, through the roots that he has used. Get away from me. And then Ving is engulfed in flame. Oh my God. So we stumble out. But Ving can't be burned. Oh, Ving can't be burned. That's true. That's true. That's true.

That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. In a situation in which you are prepared to take nature's price. Right. Because of the choices you've made. I will look into this later because this feels like a get out of jail free card. It totally does. But narratively, it makes sense. But Nana, as the branches around her burn and crumble, she is a flame. She's shrieking, squealing. She dives into the river and out of sight. Fire goes out. You are not safe here. Run. Run. Yeah.

The birds. Are quiet. And then they begin saying, run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Before she comes back. Oh my God. Okay. Yeah. We all run. I have escape route when you're in too deep. Anita, way out. Name your escape route and roll plus dexterity. But the only thing is, I don't know if I can take everyone with me. Right. Yes. Unless you get in the bag. No. No. I'm not getting in the fucking bag while you're in a primeval forest. While an ancient.

Ancient witch fucking tries to hunt you. We're sprinting right now. Yeah. We're just sprinting. Get in the bag. We can just do a thing. This is a thing. I've gone through this forest so many times before. Billy is making this sprinting moves. Yeah. But Tuck is holding him. Yeah. Like a cat. Like a dog being held over a pool when they start paddling. Still out of breath. The shots are going back and forth between us. And then it goes to a wide. And I'm just scary. That's so funny. Okay.

So I think. Yeah. I think. Yeah. I think. I think. I think. I think. I think. I think. I think. The most likely course here is that you need to get away from this immediate situation. And then you can find shelter of some kind. Yeah. Perilous journey probably makes the most sense. Yeah. Okay. Scout ahead and navigate. Who's doing what? Billy, it makes sense if you navigate because you've been here before. It's true. Yeah. I'll scout ahead using the birds. Okay.

They're telling us to run so I can ask them where. Yeah. And I'll just keep an eye out kind of generally. So I'll just kind of be here. I like that you're using like your insane strength to run backwards and keep an eye on where she was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, what?

I was imagining a really spooky shot of you running backwards and like seeing the darkened path of the trees like lit by the moonlight and her super weird long limbs start like pulling her down the trees. Oh, cool. Yes. Yes. That's so sick. Do that. You just did. I'm going to throw up. I'm so scared. No, we haven't rolled any moves. I shouldn't have blown that one. That was so cool. Just like. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So we need to roll. So for Scout Ahead, it's 2d6 plus wisdom, which is Bing.

And for Navigate, it's 2d6 plus intelligence. Okay. Oh, please. 11. Nine. Can I aid you? Sure. Okay. Oh, yeah. Totally. Because you're looking around. Yeah. You're also looking around. 2d6 plus aid. I'm doing that backwards run thing. Yeah. What do your tuck eyes see? 11. It's bad. Keep running faster. Keep running. So that's two tens. Yeah. I see that thing where the woods are stretching back and I'm just like, you can't slow down. You have to keep going. Yeah.

Like you're running backwards and every once in a while, you just like grab the front of his shirt and pull him forward. Yeah. And I'm just like, keep looking at me. Do not look back. And because I had the weaponized dissociation, it's not freaking me out. Your blank face. Yeah. That's so cool. I like the idea that it's this weaponized dissociation. It's not that Tuck is not afraid. It's that he's convinced himself he's not. But somewhere inside, like child Tuck is screaming. Oh, yeah. Okay.

So for Scout Ahead, you get two from the front. Okay. So you get two from the front. You get the drop on whatever lies ahead. You discern a beneficial aspect of the terrain, such as a shortcut shelter or tactical advantage. You just want me to pick that one. All right. You do whatever you fucking want to do. You make a capital D discovery or you notice sign of a capital D danger. I'll do the second one because that's the one I wanted. You get two, you dickhead.

And I'll do one of my own choosing. You sweet, sweet boy. No, don't make me feel bad. No. You just said this to a freshly married. Man. Yeah. What does that mean? Look how fresh his dick and balls look. Look at that hat. They are freshly skinned. Wow. Leave that in. Wow, Sean. You hear that, baby? Freshly skinned. Freshly skinned. It's so gross. Okay. So you get a second one. Do you want to use the beneficial aspect one? You don't have to. Yeah. I want to discern a beneficial aspect.

So then you get the drop on whatever lies ahead. You make a capital D discovery or notice sign. I have a capital D danger. Discovery. Discovery. You're running for a long time. Yeah. There's a point where the trail accordions back to like a normal size. You're still running. The things flitting across the trail are like less frequent. And you start to be like, okay, I think we can slow down a little bit. And you come to like a clearing. The moon is shining high in the sky.

The coronet arcing across the heavens. Clouds dapple the starlit night. Delicate beams dance across the glade. And in the center of the clearing, a deer grazing. I kill the deer. You're more than welcome, dear. Okay. I think we're fine. Back on the menu, boys. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Because the thing is with navigate which billy also got a 10 on you avoid dangers and distractions making good time reaching a point of the gm's choosing before you need to make camp you are oh my god we can cut forward to like a tent and a little fire you're cooking venison on a spit and billy's like what and billy's built not one but two fairy circles because he's so scared on his own yeah you will have to roll again for this very circle oh like I have to use a fairy child for it yes no you have to do you use a fairy child for a fairy circle oh no I don't no you just roll 2d6 plus charisma yeah or dexterity dexterity eight okay so I'm going to go with a four four four four four four four a a a a on a seven to nine, that means that the, the ring will last the night and keep out any dangerous foes, but you re you are required to maintain it.

Oh, don't worry. I will be maintaining it. I would like to roll again for a second. Hey, do we think, I mean, it opens you up to another, to a failure. So this is, I suppose allowed. Yeah. I'm just like, not very confident about this one. I'm like, I want it to be a bigger circle. Okay. I don't want to get in the habit of this, but I like, this is a thematic thing right now. That was very scary. It's so scary. So scary. We're doubling down. Yeah. 10. Okay.

So is this a bigger circle that you make around the first one? Yeah, this was already the bigger circle. That's so fucking funny. What are these two rings look like? Uh, the first one was like twigs and, and Billy looked at it and he was like, pathetic. This sucks. This sucks. There's like sticks stuck in the ground. This is awful. Don't even look at it guys. Don't look, look away. And we're just eating like a leg of venison. We're like, what Billy? What do you mean? This is delicious.

Uh, the second one was made of like huge rocks. Like Billy just connects a bunch of rocks that are in the clearing. He's like dragging rocks. Oh yeah. Great. So you are safe in this clearing. Nothing can get in. You can leave the second circle up on its own. No, Billy's too afraid. He stays out here and maintains it. We have to maintain the middle one. Yeah, that's funny. I was going to say like we pitch our own tent. So Morris and Perel and Victor, can come out. Oh yeah, totally.

I think that would be good. Yeah. Like we put out the fanny pack. You mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you put out the fanny pack and Victor like bursts out. Where are the hogs? I've come to taste their flesh. Oh, Victor, quiet down. We're in a different place now. Get back in the circle. What? Oh, here. So we are not doing the hog thing anymore. A couple of days ago. Hmm. You defeated them? Yes. Actually. Pathetic foes? No, they're pretty intense. They're actually really hard to beat.

Billy stabbed him in the head. Look at that huge gash that Tuck has. Yeah. Look at my gash. You can see in the moonlight. That is quite a gash. It's so deep. I have seen the gash of two in my time. And I rank that among the gashiest. Yeah. Looks like a callous dock worker's heel. Fucking gross. Oh, that's the grossest thing I can imagine. Sorry. But Victor is here. He stalks the edge. He says, fear not. No foes will enter this circle as long as Victor stands watch.

And then we go, Victor, have you heard of an old witch that lives in a gray marsh? I have heard of no such witch, but there is not been a witch. That is bested Victor. I have a question though. Okay. What is a witch? It's like a, it's kind of like a wizard, but more earthy, I guess. Yeah. I will be inside the tent resting up for my watch. Thanks Victor. Call me when I am needed. He's so lazy now. Yeah. He's so lazy. He comes back out. He takes one of the deer legs.

He drags all because he's huge. He drags like the rest of the deer inside. Great. I didn't even get in. He does the thing where he comes out and he grabs it and then he knocks the entire fire over dragging it off the spit. And there's just embers flying. Yeah. It drags the greasy carcass into the carpet. Oh, Morris. Are you here? Perel yelling? Not on the couch. It's just incoherent yelling from inside the tent.

And you hear like a Russian wolf yelling back at him in Russian, in real earth, Russian. So we're popping inside the tent. I think so. Yeah. Billy just drags his seat over near the door and he's like, don't worry, I will guard and listen. Okay. Yeah. So I guess we're in the vestibule in the vestibule. The door is like, the flap is like cracked to accommodate Billy's insistence that he maintain a second ring. Billy's hand is inside the tent. He's like, please hold my hand.

We're both holding his hand. Uh, cool. So Morris and Perel join you in the vestibule. They look exhausted. Like how much pineapple juice have you been chugging? Oh, grow up. We've been working on a project. What have you been doing? Fucking. Morris is drinking pineapple juice. And Perel is like looking at Morris and he's like, it's nothing. What's going on with you? I'm hearing about some sort of horrible witch. I mean, one of you is probably heard of mother never was.

And Perel kind of nods and reaches up and takes the pineapple juice from Morris and takes a sip. Nods. I think I've heard stories. What are the stories you've heard? Uh, some like mythic bargainer in a swamp somewhere in the principalities. There were stories going around. When I was, I guess, you know, I grew up in the river. Yeah. So like there were always stories, but I just assumed they were stories.

Uh, we met like a weird old crone in the woods that said she like learned from mother never was. And then she got real weird and everything got really fucked up for a little while. It was super spooky. Okay. Is this something that you would like us to do some research on? Yeah. Or like help us. Yeah. Figure out. Okay. Like, are we marked by, and mother never was now it was kind of a, an option maybe to go through her marsh. Right? Yes.

Because being figured out that she, the gibbous man is like too scared to like look in her domain. And it might be like a way for us to cover our tracks getting into the principalities. Yeah. But what is, she's a apparently terrifying. She's the most, this is the scariest thing I've ever seen. Yeah. Right. All right. Well, then we can look, we can look into this and see if there's something we can use to our advantage. Well, you're looking into that.

Is it too much to get them to look into your puzzle box? Oh yeah. My what? I keep forgetting. I have this when we talk and he pulls out the puzzle box. Oh yeah. Oh, I haven't thought about this thing in years. You know, this, I gave it to him. He made it. What did you do to it? Uh, you know, I tried to, where are we playing? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Are you playing with it? We're trying to, yeah, we're trying to fix it or solve it. We're trying to do something to it.

I don't know. It's shitty dude. It's what now hold on. It's broken. You broke it. Can you fix it? Yeah, I can fix what was broken and then maybe we can open it. I'll put it on my list of things to do for the three of you. Oh, that's awesome. That's great. Thanks for having a list. Did you get your sense of sarcasm beat out of you by these pigs? No. Yeah, You're right. We didn't. You know what? Yeah, of course.

Why would I want to be running around outside here fighting killer pigs and scary witch women when I could just be in here with endless food just doing things from a list? Oh, so hard and scary. Must be so tiring to just fuck each other nonstop and work your way through a list. Well, I have to sleep out here tonight with the gibbous man looking at me, probably. Yeah. Or that scary Nana witch. You get to sleep with a dog every night and I have to sleep with Todd. Get to sleep with Todd.

Most nights. And Perel holds up his hands and goes, all right, all right, all right. We all have to do hard stuff. And everybody looks at Perel. Yeah, we all look at Morris's dick. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. So what's the plan from here? Well, it's how quickly… Start specific. Yeah. Yeah, how quickly can they look up info? Yeah, what do we need? A knight? I can consult my tombs and I grew up in the Riverways so I can look for the volumes that I think would be the most pertinent.

I think the thing that we need right now is to know which direction we're going. Okay. We need to know how we're going to get to Highspear. We're still on the south end of the Halfling Lands. We kind of are at a dividing point. Yeah. Do we go through the Gray Marsh or do we trek through… Kind of like mountainous, I guess. Yeah, the mountains. It's kind of like… Or do we try and find an underground route? That's the thing.

The underground route was, I think, the plan because it would be way faster because to get to the Gray Marshes, you have to travel through the majority of the Blacktree Principality. Right. Yeah. So on the ground route, our original options were the winter shims, wasn't it? When were you going to look for a water route? You're going to look for tunnels. Yeah. Yeah. Underneath. Yeah, but that was the river. Yeah. Yeah. And your plan was to talk to Nana. Yeah, to find if she knew a way.

This could be like a Morris and Perel are studying Spout Lore kind of thing. Let's make camp. Let's let these nerds figure their shit out. Yeah. And then we'll regroup in the morning. Morris, you can make a breakfast buffet and then we'll… We can make it. Morris holds his hands up. Fine, Perel, you make the breakfast buffet. It doesn't matter. Both of you make the breakfast buffet. I don't care who does it. I just want a breakfast buffet. I'm at station.

I mean, if you don't want to make breakfast, it's fine as long as it's a buffet. You guys have said breakfast so many times that Victor comes barreling into the room. He's holding marbles in his mouth. Yeah, exactly. And they're scattering all over the place as he runs. He's got the marble jar sideways in his mouth and he's whipping marbles everywhere. His tongue is hanging out underneath. So cute. Okay, great. So are we going to do a Spout Lore move? Is that the idea here? Who wants to do this?

It's kind of about the past. It's more about like myth and legend though. If I roll about something that nobody knows about, I get a plus one. Do you still? Yeah. Or would you be able to roll with wisdom? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If it's because I have long lived when you Spout Lore about the past, I take a plus one. Okay. What do we think? Do we think that applies? I think that's fair. Yeah, Mother Never Was has been around for a long time. She's kind of been around forever. True.

All right. Two to six plus one for your being old. Do it. Eight. Oh. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. So the sun rises. Billy has been up all night maintaining his secondary ring. Eyes puffy. Yeah, eyes puffy, holding this jingly sword that you found. It's jingling because he's shaking. Yeah. And Billy, you did, you think, see things in the trees. I saw things. I think Tuck probably sat out here with Billy all night. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. They set up shop. Mm-hmm.

You start smelling the sense of bacon, sausage, wet eggs in a tray. My favorite. Cereal and weird little dispensers. Costco croissants. Oh, whoa. Little individual butters. Oh, boy. Not a shred of dairy in them. Nice. And quote, unquote, coffee. Okay. The breakfast buffet. Is served. And there's several volumes of pages puttering around, fixing up. There's one at the end with like ham, like at a carving station. And there's an omelet bar.

There's an omelet bar staffed by one of the pages who has a little like toque, like chef's toque on. Yeah. Cute. All of the ones that are cooking have French mustaches drawn on, like long, thin. And the paper chef hat. Yeah. One's got a little paper accordion that doesn't make any noise. It's just the sound of paper being crushed back and forth. Cluck, cluck, cluck. Cluck, cluck, cluck. Uh, and Morris and Perel are in their, uh, house coats with their slippers on. Mm-hmm.

And the pajama pants sticking out of the bottom. And they're shoveling some food onto plates. Good morning. Billy pokes his head in. Good morning. How was it out there? Sounds terrible. I heard nightmare laughter all night long. Why are you such an asshole? I'm not trying to be an, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be an asshole. Do you want some orange juice? Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham. Ham.

Now. Don't you want to play? Okay, no. Paige just, you can, Paige doesn't have a face, but you can see it kind of going like, what the fuck? Sorry. What a rude little kid. No, I'm sorry. I don't mean it at you. It's so funny. It's so rude. And he dutifully, the Paige dutifully shaves off a piece of ham and just kind of hands it to you between the knife and that weird long fork that they do. Take it with my hands. Thank you. I'm sorry. As it nods. You hear the paper shuffle.

And Tuck comes in from outside now and he goes, ham. Ham. And this Paige rolls his whole head. And it's like. I wonder where he gets it from. The two Paige's look at each other. And they're like. He certainly doesn't get it from me. Yeah. Yeah. Shave, shave, shave, shave, shave. And they take the. Smoked tofu. Smoked tofu. And the one at the smoked tofu carving station shaves off a piece of smoked tofu. When they shave a piece of ham off, I just take the large. Yeah.

So there's only just a thin piece of ham left. Classic Looney Tunes bit. I love it. Yeah. Bing gets a cup of coffee. They pour a cup of coffee. He grabs a craft. Starts drinking out of the craft. I think maybe none of us slept last night and I was going to use this as an opportunity to refill our hip points. Same here. Oh yeah. Damn it. Nope. Me too. Can't do it. No. Can't do it. Fuck. Uh, and Morris goes, well, I had quite a night myself. Thank you for not asking.

Does everybody have their crap from the hot trays? Yes. Yeah, we do. Thank you for making this. Yeah, it's great. Sit down. We sit. We're sitting. Use coasters. I can't. So angry. Um, all right. And he wheels out a chalkboard. I was up all night reading stories from Perel's home. I was like, oh, I'm going to go to the! Never was. Fuck. And he erased it. Was. Mother Never Was. Classic bargainer archetype. Okay. Present in mythologies around the globe. Mm-hmm.

Mother Never Was is featured in a number of stories in which she offers mortals power or boons in exchange seemingly for nothing. But the boons always have strings attached. For example. Wait. He says. He has strings attached. He theatrically flips the chalkboard and there's one of those yarn diagrams. Yeah. Yeah. There's a bunch of yarn on the other side. He pauses for applause and we do not. We're genuinely exhausted. Yeah. We're just like. I told you. There's too much yarn.

Too much yarn, Perry. Keep it simple. They're dumb. We say nothing. No, you all not. Like the only sound you hear is. Hark! Hark! And in the background, the sound of clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, because Victor is still like prancing around with his marble jar in his mouth. The pages are like slipping on the marbles. For example, in one story, a man requested to become a skilled sculptor. And in exchange, Mother Never Was placed him on an island at sea where there was no stone.

Or someone asked to be reunited with their lost love, but instead she reunited them with their animated corpse. That kind of thing. You know what I mean? There's always something that goes bad. Except for once. And I think that's where we're going to end it for this week. I've been your Game Master, Sean O'Hara, joining me as always playing Tacomdom the Barbarian Abdulaziz. So long, everybody. Playing Bing the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. Take care.

And playing Fat Billy the Halfling, Thief Jessica Tai. Goodbye. Thank you to all of you, our susporters out there, for susporting the show around the world. Without you, this show literally would not be possible.

If you want to susport the show and get access to a whole bunch of bonus stuff, including a whole campaign set in the High Spirit Mall featuring the Cool Treat Kids, art and lore in the Spout Lore Almanac, postcards by the cast set in-universe handout, merch, and a whole bunch of other stuff, check us out at SpellLoreAlmanac.com. SpellLore.com. Money, please. Or Patreon.com. SpellLore.

And thank you to Aaron Charles-Reed for our intro and outro music and all of the music produced on the show, including presumably a song about pigs that just came out a couple weeks ago. And thank you, most of all, to all of you for listening. We'll see you next time.

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 a-breding Rest in revelry And though our journey may be like a conclusion We will not leave you without a resolution Return next week to hear some more Whilst you commute or do your chores And for you I'm glad Leads SpellTorch

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

Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts. So gather round friends and listen close, for the tale's about to start. Hello everybody and welcome to Spout Lore! I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello everybody! Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Hey, how's it going? And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Hi everyone!

When last we left our heroes, they attended a funeral for the brave halfling souls which perished in the end of the Hogpocalypse. A feast was held after the funeral, as is tradition, during which Billy realized that he still did not feel like a member of the community. So he decided to leave. And the party packed up and we made our way to the Everwood Forest. Ooh, the Everwood itself.

To speak to the old halfling Nana, who supposedly is an expert in the Wittershins and the Sunwise and the things that get lost and the things that appear in its waters. We found Nana's cottage and after a bit of a get-off-my-land conversation, discovered that Billy was remembering a different kind old halfling woman. Hahaha! And that this Nana was actually quite mean. Hahaha! Quite mean! Turns out that Billy stole some herbs from her a very long time ago and she has not forgotten that.

She tossed out some sort of elixir of her own make to attempt to scare off the party, which Tuck countered with a bottle full of nightmares. Hahaha! It's okay though, she was very mean. She was quite mean. She was quite mean. Uh, Ving and Billy were also very mean. Ving and Billy were overcome with terror at their nightmares while Tuck just fully dissociated and chose not to be afraid. Hell yeah, I did. Nana herself was overcome with terror to see a robed figure with a shifting face.

A figure that the party determined or guessed to be Mother Never Was herself. Nana was incapacitated and the party joined her in her cottage for some tea. There was a conversation about Nana's experience with Mother Never Was. In which she described a time where her son became I'll and she made a deal with Mother Never Was to learn skills in herbalism and alchemy to aid him.

But Mother Never Was turned that deal back on Nana by teasing her these ways but then having so much time pass that it was too late to save her family. Asking how they could find Mother Never Was or perhaps avoid Mother Never Was, they were informed by Nana that you don't find her, she finds you. And she was coming. Soon. Coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, coming. God, I love, I love you guys so much. I love how much you guys say come. I always want that on mic.

We're all on the same page with everything and I love it. The party, in their sort of experienced adventure danger sense way, realized that things were not safe here. Tuck smashed through the wall grabbing Billy and they made their escape as Nana was hurled back to the house. And then Tuck was back to the house. Was hurled into the river by Tuck.

His move was to just bodily grab an old woman and throw her like a softball into the river, which she emerged from, cackling wildly, and gave chase through the Everwood as the sun began to set in the darkened ancient primordial forest. Ving attempted to use his mastery and command over the spirits to cage Nana, entreating the spirits to wrap her in a container of vines. Which she started squeezing through with her weird spooky body before being set on fire, I believe. Yeah. She don't like fire.

She doesn't like fire. That is actually probably true. She doesn't like being set on fire. Her weakness. Her one weakness, being set on fire. I never would have considered this. Set on fire. Ving's writing it down. Weaknesses to test. Set on fire. Shoot with gun. Check yes or no. Yes. Explosives? Question mark. It's a short list. No blood. No blood. No blood. No blood equals remove.

You came to a clearing, a beautiful, tranquil, moon-dappled clearing with a single deer in the very center and Tuck snapped its neck just to be safe. Billy then made what Jessica described as a McDouble of fairy rings. Uh-huh. A small and semi-secure one surrounding the fairies. A fanny pack and then a larger one surrounding the clearing creating a double layer of protection. Setting precedent for endless fairy rings, really. Yeah, I could just multiply. Yeah. Well, we'll see.

We're going to have to codify that at some point. Sean explicitly said, I might never let this happen again. You know what? But you might. Because I might do it. There's no way to know. Argue for either way. Yeah. Look, guys, I'm just going to say it. Jessica gets special treatment because she's my wife. Yeah, we've known. We've known that for a long time. I've tried really hard to fight against it. It's true. No, it's true. And I am. I come from an honorable line of honorable people. Yeah.

All of the white people you're descended from is what you're talking about. The other side. The party explained to Morris and Perel what the situation was and how they wanted, desperately wanted more information on Mother Never Was. They agreed to help with the research on this creature and her various dealings throughout history. In the morning, a, another breakfast buffet and another presentation by Morris and Perel. Yeah. We start every season like this now. Yeah.

We shoehorn a breakfast buffet. Uh-huh. There's always like a hotel banquet hall dissertation. One of those ones with the wall in the middle of the room that could be pulled to the side to make the room bigger. Yeah. And you can hear that there's something else going on over there, like a Tupperware selling thing. Yeah. It's a lead gen event. There's an MLM annual general meeting going on over there.

And Morris and Perel explained that creatures like Mother Never Was appear in various mythologies around the world and are described as bargainers. And a key part of bargainer mythology is that they always offer you something you want, but there is a catch. And it would appear that Mother Never Was has always gotten the upper hand on the people that she has bargained with, except for once. And that is where we find our heroes now. Perel has had his finger in the air for, pregnant paws. Who?

He just looks to see, to hear you guys gasp. Okay, thank you, thank you. Who was it? So a long time ago, a man in an attempt to save the woman he loved made a deal with Mother Never Was to learn the ways of the runes. And he used that power to entreat the spirit of the ocean itself. Your dad! Well now, hold on. My dad. No, I'm looking at Vance. Morris, was it your dad? It wasn't my dad. Whose dad was it?

But a long time ago, a man learned from Mother Never Was the ways of the ancient runes, which he used to then modify his own body to withstand a deal made with the spirit of the ocean, of the sea, of graves. I thought you would have figured it out. Yeah? No. Man of the sea. Yeah? Chimes. Chimes. Oh my God. And as far as I can tell, this is the only time that Mother Never Was did not take something punishing in return. Why? The book incredibly does not say.

The man imbued with runes was able to use those to his advantage. Ving holds out his arms. Yes, he points. That, those are, and he grabs your arms. Hey. And he's, looking at them, he's like, I don't. Your hands are so soft. Oh, thank you. You go to potions and lotions. All the time. I've got a lotions and potions subscription. They just show up in the fanny pack. I thought you tried to cancel that. I tried, but the app is so confusing.

And he looks and he goes, well, these are, and he's kind of turning your arms over. These are kind of, these are a little different because these are like druidic runes, right? Not like magical runes in the same way. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. But this is something to remember. This is something to think about. But if I guess. Why do. OK. Why do we think that mother never was.

Didn't punish who we assume is chimes. Yeah. Was it that. I mean, the song says that he was a thief to start. Right. Yeah. So he was already kind of shifty. Like, is it that he was. He just tricked her. I was going to say, I think he just tricked her. Is it like a Prometheus? You know, Maybe that's why she punishes now. Oh. Oh. Like, my punishments are so harsh, she's like, I'll never let that happen again. Yeah. Maybe he was the first. Maybe. Okay. Well. Maybe Chimes is. Like, she was.

Oh, sorry. We're all having revelations. Yeah, we are all having revelations now. This is the revelations part of the podcast. Welcome to Spout Lore Revelations. Part all of us. Yeah. So the thing that I was thinking was, what if Chimes is not the patron of one thing? What if he is the patron of sailors, but is also the patron of liars? I like that a lot. He's the first one who ever tricked Mother Never Was, but he's like, he is, he's the first of the liars.

I think that we know based on what is established in the thing is, if that is true, which would be really cool, it would be merely symbolic. It's a symbolic. Totally. Because it was like. Oh, yeah, they're always symbolic. Yes. But Chimes just happens to be the only living patron because of his long-livedness. Yeah. Yeah. But that is a cool idea. Where he was the first, like Jessica said, he was the first one to trick her. And then she was just like, never again. Yeah.

But because it is like a foundational event in history, like it made Mother Never Was what she is. It also solidified him as like, the totem of lying. Yeah. So whatever she is, she's able to grant wishes in a way. That is the main thing that we know about her. And over time, the way that she grants wishes is by changing people, not by giving them what they want. And I think that when Chimes tricked her, this was my revelation that he took something from her. Yes. Oh. I think so too.

Something that made like the runes actually have an impact when he took it. Like he tattooed himself. Yeah. Like maybe it was like. The ink. The ink. Oh yeah. Maybe it was like some special ink or something. What's the ink? Boda? So it was Wally Boda is the origin of like the druidic tattooing tradition. And he got ink from a spiritual octopus named Lakshmi. Oh right. Who lives in the deep, deep ocean. Okay. Yes.

But yeah, maybe there was some kind of like magic ink that Mother Never Was had that he stole. What if the way that she makes her bargains is, she writes them in a book. Oh. And that is the ink that she like, the ink that she had was. It's a binding ink. Mm-hmm. So she was able to like write in this book and make these things come to pass. Mm-hmm. And Chimes stole, yeah, that magic, or stole that ink from her.

So then she was forced to learn other ways, which then like over time twisted her and trapped her in the marshes. Uh-huh. And now she can't leave. And Perel, after you guys speculate all of this stuff, Perel's like looking at his books in his notes and he goes, the timeline might. Match up. I don't know for sure, but unfortunately, I think if we really want to know more, we got to talk to Chimes. Is there a way we can get in touch with Chimes? You're so far away from the ocean.

And as far as you can tell, Chimes can only be on the ocean. Right. I have a jar of Sea of Graves with me. Do you? Yeah. Oh, could you commune with it? Yeah. Oh. Is there a way to commune with it? We've never done it before, but there are Sea of Graves. It could work. That would be sick. Well, while we're having breakfast, I want to commune with the whispers of the Sea of Graves. All right. While we're having breakfast. Yeah. Tuck went back and he got a big bowl.

He just took the top off of one of those cereal columns and then just dumped it into a mixing bowl with a bunch of heavy cream. Oh, delicious. A breve cereal. Breve cereal. Just a straight shot to diarrhea. Yeah. Express. Okay. So we're going to do communion of whispers? Yep. All right. Here we go. Roll plus whiz. Nice. I got four plus my whiz is two as a five. You got four plus two. So that's six. You have a debil. Oh, yeah. Could I help? Sorry. Yeah. Potentially. How would you help?

Billy's just talking through a bunch of food in his mouth. He's just like, why are you? Why are you holding up against the moon or something? I might help. Thanks, Billy. Just an unqualified. Unqualified opinion from a child. Yeah. And the annoying part is it's going to work. Two to six plus bond. 13. Holy shit. Seven to nine. Vision's unclear. It's meaning murky. Meaning murky. The water gets cloudy. What the fuck? So yeah, I think. Yeah.

Billy goes, why don't you just hold it up against the moon? And you remember that it's morning, it's daylight, but you summon some moonlight in yourself. Oh yeah. I shine. I love this. My hand on the other side of the screen. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm going to shine on the other side. Oh yeah. Right? Cause you have like the veins of Moonstone in your body still thought you, yeah.

And the light glimmers in the jar of water from the sea of graves, which starts to Royal as if a storm at sea, the water grays and becomes murky and you begin to see images within the water. You feel the presence before you see it, but then you see a, a leathery skinned, long braided, long braided beard, long gray hair rings. You see the image of chimes his face, like the braids floating in the water. And then his image becomes smoother, younger.

His countenance changes, his hair shortens, his beard shortens. Some of his tattoos begin to disappear. You see a young chimes tech puts the mixing bowl over his life. Is there anyone that tuck is not sexually attracted to? It's like shapes, triangles and thin rectangles. And we see him in sort of a, uh, we get a flash of images. Basically see him in like a darkened city street, uh, stealing through windows and emerging with sacks of I'll gotten goods.

We see him, the moon lighting his way, like lighting the streets. There's like constant, like an ally in his like thieving. And then we see him standing on the shore of the sea with a beautiful, beautiful woman wreathed in moonlight. They embrace. We see the images of the thief in the maid, basically a tower waves crashing against it, lightning in the sky and chimes throwing his fists in the air in anger. The black headed man is there. Yeah. And like in the distance watching chimes, uh, cry out.

Yeah. And then we see him trudging through the wilderness, traveling far and wide to a horrible twisted marshy place where he speaks to a woman. What does the woman look like in this scenario? Oh, what does she look like? What does mother never was look like before she's mother never was. She looks kind of like she's not old. She looks like she's in her late thirties, early forties. Did she, what kind of, you just make us sound right. Women in there. Abdul's favorite age range. Yeah.

Women, women in their forties, his weakness. Oh no. You said thirties, not into it. Forty. She is really like, like floor length, black hair. Oh, cool. And, uh, um, robe that is like a lot of flaps, like maybe of like, uh, animal hides and, and woven reeds and things like that. She's like a earth warrior. Uh huh. Oh, so she was like very connected to the land. Hmm. Cool. And, uh, like a true hedge, which kind of thing we can see kind of girl. You'd meet at a music festival. Yes. All right.

Keep us together, buddy. Reel it in, reel it in. It's too late. He already saw the side boob. Oh yeah. She's other side boob for sure. Cause of summer. It's summertime. Yeah. She was, she was bathing. Yeah. Was it in a stream? It was. Oh yeah. He's in the, in a fountain. And Abdul's trying, he's trying to snap that giant pencil. Oh wow. I wonder if he can. He's trying to twist it. Yeah. I don't understand. Keep describing. And? She's barefoot. She has a little gold tattoos on her face. Oh, cool.

Yeah. Keep that. Oh, like geometrical, but like, geometrical. Rounded. I don't know. Lots of shapes. So many shapes tattooed on her face. Of gold. She's eating a grapefruit. What? Wow. I've never met anything you haven't. That's a tough pencil. You couldn't break. It'd be so funny if Jess just did it. No, but like, you can't even like, it's, there's no flexibility in this. That's awesome. It's just a piece of wood. Yeah. Did you twist all the bark off it though?

No, that Paul did that forever ago. And I got really mad at him that day. But, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. That's a big part. This is my favorite pencil. Oh, cause there's stuff everywhere. It was a thing where we were trying to do a finale and there was like a tablecloth we had put down that was white from the Airbnb that we were in. Right. And then I looked over and there was just dirt all over it. But now this is our studio.

You can put bark. It's like you go to a nice restaurant with your kid and you're like, just be cool. And then you look over and- And they're peeling bark off a stick. Sauce is all over. It's the same thing. Where'd you get that stick? I brought it from home. Home. From home. Home. You have to stop doing that, Billy. I brought it from home. Okay, so is the things that you guys described while Abdul was trying to break that stick true? She has geometric tattoos as well? Yeah, like shape.

Not just square, but like, you know, swirls. Circles with triangles in them. Yeah. But like legit. But like cool. Yeah. They're like doing like a caricature version of it. Okay, we see young Chimes speaking to Mother Never Was. Hides, woven reeds, geometric tattoos, long, long, long black hair dragging in the mud around her. And she's writing in a book, nodding. And we see, like, it seems like the face that you see in this Mother Never Was seems happy with this arrangement. Okay. In some way.

Okay. And then we see this story that we know. This story from the thief and the maid. Chimes tattooing himself, covering himself in runes, building his skiff, the weather eye. Mm-hmm. Taking to the waves to rescue Lillian from the chains of the Gibbous Man from his tower. Can we see like a full-on fight between like, it's like storm, rain. And we see like young Chimes, but with tattoos. Mm-hmm. And like the Gibbous Man full like slugfest. Yeah, totally. Chains wrapped around his fist. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Like lashed around his arms. Yeah. Like hitting like a fucking storm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Every time Chimes lands a blow, there's lightning in the sky. Yeah. And every time the Gibbous Man lands a blow, there's a huge gale of wind. Uh-huh. And. And it's. No. The Sea of Graves existed before this, right? So this is what I was. Oh, shit. This is what I was wondering. But then I realized. Because the timeline doesn't quite make sense. Just do it. Just do it. Just give us the goods, Sean.

You gotta stop edging us like this. Let me think about it for a sec. What if like the graves were there, but they were like. Underwater? Underwater. Oh. Because they were graves. They were buried in the earth. Yeah. Yeah. I think we see. Yeah. Yeah. Chimes and the Gibbous Man laying into each other. A battle. A titanic clash. Between two. Not people. Uh-huh. Chimes as human as he could be. But something else at this point. Yeah. And just as he's like. It looks like he's losing.

Lillian's bindings are secure. She's like. I imagine her as kind of like. In chains of dark. Like the night sky. Uh-huh. Like just over the surface of the water. Obsidian black. Yeah. Obsidian black chains. She's hanging just above the surface of the waves. There's waves lapping about her, but she's not being pulled under. Exactly. And. The sky. Is Chimes's enemy itself. The very sky. Is the like arena of the fight. Like it's sort of the ocean, but like. You know, like the.

That scene from Pirates of the Caribbean where it's like the night sky and is reflected in the ocean and they're kind of. One entity. It's like one domain kind of thing. Uh-huh. The wind and the waves. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's like you're far enough away from land that you're somewhere else. Yeah. They're on the edge of like. Reality. Yeah. Yeah. And we see. We see. What might be the moment where Chimes made the deal with the sea. Oh. And he like plunges his hands into the water. Whoa.

His eyes close and his head is thrown back. The breath is pulled from him. Whoa. The chains wrapped around his arms dive down deep into the ocean. Yeah. Deep into the water. Uh-huh. And his breath is pulled from him and given to the wind. Mm-hmm. And we see the chains lash onto something beneath the surface. We see the gibbous man's like. Hold on the wind like. Fritter away. Fritter away. As it gets its own agency. Yeah. And we see the muscles in Chimes' shoulders and arms tense. Mm-hmm.

As he begins to pull on the chains. Uh-huh. And all around him erupting from the water. Massive stone pillars. Shit. Holy fuck. Oh. That's so cool. Oh. And. He pauses to like re-grip the chains and they stop growing and then he continues and they continue to grow. Yeah. Yeah. He. He. Yeah. He pulls up like straight up and then he turns and like grabs the chains. Mm-hmm. And lifts them over his head. Yeah. Whoa.

And the pillars erupt from the ocean around him and we see the gibbous man temporarily just long enough robbed of his power in this place. Uh-huh. And that's when Lillian breaks free. Like you see like moonlight like beams of intense moonlight start to form in cracks. Yeah. In like the cage around her. And then the image that you see in a mason jar. Yeah. The water turns bright blinding white. Whoa. And the jar shatters. Whoa. And the water pours across the surface of the table.

And the glass that shattered is black obsidian like across the ground. Mm-hmm. It turned into like the same. You want more obsidian? Is that what you're trying to do here? Oh no. I didn't want more obsidian. I just thought it was cool. It's cool. There's like veins of obsidian running through the broken glass. Like every broken edge is rimmed with black. Yeah. And yeah, Perel and Morris like both step back as the glass shatters and the water pours over the table and the vision ends.

Then you hear Tuck crunch a big spoonful of. Whoa. Of Cheerios. And he goes. Like milk coming out of your mouth like whoa. Whoa. Just watching Stoudy Martin. 40 cartoons. Whoa. With a Froot Loop in it. Yeah, it was Froot Loops, not Cheerios. Uh, and now we can either. With that vision ending, what I'm imagining is we can either discuss what, what that means, or we can jump forward to what we think the party does with this information.

The fairy ring will stay up for another 24 hours or another 12 hours. Yeah. Billy builds another one. Okay. So at this point we are going to say that to, to build another ring, you're going to have to like two rings is lots, but it's a new day. So I'm building a fresh one. So roll. Dexterity. Oh, so I roll fair. I'll roll fairy child. Yeah. Two to six plus charisma. Uh, eight. Okay. So you get two, I believe, or three, three, three, three hold. And now am I allowed to roll fairy ring? You are.

I think you, I think the way that you have saturated this clearing with fairy energy means that you will have to bring down your previous rings. This will be a new ring. No, I'm building around my ultra fortress. Sean, this is what I'm doing. I understand. I understand that this is what you're doing. Jessica slamming the dice down like they're a gavel. You're just, you're, you're just going to be overwriting your previous rings. 10. There you go. So that'll last for 24 hours. Oh yeah. Wow.

One full cycle of the sun. Fuck yeah. That was great. She's psyched because now this means that you guys can hang out in the fanny pack and be totally safe and hang out in these rings. We have like our yard just got way bigger. That's true. Oh yeah. We have so much. It sounds like Billy made the whole clearing within the fairy ring. So now you've got like green space. You can vibe out. You guys are dead deer in here. And Billy doesn't even, he doesn't even fully understand fairy rings himself.

So he's like three layers of protection. I should be able to go inside now. That's a double big bag. Yeah. Triple layer. Oh yeah. Triple layer. Did the Billy's talking about it? Like it's a, like it's a man's razor commercial. Yeah. Yeah. Three layers of moisturizing protection. We're just fine in here. Yeah. Billy comes back covered in dirt. Yeah. Yeah. Very sweaty. Are you okay, Billy? I'm great. Never been better. Amazing. Yeah. Marble. Thank you for the fairy ring. We do appreciate it.

No problem. What does this ring look like? I know that Billy kind of does them different every time. Um, this one is, uh, he dug a trench. It's just a hole. That's great. Bent over walking backwards. Like, yeah, he, uh, he took one of the really nice dinner plates and he started, he was dragging, like digging, dirt out. And it's, you cut to us watching it for a bit. And we're, and we're like, he's going to be so fucking dirty after this.

You know, also he's going to be so fucking tired after this. That is true. Okay. And then Tuck's like, good job, Billy. And Billy is thumbs up. Yay. Looking good. It's working. Super deep. Yeah, we can, and then Tuck leads back. He's like, yeah, we can give him a bath tomorrow. We don't have to worry about it now. It's fine. He can do a sponge bath when he's asleep. He's going to be out. The dirt, the dirt will dry and cross. It's fine. Yeah.

And honestly, he'll probably just fall asleep in Perel and Morris's bed. So it's not really our thing that we have to figure out. Billy walks back in with the filthy plate and you hear as the, the page is like gesturing wildly. That's what that is. It walks up. It grabs the plate away from Billy. Oh, it completes the set. Oh, the seats. And it just hustles like through the double doors into the kitchen. Okay.

And now you have a, if you choose, if you're choosing to rest here, you have a full day to just rest and recuperate and study and talk. And if we take two days, I can, I can clear this stability. So, okay. So recover when you do nothing but rest and comfort and safety. That is something to consider. After a day of rest, you recover all of your hit points. After three days of rest, you remove one debility of your choice.

If you are under the care of a healer, magical or otherwise, you heal a debility every two days. Instead. Great. So can I try to get Morris and Perel to fix my dream? So it doesn't give me a wisdom debility every time. You definitely can. These might be the wrong guys to ask about that. I trust them. Cause the, there are only hope right now. Perel is like a, a frog wizard. Well, he's, well, he's a transmuter.

So he's like, so technically what I could do is kind of transmute your brain a little bit. Uh huh. To maybe try and work out whatever physical mechanical brain problem you're having is. Could you transmute my brain so I don't remember my dreams anymore? And then I don't, I won't be freaked out about this every day. I could absolutely take away your ability to dream forever. If that's what you're asking me. Side question. Do frogs dream? Do frogs dream?

Boy, you better believe frogs dream and they are disgusting. What do they dream about? Uh, uh,! Oh, I can't even say it. It's just, he spits on the ground. Ew. That's why I had to turn them into people. So they knew that what they were dreaming about was wrong. That was the motivation? No, I was really bored out there. Actually. It was just cool to have guys to like, go get me drinks and stuff. So that's most. Servitude? No, no, no, no. Okay. Wait, sorry. This is sounding crazy.

This sounds crazy. It's getting so weird. I wanted. You didn't like their dreams and you wanted slaves? No, no, no, no. I didn't want to. I just, I created Ascension Species to see if I could. Why don't you just make normal friends? Just such a pregnant pause. So long story short, yes, I could. I could take away your ability to dream forever. Okay. I think. It would take some time. It would take some doing, but I could probably do it. What can Morris do? Morris, can you do something?

Well, I'm more of a, um, spatial thaumaturge, so I could take, technically, with much precision and skill, which is not a problem for me, physically remove a part of your brain. Okay. We're doing a lobotomy? I feel like there's a lot of extra stuff in there already. I just want to be clear. That I'm not using. Neither of us is particularly trained in the healing arts. You just remove his dexterity part of his brain. Yeah.

Perel is either going to transmute your brain chemistry, which he offered to do with Mears a long time ago in Crystal Bay, so he wouldn't betray. You or Morris can physically alter your brain. What's Aquarius thing? Moss. Is there a mass that does this? Is there a sleep? There might be. I mean, this could be a Spout Lore. Yeah. Is there some kind of drug I can take that stops me from dreaming? Three. Whoa. Um, what is the failure here? What? I don't know.

They like, they're like, let me look in my medicine cabinet and they just, they're just like rummaging around. There's like some old faded medicine bottles and they're like, maybe, maybe. Yeah. The failure is that I think that they found something like there's a thing where Morris and Perel are like, Oh maybe, maybe. And then like one of them walks to like a cabinet and like grabs a bottle of clear liquid. That's unlabeled. Tuck just drinks, grabs it out of his hand. I'll take that. Sick.

You guys are the best. Thanks. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I've already drank the whole thing. Yeah. What was it? I don't know. Tuck passes out. He just faints. Hopefully that was a natural faint. Yeah. Morris like just puts a mirror up against my mouth to see if I'm even breathing. Don't worry everyone. He's alive. Score another one for Morrison Perel. He's getting, this is a win. He didn't die. Can I use a druidic lore to consult the trove of ancient knowledge within me?

Examine the events of the world. Roll plus wisdom. I'm just wondering if there's a thing that we can find out what this liquid is. That's all. Oh, you want to know what the liquid is? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tuck just passed out. Yep. He's a close personal friend of mine, Sean. It is close personal friend. It's probably, I feel like this is a personal friend of mine. I think this is more in the realm of like, uh, magic stuff.

So the druidic knowledge might not be within the realm, but I mean like you could Spout Lore, you could do other stuff. I'll Spout Lore about clear liquids that magicians will keep. Yeah. I got seven plus my intelligence. Six. Shit. Beautiful. Shit. Um, can I help? Yep. Okay. Try. How? I taste it. Okay. Just, there's a little bit of red Tuck's lip. He starts licking it off Tuck's beard. Like a dog. Uh, five. Okay. Failure. Failure. Dang it. Uh, okay. You know, wait, can I aid his aid?

You were passed out by just having, having a bunch on my beard. You aid somebody who's trying to aid you. Huh? Full circle. Huh? Yeah. Okay. So here's what we're going to do to get over this. You're going to get on my shoulders. Then I'm going to get on your shoulders. You're going to get on my shoulders and then we're going to be on the top. We'll be 50 feet tall at this point. Oh my God. Okay. And it's just, it cuts to your, you're in a 69. Yeah. Cause that's, that's, that's standing 69.

Well, try to flip. This isn't exactly how I thought this was going to go, but it's happening now. Um, okay. So I think this is actually, what are you doing? I'm aiding Billy. You're not aiding Billy. Put those down. What did you get? I got five. Oh, it doesn't, I can't help it. You're unconscious. Yeah. You can't do it anyways. But I have so much still around my, this is what I'm saying. This is actually kind of perfect. Okay. These two failures.

Cause I think that you drink all of this stuff and Billy's like, I'll help. I know what it is. And he starts licking it off. Tuck's beard. Or he's like touching his beard and putting it in his mouth. He's using his hands. He's going, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't put it in your mouth. And then Ving tries to Billy Ving grabs Billy and it like gets on his hands. And Billy passes out and Tuck's like, or Ving rubs his eyes like, well, wait a second. No, he's like, this, this move. Sorry.

I just pictured being like, if he had glasses, he'd be under, you know, like, Oh my God, we're also stuck. Why are they so, why is my family so stupid? Like he was cutting, he was cutting peppers and he accidentally rubbed his eye. He's like, Oh, I'm unconscious now. And then we descend into the dreamscape. Sick. So you awake.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I think the nature of whatever it is that you've consumed means that all three of you come to together. Oh, cool. Whoa. I think that tuck like you, you open your eyes, you see the cataclysm and the cataclysm. What, as I recall, is there is a, a hillside that tuck is walking up. Yeah.

And the landscape is made out of like kind of blasted gray rock. Like it almost looks like an alien landscape. Kind of like when you see pictures of Iceland and you're like, what the fuck planet is that? Yeah, totally. It's just Iceland. Yeah. It's like blacking. It's like black or gray rock, black sand. Yeah. The fissures in the earth. And then there's like smoke, like yellow, acrid smoke pouring out of the fissures. Yeah. Yeah.

And as of several months ago, there is also a tree at the top of the hill. Yeah. And it's like a steep, like you, like tuck is always barefoot in his dream and it hurts to walk up the hill. Yeah. Cause it's like just so sharp. And that's sort of what this landscape is, is like, if you walk, you're getting cut up bad. Yeah, totally. But it's like 200 feet up and then there's a tree right at the top. Yeah.

And then like the tree is on fire and the, and the sky is like this, like angry red, yellow kind of thing. Cool. Yeah. We're seeing tuck, like begin to struggle up this hill feet, like bloodied ground smoking. And by we, I also mean tuck because tuck is viewing this along with Billy and Ving from about 50 feet back. Whoa. And it cuts off in like, as you turn, uh, cause you hear like movement to either side of you and they're Billy and Ving.

But, and as you turn to view them, you see like the image is kind of shifting almost until it disappears and becomes, uh, a different image depending on the direction that each of you are facing. Oh, our individual dreams. Yes. You are sort of in a, it seems like you're in a nexus between all three of your dreams. So if we look towards Billy, what does Billy see? Billy is, uh, he's in the river before he knitted it. Cool.

So, so Billy is watching Billy, I guess like, uh, cause remember we're all like, like, like, like tuck. Like we see Billy frozen next to, the river before it was the sun wise in the winter shins. Yeah. And what is Billy doing in this frozen moment? He's got his like fingers kind of in the clay on the river bed. Um, and it's like a fine spring day. The sun is dappling down from like the shade of the trees above. It just looks like a kid playing just sort of an idyllic spring day. Nice.

And Billy, you're watching yourself from this removed view play in the, in the clay. Does Billy remember this? He's watching. He's like, Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he starts like picking his nose. He's like, Oh, I remember that. Your finger out of your nose, Billy. What? Oh my gosh. That moment you're like, Oh shit, Tuck's here. And you turn to the other side and Ving is here too. What, what do we see? Yeah. If we look towards Ving, what do we see?

Uh, Ving is seeing a vision of his mother, but before he was created. So it's from the vision of Ving. Of his mother. Oh, does that make sense? Yeah, that does make sense. It's your mom's dream. It's my mom's dream before she had me. Yeah. Cool. That's sick. Interestingly, I think because this is the first time you're seeing this, this dream from outside the actual perspective of the dream. I can understand a bit. You're like, Oh fuck, that's my mom. I thought that was me this whole time.

Oh, that's sick. And to you here, get your finger out of your nose, Billy, realize that Tuck is next to you. And so is Billy. And the three of you turn around and look at each other. And our dreams mash together as we see each other. Oh, I'm looking at Tuck and in behind Tuck is my dream. He's pushed into my dreamscape and likewise with each of us. Like it moves relative to us. Yeah. That's perspective. Yeah. What do you guys, what is, what do you guys do? Is the plan to go?

Into the dreams to figure them out? I step forward into one of them. Absolutely. Okay. I step into my dream. Yeah. And then I go far enough that I'm in the water now. Yeah. Oh, it's nice in here. Oh, follow Billy. Yep. And you walk into this, uh, where before you were in sort of a blank space in the corner of all three of your minds. It's kind of, it was kind of looked in my mind. Like you remember the interface as we entered the spirit realm? Oh, yeah.

Where it's just like pieces of reality floating in blackness. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And you step forward following Billy and suddenly birds. Well, you mostly feel the sun. It is warm here. You feel like there would be, you're like walking through a frozen breeze. So like as you pass the breeze, you feel it on your skin, but it does not blow. You see birds frozen in the sky, fish frozen in the stream. Oh, it's like they're frozen moments. This is like, everything is still. Okay.

At least at this time. And Billy is in the water. Is the other Billy here too? The dream. Yeah. There's a, there's a Billy crouched on the, on the shore, like playing with the clay thing. Wants to walk up to the clay, Billy. Just go observe him. Yeah. Do I see anything? Uh, roll a discern realities. 12. Oh, you get three questions. Hmm. What? Here's not what it appears to be.

As you get closer to the Billy and like really, really fix your attention and your perception on him, you see him start to move and he's like moving the clay and kind of piling it up and measuring. It looks like he's, he's doing like some sort of kid, like, okay, it's this big.

And then he like moves a bunch of clay and he's like, at one point he puts his figure up his nose and like coats his nose with mud and being like, goes to put his hand down, but like moves through his body, you know, like, yeah, totally. But you do see this.

Billy begins to move and around him, sort of, it seems like in an area almost like some of the water is flowing, but some of it's not like this is a, this is a dreamscape that you can, I won't give you more information, but that is what you get is you really focus on this aspect of the dream and it begins. Who's really in control here. It does feel like to you, it is a mixture of, well, this is Billy's mind, but also I am here so I can affect this. Okay. Weird. Yeah. It's a con.

It's like, it is a dream for sure, but you are acting upon the dream yourself. We are incepting. Yeah. And so in that way you think it's probably whatever the potion, whatever the potion was. Sorry. I just, in my mind we see Leonardo DiCaprio running through the halfling doing his own thing. Oh no, that's Jordan. Let's have go of it. Jordan, let's have go of it. Just, just falls out of his chair. I rub my eyes. Jordan, let's have it. I didn't, you know who I mean. Yes.

And then we see three syllable name, three names. Oh Jesus. God damn it. It's okay. We're almost at lunchtime. Paul's in a full cascade right now. He only had one boiled veggie dog. I think it's the veggie dog that brought me here. No, I think the veggie dog carried you until here. Yeah. If you leave this in, I'm quitting the podcast forever. If you look back in the sand, you'll see the moments that the veggie dog carried you. Yeah. I think the veggie dog carried you until here. Yeah. Yeah.

If you leave this in, I'm quitting the podcast forever. If you look back in the sand, I think the veggie dog carried you. There's only one set of footprints. There was footprints. And then just a round peg hole. One sliding trough as the hot dog slid across the ground. Yeah. So the answer you think is somewhat complicated, but overall it's probably whatever the potion was has created this very strange situation. What should I be on the lookout for?

You recall as you were kind of looking around at each of your family members and their respective dreams, that they were doing this sort of like, you know, like mashing thing where like aspects of the dream to either side would sort of flow in. And you're like, well, that can't be good for anybody. Okay. If someone else's psyche creeps into theirs, that's not going to feel good. So you want to, you think you want to be very watchful for instability in whatever this is. Okay.

So Tuck kind of like, when Ving tells us that he sort of like moves his dream in the like, landscape of their minds. Like, so it's not mashing with everyone else's basically wink blinks his way out of this. Yeah. Roll a two to six plus wisdom. Okay. And it's a 10. Yes. So Tuck is very skilled at compartmentalizing after all these years. That makes sense. So he, you just like you being is like, Oh yeah, our dreams might mash. And you were like, there's no fucking way.

I'm letting Billy see this dream. Oh yeah. And you just, so you put up what you feel is a pretty firm barrier between it. Doesn't lock you out. That's what the 10 is. You haven't locked yourself out of your dream. I feel like it just locks it in place on the other side of our dreams. Cause we're saying, yeah, frozen and out of like, yeah. So you could still probably enter it as you have entered Billy's dream, but it will not leak in. Okay. Which is great. Cause that's the scariest one for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause you're standing in this, uh, partially frozen, partially not river. And took us Billy. What is your dream about? What? Uh, I don't know. I'm making the river. This is you making the Sunwise and the Wittershins. Why? Oh, well, I mean, there, the war was coming and I, I didn't really know what else to do. Can Billy go up to Billy? Absolutely. Yeah. What are you trying to do when you walk up to dream Billy? What are you doing?

Well, I kind of want to go up to Billy and see if I can talk to him. Oh yeah. But if not, I want to, I want to follow the river. I want to go under the water and follow it. Oh, interesting. Cause if it's not running, if like, if the water's not flowing, I'm not really in any danger. Oh yeah, no, definitely not. Yeah. That's cool. Which one should I do? Those are both pretty cool. I think going under the water is what I would choose. Okay. I'll go under the water.

So you, uh, briefly consider attempting to converse with your dream self, but decide against it. Yeah. I think there's something wrong with that. Oh, there's something about where I, it stops me. I say, no, that breaks the law. Whoa. And then I am like, I will look around myself. That's cool. Yeah. That there's fairy laws about how you interact with your own memories. Yeah. Because fairies are really powerful and they can break rules all the time. Cause I'm like, how would I respond?

And I'm like, Oh, I don't know about that. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. So I'm going to go under the water and have a look around. So Billy just starts, Billy just turns and walks into the water and disappears under the surface. Um, Ving goes in the water. Yeah. Tuck seal slides underneath. You slide right past Billy, like on this angled bank and Ving, you just walk in and both of you are struck by the realization that you're not drowning. You're just walking. You're just walking through this water.

Okay. Like you feel yourself interacting with it, but you're just here. Your vision is filled with blue, dark blue, but you see beneath your feet, soil rocks. You see fish, river grasses, and Billy just continues down to the bottom. Yeah. Yeah. And just follow him before you know it. There's like 40, 50 feet of water above your head. That's a deep river. Holy shit. Yeah. You're absolutely able to go ahead and roll certain realities. Okay. Beauty six plus wisdom. 10. Holy shit. Yes.

But here's not what it appears to be. I think that like, um, sort of the diorama museum display nature of when you entered the dream made you feel like you were kind of confined to the area you remember in the dream, but you're walking along and you feel the edge of this dream fragment. Stretching out in front of you as you walk. You think that this isn't just like a piece of a memory. Like you are able to fully explore this environment.

You don't know what the bounds of that are, but as you can, as far as you can tell right now, you are walking through a place as Billy remembers it to its full extent. That was not helpful. Okay. What here is useful or valuable to me? Whoa. Yeah. So much shade is thrown at you. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, Oh, a shade. It's a great answer. Where the mood with that question.

I think as you continue to walk down the river passing these fish and water bugs and plants, you're seeing like through the grasses on the banks openings of various sizes, especially the closer you get to the everwood itself. And you're seeing more openings as you carry on down the bank. Like caveman. Like.

You would assume cave mouths I think it's maybe a thing where it's like You know how in dream distance is like Fucked I think it's like we're just at The Everwood you know like we don't have to walk Yeah totally it's not an hour of Walking it's like oh I want to go to the Ever Oh here it is What should I be on the lookout For I guess As you're walking down the Riverbank in this dreamy way kind of like Flowing from one spot of interest to the Next You were following behind Oh yeah yeah just Yeah and you're being like taken along As Billy like flits from spot To spot in this dream and Billy at the mouth of one Of these caves that seems like Large enough for you To pass through you see a glint At the mouth as something frozen is like Emerging from the cave mouth What is it?

An eel And you see this eel As it like swims out of the cave mouth And you know these don't Live in this part of the world Like this part of the river does not have eels Like this and you see like A cup floating Out of one of the other cave mouths Can I take the cup? Can I touch the cup?

I'm going to try and touch the cup 2d6 plus wisdom 10 Oh shit You reach out to the cup And you begin to close your little hands around it And you feel yourself start to like Pass through it And you just like focus And you close your hand around it It looks like it is made of like Pewter like it's a silver Hammered like pewter cup And it's set with blue stones Kind of around The not the blip But like the bottom area The bottom has like blue stones set around it Cool Can I Spout Lore about this cup?

You absolutely can 2d6 plus intelligence Where's this kind of cup?

Come from 7 plus minus 1 I got a 6 I need assistance I can help I've seen cups before 8 So that makes it a 7 to 9 This is a style That both of you because you've all traveled lots before You're like oh I haven't seen this cup It's really fancy haven't seen one like this But I think that this style Of cup reminds you of A time that you were trying to Rob the Vert University With Dan a long time ago It was like the first job before Before we went to the hot dog festival Oh yeah And you're like oh this is definitely From like the southeastern principalities This cup which is Hundreds of kilometers away So the riverways connect all over The principalities It seems like there is something There's some sort of subterranean Network of rivers and tunnels That connects fast Tracks of the principalities So if we wanted to move To like other areas We could find a way to traverse it And navigate it we could potentially get Wherever Are they connected Is it physically or magically Or both I think that is beyond the scope of what you're able to determine From this but you just know that Like well this eel's not from here And this cup's not from here And the Experience that all of you have mostly Ving I guess is that you're not from here And you're not from here I guess with the eels with animals The cup and the eel are definitely from Different parts of the principalities So for some reason This river Area seems to be A convergence of different like Underwater paths So I wonder if we could Ving maybe talk to like An animal in the river Like an eel or something And then be like hey can you take this fanny pack To X place Oh Oh!!

The river grass starts moving of its own accord. The dream is waking up. Yeah, and the water. You feel the water start to flow. Our hair is moving. Tuck's beard is moving. Billy, you feel something become aware of you in this dream. Whoa. The river grass starts to move and the rocks on the bank start to roll and shift with the waves and the water starts to fill your lungs. In your perception of this dreamscape, Billy, you can feel that something is coming.

That's where we're going to end the episode. What? No, I wanted that one. That was sick. That's a great cliffhanger. I've been your Game Master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Playing Ving, the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. Take care. Playing Fat Billy, the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone. Thank you to all of our susporters around the world for susporting the show.

If you would like to susport the show and get access to a bonus campaign set in the High Spear Mall, art, merch, and a whole whack of other stuff, check us out at patreon.com slash speltlore or speltlore.com slash moneyplease. Thank you to Aaron Reid for our intro and outro music. You can find all of Aaron's music at bandcamp.com and you can find all the music produced for the show on Spotify. Thank you, finally and most of all, to all of you for listening. We'll see you next time.

And so ends the tale of Adventures Three Who tried the best they can Though dumb and scared and lost they be For time's a breast in revelry And though our journey may be like a conclusion It's a struggle to overcome It's a struggle to overcome It's a struggle to overcome 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 more.

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

Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts. So gather round friends, and listen close, for the tale's about to start. Hello everybody and welcome to Spellbound. I'm your game master Sean O'Hara, joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz. Hello everybody. Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers. Hello there. And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai. Hello.

When last we left our heroes, they settled in for a relatively safe day of rest, research, and recuperation. Having revealed to them by Perel, through his research, that the figure he previously described as being the only person not to be punished, in a deal with Mother Never Was, was their old friend, the patron of sailors, Chimes. Chimes. Chimes.

In an attempt to get more information about this situation, Ving used his jar of grave water from the Sea of Graves itself to attempt to commune with Chimes, receiving a murky vision in the form of a flash of images held within the jar. Mm-hmm. Including a young Chimes making a deal of some sort with her mother. A deal of some sort with Mother Never Was. Learning from her the secret of the runes and his method of tattoo making that gave him the power that we know him for today.

Stealing from her a magic ink that she used to make her deals and going to face off against the Gibbous Man to release Lillian from her ancient detainment. Mm-hmm. We saw a battle between the Gibbous Man and Chimes in which we saw him make his famous deal with the Sea of Graves, as depicted in The Thief and the Maid. Mm-hmm. Where he gave his breath to the wind, his blood to the sea, and his bones to the graves, rising them from the very deep. Cool.

Meaning our old friend Chimes created the Sea of Graves. So sick. All those many millennia ago. So sick. Mm-hmm. From there, the glass shattered and we were left without the jar, without the grave water. Next, the party decided that they wanted to spend this time resting. Resting, regaining some hit points, maybe healing a debility or two. And Tuck asked Morris and Perel if they could help him not remember his horrible cataclysmic dream anymore. They said, oh, maybe.

Let me just check this cabinet. And the first vial that Perel touched, Tuck just drank, passing out moments later. Then Billy and Ving attempted to help Tuck in some way. Billy by tasting some of the potion and then passing out. And Ving by accidentally getting some in his eye and also passing out.

Finding ourselves in some sort of three-way dreamscape containing the dreams of each of our three heroes, including a sunny day by the Wittershins or the Sunwise, one of the two rivers that long ago Billy knit into one. The party investigated this strange frozen dream a little bit, descending into the river. In this frozen in time image of the river, they traveled down finding the three-way dream.

They traveled down finding the mouth of cave systems that they determined through the creatures coming out and the objects coming out must connect all across the continent or at least along the massive peninsula that is the principalities. And in their last moments of observing, Billy felt a presence in the dream take notice and approach. And that is where we find our heroes now. What do you do? I think we were swimming up to the surface. Oh, yeah. Oh, water. The water started moving.

The water began to fill your lungs. Yeah. You are drowning. What do you do? I will gather the mud from the bottom and create a free Willy and get us out of here. Oh, like you're just going to shoot you guys out of the bottom of the river? Yeah. I'm using elemental form. Okay. I'm going to create a big creature to get us out of here. I'm going to make a mud orca. So, elemental form is your shape shift move, basically. You're creating a body for yourself. That's what you want to do? Yeah. Okay.

Great. So, I got 12. Which means you get three hold. Great. And you form this orca mud body around yourself. Yeah. At first, you attempt to connect with the spirit of this mud and you remember, I'm in a dream. This isn't real mud, but- But if he wills it so, maybe. Exactly. You kind of impart your will on this dreamscape and create this mud body around yourself. And I grab them and head to the surface as fast as we can. Bust out the surface. Perfect. So, you can do that by spending two holds.

Great. Yes. One for each billion tuck. I'll use the last one to do a flip in the air. Okay. And land on the bags? Yeah. This looks so cool. Pretty sweet. Gracefully breaking the surface of the water. Water spray glittering in the air, doing a cool flip. Yeah. He does a sploosh? Sploosh. Mid-circle. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one.

Sploosh, mid-circle. Oh, and the sploosh like pinwheels through the air and the mud falls away. You land lightly on the bank of the river. Tuck slams into the bank next to you. I set Billy down. Billy, what do you do? This scary thing is still in the river, you think? And the water is flowing. The river is now moving. What is regular Billy doing? I think, so if we remember- Like dream Billy, I guess. Yeah, dream Billy.

So, I think we discussed how this is the most- It's the memory of Billy creating the Wittershins and the Sunwise and knitting the rivers. So I think he is beginning that process. The waters are beginning to rise and the river is twisting and turning. But it's also starting to lap over the banks and become a bit turbulent. I'm gonna do what dream Billy is doing. Oh, cool. Or at least what he was doing before where he plunges his hands into the silt of the river. Oh, cool. 2d6 plus wisdom. Eight.

So yeah, you plunge your hands into the clay and try and feel what you felt on that day to remember what did happen. And you know that in a few moments, the river is going to flood. In its attempt to connect with the other one, it is going to flood these banks completely. And that you know was not a danger for you at the time. But now that you are like visitors in this place at this time, it could be very dangerous for you and extremely dangerous for Tuck and Ving.

And then you also know that whatever is in the river that is coming was not a part of that day. This is a new thing. And you see the water start to like course. You look further up and you see like a swell coming down the course of the river. Guys, we got to move. Let's get out of here. I just have to do one last thing. Okay. I'm going to make a fairy ring around Dream Billy. Oh, interesting. To protect him. Okay. Just in case. Like I don't know how this works.

Strange that there's something new in this memory. Mm-hmm. Cool. Plus dexterity, 11. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So what kind of fairy ring do you make around Dream Billy? I sprint around him a few times and the weeds around the river kind of just like braid together around him. Nice. Cool. Is this a massive flood? Like, what? Is this a massive flood? It's a pretty sizable flood. Like the course of the river is being changed. Is it like the, if like a dam opens kind of flood? A little bit. Yeah. Okay.

Not quite as destructive, but destructive enough for the people standing right next to the river. Okay. Like Billy. Like Billy. But he's got this protective ring around him now. You can see he like settles into his task a little bit more comfortably almost. Like he is reacting to the ring around him. But the waters are coming and you feel Billy, whatever is in the river is also moving towards you. So you have to go. All right. Let's bolt. Okay. Defy danger however you're getting out.

Unless you have another move that'll help you escape. I might do escape route. Oh, smart. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. When I'm in too deep and need a way out, I name my escape route and I roll plus dex. Sick. Like Billy's just like, this is weird. It's like lucid dreaming. So Billy starts going to like play land in his head or whatever. And he's like, I mean, I could turn this into a hill. Oh yeah. And just pour us out. Seven. So what's the seven to nine?

I can stay or go, but if I go, it costs me something. I have to leave something behind or take something with me and GM decides. Oh, or take something with you. So obviously I'll go. Okay. So you create this, that you, you just turn where you are into a hill. That's like rolling you basically towards where you came in. Yeah. Okay. I think that tuck and Vings, uh, defy danger situation is that now the environment around you is a hill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you are like tumbling down this hill as Billy seems to just be gliding towards the edge of the dream. Okay. Yeah. I am going to try to maneuver so that I don't land on Billy, but to follow the lead that he's creating. So two D six plus, I guess, sounds like dexterity. Yeah. So that's six. I got six. I'll eight cause I got, I have a negative one next turn. I hate him by giving him a good push. Right.

Yeah 2d6 plus bond great I got eight okay cool okay so you just nudge tuck along and how are you getting out I'm also just gonna use dexterity and okay yeah he gets out he gets out by pushing me to the ground and riding me I wanted to do that earlier this is perfect tuck is like all right I'm gonna go into seal mode and then he tries to slide to the hill that really created it and he just went so I was like no no no no no it's a run and jump on his back and just blijow he has a looshing yeah yeah tucks a real looser I got 10 great the biggest looser so ving uh tuck runs and slides and just grinds to a halt on this hill like a penguin four feet ahead but ving leaps onto his back and the extra strength and weight helps tuck he's got one foot on his back and one foot on the mud the seven to nine tuck behind you you look you hear like a you think you you remember you could swear you remember hearing water pushed aside as something comes out of the river can I try and look back at what it is oh no you look back he rolls over yeah you roll over while Ving is riding you and now you're facing upwards I wish I had guns I mean it's a dream could like real bullets come out of your fingers yeah dream bullets yeah as like Ving is riding me it's like on my chest riding me down I want to look backwards and do and that's the sound Tuck makes because he's bad at sound effects it's like that assassin guy we met that one time so you swear you could remember the sound of the water then you swear you could see something coming out of it and you could swear you saw something come over the hill but it's like every time you see it you forget what you saw oh like a real dream like when you wake up from it yeah it's like you are only aware of where it is because you have realized you've forgotten seeing it can I use West Pennized Dissociation when you are subject to mind control you may choose to take 1d4 damage ignores armor and ignore the consequence you are also I want I want you to understand this you are currently fully under the control of a mind affecting potion okay if you are choosing to shake your mind free of an enchantment you could potentially shake your mind free of this entire situation and leave Ving and Billy behind I feel like I want to push and try and see what this thing is okay so you're taking 1d4 okay oh nope one one damage so I think what you see is very upsetting in that it is a long malleable looking being of some kind like a long central body of like an amorphous semi-solid looking fluid almost with a big mouth on the end of it no eyes and then a series of long arms on either side with like very human looking hands in spirited away that's exactly what I'm thinking about it's kind of like no eyes but like a long slug with like arms and legs weird that is weird crawling towards you very quickly with its mouth wide open Tuck freaks out and starts like scrabbling his legs to go faster yeah totally yeah and you have a distinct impression Tuck that as you try and break free of this obscuring effect that it has that it recognizes that you've done that Billy you're pushing everybody towards a new dream which dream are you picking things because I want a mom to protect us and Tuck's is really scary yeah totally mine is bad mine is really bad okay so you cross this like barrier there's the weird little like backstage area that you can see that's just like the black space there's people like craft service table yeah yeah yeah there's like a PA with a little headset and a clipboard that's like come on gesturing you towards the next dream these glasses or these glasses which one pick one we're already late we're already late we're behind there's a proper angler in there exactly no logos no get those you gotta get that polo shirt off we got a greek to the set and you get dumped from Billy's dream into this backstage space and then like tumble basically into Ving's dream for some reason as we go through the backstage area you hear Tuck's back squeak really loud against the floor yeah mud sounds into squeaking ah ooh oh you've got a little like uh like floor burn yeah I've got rug burn all down my back that's the one damage I do yeah rug burn yeah!

Um we discussed Ving that it is from the perspective of your mom but we didn't discuss what situation it was no so it's pre Ving Ving has not been born yet yeah and it is a dream that he's had many times that he thought maybe was from his perspective and so describe the scene she's in the canopy of a tree and she's studying this gigantic web and it looks like it goes on for acres oh massive web series of webs throughout the tree and she's taking parts of it and putting it into like a little satchel taking a sample and um she doesn't see it but there is a gigantic looming figure parting the branches behind her and approaching across the webs in the treetops like a giant spider maybe uh uh uh uh uh uh uh like a giant spider maybe you just see the rumblings and the web shaking and leaves parting and the sound of breaking branches and she's she's um just realizing that this thing is coming towards her out of the treetops oh right because this is a dream that your mom had oh right yes it is a dream not a not a historic event like like Billy's situation the ground is getting further and further away so this we come into in this frozen tableau and in the dream um she's trying to focus in on which direction the broken branches are coming from yeah and they're coming from they're like broken branches and wrestling over here over here from underneath from up above and there's a hummingbird flitting around her face oh in circles just buzzing around she can't get a bead on it's like distracting her or whatever it is busying her mind interesting so you come into this frozen tableau of Liliana and the web and these like broken branches leaves beginning to fall in the canopy and the hummingbird frozen in place like right in front of her face it's the only thing that's not frozen are its wings because they beat so fast oh so it's very slowly moving its wings cool but that means that all three of you are dumped into a canopy yeah tuck falls directly to the ground yeah I was gonna say what this tree is really high up you get dumped into this new dream and all of a sudden it is like you're surrounded by forest oh boy like Billy's dream where you were suddenly in a nice spring day you are suddenly in a forest in a tree top with no solid ground beneath you what do you do tuck immediately just tries to grasp for something yeah yeah 2d6 plus strength okay 12 12 perfect yeah you grab onto a branch yeah and you just hold yourself in place yeah it is ving is on top of me right yes where's Billy uh I think I'll I think oh I was ahead of you guys yeah um I'm gonna try to grab on to okay 2d6 plus strength I guess okay 10 oh wow holy shit I rolled 10 yeah wow sick so Billy shoots his little hand out yeah grabs onto tuck's love handles ah so fleshy we gotta clip your nails I'm sorry thank god you're in a bulk phase it's yeah it's so sharp yeah my back is red rash yeah my claws well not my claws your claws your little boy little boy claws my little uh baby face yes yes yes spear.

2d6 plus will wisdom, I guess. Nice. To summon your spear. What is that? 11. Okay, yeah. All of a sudden in your mind, your spear is in your hand. Land lightly on the haft of the spear. Cool. Wow. I think the fact that you all so incredibly succeeded is as you get dumped in whatever this fucking thing is, Tuck, you see it just like tumble through the treetops. It's like reaching out all its many hands to try and grab on, but it falls quite a distance.

You're not sure if it grabs on, but it is momentarily away. Yeah, and can I tell these guys what it was? Yeah, you can definitely try and describe it. There's like a big fat slug dick thing coming for us. The whole front of it is just a mouth and it looks like it wants to eat us or something. What? Yeah, and it looks long. Sorry. You have to have a better way to describe it. That's not that long. Can we just like step on it then or something? That seems really little. No, dude, it was huge.

It was huge. I don't know. I didn't see anything. Yeah, I've known you for years and I haven't seen anything. No, the thing was huge. Sorry, I just couldn't find a good metaphor, but it's really big. You're all safe for the moment. You can haul yourselves back up on the tree, branches. Can we bolt out of here using the canopy? Yeah, where are you trying to go? Can I go? I want to discern realities and see what my dream mom is doing. Cast around. Ten. Okay, three questions off the list.

What's valuable? So you're basically all three of you are kind of under this web. You've latched on. You're like underneath Ileana frozen in this dream that she's having. Oh, so we're like looking up through the canopy at the tableau? Up through the canopy at the web. The web like extends through the trees. Oh, okay. And you can see it hanging above you and Ving, you immediately recognize.

And Billy, you moments later recognize as you are done squeezing Tuck's love handle because it's safe and fun. Yeah. Ah, stop. Oh, sorry. I hold on to his loincloth instead. Oh, God. Oh, God. It's slippy, slippy, slippy. I just take you over and I put you on my shoulder. I'm sorry. That's definitely going to get infected. And you look up at the web and you can see the connections of the strands and they form constellations. Whoa. Holy shit. What's about to happen?

You've had this dream a million times. Like, you know, she is wondering where this thing is coming from. You look at all the broken branches and all the falling leaves that could be where it is approaching. And you realize the reason she's having such trouble determining the direction it's coming from is because it's coming from all of those directions. And through the canopy, massive midnight black spider legs are closing in through the canopy around her. Whoa. Holy shit. So cool.

Who's really in control here? Your mother had dreams about the Gibbous Man. What does that mean? Does that mean he's in control? Is that the answer to who's really in control? I think that is the answer to who's really in control. In terms of Ileana's dreams, she had dreams about the Gibbous Man. About spiders. Were they ported? Tentus dreams? Or was he in her head? You cannot determine that from this tableau. Someone gotta figure this out right now. I gotta do it. How? Let me roll something.

I mean, you can make intimations. Like, you can determine things. I intimate that I want to know. Tell me, dream. Dream, tell me what is real. What are you rolling here? Seven. But you didn't say what move you were rolling. I already told you that you wouldn't do anything. You rolled the dice anyway. I need to know so bad! Hey, you can, like, Tuck, you've seen this thing. You can make guesses. As to what, like, this dream is? Like, what this dream must be? Yeah. Hmm. Can I use druidic lore?

Yeah, you absolutely can. I want to be clear about something. There's the thing coming for us? There's a thing coming that you guys know is here and is after you. Okay. So you can spend time here and try and glean more information. But you are at risk. Tuck leans over to Ving and he's like, Ving, this thing, whatever is here is really important. You gotta figure it out. I'm gonna go down and fight that huge dick thing, okay? Okay, I mean, here, take this. He's sailing through the air.

He's already gone. Is Billy going with Tuck? Because Billy was on Tuck's shoulder. Oh, I'm coming with you. I'm fucking coming with you. Okay, cool. So we jump down to find this tree monster. And I would like to shoot first. As you're falling down on top of it? You stab Tuck. He's just not thinking. Actually, that bringing Billy with you actually makes a lot of sense because it means that this thing can't get the jump on you because Billy will know it's about to attack.

I say throw me like the good old days. Throw me. Okay, I'll throw you later, but I don't want to throw you at the forest floor from 200 feet up. You got it. We're having this fight as Tuck is shimmying down and his front now is getting a bunch of bark rash because he's trying to shimmy really fast and then he keeps falling a bit. Yeah. We're all getting slivers. I'm going, ah!

Every once in a while, like a knot from the tree catches on one of the obsidian chunks in your chest and just like tugs it. It's like getting a nipple ring pulled. Bing's looking down like, this mystery better be worth it. There's a lot of pressure on this moment in and out of the game. We're making so much noise as we crash. So not stealth. This sounds like a defy danger of some kind to get from up here to the forest floor without dying. Like constitution or something? I can do constitution.

Constitution if you're just taking the pain. Strength if you're trying to muscle your way down. No, I think it's grabbing and letting go, grabbing and letting go. I think I'm just taking it. That sounds like constitution. So, I got 14. Great. I got pretty bad. I rolled a two and a one. Four. Okay. Yeah, you're going to take some damage for sure. I think because you're like, you're holding on to tuck. So you're more getting battered around like a little backpack.

Like you're just slamming back and forth. Yeah. When he like hits a branch, you know how they kind of spread apart? Yeah. They flip back on Billy every time. Keep whacking. Yeah. Roll a d6. Three. Three. Three damage. Yeah. And you got some scrapes and some bloody cheeks as you… I think so many black eyes. Yeah. I guess I only have two eyes. So many though. Yeah, but this is a dream. Tuck lands on a low branch and you know, hangs onto the trunk and you just wait. Yeah, go into predator mode.

Yeah. I grab some of this dark sap spilling from the trees. I wipe it on my face to blend in. It's my blood. It's Tuck's blood. I found this dark, dark sap. Oh, okay, whatever. You should have some too. Oh, gross. Nope. Cool. Okay, so you are standing here predator mode on the branch. I'm a posed like a crouching cat with its back all arched and stuff. And this is an interesting combo because Tuck can see this thing. Billy can't see this thing, but he has like a danger sense. Oh, yeah.

As you're waiting, you're standing here for a few seconds and Billy, you could swear you remember and have just forgotten the sound of something up and behind you. So I'd like to shoot first. I would like to use my fairy dust so that it kind of covers it and then we can track it. Oh, I see. Okay, so you're just trying to make it visible. Yeah. You could use a fairy hold for this, like an illusion. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'll do an illusion.

You could just like create a bunch of glittery dust. Yeah. And have it like move through that. Sure. So you could just bend a hold on that. Oh, sure. Yeah. So you throw your hand out and there's like glittery dust kind of in this dream in front of you. Yeah, it's dark. And then just off to the right, you swear you remember there being fairy dust there. And now there's just a hole. Over there, Tuck. Do you see it? Yeah. Oh, wait. You can already see it. I guess this is just for me.

Yeah, it is helping Billy. That's pretty much it. That's so dumb. That was a good thing though that now we can both see it. Yeah. And Tuck, you see this thing creeping through the trees all its many two human hands with two long fingers pulling itself over a branch. I think I just want to like throw the axe at it. Try and like fucking slice it hard. Very cool. Slice hard. Yeah. Gotta slice it hard, man. Yeah. Tuck wants to say something cool. So like as he spins, he like goes, thanks, Billy.

And he spins around. He throws the axe and he's like, eat axe, bitch. Cut or uncut, bro. Oh, right. Yeah. You look like an uncircumcised dick. Got him. God, yeah. Billy looks way embarrassed. I can't believe you said dick around me. Hack and sledge? Uh, sounds like volley because you're throwing it. Okay, 2d6 plus dexterity? Yep. Five. Yeah. Oh no. So you hurl the axe forward. It glows with the light of a million crystals as it spins through the air towards this horrible beast.

And we're gonna cut up to Ving. Ving, you're below this spiderweb of constellations above you. You see your mother. Can I discern the realities to read the constellations? Consult my druidic lord to know what the constellations say? You can certainly try to your semi-trained druidic eye. It seems like this is a reflection of the sky. Like this is a reflection of the night sky. So you're saying I could use night moves when I spend time contemplating the movement of the stars in the night.

Roll plus wisdom. On the 10 plus, the GM will answer one question. And then what's on the 7 to 9? You'll ask me. A question in return. I think before we roll, this is a move where before we roll this, I want to know what you're trying to determine. Yeah, I don't know. No idea. What am I trying to determine here? She had this dream where she was like trying to do stuff tree related or like gather information. She's in over her head. She's already caught in the web. So maybe she's involved.

Well, there's like a lot of questions around what your parents had to do with like the gibbous. Yeah. Is this like because your mom was a wizard, right? Yes. But she became a wizard, right? Because she was definitely a druid. I thought she was pretending to be a druid. Yeah, she was a wizard who was pretending to be a druid. Yeah. To hide out. And then I think she like just became culturally a druid as she was hiding in Hibernia.

Because like I imagine there's at some point she's like studying all this. And maybe this is like when she uncovers like the gibbous band stuff. Oh, because she's a wizard. And if she was getting interested in druidic stuff, that's what the constellations represent. Yeah. And this could be like her figuring out how to read these stars before they were obscured, like properly obscured. And seeing in that the story of the gibbous band and the obscuring.

And learning something she shouldn't have known. Because her druid eyes only. Yes. And she loved trees. And she was like a studier of the trees. And her wizardry maybe was that of growth because she grew somebody and growth of trees like she grew a person. That she early detected the gibbous man's influence in the tree of knowledge. And did she go searching then in the stars for like more of that story? Well, I think she ended up finding it maybe. Yeah. Through her dream. Right.

Because the fact that this dream exists means that your mom knew about spider and hummingbird. Which are like deep foundational like cosmic entities. She could have purposely like bequeathed this dream to you. It's part of the gift she gave in my creation. And part of the reason why she made him in the first place to be this moving target for the gibbous man.

She found out the gibbous man is trying to destroy all druidic knowledge and obscure the minds of everyone by getting the knowledge tree which is a central thing where everybody knows where it is. But by making that separate and putting it in a person, a wandering idiot, then she might have created Ving as a way to like protect knowledge. Yeah. Because she knew it was being destroyed by the gibbous man. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very interesting idea. She needed something to wander. To keep it safe.

Yeah, keep it moving. Because it's like too vulnerable if it's planted in the ground. Yeah. Where like some people see Ving as a weapon. She saw you as like. A vault. A vault. Yeah. Yeah. And I like that she made him a shapeshifter or the ability to change because of whatever she put in him so that he would constantly be moving and changing and like the gibbous man wouldn't be able to get a bead idea. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I really like it. Yeah. Yeah. That's very, very cool.

So now let's roll and see how much of this actually takes. Yeah. Is this the druidic lore? It's either druidic lore or you were talking about night moves like reading the constellation in the webs. Oh yeah. I like using the consult the trove of ancient knowledge within me because it's what she put in me. Yeah. This is her experiences and her dream that she put in me. Okay. So 2d6 plus wisdom. Yeah. And I got a 10. Okay. Holy shit. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah.

So what is a 10 on 10 plus on druidic lore on a hit? The GM will ask you a question about the subject. So is the question basically just making everything that we just talked about like true in some way? You betcha. Okay. So you're looking at your mother and as you perceive her in this dream, that's when she's sort of comes to life and you see the dream as she dreamt it and you can see her looking out over this web and you can see her reading the constellation.

One eyes or look at the horizon or other hand is reading the constellations almost like Braille. She's like, yeah, moving her hand along the web like she's being vigilant of like the danger that she knows is coming. But as she is reading the constellations, her hand brushing over the webs so desperate to glean the knowledge that they contain. She is alerting the spider. She can't help herself. She needs to know. Oh, cool. Cool metaphor. I like that. There's a great metaphor. Thanks, man.

Thank you. And that's when you can see the legs closing in around her as hummingbird seems to attempt to warn her away. She brushes hummingbird out of her face. Oh, shit. And the legs close around her and Ving falls. Yeah. Whoa. Because the legs take over and snap his spear, his dream spear. Oh, yeah. And you are falling through the trees far below. Tuck your axe as it sails towards this thing.

It opens its mouth wide and the axe lands like hits it right in the like soft its mouth is really weird in that there's no throat. It's just an opening and it hits the mouth and disappears. Okay. All right. Avoid mouth. Billy, do you still want me to throw you? Throw me. Are you fucking serious? Okay. Okay. Do this thing. Okay. Pretend to throw me, but don't actually throw me. I need you to throw, you know, to pretend to throw. Okay. Aim it at it. Okay. Yeah.

So I go and I pretend I go no, my and it's like it's like moving back and forth, like up the tree kind of positioning itself. Well, you're not going to be able. To swallow my son like what am I doing? And then he goes to pretend to throw Billy, but he does the thing where you when you wheel back, you let go and then I throw an empty hand. Billy's out of sight behind you.

I've dropped Billy behind me and then I've I've just like pretended to throw like when you trick a stupid dog like banjo stupid idiot banjo boy banjo. He's over here. He's asleep here or dead. There's no way to tell his eyes are open. He's crying. I think this is going to be for context audience banjos. My wife's dog and he's got the soul of a murderer in him. That's how much you love Aaron. I love my wife so much. Marry her despite her dog murderous dog reference listeners.

That's my wife's dog. Not my dog. My dog. My dog's over here. Her name is Kaylee and she never fart. Her shit doesn't stink. You've said it several times today. So I think this is charisma to fight in your charisma because you're trying to trick this thing. Oh, right. Okay. Sorry. You're talking to me. Yeah, I'm talking to you. The game we're playing. Yeah, six plus three is nine. Okay, nine. So it will not be tricked for long, but for a second like a stupid dog. Can I aid as Ving is falling?

He says he sees what he sees Billy go behind him. He goes. No, don't throw our son. Yeah, duty six plus bond. Oh, I failed. Okay, I got five. No, don't help our son. He just falls straight down to the canopy floor. He gets the wind knocked out of him as he hits the forest floor. Just lying on your back. Oh my God. I would like to do shadow dance. Oh, interesting. That's why I wanted him to throw me. Yeah, it's just when you drop me Billy is lifeless. I killed him. Oh, you threw spirit Billy.

Yeah. Oh, that's kind of cool. That is cool. Okay. So read out shadow dance. It's been a while. Oh, yeah. When you attempt to enter the ferry, spend a hold and roll plus wisdom on a seven to nine. You leave your body and enter the fairy world as your pure essence and take one hold on a 10 plus take three holds. You may spend a hold one for one to move and act in the way only fairies can. When you spend your final hold, you return to your body immediately. All right, cool.

So go ahead and roll it. Oh, fucking hell for I would like to use another fairy child to turn a failed roll to a seven to nine. Oh, yes. Okay. Great. So it's a seven to nine. So you get one hold. Yeah. And your lifeless body drops behind tuck onto the branch that he's standing on and he whips your fairy form through the air. What do I see? What does this monster look like in the fairy world? Oh, the dream fairy. World. Yeah, that's the thing, right? Because we're in the dream.

I think this is a very unusual feeling like you expect like, oh, I've been to the fairy a million times. I know what it feels like, but you're like static right now. It's almost like if you're in the material and you go to the fairy, which is like the world behind the world, you are leaving the dream and going to like the subtext. You know what I mean? Like it's like just raw meaning behind the dream. It's raw meaning. That's where I'm going. Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, cool.

What do you see was a monster? So the monster, I think very upsettingly is the only thing in sharp focus here. That makes sense. It is the form that Tuck saw this long slug like creature with like an inconsistent amount of too long, too skinny human looking arms and then a wide open mouth. But everything around you, you see this forest is not a forest. This is the feeling of being lost, being unsure, like searching for something.

And then right in the center of it is this horrible HD fucking 4K slug monster. But it seems like it is less subtextual than everything here. Like it is real almost. And also you see the subtext around it fading as if it's being eaten away. Whoa. The worm thing is being eaten away? No, the subtext around the worm thing is being eaten away. It is eroding the dream. Okay, I will Spout Lore then. Okay, 2d6 plus intelligence. Five. Fuck. That's a failure. You know what?

I'm using my last fairy childhood. Okay, seven to nine. Okay, so interesting but not useful. What is this thing? Interestingly, you suddenly you remember, unfortunately, a lecture that Perel was forcing you to be a part of. Oh yeah, I'm back in the Margani library. Oh yeah, you're back in the Margani library. It is when Perel was trying to get his magic back and he was going through every possible option. And Billy was basically like a dictaphone that didn't take any notes. Yeah.

Where Perel just felt like he was doing more if he was telling you what he was thinking. And I've been sitting here for 45 full minutes. And I think you were helping him because you can read runes. Yeah. Like you can read old fairy runes.

And you remember him talking about oh well maybe I can't Oh well maybe I can't Oh well maybe I can't Oh well maybe I can't Oh well maybe I can't Oh well maybe I can't Oh well maybe I can't Oh well maybe I can just ingest an anerophage and that will clear out whatever mental block I'm having that's stopping me from accessing my magic. Oh. So it's a dream eater? Hmm. What if I offered it like Tuck's dream? Oh. How would you feel about that? Yeah. I think this is a great idea.

Can I approach this gross worm? Uh-huh.

So you kind of float towards it and you're very shadow form yeah yeah it snaps out at you it can't quite come off the branch but it's like biting up at you what are you following us for it does not speak but you swear you could remember it saying I'm hungry for something that we have or for us you are fresh okay so I'd like to barter with it Billy knows that we haven't visited Tuck's dream yet and he knows that that's the one that like plagues Tuck and wants to be rid of it so I'd like to offer if the gross worm leaves us alone I will lead it to that dream fuck yeah hell yeah that's great there's something more delicious than us yeah okay yeah roll 2d6 plus charisma for what to convince it oh because it does want to eat you okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay!

Yes yes um I agree and it some of its legs like pull back into it and it just has it just has four now and it sort of lowers itself out of this predatory pose creepy so you tuck and ving as you'll ving from the forest floor where you're like is everyone okay yeah I did the throw and then I saw it start to like do weird dance things as it was talking to billy and I was like I'm just sitting on the branch I was like something's happening now I don't know what it is to talk beside the branch like holding his chest like is he in there oh yeah because billy's like laying right there like yeah just mouth wide open totally passed out brain like wipes a bit of spit off of his chin yeah he's doing something I don't know man put some wool under his head he's doing something then billy does the dog thing where his his arms and legs start going a little bit yeah he goes oh he's running oh he's running oh god he's running this is a nightmare oh it's bad is billy going back to his body at all or is he staying in the ferry um maybe I will go back to my body because it'll be then you guys can talk to me okay billy returns to his body and the anero fade settles like on the on the trunk of the tree like like a gecko and it bends its weird head back and says uh we have reached an agreement whoa you talk whoa holy shit what agreement have you made billy okay well I talk I don't know how you feel about this but he promised it would leave us alone if I let it if I took it to your dream so that I could eat it oh yeah that's yeah that's a good that's great okay I wasn't sure you know I didn't want it to eat ving's dream it seemed pretty important so this thing just eats dreams I think so and he said something gross like we are fresh or whatever I think he meant like we like there's fresh stuff in our brain in our minds I don't know I will stop what becomes of the dreams you eat they are made nothing yeah that's perfect I don't see any downsides to this let's do it night echoes the day it's perfect yeah if you guy and he points at the monster if you guy want to get rid of the dream that I keep having every night that would be great because then I don't have to think about it anymore all right do you can I ride on your back I got really bad carpet rash on my back sliding through the liminal space between our dreams and I'm really cut up on my front uh billy you are reminded of the fact that anything that was in like contact with this thing in the subtextual realm was being eroded tuck I don't think you should touch it honestly it's pretty fucked up tuck takes some granola and throws it at the side of the thing so you throw some granola and it's gross like boneless body like nose by neck like spins around and snaps the granola okay and it disappears okay yeah I won't touch it fresh all right yeah fresh fresh is best come on always fresh that's us come on with us you start climbing out of the trees yeah yeah that's funny that like the level of how you got in perceptively is now way above you yeah you kind of fell down in the dream there's like a door like 10 feet above the canopy that is the liminal yeah totally we have to get on each other's shoulders to get up uh vings on tuck and billy's on ving and tucks on billy oh yeah and then and then gross dick worms on ving and then we're we're just like don't think about it if we don't think about it then it doesn't fail just don't think about it cartoon rules yeah you just have to just know that makes sense yeah you know just don't make sense until we get out and then we can think about how it doesn't make sense looney tune style that's all that matters yep yeah and you climb up the tree now that you aren't like at desperate risk of uh your mental lives you're able to reach the backstage space and you see before you the uh gray and black smoking expanse of tuck's recurring nightmare this fucking thing and you see the anirophage like lift its head like it's a little things yeah yeah smell the the yellow sulfuric sulfuric smoke that you talked about like goes into like where nostrils maybe yeah totally it swells yeah so what do you do I talked to the thing to the anirophage the thing the monster and yeah can you hold off on eating it like fully until I go figure something out it's probably gonna be a roll okay 26 plus charisma I'll give you this granola that you seem to like because it was so so then this is a parlay okay 2d6 plus charisma for parlay oh oh shit dude that sucks oh okay so I get so that's three and I have plus three so I get six I'll aid oh how are you aiding uh ving has a three egg omelet from the station that he's gonna offer up yeah one of the omelets yeah from the dreams uh the from the this morning you brought an omelet into the dream yeah I went to sleep I fell asleep with an omelet in my pocket because I always keep omelets around for billy because he gets hungry on the go get a pocket full of omelets 2d6 plus yeah plus bond they're just quail egg omelets they're really small really little it's a three egg omelet but it's so tiny tiny oh nice I got 10 nice all right seven to nine you say I'll give you some of that granola and it looks towards the dream and it looks back towards you and nods its giant sluggy head and says on a moose boosh then cool and it kind of settles down on its it's really okay you know like how dogs sit on their back legs where like their knees their back knees are bent and the legs are straight it looks like a person doing that oh is how it sits oh great the limbs are just like a hand out towards you oh tucks already poured it on the ground of the liminal space and it's like a way too big pile because he dumped his backpack out and it just went dumped for so long and it's a thing puts a tiny omelet on top and it's long slug and it goes quails a delicacy quails do not dream what and its head reaches up and it till it just like it doesn't move its body but its head keeps moving like a slinky yeah and as its mouth touches the pile it doesn't chew it just like the shit disappears as it touches the mouth you better do what you need to do quick okay yeah I go into the dream all right I go with you should I go or should I stay with this thing uh maybe don't stay with no billy get away from the game come with us billy's like trying to be brave but he's like shaking like do I stay he's shaking so hard he's like sliding across the ground so you step into tux dream yeah all three of you leaving the narrowfage behind backstage and um just like every other dream the second you step into it you are surrounded by it you are now on a vast and blasted plane of gray stone and black sand and the other ones like whether details were fuzzy or weird this one is not like it's sharp yeah painful hot smelly yeah you can feel the jagged rocks like cutting through your boots and it's not like still oh yeah everything is moving immediately the sky is boiling yeah smoke is pouring out of the earth and at the top of the hill the tree burns it's like a destroyed castle kind of thing like sort of in the middle distance cool like halfway up the hill oh yeah neat okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay keep having this dream over and over again and then tuck looks to the top of the hill at the burning tree and he sees like the figure that's like standing underneath it and he's like also who the fuck is that and this is the figure that uh has newly begun well relatively newly yeah begun appearing in the dream yeah so how do I figure this out it's a good question I mean you know you see yourself because this is a non-static dream you see of an image of yourself trudging up the hill yeah you know the only way to get to the top is to get to the top okay so tuck starts to run okay uh duty six plus constitution uh to just take the I'll just take the pain yeah 2d6 plus con and can I use it unbound I'm bent I'm broken when you prepare yourself to endure some hardship without fighting back roll plus con on a hit you can either take half damage or you can completely ignore one other I'll effect on a 10 plus you also defeat expose or frustrate your oppressor with your stubbornness yeah you could use it potentially to take less damage okay I'm not sure unless like how would you envision you uh defeating exposing or frustrating this situation I guess like if I get a 10 plus I was like I want to use like the level to which I'm just letting it batter me to like learn something about it.

Oh, I see. Yeah. Interesting. Because it's exposed. I want it to expose itself to me. Alright. Wow. Expose. Expose it. Expose yourself to me, dream. Give it to me. Expose yourself first. Do you guys wait at the bottom? I want to follow behind but not as close. I want to give you space. Yeah, give you some distance. But we need to like keep up just in case because things were popping off on ours. Yeah.

I think by going slow behind him, you are not exposing yourself to the same level of harm currently. Yeah. You're like picking your way through. So yeah, Tuck takes a breath and starts to run. And as it gets steeper and steeper it just becomes like scrambling. Okay, that's bad. Okay, so one and three plus constitution is seven. Okay. Not bad. So you can take half damage or ignore another I'll effect. Okay, I'll ignore one other I'll effect. Okay, then let's talk about it.

What is usually the effect of Tuck being like lacerated by this hill in his dream? Like what is it obscure? I think in this place I can't ignore the pain as well. And I also like it makes it hard for me to think. I guess that's one thing that happens like this perspective on the dream is more information than he's ever gotten about it because he's like it's like kind of like he has blinders on when he's in it. Totally.

So I think if you ignore the I'll effect of that like overwhelming nature of the dream that makes analyzing it difficult. I think like you're using this pain that you're feeling to sharpen your focus. Do I have to take damage? You have to take a D10. Okay. 10. Holy shit. Do you die? No, no, no. I have 16. Oh my God. Do I have armor? Not in your dream. Holy shit. Tuck is thrashing around on the floor. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Burning out of his mouth. Like like the matrix.

Yeah, I imagine he like yeah, he's clenches his teeth and just like blood comes out of his lips. Yeah, like the other two dreams are so fine. Like Morris and Pearl are like just having tea like we cut back and they put us in beds. They're drinking. How are they? Oh, they're still tripping. They're fine. Yeah. And then immediately tuck pukes a bunch of like to roll him over. So he doesn't ask for it. Oh my God. They put him in a recovery position. It's like so chill till that point.

Yeah, totally. So you're just a triage situation. Morris came in like a big cookie cookies in the air. They jump off the sheet. Holy shit. Nurse page nurse page and then you hear code blue code blue in the observation area. A bunch of pages running with a crash made out of paper clear so tuck you are like hand over hand scrambling up this hill. Yeah, that it feels like you've scrambled up countless times before, but now it feels really real.

Yeah, and you can feel the stone biting into your flesh and the sand grating against the cuts. And by the time you get to the top, you're feeling layer after layer of your fogged perception be lathed away by this pain and you reach the mount. I've never been up here before. You've never made it this far, right? Because you see your family and your friends all tumble into a crevasse on your way up and it's like that's where the dream ends is everything cracks and shatters and like sinks.

So he's actually never made it to the top. Whoa. Yeah. Okay. And at the top, the pain has made all things clear. Billy and Bing, what are you doing down? You see Tuck scrambling up this hill and you see that he is wounding himself in the climb. And he's got to, he's reached the top. He eventually pulls himself over the edge. He's following the image of himself over the top. Oh, crazy. Yeah. Like Billy wants to go after him, but he gets this feeling like, oh no, he does need to do this alone.

But I want to let him know that we're behind him, but without distracting him. Maybe it could send up a signal somehow. Get hit in the back with a rock? No. So funny. Looks at it, gets ready to throw. No. It could send some below the wisps. Oh, that's so cute. I mean, I did mine already. Yeah. Bing throws a rock in my back and then I hear a little like cat. Yeah. You see a little cat light follow you? Do I need to roll to see if I don't hit him? I'm trying to get close with it.

I think it's enough to know that you're there. You know, the rock sails up. Bing has good enough aim that he's not just going to kill Tuck. Picks up the softest rock. It's very sharp. Kisses it and throws it right at Tuck. Yeah. And it like hits the top like the ridge just as Tuck is climbing over and he sees it tumble back down. And then he hears the jingling bell sound. It's kind of heart shape. You know, you find a rock. Oh, yeah. Tuck puts it in his pocket.

And he hears the jingling bell sound. And you see the end of the bill of the wisp padding up beside him. And you reach the top. And you see the burning tree smoldering, towering, but somehow smaller than you expected. You see yourself approaching a figure at the base of the tree. The figure is just standing in front of the trunk like looking up at the burning branches. Does the figure have detail? What is it? Just a silhouette?

It was a silhouette in every other instance of Tuck observing it, but because of the focus he feels right now, he sees it clear. He sees a red tracksuit, a broad muscular back, long black hair, and at his side, a chain with a stone ball on the end. Holy shit! Whoa! What a stupid thing to find at the time. It's just a big muscular guy I love that. Your frenemy? Yeah. And you see, Tuck, this is the thing. Is this dream has, you've never reached this point in the dream.

I've never gotten to the top. So you watch yourself approach, and you haven't seen him in a while. You know it's him. His hair's different. He's dressed differently. He looks totally different. But it's Fatim. Yeah. As Dream U approaches this figure, he turns and you see dark skin and the glint of a sunstone eye in the side of his head. And then they begin to fight. Whoa. What? Why? Why? Dream Tuck and Fatim, make eye contact, and it's like they agreed to meet here.

You swing the axe a couple times in front of you, roll your shoulders, you know, crack your neck, and Fatim starts spinning his tetherball. Whoop. Whoop. Whoop. And you make the first move. You rush forward. Fatim swings his ball in a huge meteor arc at you. You, like, dodge out of the way at the last second. It still clips you in the shoulder. You drop to a knee almost for a second, and you turn that momentum into a bull rush. You slam into his chest.

His heels slide back in the sand, and then he stops your charge. He throws you back, brings the ball behind him, and up, down, over his head like a comet. The Dream Tuck tries to, like, deflect it with the axe, but he doesn't move fast enough, and you hear it crunch against his arm. Oh, yeah. Like, breaking it. And he's swinging. He's trying to keep his arm out of the way now. Your broken arm, you're trying to keep it out of the way. And you've got the axe in a close grip under the head.

You're using it like a punching weapon now. You're trying to get inside Fatim's range. He's got range on you with the ball chain. So you come in, and he doesn't expect you to get in this close this quickly. It's like you're faster than he remembers. And you punch towards his chest, and he tries to, like, pull the chain taut in front of him. He tries to wrap it around the haft of Larry Terry and Chad. Uh-huh.

And it's like he stops it for a second, and you lean into the axe, and the amethyst spike digs into his chest. You're pushing Fatim back, like, a step by a step towards the burning tree. Like, I pin him against the trunk. Like a smoldering tree? Yeah. And Tuck, you, separated from this fight, can see something that you can't in the dream. Uh-huh. Fatim drops the ball into his right hand. Oh. And brings it up. Uh-huh. Oh! Towards the side of your head. And you are laid out on the ground.

Your only working arm reaching out towards Larry Terry and Chad, where it's been knocked from your grip. How does this end? Uh, okay. Tuck is, like, dazed. He's, like, trying he's, like, scrambling to, like, grab TLC. What is Fatim doing? Yeah, he's still got the ball in his hand, but he's pressed his other hand against the massive wound in his lung. It's spurting a little bit, like coughing. Yeah.

Yeah, every every breath, every cough, every beat of his heart, there's more blood pouring out of him. And he's stumbling towards you with a rock in his hand. You see him drop the ball thunk! Into the sand. Uh-huh. The chain still in his grip. Tuck, like, he's dazed. He's reaching for the axe and he, like, finally makes contact with it, grabs the haft and goes to swing it at Fatim and then Fatim uses the ball, swings it at the axe, and it connects with the handle and cracks it in half. Whoa.

The head of the axe, like, falls in the rock and Fatim picks it up and slices across Tuck's face. Oh my god. And Tuck loses the other eye from Fatim. And then Fatim reaches into his pocket and he pulls out an obsidian coin and he flicks it and takes the axe and shatters the coin in front of Tuck. And the coin, as it shatters, freezes in place. And the dream with it. This seems to be, to Tuck's knowing, the end of the dream.

And as the coin pulls back into reform in the way that we've seen before, strands of the dream go with it. The tree, the blasted landscape, the rocks, the smoke, everything sucked into this coin until we're left with nothing but blackness and a single white coin hanging in the air. And then it drops to the ground with a heavy clink. It does not bounce. And you're all back. Suddenly, in this backstage space, a black expanse behind knowing, behind dreams, behind thought.

And the anerophage pads forward, gives the coin a and consumes it. And as the anerophage lifts its horrid mouth off the floor of this backstage space, it looks to the three of you and says, Our deal is done. And you wake. Covered in blood. Like, what do I see? Bing wakes up screaming. I have so many tubes in my mouth. Yeah, Bing wakes up. We wake up like we're inside the Matrix. And I think that's where we're going to end the episode for this week. I'm your Game Master, Sean O'Hara.

Perel is like crying. They're praying over us and weeping. They're gone. Morris is screaming at him to do some medical procedure and Perel's crying. Victor's like, they were that stupid. They were actually pretty cool. Eight pages gathered around your bodies holding little paper flowers. They're feeding us into an incinerator. Whoa, whoa, whoa. These guys were fine. They were fine. They were just like, they would want to go together. Oh, man. All right. I've been your Game Master, Sean O'Hara.

Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So long. Playing Ving, the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Hoppers. Take care. Playing Fat Billy, the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone. Thank you to all of our supporters around the world. If you would like to support the show and get access to a bonus campaign set in the High Spear Mall, merch, gift boxes, maybe even a game, run by Abdul or myself. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

You can check us out at speltlor.com slash money, please, or patreon.com slash speltlor. Thank you to Aaron Reed for our intro and outro music. You can find Aaron Reed's original music on bandcamp.com and all of the music produced for Speltlor on Spotify. Thank you, finally, and most of all, to all of you for listening. We'll see you next time.

And so ends the tale of Adventures Three who tried the best they can to find their way and the bottom of the mountain and the bottom of the mountain and the bottom of the mountain and the bottom of the mountain and the bottom of the mountain 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 to your home or do your chores And for you I'd gladly Speltlor

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

Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts. So gather round friends, and listen close, for the tale's about to start. Hello everybody and welcome to Spoutlord. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello everybody. Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. Good day. And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Hello.

When last we left our heroes, they were deep, deep in the mental subconscious of Fat Billy the Halfling Thief. In Billy's dream, the party was accosted by a, for a short time, invisible and hard to pin down creature that Tuck used his ability to kill. To dissociate from any situation, anywhere, anytime. To discover the presence of what is known as an aneurophage. A half physical, half mental creature that consumes the dreams of the people that it inhabits.

To escape the flooding and the aneurophage, Billy used escape route to turn the dreamscape into a muddy slide that he effortlessly coasted down. Tuck attempted to effortlessly coast down this slide as well. Landing on his face at a dead stop until Ving rode him like a skateboard down the hill. Sick. Surely a tried and tested escape tactic for the party. Kick flipped him through the backstage area and directly into Ving's dream. Did a manual on his face. Yeah.

Right into Ving's dream, which took place high, high in a tree canopy and featured his mother, Ileana, observing a wide and far reaching dream. The dream was a spider web, the nodes of which created the night sky and constellations. And as she touched the spider's web, she was being cautioned against it by a dream version of Hummingbird that she batted away. But every step she took, every touch she made on the web alerted the great spider that lurked in the canopy above.

From this we gleaned the fact that Ileana must have known about the Gibbous Man during her time on this earth. And may have conceived Ving as a method of protecting the knowledge of the druids for future generations. That was so cool. It was pretty sick. And during this, Billy and Tuck attempted to keep the Onerophage at bay. Ending with Billy entering the fairy world via shadow dance to negotiate with the Onerophage to leave them alone in exchange for fully consuming Tuck's cataclysm dream.

Which is a pretty powerful negotiation. Yeah. A negotiation tactic. It was pretty good. Yeah. Getting what the party wanted and having a temporary ally or at least a truce, a ceasefire with the Onerophage. They carried on to Tuck's cataclysm dream, which Tuck got to see the entirety of for the very first time. And the last time. And the last time. Yeah. Oh man, the dream is gone. Yeah. That's such a huge consequence.

I also established that the side effect of this is that Tuck just doesn't dream anymore. Oh shit. Right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was what I think Perel suggested was that if this works this way, then you just will never dream again. Mm-hmm. Oof. Tuck carried on up the hill alone following his dream self while Ving and Billy stayed behind. Billy sending up the bill of the wisp, the light cat, to give Tuck some companionship on his way. And Ving throwing a heart-shaped rock at him.

And Ving, as Tuck crested the hill himself, and for the very first time was able to see the figure which lurks beneath the tree at the top of the hill in his dream, finding Fadum Adam. Yeah. Yeah. With his sunstone eye and his red tracksuit. Which is an interesting thing because that means that in the dream is a modern version of Fadum. Yeah. One that Tuck doesn't have knowledge of. Yeah. Yeah. And he's surprised and impressed by the tracksuit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Did you get that on T-Mu?

And what Tuck observed from there was his dream self approaching Fadum and the two of them just laying into each other. Yeah. A very brutal fight which ended with Tuck losing an eye before Fadum snaps Larry, Terry, and Chad, taking the broken ax and smashing an obsidian coin with it. Oh, and during the fight, Tuck was able to see the figure. Oh, and during the fight, Tuck in the real world was taking very serious real damage. Yeah. It took 10 points of damage. Oh, good God. It's armor defeating.

Yeah. A lot of damage. But the coin then consumed the dream, landing in the backstage area which was consumed by the oneirophage. The dream ended and the party returned to the waking world, finding themselves in a very stressful ER situation as Morris and Pharrell were just certain that they were going to die. Yeah. We're just certain that the three of you were going to die. But that is where we find our heroes now.

Are we coming to right in the middle of this situation or are we jumping forward a little bit? Maybe we've got like, you know, you all have the foil emergency blankets around your shoulders. Oh, yes. Yeah. Hot cocoa. We're all drinking cocoa. Yeah. We're roasting marshmallows in the fireplace. Yes. Nice. Yeah. Vince made a little mini foil hat. Yeah. Like a sailor's hat out of foil. You think it looks like a sailor's hat. You look like one of those crazy guys. Yeah.

Good luck getting into my mind, Gibbous man. Oneirophage. Stay away from me, GM. It's keeping the oneirophage out, you think? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny. And Pharrell's flipping through a book and he's like, I actually think that since the egg was in your mind that if you keep the foil on it might actually keep the oneirophage in. He smacks the book out of his hand. Okay. All right. That's the problem, man. I'm so proud of them, man. What's in this cocoa, man?

By the way, I have six hit points. Okay. Yeah. We're going to take a rest today. Every time we've tried to make camp, we've ended up… Because we got into the dream thing because Jessica was like, I have an idea for a way that we can earn back our hit points while also getting information. And we were like, that's a great idea, Jessica. Let's do it. You're decimated. I'm like, that's not… Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm like, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I threw dream rocks at you. I'm so sorry. That's what did it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I guess, yeah, I guess what I'm wondering is what now? What is the point we find the heroes at? Yeah. Tuck has some questions. Yes. That he wants answered. So Tuck is, he's been furiously drawing on a giant pad and then he turns around and you see what light is coming out of it.

And then he's like, I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I can't see anything.

And then he's like, he's been furiously drawing on a giant pad and then he turns around and you see what looks like a child's drawing of Fatim and he's like, this is what he looked like for some reason he was wearing this sick track suit and he had his awesome braid through his hair and a lot of detail in the crotch. It's very prominent ball looks like it's straining against the fabric. Why is there only curious Kuro here? Am I? Am I in love with Fatum?

But yeah, it's weird that this is not how I remember Fatum. Yeah, so Perel's like making notes on a little notepad that he has. What are you writing down? Oh, uh, I don't want to say. Let me see that. It's just a drawing. It's a better drawing of Fatum? Yeah, but the bulge is even more prominent in this one. It's so much hotter. It's detailed. You can see his abs straining against the fabric of his tracksuit. Yeah, the tracksuit is open and in like an early 2000s.

Like an early 2000s R&B music video. So cool. Morris is also drawing. They're drawing each other now. Alright, everyone just stop drawing for a second. Morris has got a plate of mashed potatoes in front of him and he's holding his hands up on either side and the potatoes are kind of morphing. You can see them folding themselves into a statue of Fatum. The encounters of the third kind. This Fatum guy is sounding pretty cool. Now Perel's getting jealous.

Perel sees that and he's like, alright, everybody stop. Stop, stop, stop. Okay, so what? That's troubling. Wolf, you know, I wouldn't burden yourself with trying to think about what that might mean. The other thing that was weird was that the dream got sucked into an obsidian coin. I mean, that could be weird or it could just be a dream construct. Could be something that you've been thinking about because you have experience with the coins. So that it could just be part of the subconscious.

You guys, uh, you guys can talk to Aquaria, right? Yes. Yeah. And Morris goes, why? Why? What have you heard? What? You haven't been in our workshop, have you? No. What? Uh, and Perel like puts a hand on Morris's shoulder. It's not important. We look at each other and run for the workshop. No, no, no. Push Morris to the ground. Can I roll? You do not have to roll to push Morris to the ground. No. Don't roll because if you… You're gonna get experience and you're gonna level up too fast.

There is no reason… Stay guys. Yeah, great. Well, it's too bad that you didn't say what move you were using. It was a six and a five. I succeeded. Awesome. I think Morris does at one point. Like as Tuck starts running away, he throws his hand out and the floor just like jerks back under Tuck's feet. Tuck tripped like one of those toddlers that runs too fast. But he gets up so quickly and he keeps running. Just a full body slam. Yeah, you don't…

Like this is definitely something that the consequences of you failing or succeeding are… Do not matter. It's such a good success. I get out out of the living room before everyone else and I… And I close the door and I wedge with the axe. Ving jumps into the umbrella holder, which is a chute into the other room. It comes up and… How does Billy get in? He starts… He gets a spoon and he starts digging at the door. I'm in! The fabric wall is tearing. He's shoving his face through. Please!

I also want to look! His little hands are coming like under the crack of the door. He's swiping under the door. Like a cat. And Morris and Perel start banging on the door from the other side. No, don't, don't, don't. It's not ready. It's not ready. I grab Billy and I try and pull him under the seat of the door. Ving unlocks the door and opens the door. So you burst into Perel and Morris' workshop. It's huge. I think it's the same workshop that we did the volcano stuff in.

It's like that huge room that has all their thaumaturgical equipment. A wall full of blue ribbons. Yeah, exactly. I imagine it as like a huge… A huge warehouse. Like an airplane hangar almost. I wouldn't say that big, but we're in the same realm. It's quite large. In the middle distance you see a 20 foot tall volcano. It's not ready! It looks like the arc reactor from Iron Man. There's a bunch of pages with little click boards around it doing readings.

Like if the arc reactor was made out of paper mache. Yeah, exactly. So actually when you get into the room and Morris and Perel stop each other and they're like, wait. They don't know what they're looking for. Ving's like, and yeah. Again, Billy, you totally can roll. I want to discern realities, I guess. Nine. Oh. Eight. Okay. Yeah, the sniffing is Ving-ating. I got seven. Okay, so that makes it a ten. Three questions. What here is not what it appears to be? Ah, okay.

So I mean, that answers the question right off the bat really, is you're looking around, you're like, okay, alright, here's a bunch of crap. And you're like looking at Morris and Perel as their eyes dart around. You're like, what are they freaking out at when I get close to it? Yeah, I'm like doing the hot-cold game. Yeah, exactly. And you get close to something and you see their eyes start widening. And you get closer to it and their eyes are bugging out of their heads.

They're fucking terrible poker players. They're so bad at this game. But it looks like a wireframe like dress form kind of. Oh. Like it's like a torso shape and then there are some like there are unfinished limbs. And then there's a place that looks like it's gonna be a head at some point. But it's made of like thin brass and copper. Well. Like not wire. It's thicker than that. It's more like thin bars that create this cage shape almost. And then there's like a housing in the chest.

Are you guys making a maquette to put Aquaria in so she can walk and talk around? Yes. Yes. That's what we're doing. Oh, so cool. Why didn't you tell us? Well, because we're not sure it's gonna work. It will work. My designs always work. We just don't know how the moss is gonna react to it. So we just, we didn't want to get anybody's hopes up. Oh, yeah. And then Tuck is looking at the female form they've constructed. Abdul picked up dice for this.

Can I roll to see how big the tits are on this thing? No. No. No. There's still questions left. There's two questions left. Go for it. How big are the tits? That was hard to say the T word, wasn't it? Alright. I will. I should say it is a pretty androgynous body. It's pretty neutral. I thought he was gonna say ample. They are fucking fat. No, it's like a pretty neutral human form, but it's unfit. Like one of the legs is like mid shin. The other's like mid thigh.

And then there's like one finished arm and one is like barely started and the head is not complete yet either. Cool. What should I be on the lookout for? The tits question didn't count. It did count. Sorry. You only have one question left. Fair. How are you gonna get Aquaria here? Well, Morris at this point, he walks over to a table nearby and he picks up the little glass housing that Ving had. The ball of moss. We're not gonna get her here, but she'll be able to act through this.

With Morris's mechanical know-how, Aquaria's connection to the moss and her understanding of how it works biologically and chemically and my observance, we've been able to work on what we think will be a way for Aquaria to move around in the outside world a little bit. Cool. Is the automaton or whatever like a clockwork person?

No, what we think is gonna happen is the moss, Aquaria thinks that she can exert the right influence through it, and I've sort of, through transmutation, chemically prepared the body that the moss should be able to form around it and create a sort of moss-like body. Okay. But then it uses the structural integrity of the frame. Cool. Yeah. Building a girlfriend. I've done that. Cuts back to Tuck being 13. I thought I was gonna cut back to the gourd. The butternut squash.

It is a butternut squash also. It's another butternut squash. Slash pocket pussy. Carving a hole out of it. Yeah, it's the same thing if you work hard enough. Putting it in the microwave. Yeah. You gotta watch out for the seeds. Those are big seeds. Yeah, I guess we're in a situation where you could keep looking around the workshop for other stuff, or you could learn more about the Aquaria situation or about the automaton frame.

The question that I was gonna ask before we came in here was the, like, if you guys can talk to Aquaria through that moss, can we ask her a question? Because when we talked to her, she said that I was touched by the darkness, and I don't know what that means. It seems relevant now. Well, our concern is that even communicating through the moss is quite draining for Aquaria. And with everything that's going on in the Sea of Graves right now, the connection is also difficult to maintain.

What's going on in the Sea of Graves? Well, the storm. Oh, right. It's out of control. And it's disrupting her ability to communicate. Is she safe? For now. The tower she's in is Wardstone, so she should be safer than most. Oh. Did we even talk about the vision when you did the communion of whispers in the mason jar? That was the episode that just came out. Yeah, so you guys haven't talked about it. No. Well, actually, you guys watched it happen, and then you went, whoa. Sick. Sick.

So I've been trying to figure out my dream. Right, yeah. We didn't talk about that at all. You didn't address it at all. But Chimes created the Sea of Graves a thousand or more years ago. Right, and he fought the Gibbous Man. And he fought the Gibbous Man, and he tricked Mother Never Was, stole her ink, got her to teach him the secrets of the runes, and then betrayed her. Yeah. I'm trying to think of a way that we could communicate with Chimes.

Because I feel like if we got Chimes there, we could all huddle. Yeah. You just need to get to the ocean. Do I still have the bookworm? Can I send it to him? I think you do have a bookworm. You do have a bookworm. Yeah. How far away are we from the ocean? Pretty far. Can we send a message through? Can I commune with the Thunderbirds to get a message to Chimes, perhaps, and do their best? Potentially, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. And then he can come to us when he gets the message? Yeah.

It will be, probably, faster than the moth. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Thunderbirds are way faster than bookworms. Yeah. If Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers taught us anything, it's that the eagles are faster. Yeah, it goes Hobbit, moth, bird, in terms of speed. The moth is faster than Hobbit? Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. They're tiny little legs. The only ones a day. The moth is flying everywhere. Yeah. The eagles only show up at the end.

Yeah, I don't even think you need to really, like, you can just communicate with the cloudpiercer, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, I marked him. Yeah, long ago. And he's got the little amulet thing. Yeah, I gave him that, right? Mm-hmm. What if we set up a fun seance while we do all this? Yeah, totally. Yeah. Just for fun. Yeah. Funties. Yeah. Billy says that. Well, you know, like Morrison Pearl said, the storm makes communication of this kind more difficult for people. Oh, yeah.

So, maybe you do need to, yeah, you try. Maybe I try. You try, and it's like, It's always been so easy. Yeah. Ding! Etch! Gale! Annoying! Nope. So, yeah, you're like, it's not connecting. Maybe you need to do something to reinforce the spiritual connection. Hmm. Hmm. Would this count to roll my What the Bones Know for later on, at the end of the day? Yeah, sure. You haven't rolled it yet. Can you read that move? Because you've never used it. Oh, I'm going to use my new move, What the Bones Know.

Roll a d6 at the end of the day, and hold that roll for the next day to replace a roll. Hmm. Yeah. So, it's if you've ever played D&D, I realized afterwards I basically stole it from that. But things prescient nature now with his knowledge of the patterns of the world allows him to predict how he will act in a certain situation later in the day. Okay, great. I got a four. Okay. So, remember that four. Everyone's sitting in a circle, cross-legged. Morrison Perel are here, too.

Victor is padding around the outside. Very confused. This is kind of like what Cartwin did when she sent us into the spirit realm. Oh, yeah. Might be connected to that sort of thing. Like ghost root? Oh, yeah. We need a little ghost root. And, like, we need someone to undulate and let their, like, sexy sash drop down. Morrison Perel start fighting over who gets to be that person. Remember how horny we got at Sean's screen? Yeah, I hated it. You kept making it so sexy, though. Yeah.

I was just describing it. You were finding it sexy. No, you were like, her robe slips off. I was like, whoa, it's a porno now. I didn't say that. You did. Did I? Yeah. Because you needed to reveal the pin. Oh, the tat, yes. Oh, part, and it was clothing underneath. It wasn't her naked shoulder. Well, we don't know that. You didn't tell us about the clothing until afterwards. You weren't there. It was. You were on a commune in California. Growing weed. I was also horny at the time.

Because you were fucking your cousin. We were not fucking. That's why he was horny. He was just shooting ropes in the weed fields at the end of the day. Oh, the harvest was great. That's what they ever saw. Paul, this leaf kind of looks like you. It's so weird. Okay, so everybody's sitting in a circle. Victor's walking around the outside going, what are you doing? We're having a seance. Why am I not in the circle? Make room. I wish to be in the circle.

He does the thing that dogs do, where he just comes in and then puts his back legs on your lap as you're sitting on the ground. Forcing the circle to be much larger. Tuck has to, like, lean around. He's on Tuck's lap. Yes, make room. Okay. Your circle is now stronger. Your asshole is, like, on my leg. It is the strongest asshole. It's so hot. It's like the heat is radiating off of it. Do we need to have, do we need to express it again? Oh, God. No, not again.

Flashback to the one, one time we had to express his anal glands. Yes, I feel myself become stronger. Every expression makes me more powerful. Oh, my God. Next time you have to express yourself. And Perel's standing nearby like, make sure you get it all in the jar. He's keeping it. It's very valuable. I don't want you to ask me how I know this, but the anal secretions of a liar wolf are very potent. Oh, I hate it. What a great show we have. It's a great show. Greatest episode of all time.

But do we need ghost root before we do any of this? I mean, I have juridic lore. When you consult the trove of ancient knowledge within you to examine the world, rule plus wisdom. That kind of counts as a seance. I guess so. Yeah, totally. So, like, we just sit in a circle. Billy tries to form everyone into basically a fairy ring. He's like, this is how magic happens, you guys. Cool. That's cool.

So you're making, like, a physical ring with, like, Ving in the middle, but everyone else is forming, you know, around Ving. Yeah, Victor also wants to be in the middle, but I say no. Right. That makes sense, because ghost root was, like, kind of like the way that we pierced into the spirit realm, but Ving is a constant conduit into it. So we don't need the ghost root. So Billy's fairy ring, even if he's not necessarily meaning it to do this, because he's like, this is how you do magic.

But it's, like, focusing. Like, it's keeping out interference. It's like a satellite dish. Yeah, totally. That's cool. So I guess Billy's got a roll. Oh, sure. Fairy ring. Eight. Eight. Great. So that means that it is successful. Yeah, it just requires my constant attention, which is fine. So Billy's, like, pushing everybody, like, move, move, touch, here, hold your hands. Yeah. My constant attention is, I'm sitting in the circle, but I keep peeking my eye open.

I'm like, everyone else, keep your eyes closed. They're open. Morris. I want to see the magic happen. I have to feel it. Okay, I'll use druidic lore. Roll plus wisdom. Uh-oh. Seven. I'd like to use a roll and replace my one with a four. Wait, hold on. Is your wisdom not plus three? Yeah, so that's a ten anyway. But you did burn the four. You changed it from a ten to a thirteen. Which is a way better roll, numerically. How does it feel when Ving is reaching out to the clapper?

Well, with the fairy circle and everybody around, like, the satellite dish, like, it's, like, everybody's knowledge. Oh. So we get, like, weird ancient Perel and Morris stuff. Whoa. Liar, like, ancient liar, you know, the old stories of them chasing the sun. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Everything from everybody. It's like, nothing from Tuck. There's, like, a blank spot. It's like a dead space. Yeah, it's a dead space. He's like the double zero on a roulette board. That's so weird.

It's almost like I'm eating information. Or it's just, like, a tit. Yeah. Tits, tits, tits, tits. You just hear the word tits over and over again. You don't even see a picture of boobs. No. Just the word tits. Tits, tits. And then you see him readjust. He's like, God, his asshole's so hot. Titty, titty, titty, titty. And you make a connection. Okay. On a ten plus? The GM will ask you a question about the subject. Whatever you say is true. Mm. You make the connection. Yeah. Bing.

It is I, Cloud Piercer. Where are you? How are you? I am high above the principalities, waging war with the forces of Thronebreaker's flock. Your wings are so strong and your mind is so true. The war has forged me into a weapon of the natural world. I am the wind's blade. You are the point of lightning that strikes the earth. I am the piercer of Cloud. Clouds. What do you require of me? And he like dives and does a spin.

And Bing, like, you know, his stomach jumps like when you're on a roller coaster. He's like, in it. Whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see his hair flutter a little bit. Oh, his hair's like lifting up in the wind. I need you to get a message to the one they call Chimes. Ah, the sailor. Yes. The stepfather. Ah, what? Of our group. The stepfather of storms and seas. The uncle of the waves. Yeah. Big daddy sailor himself. Yes, I will. What message do you wish me to convey? We need a view. Very well.

This message I will convey. Bing. Yes. Are you safe? I'm safe for now. How goes your quest? The quest goes all over the place. It's really muddled at times. And there's a, it's very tangential. Do you need to reestablish what your quest is with me? Would it help you if you told me what you think the quest is right now? Not at all. I will not out myself in such a circle. For my knowledge. We can all hear what is going on. One eye peeks open and Billy yells at him. Yeah. Stop it. Focus.

No, the quest is clear for all of us. But why don't you just tell me anyway? You're asking Cloudpiercer? I shall tell you. Why don't you tell me what you think? The quest is. I don't know what your quest is, Bing. I have my own quest. Defeating Thronebreaker. That is my quest. Working towards the bigger quest, which affects us all. Yes. And that is. To take down the Gizmoz man. Chop him down where he stands. To stop him from distorting the knowledge of the world. And so warm. You're so close.

Yeah. Yeah. And how is it that you plan on doing that in the most end of the road way? Well, I think that our friend Chimes is a bit of a fighter for him. Against him. You have no idea. I forget right now. Is it the High Spear? Yeah. Oh, he's going. I thought that was just a middle quest. I mean, it's your most direct thing right now. Oh, that's very overarching. Is to get Morrison Perel to the High Spear. So you guys can go and try and fight the fight. Yeah. There's a ton of fire fields.

So right now he's fighting over the principalities. What do you see of the High Spear? What is there now? Allow me to cast my eagle eyes far and wide. And you feel his eyes widen as he looks around. What does Cloud Piercer see from where he is. That gives you information on. How closely give his man his spear. Yeah. Or what your next steps could be. Yeah. Like how close is he. He's moving in. Not close. Oh yeah. Like his. So.

Spear is already shrinking it is shrinking yes but it's coming from like beyond mccall and beyond panusia yes like the far-reaching corners of the world have started to lose the effects of the high spear like turvor where aquaria and that one uh husky chef yeah or from like it no longer interprets out there yeah and also past mccall in like the lands of the horse tribes like those have probably fallen as well yeah those are already the dominion of the gibbous man we assume because like the map morris's map couldn't couldn't see them and we also know that the princeps of the higher firefields principality are the gibbous man's agents he incited them to go to war with the high spear which interestingly suggests that there's some reason the gibbous man couldn't just do this himself he needed to incite this war so he could get closer to his goal but he for some reason he cannot do it oh shit the reason why he put dathaniel underneath the heart tree was he couldn't get you into the great forest while the knowledge trees were still healthy he can't get into the principal like into the high spear while the high spear is communicating is it like it might be that like these these these epicenters of great power and knowledge and understanding like that he wants to distort they refuse him entry the high spear might have a similar effect to the knowledge trees where because it is like it's all about an epicenter of understanding and knowledge and translation yeah that it rebuffs his influence naturally he also couldn't enter all waters caverns right uh yeah it seems like places of power whether spiritual or magical keep him at bay somehow and we were also going to use the high spirit to try and like bring the wizards back too yeah that was morrison perel's idea was if we get there then we might be able to find some way to break whatever's keeping them out but your guys's job is basically drop them off on the bus route which is uh you know you guys are sharing an uber basically morrison perel are getting out at high spear and then you guys are going to the war front because uh dathaniel I think was like if you stop the fire fields yeah you will really fuck up the gibbous man so that's why that was the plan yeah yeah so what does cloud piercer see in this and how many princeps are there that we'd establish there are two there's only two there's only two the fire fields principality has two rulers they're brothers and there's they still rule yeah they do still rule yeah do they like each other we haven't established that I think we established that they're lovers the brothers brother lovers we actually don't know anything and I mean anything about the political figures of the principalities we know zero because your guys's adventures have had nothing to do with the political we only look for mayors like we're only working on municipal level yeah because that's where you can affect the most change yeah we're on the ground heroes yeah grassroots yeah we show up at high spear we're like take us to your mayor oh just a gun take us to the mayor right now it's like this is kind of a big city we kind of don't have one mayor you can't be the mayor where's your hat we have kind of a bureaucratic council it's like take us to that then oh my god they have like a hundred mayors to the barbecue council so powerful and they're all in charge of not the whole thing but like one aspect you just do trash recycling what the fuck uh yeah there's like there are five principalities so I guess there's six princeps and they all have relationships and shit and it's just never come up cloud piercer shows that one of the princeps is on the front and he's leaving the front there is cool and you actually on the front you nailed it there is a brother one of the brothers is the warrior he is he leads his men from the front and there's one other brother that will never go near the front and that's a point of contention between them you fucking nailed how I was imagining these guys there's there's like the there's the politician and there's the warrior yeah yeah and he can kind of see like there's some hidden events happening from the brother on the back line oh interesting like he's he's doing some stuff yeah at home that the brother on the front doesn't know distressed sewing between the two princeps oh yeah cloud piercer sees with his incredible thunderbird vision like the brother fighting from the front the warrior and in his hands he wields a black bladed sword oh obsidian just a black blade black blade what does he look like I saw him with red hair okay oh fire fields yeah right yes they're kind of like celtic the celtic beautiful ginger red hair dark skin dark skin red hair very tanned yeah very dark yeah so red hair powerful build armor metal armor yeah black black black black metal armor black bladed sword he's got like a family suit of armor basically I like this cast iron just really thin yeah it's been fighting yeah iron armor he's so jacked yeah you gotta be strong to wear that yeah he's got like a war hammer that's like huge oh wait you said he has a black bladed sword yeah he's got like a war hammer that's like huge oh wait you said he has a black bladed sword yeah but I think he used to fight with a hammer uh-huh but recently he's been fighting with this black bladed sword maybe it's like a thing of because like the the firefields principality they're like the engineers like that's where black glass is they make like automatons and robots and stuff so it could be like that traditionally the leader of the firefields principality fights with a hammer yeah to honor like their blacksmithing traditions that's really cool yeah that he has a big uh hammer on his chest yeah oh that his emblem is a hammer yes that's really cool like his banners are like red with a black hammer on them yeah that's fucking sick I just like the idea that his because you know like leaders have especially warriors have like their nicknames and I think his is black hammer oh cool hammer so cool are there mechs in the ranks around him cool I actually I think there I don't think there are people in them I think they are full-on automatons okay and they're less common it's like one automaton for every like hundred foot foot soldiers so it's like you have it's like the tree feller yeah oh but I like the thought that they're like the front of the line yes oh totally yeah they're the shock troops like you send in a few of these big robots and it scares the shit out of people you have like cross the crossbows but you know like spring loaded and they shoot little bull like it's almost like in a bullet but totally a full gun and you have like a column of men behind each of them like they're for each battalion there is like one of these massive mechs and you've got like the war engineers who are like clearly there to maintain these giant robots yeah oh yeah they're warrior mechanics yeah I love that oh and they're like the warrior librarians big wrenches and like goggles and they just are like beating people with wrenches and then like fixing shit yeah yeah okay we can't keep talking about this I'll talk about it for the rest of the day the guy who has the oil he has oil tanks and then like he's like greasing up and lubing and you'll have to do on big machinery yeah right and then once in a while like somebody come over and he'll like crack a a match out his chin and then light his oil and oh he has a flamethrower oh so sick we're just describing a battle now let's keep going so what cloud pierce is just like hovering like whoa this is pretty sick thing can you see this this is pretty cool so what are the what are the forces like a dvr this so I think what I said is the high spear and the riverway principalities have like come together to try and hold back the fire fields okay what do their forces look like do we need to get into this yes yes I gotta see it I mean the high spears of course of course they have a lot of spearmen uh-huh yeah like spears yeah uh oh I bet they have a long range like uh what do you call them catapulting things arrow people in the mountains like oh yeah snipers maybe they're mechanized like yeah oh ballistas yeah they have a lot of like ballistas firing from the back ranks yeah trying to to fell like one of them like automatons yeah totally and the yeah I think they their disadvantage is that the fire fields are much more dangerous than the high spears yeah I think they're much more dangerous than the high spears yeah they're much more mechanically advanced than they are right they're like just throwing masses of foot soldiers at these things and maybe they're lighter and like they're more nimble like a river finds the way you know I mean totally kind of the what do you call it fencing to the broadsword yeah totally like skirmishers and some cavalry that makes sense because the high spear historically was like a bureaucratic center so they're using doing like intelligence missions probably mostly and then yeah the riverways are all like the high spear and the high spear like fishermen and stuff yeah so it's like guerrilla forces probably yeah the riverways they sent people but like infrastructure wise they're the least developed out of probably all of the principalities yeah so they're sending like yeah militias full of just regular people they're kind they're losing yeah they're slower than they thought I think that's the thing that cloud piercer sees is they are holding the fire fields back for now but they will lose they'll run out of people yeah I will pass on your message to the one they call chimes thank you so much it has been a while since I have last lain eyes upon chimes but from what I have heard his battle on the sea of graves is fraught he works to contain the storm but he is only one man though a powerful man he be thing feels the guilt of the storm starter hmm thank you please stay safe you stay safe as well thing if in any way when we arrive we can help I'll reach out your aid would be greatly appreciated but your quest is important and just so we're a hundred percent clear what's the quest gotta stop that gibbous man from disrupting all the knowledge and then you hear you hear perel go oh I got his name right this time that's good and the connection you feel the connection uh and then you are back in the circle I love you I love you as well I love you too damn it no you know I'm just glad that we're finally staying in front of other people and it's so loud that the rest of us are like break the circle break the circle and you're back in the fanny pack that was a lot what do we do we gotta continue on our quest of course jess you forgot the quest maybe I certainly did not and the quest is as we all know jessica take it away get to the mall the mall to do sales and stuff to be clear the city with the mall in it yeah not the mall itself a spear I thought we were going the mall all right yep we're going we're going near the mall the high spear is above the mall though right not directly oh!

High spear is a city that has a mall in it okay well we all pictured it on the I thought we were all going to the mall yeah is the high spear let's read let's do you guys still want to go if the high spear is not above why would I go there if there's if I can't also go the the water slide yeah there's a cinnabon in the mall is there a cinnabon kiosk near the high spear maybe there's a cinnabon in the mall I'm gonna take that as a no there is not a cinnabon in the mall okay yeah there's a cinnabon in the mall there's a cinnabon at the high spear so let's go to the mall just think it's three against one the quest can be whatever we say yeah absolutely I just want to be clear that as established the high spear is not directly above the mall it's on a mountainside over the city remember fair okay so we're going we're going to high spear yeah we're going to the mountain we were originally going to do that through the riverways right but like now it's now it's scary we we had originally had a plan to use the cover of mother never was to get there yeah right then the other potential that we learned in your dream was that there are tunnels underneath the entirety of the principalities that water is running through which is another way to disguise ourselves from the gibbous man she could be in there she could she will probably be in there yeah at least her watchers will be it feels like we kind of have to deal with her either way yeah and maybe okay this is a big swing but maybe do you guys think we could convince her to help us I know she's scary I mean she does have a vendetta against chimes she hates chimes so much yes we could convince her some way that helping this situation is bad for him she's got skin in the game that she probably doesn't want the world destroyed right what's her connection to the gibbous man he's scared of her unknown that's it we don't know yeah we don't know that the gibbous man is afraid of mother never was is there any way we could get the ink that chimes stole back to her like maybe that could be yep he'd have to give up all of the runes on his body I don't know if he could or would do that it's what is keeping him alive I think it would kill him for sure well I mean I say that not knowing for sure it would at least kill the god in him yeah yeah he'd just be a man and then the storm would take over maybe yeah!

Yeah these are all great ideas so what are we trying to do this episode we have to rest because your hit points are six we need three days of rest too we had a full rest yeah we did yeah we can definitely skip forward three days okay that will just mean that three days passes what about the hilarious minutiae that happens in the three days it's so funny what if we made tits or dicks jokes I mean we can do three days but we can do it like we did you know like the library episodes where it's like you each have three days well depending on who needs to rest seriously needs to rest tuck is fucked I'm fine okay then we'll just skip that won't heal or get rid of any debilities.

No, no, no, no, no. I was going to say, I don't have any debilities anymore because the dream being gone gets rid of my wisdom debility. Does it? Yep. Yeah, that was the whole point. Oh, I guess you ate it. Right. But you still need to get your hit points. I have six left. You do still need to recover. I should say. I should exert my authority a little bit. You don't just get to decide. Yeah, recover is great. Vote. Recover. Recover. Abdul aggressively put his arms down.

Abdul's arms are straining at how far they're going down. I'll go. I'll recover. Oh, we bullied you. I'm sorry. No, no, no. I'm way too high status to be bullied. Yeah, you're right. You are the self-proclaimed richest member of the podcast. In saying that he cannot be bullied, he actually bullied us in his explanation of why he can't be bullied. Oh, I get it. I get how you see us. The whores that do your podcast for you. Sorry. What you guys say to me does not impact me in any way.

I don't think you're talking to Jessica at her most politically active. She's furious. Yeah. So now the reason for your debility is gone. I believe you still need to recover from the debility. It doesn't just disappear. Okay. So that'd be three days. This means that if we take three days, Tuck will be doing nothing but resting and talking to people, but nothing high stress or high effort. Oh, my God. So annoying. All right. Let's do it. What if we just give him more of the liquid?

I do have oil of tag it. Just knock him out. Just drag him. Yeah. We're doing like breakfast for dinner buffet. And like Billy, like spikes all the pancakes. That's funny. And you're like, pancakes. Pancakes. Pancakes. I had a vision of putting oil of tag it on the bottom of a cast iron frying pan and hitting him on the top of it. That's so good. I've got the perfect idea. You guys do both of those things. But Tuck eats like four. He eats like 40 pancakes and is still fine.

And he's like, I'm getting kind of sleepy a little bit. Are you guys getting sleepy? Do you hear that? He's too strong. He's too strong to sleep. Yeah. I guess you guys tranquilize him. He sleeps. The only way is to keep him knocked out for three days. Yeah. I order Victor to like. Lay on Tuck to be cozy. Yeah. I will do this thing because I also want to sleep for three days. For some reason, my asshole must be on something.

Ever since I have not been sitting on him, my asshole has been too cold. I must warm it. And he just presses it right against Tuck's chest. While he's asleep. Against the obsidian coins. Yeah. I did not know what my asshole was missing. And now I do. Okay. So Tuck, after three days, we'll have all of his hit points back. And his debilities cleared. Well, his debility cleared. Okay. And I'll also gain my health points back. Yeah.

Billy and Ving will regain all their hit points after one day, which means you have two days to do something if you want to. Oh boy. You sure do. Do we ever. What is this thing that you want to do? Billy is, he's like being an annoying assistant in their workroom while they're building the moss thing. Oh yeah. Yeah. Aquarius. It is. Armature. Armature thing. Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing? Well, we're just trying to finish the, uh, the leg mechanisms for this, for the left leg. Wow. Can I help?

I don't know. I don't see how you could. Uh, Billy starts rummaging around in the moss piles. No, don't do, no, don't do that. This one? No, that's just, I don't need moss right now. We're trying to remember we're making a metal frame for it. Oh, I can help you. All right. Here, why don't you take this? And he gives you like two pieces of metal. Uh huh. Just make sure that those don't touch. Oh, but they want to. I want to touch them. Don't do it. Don't let them touch. Okay.

I'll be really, I, I'll make sure I'm the guardians of these metals. They will not touch. No, you will not touch. Starts doing voices for the metal. No, you can't touch me. I'm going over here. And you hear Morris go, all right, there we go. He just starts working again as Billy's walking around with two pieces of metal in his hand. And he's like waving them in front of Tuck's sleeping face. He's like, I'm going to touch you with them. You can't tell. Because you're asleep. Such a piece of shit.

Just poke, poke, poke, poke. Yeah. And then Tuck goes, Alison, your fingers are so cool. Victor starts licking his face. Alison, oh my God. You're so wet. Also, considering the fact that Tuck now cannot dream, that suggests that he's kind of awake right now. He's sort of semi-conscious. Yeah. He'll like wake up and do the John McClane thing where he rips all the IVs. They'll come in and have to dose him even harder. Good blue. Let me see my wife. Having to give him higher and higher doses.

But Billy, as you're walking around with your metal, making sure that nothing touches. Because Morris and Perel do. You see that they're like 80% of the way done to finishing this mechanical body. After two days, they're almost there. I knew it. It's because these weren't touching. Very good, Billy. Thank you. You made sure they didn't touch. Yeah. They never touched once? No. Even when they wanted to, I said, no way. Incredible. You know what, Billy? Here you go.

And he gives you a bag of marbles. Don't tell Tuck and Bing that I gave you these. And make sure you put them in slowly so they don't realize that they're all there at once. Yeah. So I go do that. Great. Yeah. And your jar is filled significantly. It's so full, I can't even put the lid on. Yeah. But now I'm scared Victor's going to find out. You hear, like, you see one of the marbles start to roll to the edge and start falling to the floor. No, I try to catch it. All right. 2D6 plus six.

It's the highest stakes. Nine. Yeah. As we see the marbles start to fall towards the ground and where Victor is sitting on Tuck, his ears go up. Oh, yeah. But, poof. Billy catches it. My little palm. I get it. And Victor lowers his head and starts licking Tuck's face again. Yeah. So Billy tiptoes down the hallway. Billy, why are you tiptoeing right now? What? I'm walking normally. It's just to not wake Tuck. You hear pizzicato strings as he's walking.

The pages there, like, with a harp, like, plucking little strings as you sneak. Tuck's on four gallons of oil of tegut. He's not waking up. That's not why you're tiptoeing. You got a little secret. No. I don't have a secret. You know what? Have your secret, Billy. Okay. Finn comes over and is like, Billy, I have something for you. What is it? It's a slightly bigger jar. Takes it off his belt. Hands it to Billy. Here. Thank you. The new jar. And so Billy starts. This is his new activity.

He's just moving the marbles slowly from one to the other. Mm-hmm. And that's what he spends the last minute on. Last day doing. Day and a half. Day and a half. Whoa, so slow. So slow. He has naps in between. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not realizing now that because the jar is bigger, that means that it's longer until he achieves his goal. Yeah, exactly. He doesn't understand that. So he fills the big jar. He's like, I had more than this. So he empties it and it's full again. He's like, what?

What am I doing wrong? The first jar was like a pint. We just keep getting bigger and bigger jars. Just two different sized containers. He's like, what the fuck is happening? Yeah. Billy's like, am I switcherooing without knowing I'm doing it? That must be what's happening. All right. Now I just got to make sure I do it extra slow. This is such a thing that will drive Billy fucking crazy. Yeah, this is his laser. He's going to be so angry. He's furious. He wakes up mad. He sleeps like this.

He's like. I can't figure it out. Yeah, he's goodwill hunting on a chalkboard, but none of it makes sense. Trying to figure out the equation of these two fucking jars. He's gone into their workroom again. This time he doesn't bother Pearl and Morris, but he is using chalk. Can't write properly. They walk up. They're like, you there. What are you writing? Boy, get back here. He fronts off with a mop in a bunch of overalls. Where did he get that mop? Go fuck yourself. Whoa, Jesus. Billy language.

He's language. He's. But he's trying to use. The mop to figure it out. He's like slamming the marbles with the mop. He's cleaning the floor around the mop because he's like, are they getting lost in the dirt? It's too dirty. What's being doing for the two days? You do some spell lores. If there's some research you want to do, you could talk to people. I've got this mother of Pearl dragon scale that maybe has some magical abilities. Yeah, I guess we've never come.

I just realized that you could potentially commune. With the scale to talk to us really in depth. Yeah, because that's from. That's from Syria, right? Yeah. Oh, cool. I could find out more about the sea. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. I wonder. Definitely do that. Okay. I'm going to reach out using the scale to see if Cerulean has any interactions with chimes, which she definitely will. Yeah. Communion whispers with the scale. Siri. I got five plus. Oh, eight. Oh, the vision is unclear.

So I think even the communion. You feel the connection, though it is difficult to make. You feel like a shock as you connect with the spirit of Cerulean depths. And also, I think Ving has to shut it off a little bit because the pure raw power of connecting to a dragon this old and this powerful, you're like, whoa, I got to limit this, mitigate this connection. I think we see through Siri's eyes deep, deep.

In the depths of the Sea of Graves, her long serpentine sinewy body weaving through the depths of the ocean. I like that she's. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. It must be almost pitch black down there. Yeah. I was going to say that. But she sees in bioluminescent vision, almost like she can see as the water touches things, it lights up shapes and everything. So it's this shimmering, glittering bottom of the ocean and creatures jittering around and ghost fish shooting off like a meteor away from her. Yeah.

That could be like, cause she's got those really flowy webbed wings and stuff like that. That could be like how she sees down there. Oh, totally. As it grazes the bottom. Cool. That's so cool. She disturbs the surfaces. Yeah. The glow. Yeah. So she's just like swimming along the ocean floor. Cause that's where she feeds mostly. She's finding like massive abalone. A shell is like the size of like the side of a house.

You feel through like the electromagnetic sense that she has, the bioluminescence that she navigates with, that she feels some sort of disturbance and she swims closer to a grave, which you see buried into the bedrock at the bottom of the ocean. But as she gets closer, the runes start to resolve themselves on the surface of the wardstone and she sees cracks have begun to form in the pillars. Connecting the runes in almost constellation like images of cracks. Yeah.

Reflected as Ving has seen them night in and night out in the night sky. Does anything come out of the cracks? Alice. Scarf. Scarf comes out of that. Scarf. Scarf. There's a red scarf down there. Scarf. Alice's scarf. Cracks. Alice's scarf. And Tuck. You cut to Tuck and he's like. Alice, what are you doing? And I think what this is actually what I was thinking as we see this, this is the end of day three. Tuck is like having the last moment. Of possible dreams.

Like the dreaming part of Tuck's brain is disappearing at the end of this sleep. And as where somebody would go and wake from a dream, it just ends for Tuck. Okay. His eyes open. Can I do one thing? Well, it depends on what the thing is. So as like the kind of like the last of like the pieces of my mind that can dream like kind of dissipate, it's just black, basically like empty mind. And then like he sees eyes. And then his eyes open and it's Black Spire. Oh. Cause he's connected to him. Right.

Through the, through the pick. So it kind of just like that shunts in there. You talk to him. Is that okay? Yeah. That's a, I think it's very interesting. Isn't this a thing I can always do? Cause he, the guitar pick is always like underneath his leather bracer. It was a gift that Ving gave him was like constant. Yes. Yeah. I do remember that. Yeah. Yeah. So he like, I think it's like he accidentally calls out. Yeah. Maybe that's the, it's dream replacement therapy. Yeah.

And Tuck's like, no, I always said Black Spire's here. Not in front of the dog. Yeah. Shoo boy, shoo. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, you are connecting to Black Spire. Okay. You see like two circles of light, which you realize are being seen through the eyes of your dragon bro. Okay. So he's just looking around. But then he feels you connect. He's like, Tuck. Black Spire. Oh. My noble steed. What? Yeah. What time? I'm sorry. You're my noble steed. What's up? Sorry, dude. I'm really fucked up.

They gave me so much oil of tag. No, that sounds so much cooler than bro. What's up? Noble steed. Well, noble steed. I've, I've had a lot of adventures and I've missed you every second of every day. I miss you every day too, man. I will never forgive Oleander for not letting you on that ship. I don't even, you know what? I did the math myself and I think if I know how to math and I do, I could have fit on that boat for sure. Yeah. A hundred percent. You could have.

So what brings you to my mind palace? I, well, I was just asleep and I felt you. I felt you out in the darkness and I reached out and I found you. Yeah. I'm just here in the lab. Just chilling out. How are things at the library? Oh, it's fine. They're feeding me a lot of stuff. I got to say, and I never thought I would say this. I'm getting pretty cooped up. What? I'm just kind of like bored, man. I'm hanging out with all these. Nerds all the time. What do you look like now? Oh, just a sec.

And you see him start to move and a bunch of librarians get knocked out of the way. Took laughs really hard. Excuse me, nerds. I also like that when they hear him go like, oh, yeah, tuck. And then they're like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, They have an alarm. He's communing with talk. We have to get that. He's not going to pay attention to anything in the room. Everybody get out. They're like, send a runner for Farrah. He's in one of his moods. Oh, my gosh.

And he like shoulders his way through. And you do realize he's gotten a bit bigger for sure. And he looks into a shiny piece of metal that they have put in here because he kept clearly forcing his way towards reflective surfaces. So like he wants to look at himself, I guess, at some point. And he looks shape wise much the same that you remember him, but a bit bulkier. He's larger. And his black scales are now. Like streaked with white. Almost.

There are like lines of white scales that have formed on his body. Dude, you look fucking sick. No, it's highlights. You like it? I love. I frosted my teeth. It's a little spikes on his head. Look like frosted tips. Just the tips of the spikes. Yeah, I frosted him. I'm all frosted now. He like pushes his hair down and it's like a little emo. He like whips his hair. He does the emo whip. Yeah, I'm looking pretty cool. Oh, you want to see something sick? Yeah.

And he like hunches down on his massive because his front legs are huge. Yeah. Bulky biceps. And you see, as he starts to hunch down, all of the librarians in the room are like, fucking move. They're like a cartoon, like slipping over the papers. Exactly. Somebody felt like cartoon, like legs pinwheel through the air, throws a bunch of papers in the air. The guy with the German accent. Yeah. Yeah. The zoologist. Yeah. Everybody out. He is preparing to do this thing. And they all run out.

And you actually, he looks to his big head moves to the side and you see like shutters come down on entrances and he opens his mouth and he starts like tensing all of his muscles. Whoa. Like you remember how he, and it looks like he's trying to expel his like magma breath. Yeah. And there's like a clink, clink, clink, clink. Yeah. As his, his, his scales start to align. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And you see the sunstone scales start to illuminate. Whoa.

And he opens his mouth and he, ah, here it comes. Here we go. Check it out. I'm getting shit. I'm getting shit. I'm getting shit. And then you just see, and it's not that impressive, but a flash of light comes from inside his mouth. Whoa. Like a flashball breaking. Holy shit. Whoa. Do you fucking see that? Yeah, I did. That's fucking rad. That's new. I can't do the magma thing anymore, which I'm kind of bummed about. But now whenever I try and barf magma, that happens. That's so awesome.

I'll do it again. Do it again. Do, do, do, do, do. Here I go. I'm going to fucking do it. I'm going to fucking do it. Such a little. And the, like some of the scientists have, I don't know. They come back in the room and they have like black, like welders goggles, basically. And they've got like the little like flash burns on their face. Oh yeah. It is pretty potent. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, and they're in there with like different kinds of rock.

Like they're trying to hypercharge sunstone and see how it like. Maybe they have. There are sunstone like hanging from the ceilings. Oh yeah. In different things. Cause clearly he's been doing this for a little bit now and they're using it to charge sunstone. Cool. In the room. In the room. And we see like. As I, as I see him like looking around, I see there's a bunch of sketches of him in the draw me like one of your French girls.

Cause whatever he notices someone drawing him, he moves into that pose. And they're trying to get like clean zoological like diagrams of him, but he keeps doing poses from behind and him like peeking at him. The Instagram shot. He's looking over his shoulder with a claw over his lips. Like, yeah, I got an injection in my lips. And he's like, oh, this must be hat man. Having a dragon in the library must've blown the study of them wide open. They're like, they're fucking smart.

Cause every time we try to draw him, he starts doing stuff. Yeah. Every time Tuxy's the word smart, it's in quotation marks. He's clearly intelligent, but he's not smart. You know what I mean? They also play like there's tons of music bottles cause they're always playing music for him. Oh yeah. It's the only way to keep them. Like, oh, I'm going to do this. He's like pacified. Oh yeah. Like he said, he's getting fucking bored. And it's like druidic death metal. Yeah.

That's his favorite they found out. It's like Zane is in there all the time. Is Zane in the room? I think Zane's in there. Yeah. He's one of the ones wearing the goggles. He's like fucking so sick. Flash burn to hell. Hair spiked back. Yeah. Is this permanently now? Yeah. Yeah. Tuck, you see, you see Zane, the teenager that you spoke with, the former, uh, or I guess current vessel for the icon of wrath. Oh. Oh shit. Yeah. Is the sunstone flashes having an impact on him?

Oh, actually maybe he would not be in there during that. He comes back in later. He's been in behind a shield. Yeah. If black spire is doing any sort of sunstone related stuff, Zane is not in the room. Is there anything we want to tell Farrah? We ran into mother never was. Oh yeah. How do I get? How would you get this information to her? Through Zane? Through black crunch? I mean, through black spear? Zane can't. Black Spire? Zane can't understand black spire in that way.

Does anyone in the library can any of it? No, it's just you guys. Shit. Technically it's just Bing. Yeah. And then Ving makes it possible for you to understand. Hmm. Okay. Or it could even be a thing where you like, it would take a long time. Yeah. If you're like, okay, black spire, take your claw line down. Now do a circle. Now do a squiggly shape. Yeah. Get him to like write a message. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a misspelling where it says high Farah tits. Yeah. There's a misspelling where it says high Farah tits. Yeah. There's a misspelling where it says high Farah tits. Yeah. There's a misspelling where it says high Farah tits. Yeah. There's a misspelling where it says high Farah tits. Yeah. There's a misspelling where it says high Farah tits. Yeah. There's a misspelling where it says high Farah tits.

Librarians come back in and go what and then I just tell black spy I was like make sure pharah sees this okay this is important okay great I don't know what this says but I will make sure that she looks at this thing that I did make sure she looks at it she's smart she'll get it okay I'll do it okay cool tell everybody I also miss them and I just wish that I could be out there fucking on an adventure with you guys right now I wish you were here too it was one of the greatest betrayals of my life that you are not here with us you know man all right I didn't want to have I don't want to okay hey getting close make sure you're listening really hard right now I lean I lean in in the empty negative space that now exists in tux heads what if I broke out of here you should tux doesn't even take a breath oh you should break out and come find us okay all you have to do is get to wickport steal a ship and sail across the sea of graves okay okay you could do it I think I could do that look at me look at your reflection okay he looks in the reflection into his own eyes and he says and then tux says you can do this black spire don't let anybody stand in your way kill them if you have to I'm gonna break out of here I'm gonna break out of here and it's gonna be fucking sick kill every librarian burn the place to the ground these guys are pretty cool these are pretty cool do I want to be clear just make sure the stakes are clear do you want me to kill everybody in here yes if it tux says if it gets you back to me I would burn the world to the ground okay black spire I'm I'm not gonna kill everybody okay I don't do whatever you feel is right I'm just gonna I don't think they can actually stop me if I try to leave okay if I'm being totally honest I think that I I think that I've been kind of taking it for granted the fact that I'm way stronger than everybody in this place okay and then tux goes I need you to write another message under here I'm gonna kill everybody in this place okay and then tux goes I need you to the first one okay and he like shuffles back and knocks over a table and then I coach him again for another like 45 to 65 to 75 minutes through like scratching out another message that says bring back black spire to me or else okay is this gonna be like inflammatory or anything like that nah she'll love it all right great and then and then I I would go I actually need you to write one more thing and then I get him to scratch beneath it war is coming bad okay so I just want to be clear the whole message says hi farrah tits tuck bring black spire back to me or else war is coming bad and then he goes ah fuck threatening he's threatening he's he's like we're we're bringing her a war and then he puts a happy face at the bottom of it colon and then a bracket he does the the text version of a happy face yeah okay cool so this is going to clearly convey the message that you want conveyed uh and he goes okay one more thing and then he after another 25 minutes this is why it takes three days to heal after another 25 minutes it says never was ah okay is it still a clear mother never was ah okay sorry and then okay below it it says high spirit war and then a guy says what's what's the last thing I should put on here guys well we were gonna tell her about mother never was yeah yeah it's up to you and then it says g okay so underneath he puts gm is afraid of never was yeah okay so it's the lab is fucked right now black spire's knocked over everything in the room the letters are really big too because black spire writes like a child yeah he's got big hands yeah high pharah tits tuck bring black black spire to me or war is coming bad or else or else war is coming bad smiley face never was and then mother crammed in above never was never was gm gm is afraid of never was yeah high spear high spear war war love tuck yeah okay cool then yeah I do I do a hard at the end to just try and drive the tone home right okay three x's no hugs for some reason just the x's too hard I just I draw a dick for you for good measure yeah okay great anything else no I think that's it okay cool I think they'll help you get to me and now I sure hope so and if they don't you need to kill everyone and break out of there well I hope to talk to you again soon I hope you come back to my brain I love you I will come back and then your eyes open and when I open my eyes the fragments of coin in my chest are glowing so bright like the ones in his yeah when he was doing the sunset something cool you wake up and you see like the end of the glow you're like oh what and then your eyes are open and your debility is gone this is your ability to dream and back to 26 hit points good lord your hit points are back sick so I mean first things first tuck you come out of the room that you were drugged in for three days and where do we find the rest of the party are we making more oil of tag it yeah we have to do oh yeah we're boiling it up yeah there's a page there with a recipe book and we're like and we're all like you know it looks like we've been slaving around yeah we're really sweaty because it's really humid so you you uh look up from your tag it operation and you see tuck emerging from the room looking pretty good he's dragging himself down the hallway because his bottom half is still paralyzed basically an iv stick behind him whoa are you okay now I'm okay now I'm all better there's like six bags of ivs that he's just dragging behind him that he just didn't bother to pull out uh great so you all come back together and uh I mean are you guys talking to each other yeah yeah for sure we're always talking together I'd tell you guys that I talked to black spire yeah oh so is he on his way then I hope so I hope he kills every librarian in there oh my gosh I hope your note was legible I think it was really clear I told farah everything that was going on with us all of this stuff it's almost like you forgot what our quest was tuck yeah it was really clear anyway what are you guys not murky at all like your fucking thing uh I had a secret project they tell them about the marbles I don't know something the math isn't mathing up oh you're telling us to get help with it okay well billy I appreciate that you did tell us about this because you remember we're not allowed to keep secrets surprises are good secrets are bad I also like that you attempted to do it on your own thank you that's fun too that is good I will say that I appreciate your honesty so much I'm gonna let you keep all the marbles oh yes that perel gave you yes as a reward here's a bigger jar no I'm so hungry when do I get to use it this is becoming like uh not a good thing yeah you're kind of torturing billy a little bit I tell the most serenity of the depths and the cracking of the of the graves well that's not good do you think the storm is trying to destroy the graves so it can be stronger like you know when wind blows are unobstructed if it's a magical storm and it gets rid of the ward stone possibly oh shit right they're a ward stone too yeah fuck okay yeah that is a problem it might be containing the storm to the sea what if without the graves the storm is unleashed and increased across the entire planet I thought you already did that remember I'm the problem we weren't gonna bring it up anymore tuck I thought he already feels bad enough about it already I thought he seems to have forgotten it though billy I thought we were just driving images for fans to paint I thought that was draw this this is the motivation of most of our moves we cut back to when vink threw the storm out of the sea of graves and we didn't hear it because of the sound of the storm I saw his mouth go they went draw this yeah what else is in the sea what else is contained there lillian well lillian is the storm right so she brings down the ward stone that keeps her prism oh fuck did you guys forget that the the blood moon lily is buried yes in a tomb beneath the sea of graves shit yeah that's kind of a wild card too because if she gets out she could either attack us because humans killed rian or she could go for the gibbous man because he he locked her away or she could go for chimes because chimes also locked her away opening lillian's box is a real pandora's box it really is yeah it absolutely is we have no idea what will come out we're gonna have to wait until we get to the end of the show and we'll see you in the next video you want to keep that cat in the bag if that's what chimes is dealing with I feel like he might not have time to help us yeah he's dealing with his ex he's he's our uncle who's dealing with his toxic ex yeah um it's interesting you're all sort of like marooned right now you're in between all of these things that you need to address you don't know what to do next and you hear a knocking down the hallway we go down the hall yeah and as you walk down the hallway you hear another faint knock at the door that used to go that went to dathaniel's room and you walk up to the door and all of the rooms have these like little brass plates beside them and like dathaniel's used to say like guest bedroom and tuck's like perot probably got himself stuck in there again and as you approach I think ving you notice is tuck is going right beelining for the room that dathaniel used to be in for some reason uh maybe hopeful he's back oh my god he licks his lips and skittering after uh ving you notice that the brass plate next to the door now says hither and yawn and that's where we're gonna end today's episode oh fuck yeah I'm your game master Sean O'Hara joining me as always tacoma dome the barbarian abdulaziz so long everybody being the half elf druid Paul Oppers take care and fat billy the halfling thief jessica tie goodbye oh this is the first one we've recorded since smallbrats has come out and since the all that shit right number one yeah let's I just want to give a quick let's just give a quick thank you so much to all of you for all of your support during the launch of Mall Brats which is now available anywhere you get your podcasts uh we were for a brief beautiful period in time the number one comedy fiction podcast in canada the number one and guys canada's huge I think it's based on land mass it stores so many podcasts in it there's so many servers here yeah Mall Brats is going to be alternate schedule to Spout Lore so every week you're going to get some hot fresh content from your friends at Spout Lore studios and Mall Brats is available in its most intense form also on patreon you can get years worth of Mall Brats content two seasons of a show at patreon.com slash Spout Lore or Spout Lore.com slash money please and thank you to aaron reed for our intro and outro music which you can find all of the music produced for the show on spotify and all of aaron's original music at aaron reed.com thank you so much finally to all of you for listening we'll see you next time and so ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can though dumb and scared and lost they be for times of rest in revelry and though our journey may be like 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

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

Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts. So gather round friends and listen close, for the tale's about to start. Hello everybody and welcome to LobsterCast. The Spout Lore show that's just about seafood restaurants within one block of our studio. Finally! My name's Cap'n Sean O'Hara and I'm your seafaring game master. Oh, I love it. We're doing a theme today. And joining me as always, playing first mate Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz.

Ahoy there, avast for there be crab on these seas. I just wanna say. I just wanna say. Is that a warning? I will give you crabs. Playing Ving the half first mate druid, Paul Oppers. Uh, p-p-poop. Deck. And playing first mate Fat Billy, the halfling mate, Jessica Tai. Aye there matey. I see a lobster roll before me. Mmm. You call it fucking Shakespearean Macbeth with it. Is this a lobster roll I see before me? Is it a lobster roll floating in the sea? When last we left.

Your love is but the horseradish upon my oyster's heart. Oh. That made sense. Keep going. I will not. Oh, carrot. For I have gone too long. When last we left our heroes, they were overcome with a plethora of choices, a plethora of responsibilities. Tacoma Dome the Barbarian absolutely ravaged from both the battles up until the battles of the pig wars, the hogpocalypse, and the encounter with the Oneirophage. Yeah, Fatim ravaged me so hard. And I loved it. You think he ravished.

We're so close though. Yeah. It is really close. It is the kind of thing where. I'm talking Fatima in the same room. There's a weird electric energy. Yeah. And they don't quite know what to make of it. They're like, I guess that means we hate each other. Do I take batteries now? He required to recover from some debilities that now he could be cured of and to recover some damage that he had taken. Three days of uninterrupted arrest, which. Begrudgingly. I could tell Abdul was not interested.

In taking. So the medical ministrations of Ving and Fat Billy, mostly in the form of oil of tag it and a cast iron skillet put tuck out for three days. And in that time, the party was introduced to the fact that Morris and Perel have been working on a wireframe body to house the moss, which connects them to Aquaria of the Green Tower. Far away in the Sea of Graves. And once complete, they hope will allow her to form a sort of moss body to have a more active role in their lives. Not like that.

Come on. Act present. A more present role in their lives. No, come on, guys. They're going to fuck hard with their dicks. All three of their dicks. I have to go. I'm taking these with me. Paul's trying to leave, but his boner's still there. I'm taking these with me. Paul's trying to leave, but his boner's stuck on the table. He's trapped.

Billy attempted to help Morris and Perel with their construction, but was instead given a child's task to distract him, which he did absolutely magnificently and received a bag of marbles in return before being overcome with guilt at receiving such an illicit amount of marbles that he confessed to his parents. The party also took part in a seance. Archival.

Arcane closed circle communication with cloud piercer learning that he has not seen chimes for quite some time but he helped guide ving through remembering what their current quest is thankfully was the information we received and we also got quite a lot of information on the war between the firefields principality and the high spear and riverways principality including the first appearance by the twin princeps of the firefields which we have named now off mic and now on mic colm and callum blackhammer yeah so cool colm the warrior callum the politician so cool and saw a pretty long series of battle sequences that jessica tuned out from nope because the boys were talking about fighting well I couldn't join in with sound effects well can you give us a couple now I only have one let's hear it that's an onomatopoeia I don't know if that counts when the mech was doing that oh no he's running out of batteries someone's got to plug him in then tuck took his recovery time which involved the last vestiges of his dream capabilities disappearing into the ether into the space between worlds leaving a void behind that void was almost immediately filled by black spire yeah everybody's favorite metalhead dragon using their mental connection the party received a an update while tuck received an update on black spire who has been consuming so much sunstone that he is becoming sort of a black and white dappled color and his magma breath has been replaced with flashes of sunstone light so cool so cool and we saw on the walls many diagrams and notes pertaining to black spire's physiology and probably the changes that are overtaking him got a little look at icon uh vessel for the icon of wrath and rad teen zane who has just apparently become sort of obsessed with black spire probably because he's so cool yeah oh yeah he's got a t-shirt says got wrath love yeah yeah yeah and he's got like yeah he's got black fingernails uh with obsidian fingernail paint oh so cool after coming out of this tuck now finally for the first time in many many seasons is without the debility to his wisdom oh yeah healed totally healed back to normal back to normal just in time to realize that while there are many options the party could go to high spear the party could go meet mother never never was the party could try and reconnect with chimes they had a lot of places they could go but not a lot of easy ways to get there overcome with the challenges and the choices related to all of those suddenly they heard a knocking in the corridor and approached a door with a little brass tag next to it that previously said guest room but now says hither and yawn so exciting yeah and that is where we find the heroes now what do you do do we just all immediately open the door or do we wait and make it a moment oh my gosh we're asking ourselves that right now you're all standing in front of the door like wait what if he's different what if he's not there what if he doesn't like us anymore or also it could be a trap trap expert oh yeah oh sure very interesting I'll do it 2d6 plus dexterity 10 10 so you get three holds to spend on the questions of trap expert okay is there a trap here and if so what activates it there is a trap here this isn't a physical trap this is a metaphysical trap that billy is feeling the intentions of and you feel that if you were to enter this space with I'll intent it would not go well for you oh what does the trap do when activated it sends you elsewhere what else is hidden here you smell a scent rolling out from under the crack in the door it smells like paella what do you do I kind of tuck doesn't want to go inside because he's like nervous to see his friends again because he's like in a bulk phase and he was way more cut before which is not true yeah he's never once been cut not once in his life I was cut to be clear like tuck is not like a chubby kid that got skinny he is a chubby kid that just put on muscle under the chub for his entire life yeah he was in a cut phase last time we saw them and boy god boy was I ever defined I looked like hugh jackman on the cover of wolverine I think he'll still like you I don't think that'll matter I know I know it doesn't matter but I'm a little self-conscious about being in the bulk phase that's why I'm here I'm not going to lie to you that I'm in right now.

I don't think you should go through the door then if our intentions are right and you're going in there with a nervous intention. That's true. It might send me somewhere else, like somewhere that I can't bulk. Like a fitness world. A 24-hour fitness. I want to go in there and have the paella, but I feel like it might send me to an anytime fitness. It might send me to hell. What if the 24-hour fitness is like you have to spend 24 hours in there once you walk in? Yeah.

They'd lock the door behind you. And you have to exercise. There's someone at the door with a gun. There's guards. Yeah. They cross their spears in front of the door. You may not leave until you are well-defined. And then open their spears in front of an elliptical machine. They cross the spears, walk over to the elliptical machine, uncross their spears. You get on this one now. One of us can only bulk and one can only cut. Which is it? And it's super easy to tell because once you…

Huge and once tiny. I guess what would your brother eat? Okay. How do we get the right intention to go through this door? Morris? Yes. I'm right behind you. Okay. Do you… Why don't you go through the door first? Why would I go through? And then he looks at the tag and goes, what's that? You know, it's kind of like a liminal space. It's kind of like a traveling area. It's right up your alley. Yeah. I feel like you would really like this place, Morris.

It's like a bar that just appears when you need it. He's like looking… He gets really close to the tag and really close to the door. And he's like, it still looks like the door that I designed. Yeah. This bar got into your house, Morris. How did that happen? Okay. So you're trying to goad Mortis into going into this place? Yeah. Because I'm nervous. I think we're all nervous kind of. Are you active actually trying to goad Morris into going first? Yeah. 2D6 plus… That's charisma.

I'm trying to goad him into it. You got to make him think it's his idea. Nine. Nine. I'll aid. Yeah. Okay. 2D6 plus… How are you aiding? Yeah, Morris. You big chicken. I got six plus seven. Seven. So that makes it a 10, which means Morris is like standing in front of the door and he's like, if what you say is true and this is a liminal space of sorts, we're in a liminal space as well. So how did a liminal space connect to a liminal space? It's like two liminal spaces docking each other.

There's great power at work here. And if there's one thing Morris Wadges never shirked away from, it's great power. All right, I'll do it. And then it cuts to 10 minutes later and he's wearing like one of those old style scuba suits. He's got a diving helmet on. A hard hat? He's like, I'll do it. And he walks away. What? Yeah. What? What? What? What? You hear a bunch of clanging and then about 10 minutes later, boom. Boom. He's got canvas. He's got brass on his head.

Perel is standing behind him with a big bellows. Yeah. Like pumping air into a tube. Yep. Back up, everyone. I'm going in. We can barely hear him through the mask. And he stands in front of it and you see, you can't hear him breathe, but you see his body go up and down and up and down.

And then he twiddles his fingers and he shakily extends his hand towards the doorknob and he puts his hands around the knob and he turns and he pushes the door open but it's a pull it's a pull it doesn't move and then he pulls the door opens and there's sort of like a dim like the lights not quite as bright as it could be in here candlelight candles flickering flickering candles and he steps into the darkness what do you do?

I follow him oh wow send a light cat in there sure Tuck is terrified of seeing his friend again yeah he's he looked back and he's wearing a big loose sweater a big loose hoodie and sweatpants no he's not wearing sweatpants so he's wearing a hoodie and a loincloth are you wearing one of those? What?

Like those big hoodies that go down to your knees yeah yeah like a walmart hoodie it's a poncho it's a snooty or whatever they're called Perel's reading poncho Perel's reading poncho so is it Billy follows Morris?

I will follow behind Billy cautiously I grab Tuck's hand I let Ving guide me in it's quite dim in the hither and yon but it is as you remember it for the most part you see the barrels the big rope spool tables barrels with wooden tops stool chairs a comfy chair and a little couch next to a fireplace off to the left the old bar everything is surprisingly based on the last time you were here devoid of dust what do you do?

I follow my nose you're walking towards the kitchen walking towards the kitchen where you remember the kitchen to be off to the right of the bar and Morris is ahead thunking in his diving bell costume and from one of the storerooms suddenly bursting out you hear haven't these scallywags?

And a massive form bursts from the storeroom and Morris is pounded to the ground by the powerful form of a woolly pig whoa Francis and then Victor runs in you stay away from my family you scoundrel there's a whole I know they're gonna be like I don't know I don't have an accent off two animals just roaring and squealing at each other and then Francis makes eye contact with the three of you my word big eyes glistening anime welling up the welling tip it got me I'm so happy to see you again Francis sorry go hug I go hug him both mine eyes deceive me my boy the small boy it is me fat Billy how is it I can understand you we've all got the power I'm sharing it and you hear from the top of the stairs a creak and the door a door swinging open here Francis what's going on and thumping down the stairs a figure who knows who it could be mysterious first you see can I roll the figure and who this is absolutely discern realities hmm two to six plus wisdom uh wisdom nine okay so you get one question I got six I failed can you you can aid him can I aid what yeah cause you got a six yes seven seven seven ten okay so you all look towards the stairs at the same time so what are the questions that you ask uh what here is not what it appears to be why would you ask that one first actually there is an answer to this question uh huh you see fine leather boots coming down like the stair oh like well made not ostentatious but well made my goodness but you see them on feet bigger than you would expect and the there's a longer distance between like the legs keep the torso out of sight longer than you would think they would so tall and as he's coming down the stairs you hear kiss me ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding and the candles are like flickering and the candles are like yeah what should I be on the lookout for uh you see touching as as kiss me by six pence none the richer continues to play you see a hand touch the banister a metal hand a hand you remember being thin wire frame but now it seems like filled out with metal plates forming like a strong full hand so cool articulated fingers an iron like an iron like an iron hand whoa that touches the banister as the figure continues down the stairs and finally I will ask you're looking for the dumbest question you could ask aren't you who's really in control here it's perfect so suspicious and you see a fairly broad and filled out torso in an apron a leather apron underneath a linen shirt kind of like a kind of wide shoulders bit of heft on him and the head comes into view oh my god cheeks filled in a little blonde beard kind of long like shaggy-ish curly blonde hair as you finally see the face of an 18 year old Mears Fowlsmith whoa whoa Mears how old was he when we saw him last?

14 whoa holy shit and he goes what the hell! Don't be mad where have you been?

And he comes charging down the stairs and he's like almost six feet tall he's pretty like hefty and he just wraps you all in a hug oh my I can't believe it oh oh how oh and he like holds Billy up and he like like pushes Tuck back and he's just getting a look at all of you wow look at you you're all grown up tell me everything I wish I could and I think we we cut forward a few minutes to like you're all sitting at the bar Mears is behind the bar looks like a duck on a lake like so comfortable where he is he's like pouring drinks for everybody I'm chugging a huge like his hugest mug of chowder I say one more please he ladles some chowder into a cup and slides it down the bar to Billy I catch it and I'm like I'm like I'm like I'm like I'm like I'm like I'm like that was a drinking sound yeah can you give us that drinking sound one more time the chowder glopping out of the cup it was oh yeah and we lead it to Mears and we're like is that dairy free is that a dairy free chowder oh no oh fuck yeah listen we're all here to celebrate right we're all here for a good time Billy's on the counter his like shirt is open his tie is really loose you know I'm like a bunch of soap around his lower around his face yeah like padlock shape like a mustache and a goatee exactly what are Tuck and Ving drinking Ving grabbed a bottle of like like an old the oldest bottle he could find like we're celebrating oh yeah it's an old bottle of McCollin Oxblood ooh yeah pulls it cork it with his teeth and then glugs for everybody who wants one the thick red liquor pours into the cups and gets passed around to the adults including Mears now now a man oh now he's allowed to drink are you legal I mean depends on where you are I don't know that we've ever established a canonical drinking age that's true yeah I think we've just kind of thought it was weird sometimes if somebody gave booze to Billy but that's pretty much it starts drinking from his cup and Mears is just kind of like fiddling with his cup I gotta say it's kind of weird to see you guys why it's just it's been so long I know we've been looking everywhere for you have you well I have people in the discord have not shut the fuck up about it let's just say your name gets brought up a lot well I've well I mean look around I've you know this is it's been I've been pretty busy it's been there's been a lot well yeah what's you you heard our thing like the things that we've been up to what are some of the other travelers that you've met oh countless usually people in need this is a place to be for you this is a place to be for you A place that goes to people that need it.

Which leads me to believe that you three and your friends, all of you, clearly, need something. Who knocked on the door? Did you knock? Oh, sometimes, if Hither and Yon gets impatient, it tries to get the attention of people that it came for. It was sitting there for like two and a half days. Must have been. We haven't had any customers in a while, so that makes sense. Oh, wow. I'm sorry. I should walk by the doorway more often. Yeah. That's why it was a passive-aggressive knock. Yeah.

Oh, Fatim? Yeah? He was here for a while. Oh. What? Whoa. Yeah. Is he here now? No. And then Tuck tugs on the sweater he's wearing to loosen. He's like, is he here now? Hold it in the middle. Yeah. Like square up your shoulders. Yeah. No, he's been- And he grabs his axe, too. Because it's like such a weird relationship. He's like, I gotta make sure I look good. But also that I can kill him if I have to? Yeah. They're both things. Oh, God.

And then he readjusts because his boner's poking out of the little snuggie he's wearing. It's poking out of it? Yeah. It's trying to get out. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. It's trying to find a way. It's trying to find its way. How do we figure out who needed what? I think we all needed direction. Morris came through first, though. Yeah. And Morris is the only- Morris has taken off his diving helmet, but he's been walking around. Mm-hmm. Inspecting hither and yon. Mm-hmm. And he's frustrated.

He's looking at doors and knobs and fixtures. He's opening the windows. Because the windows look into the hallway- Yeah. Of the fanny pack. And he's like, there are no windows there. This doesn't make any- And he's opening. He's like, I can't figure out how they did this. I can't figure it out. Who did this? I don't know. It doesn't strike me as a place that was constructed by a wizard. You've never seen anything like this? What is this? Not in all my days.

And he- He pushes over a whole table and then starts ripping the carpet up. Mirrors is like, I just did that a couple weeks- Ah, jeez. Wait, so you're saying that Fadum was here? Yeah, he was here for- He stayed for probably six months. Oh my God. What was he doing here so long? He was just lost. He was kind of in crisis. And that seems to be most of the people that show up here are people that are in some kind of crisis and need to unwind, need to relax, recalibrate.

Did he end up finding his way? I hope so. Where did you let him off, so to speak? Somewhere… It was somewhere south of Blacklass, along the coast. That is where we are going. He tucks out his sweater again. He keeps getting wedged under his belly. Okay. He gets a wedgie in between his pecs. Pecs. Well, is anybody else here? Or is it just you and Francis? Just me and Francis. We've just been kind of traveling around, helping people out, serving people. I think this is where I'm supposed to be.

So you can't come with us? Well, I didn't say that. Can you control where the Hither and Yon goes? Yeah. I'm starting to figure it out, I think. Like you can leave sometimes? I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. I can. Watch this. What? And he walks to the front door. And you can see him take a couple steadying breaths. And he steps through the door. And he's attacked by a lyre wolf. He's tackled by Victor. You know them! Stranger Danger! Get them! Get them now!

And then you hear… And Francis balls Victor up. Oh, cool. And they just start rolling in that way that dogs fight, where they're clearly not trying to hurt each other, but they're playing. But Mears is like… Standing in the hallway and he throws his arms wide. Huh? What if we close the door? Don't close the door. Okay. It does not have that much. Are you just demonstrating to us that you're not agoraphobic?

I guess I've been inside for a long time, but I think that with the right negotiation and intention in this place, I could maybe connect your fanny pack to the back door. The back door of what? Hither and yon. There's not just one door. We could have permanent access to the hither and yon, wherever we take the pack. Oh, shit. And he points to the roof and there's the hatch that Chimes went through. Oh. Remember? There's multiple entrances and exits. Okay. And some of them are permanent?

2d6 plus intelligence to Spout Lore. Uh-oh. Minus one? I have minus one. Oh, zero. Zero. Actually, Billy doing it makes sense because fairies are all about boundary crossing. Okay. Unless you want to do it. No, I don't. Okay. I'll fuck it up. I got 10. Okay. Holy shit. Pretty good roll. Yes. You want to add? Let's make it an 11? Yeah. Jessica, tell me how Billy thinks that this could work using the fairy knowledge of boundary crossing. Is it just an act of thinking about it?

Is there something that you would have to do for hither and yon? Is it a ritual of some kind? I think, yeah, some sort of anchor has to be placed in each, like within the doorway. There has to be something done to the doorway, the entrance. Well, maybe it has to do with the key that you need to open the door with. Could be a key. Yeah. Oh. Could be a room key. Room keys. If you have a room key, then you can always get into the back door. I really like that. Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

And then you could each have, oh, you could each have a little room. Oh, yeah. In hither and yon. Yeah. We would obviously share the same room because we're co-divided. He's going to, and he will obviously offer you three room keys and you'll be like, not necessary. Lead the way. Thank you. One for us, one for Morris and Perel. Thank you. They can have the room at the end of the hallway. Yeah. Mears. Yeah. How have you been, what is this intentionality that you've been putting into it?

I've just been like. What does that mean? I just that I've been like, as the new barkeeper, I've been trying to put my mark on the place as you can see. And he like walks over to a pot of plants, like a, like a flower vase. And he goes, see. Oh, it's beautiful. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. I've had a lot of time on my hands these last years. Yeah, I guess the more we look around, I'm like, oh, like he's knitted things to put on stuff. And he's like stickers.

Portraits, painted rough portraits are like getting more and more like better and better. Oh, yeah. Of what's his name? Kem? Kem. Yeah. Some dried flowers, like dried bouquets. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. There's like there is a stage. And there's like a really rough made like plank stage that he created. And there's like there's a concertina on the stage that he's obviously been practicing. One of the straps is like for a normal human hand and then the other one's way bigger.

What are they called? Tickle trunks? Oh, yeah. With the costumes that Mears has collected and made. Some musical pages that he's writing a song. Don't you forget about me. Yeah. Yeah. So putting more of myself. Into this place as the barkeeper. I've got a I feel like I'm starting to get a bit of influence. And he's looking around like at the rafters like asking basically. Yeah. And you hear some like groaning timbers and he's like, all right. So here's I think I think this will work.

This is work before we've done this for other people. And he walks over to like next to the the shelves on the bar. There's like a little rack. And it's got wooden. Pegs in it. There's 12 wooden pegs. And there are keys hanging from the pegs. Some of the pegs are keyless. Okay. But there are several keys that he takes off. They've got little wooden like key chains on them that say H and Y. Uh-huh. And then like the room number on them. Cool. He walks over and he goes, these are room keys.

If you have these on you with good intent and you think about coming here, you'll be able to come through the back door. Sweet. And that should be able to get you. Yeah. Into hither and yon whenever you please. Wow. He starts handing out keys. One to Ving. One to Tuck. One to Billy. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. And Morris and Perel kind of go like. No, he also gives one to Perel. He knows Perel. I keep forgetting. Do you need one? And Morris is like pulling books off a bookshelf.

And looking behind. Do I have to give him a key? Yeah. And Morris is like, I will not accept that. Key. Holy shit. I'm bad at this. Morris is basically just like, fuck you and your room key. I'll get in here whenever the fuck I want to. I'm the master of space and time. Not this bar. And Perel's like, we'll just share. He can use my key. Yeah. So that, I mean, that makes it a little bit easier. You can come and go as you please. But what do you need right now? We just, I don't know. But.

Not to everybody, but I just want some time. Oh. And if Hither and Yon's good at giving you anything and he pats the bar, it's time. And then the cheers theme plays. Nobody knows your name. Except for that guy. It plays over a montage of Morris, like ripping the main room apart. Like mirrors, like pushing him away from stuff. Following him around with like a hammer and nails. Yeah. Morris like in the, in the diving. Like taking swings at mirrors. But they're like woodcut drawings. Yeah. Totally.

Victor and Francis rolling into furniture, fighting each other. Billy has started knitting a doily. How is he at it? Not good. What do you guys want out of this rest? Like you can absolutely, we can chat. We can get, I think we just rested. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I want to ask. I want to ask mirrors. I go up to them. I go up to him while he's hammering down some floorboards. Yeah. He's putting some floorboards back in place that Morris tried to pull up. Hey, mirrors. Yeah.

Have you stopped anywhere? Like really spooky and weird. Oh, lots of places. Like, like, have you heard of mother? Never was. Has anyone mentioned that name? He stops nailing. He hits his finger, but it goes clang because it's made out of metal. That's cool. What do you mean? Well, we, we told you the whole thing about the gibbous man. The God of the sky is like tracking us. Yeah.

So we found out that there's like a thing that he's scared of and it's this like wit, like bog, which called mother never was. Uh huh. Who's like crazy deal maker. Super scary. It seems to play with spaces. She supposedly like knows some stuff about him that might help us when we fight. Yeah. She hates chimes. We know that we learned that. Yeah. Pretty much the entire planet is terrified of her. Yeah. And he gets up and he like pats his, he wipes his hands on his apron.

I'd stay away from mother. Never was. If I was you, what do you know? I just, I, a couple of people have come through that have dealt with her. Some in better shape than others. How so? Well, one, one lady came in and she seemed fine. She came out of some sort of swamp, but she just needed a place to stay. So she stayed here for a couple of days. And then the next day it was like she was a totally different person and she just went ballistic.

And then another time someone came in this, this, this old man. And then I found out that he was like nine years old, but he's this old man. And all of them, they just babbled and babbled about mother never was. And you travel around as long as I have. And the places that I have, you know, that if someone's name comes up that often in situations like that, you know, you're going to be in trouble. You're going to be in trouble. You're going to be in trouble. You're going to be in trouble.

You're going to be in trouble. You want to stay away from them. I think we've already run into her. And you want to go back. It was an option, but I feel like, I feel like it's probably the worst of our options. Yeah. It's sort of a last resort. It's not necessary at this point. What about Chimes? Have you, have you seen Chimes? Yeah. Oh yeah. Once or twice. He's got one of the room keys. Oh, cool. That's so sick. I love that. Can we call him? Can we call him? Can we call him?

We need to speak with him. We need to speak with him. I can't, I can't call him, but he might show up at some point. And if he does, I can, I can. All right. Let me try this. And then Tuck goes to the front door, cuts the line that was connecting Morris's diving costume to like the rest of it. And he closes the door. Whoa. And then he opens it again. What's there? Whoa. What do you think is there? I don't know. Should we roll? Yeah, you can roll. I guess so. Because our intention is Chimes.

Yeah. We need help. And he's the stepdad of the waves. Who can help us? Stepdaddy of the waves. Give me a defy danger wisdom. 2d6 plus wisdom. 12. 12. Oh my gosh. So you close the door. Morris goes, no. No. And the shutters over the windows all slam shut. Whoa. Sick. They shut like. Yeah. And then you. Storm is raging. You open the door again. And you are looking straight up at a. Stormy sky. Whoa. Oh, sick. Are we up? Are we in the sea of graves? It. You are looking at a stormy sky.

Straight up. Yeah. Straight up. Oh, okay. Can we climb out of the front door? And you, you like reach out in the door and you can feel the change in gravity as your hand passes the threshold. Cool. And you grip onto the sides of the doorframe and you touch like old weathered planks. Whoa. Hello. And you. Hook your head out. Oh, we're in the boat. And sitting. The shipyards. Like three feet away from you. On a bench with the tiller in his hand is Chimes. Chimes. He's totally nude.

He's got a little breech cloth just hanging over his balls. I let go of the doorframe and I fall down. You fall. It's weird because you fall down, but you just like land back on your feet standing at the door. Tumble a little bit into the bar. And he goes. What the fuck? Hey, man, we were looking for you for a little bit. What are you doing? What? Back up, back up. And he pulls a little like he's got a stone at his feet wrapped around a rope and he just tosses it over the side of his skiff.

And as he like tosses the rope, his boat comes to like a dead stop. Oh, cool. And then he tells you to back up. Yeah, we back up. And the door is clear. And he just like steps over the door. Drops through and very fluidly lands on his feet. So sick. Oh, cool. Tuck readjusts the giant sweater he's wearing around the crotch. Has Tuck been soft at any point? In the show? No, never. He's never soft. Rock hard 100% of the time. He just is angling it in different directions.

So many waistbands under the flap. There's like a complex network of rubber bands. Just waistbands. Yeah. And he's like, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. He's wearing just waistbands. Just waistbands. He tears off pants that he sees out in the dumpsters. Uh, hi. Hey. Uh, he's, yeah, just wearing a breechcloth. But you see like, like whip lean weathered skin covered in tattoos. Cool.

Long gray hair, long gray beard. Ving says to Chimes, looking at Tuck, somebody's in a cut phase. He's so shredded. So shredded. And Tuck is like, I'm gonna go. Tuck, uh, like he tugs on every piece of the sweater that is clutching against his skin. Some sort of fat. Yeah. There must be a lot of static going on. Yeah, yeah. Just making it worse. Yeah. Tucks on. So much fucking static in here. It keeps clinging to my body. I'm so wildly aware of my love handles right now.

And, uh, he walks around all of you, kind of giving you like a weirdly wide berth and then like behind the bar. And grabs a clay jug, pops the cork, smoke starts pouring out of it. Cool. He pours himself a glass. Mears comes out of the kitchen with his regular order. Yeah, totally, which would be, it's like stew and biscuits. Nice. And he just sits at the bar, his bare ass touching the stool. When his ass gets into the stool, it's the exact shape of his butt. Yeah. What's going on?

We need to ask you about Mother Never Was. Ugh. I'm sorry. We just need to know. Yeah, we saw, well, Ving saw like a vision where you stole the ink that you tattooed yourself from her. He's just like looking at his stew. And then we saw that sick ass fight that you had with the Gibbous Man. Yes, when you raised the graves from the sea. That was so fucking sick. We basically are just telling him the story. Like fan club. Yeah, of his life back to him.

And he's not, he's eating, he's dipping a biscuit in his stew, eating some biscuit. And then you were like, and then you're like, you're like, something came out of your fucking mouth. And then the chains were like, yeah. And the waves were like, your hair was like, and when you, when you mentioned the chain, you notice he like kind of rubs one of his forearms a little bit. Oh, cool. And he just is staring at an empty bowl of stew. You looked so hot back then.

You look hot now, but like a different way. Do you want more stew chimes? I can get for you. He nods and he just grabs the bowl and gives it to Billy. Ving pours him another drink. And he takes a smoking mouthful of the, of the liquor. Billy comes back with an overflowing bowl of soup. He just takes it in his hand. He doesn't even think about the stew that's all over his hands now and starts eating again. And he takes a one more sip of his drink. All right.

What do you need to know about mother never was? How? How? Did you trick her? I didn't trick her per se. Our deal just hasn't come due yet. What do you owe her? Well, when I die, what I am goes to her. That's part of the reason I, any kind of gestures to all his tattoos. You know, if I don't die, then the deal's never up. That's so sick, dude. So sneaky. Your life is cheating a deal. My life has always been cheating a deal. Fuck it. So cool. I'm gonna stop talking because this shit's so sick.

Chimes, how did you beat the gibbous man? I had to give up a lot. My breath, you've heard the song, I don't have to go through the whole thing. What's the real version, though? You and I both know a song is, a song is a song. A song's a song. Truth's truth. Well, you saw, sounds like, from the whatever you did, you saw kind of how. I like the idea that he saw us see that. Oh, he probably felt it happening. Yeah.

I also love how fucking, like, dismissively he, like, gestured when he was like, whatever you did. Whatever bullshit you all pulled. Like, he's seen it all. He's like, whatever, some kind of bullshit. Some kind of spirit bullshit. That's your thing? Everybody's got a thing and it all works away. And then he looks at Tuck and he's like, except for you, you don't have anything. Nothing. So what, so what you're asking is how he actually defeated the gibbous man. Yeah. Yeah.

Weaknesses, vulnerabilities. He's also probably spent an eternity thinking about how he would beat him again. Yeah, that's true. The things I learned from Never Was, that was how I was able to give myself to the sea. And in giving myself to the sea, I retained some of its power. Just enough to get the upper hand. Just long enough that I could win. Chimes, are you a god? Not anymore. When were you one? When I had to be. And now, my, the deed was done. The fight was won.

Didn't mean to rhyme there, but you know, sail for long enough. It just kind of happens. And now, God, I'm just a fucking good ass guy. Now I get to spend the rest of eternity trying not to pay a debt I owe. What happens if you pay it? Mother Never Was gets the power that I have. I don't even want to think about it. Hmm. Is she that bad? Are you that powerful? Yes. Yes. And yes. Should we be more afraid of her or of him? Well, who do you fear more? Your enemy? Or what your enemy fears?

Whoa, that's a cool way to think about it. That's a really cool way not to answer the question, Chimes. Wait, Chimes. Chimes is so sick. Chimes. Sean, you're so sick. Billy's like playing with the soup that he spilled all over the counter. He's like, Chimes, Chimes, Chimes. Why is the Gibbous Man so scared of Mother Never Was? I honestly, I wish I could tell you more about Never Was, but she's one thing I even barely understand. I don't know where she exists, but she's not just here.

We're all playing the same game. She's not even on the same board. She's not a god. She's not a god. She's something else completely. She's a creator. Yeah. She's something. But that's the thing. It's like, Spider was the creator, right? Didn't… Was a creator. A creator. Yeah. Because there was also Hummingbird. Hummingbird and Spider made the… That's, I guess I'm saying this to like Chimes. Like, Hummingbird and Spider made the world.

Like, you'd think that they would be the most powerful things. Yeah, if this was the only world. Multiverse. Oh, fuck. I don't want it to be that. Okay, let's spin this back a little bit. So, I mean, I'm trying to think about the Gibbous Man's main thing right now, main issue, for the last couple thousand years, is that though he is a god, he has diminished an aspect because he's like chained to the material plane. Yeah. So he's less powerful than he normally is.

And unless he can free himself from that, he has, like Mother Never Was, is just more powerful than him. Right. What if that's what it kind of is? It's like he's like stuck in his own web. Oh. Oh, yeah. And that's what's keeping him on this plane. And Mother Never Was is untethered. Like, because she can, like, see all the paths untaken, all the strands of the web, she can travel them easily. So he's at her, like, mercy. Okay, that's cool.

So that is where her power is from, is that she's all of the things that were never made. Which is like, outweighs the creation that was, which is a lot. Yeah. Her possibilities are like infinite. Yes. Just because of the nature of it. But it comes from a non-space. Yeah. So there's something, it limits her. Because if she wasn't just, oh. Is it choice? I mean, maybe, yeah. Maybe it's that because she is the things that never were, she can't make choices like that. Oh, cool. Oh.

So she has to, so the only way that she can influence the world is through other people. Is by other people's desires and their choices. Their choices. Yeah. Oh, and when people make choices out of fear, it's often like not the right thing for them. You know, it's not always the smartest decision. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So that could be how she is trying to, control the outcome. Mm-hmm. That would benefit her most. So, oh man. Okay, wait, sorry. I just started.

Does that mean that Mother Never Was is a god? Oh yeah. But she's the god of the things that were never chosen. Exactly. Yes. A hundred percent. She is the god that never was. Cool. The god, like the nameless one. The one without followers, without, because they don't. Every time something's made, she's the thing that was on the outside of that. She is the, like the negative thing that was unchosen, that was rejected, that like didn't get a chance to exist in the world. Mm-hmm.

And it went somewhere and that place is her domain. Yeah. I love it. Wow. Which means that even time does not have dominion over Never Was. No. Yeah. She exists outside everything. Yeah. Wow. And it's, it makes. Except for what is. Yes. Like you said, there's a limitations in the material realm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the same way that Gibbous Man is constrained here, and that's why he hates it, she is also. Constrained not here, like out of here. Yes.

Where she can, she wants to be a part of the world, but she can't be. And it's like, she uses the deals because a deal is a choice. And that's the only time she can interact with the world. Oh, cool. Is like when a deal can get made. When someone asks something of her. It's so sad. It is really sad. And I like that they're not asking it of her, they're asking. Yeah. It's almost like a nameless, nameless prayer that she can answer. Yeah. The God that never was. Yeah. So Chimes says all that.

Yeah. No. Okay. So what was the last actual question we asked before I decided I hated what I was doing? Oh, wasn't it like, why is, why is he afraid of her? Oh, okay. Yeah. Why are they all after the Tesseract? It's an infinity stone. The infinity stones. There's one more to get. There's just one more to get. There's just one more to get. There's just one more to get. He like holds up his hand. Oh my God. He's got five tattoos on the back of his hand. I need seven tattoos. Yeah.

I hope you, I hope you don't mind. I invited my friends and then Falcon. Oh fuck. Sam Wilson? Oh man, the worst one. You mean Captain America, Abdul? He's Captain America now. I thought it was going to be Ruffalo. Wait, from Hook? That's Rufio. From Fuck. Whoa. I hope you're mad. I invited some of my friends. Ruffalo. Ruffalo. Ruffalo. Fuck. Yeah. Whoa. Okay. So what makes the Gibbous Man afraid of Mother Never Was?

And Chimes is kind of spinning the wooden bowl on the plate, just like fiddling, trying to think about it. He goes, Gibbous Man is here. He's the sky. He's the night sky, the sky of day. And boy, if you get him talking about it, he won't let you forget. He made the world. Yeah. Before he became what he was and what he is now. Mother Never Was. Whenever something gets made, there are a hundred things that didn't, that never were. She's that. She's, she's the God that never was.

And he, as a creator, is terrified of that. He doesn't like all those possibilities. Exactly. Cause he's the one who made a choice. Yeah. Exactly. She's the only way that she can interact with the world is through people's choices. That's why she makes the deals. She wants to be a part of this. He doesn't. Whoa. Did she force a deal between herself and him? And the Gibbous Man? And the Gibbous Man? Oh, that's cool. Did they ever make a deal? They must have interactions.

You can't just be afraid of her for what she is. He's too arrogant. Like from what I know of him. If he did, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it would be. Can we Spout Lore about it? Using the past. Oh. Uh, maybe this is, this is entering the realm of like knowledge. No one would have. What about the Druids? What about in the way that the stars are laid out in the Gibbous Man, his body, the sky? I mean, they've read it all. Potentially. Yeah. Potentially. Hmm.

So if you use that font of Druidic knowledge, you just tell me what it is. Like I don't decide. Do you want that power ball? Shut up. Do not sow seeds of doubt within me. You can do this. I'm kind of just being so part of right now. What is it called again? Uh, can I see your sheet? No. All right. Well, good luck. Druidic lore. That's what it is. It's on the front page. It's the thing that says Druidic lore. The words that you said when you started looking, for the move. Doubt. It's thy name.

I'm, I'm supporting you 100% right now. When you consult the trove of ancient knowledge within you to examine the events of the world, role plus was on a hit. The GM will ask you a question about the subject. Whatever you say is true. So do you think that this is something that the Druids would know that would be recorded in the trees? They would know an aspect of it. They would know something instinctively. They might not know, the details of a deal, but what happened after the deal was made.

I could see that. All right. Are you rolling this? Seven. Plus wisdom. 10. Whoa. 10. So smart. I'll aid. So you get to tell me. You have my ass. You have my ass. Put those goddamn dice down. You better roll those goddamn dice. I got a three. So I'll mark. No, don't take it. You have my ass. You have my ass. You have my ass. You have my ass. You have my ass. You have my ass. You have my ass. You don't get experience for that. I got a nine. Well, it's too bad. All right. What? So what?

On a hit, the GM will ask you a question about the subject. Whatever you say is true. After this deal was made, whatever it was, what did the druids of the world notice change? The stars. What changed? There was stars. The creation of the stars was their deal because it was blackness. The sky, which was everything. The stars are the specs of light are not darkness. They are not what he is, including the moon. Were the first stars their agreement? Maybe. Hmm. There was the contract.

The first contract was the stars. And I feel like we missed the part where Paul said that was also the creation of the moon. Uh-huh. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. So his mother never was Lillian's mother. Oh, that makes sense. That's cool. That's sick. The gibbous man and mother never was our exes. That makes so much sense. That makes a lot of sense. He's trying to run away from his crazy ex. It makes so much sense. It's just, it's just husbands and wives fighting each other. True.

Isn't that all gods? Oh my God. It is so much mythology. Yeah, it is. So the, so mother never was and the gibbous man are former lovers. I mean, and their child is Lillian. And their lovers could be that they work together in some way. Yeah. He created the world. She is everything that isn't. That could be their love language. Yeah. It's not, it's not like, yeah, cause they're gods. It's not like humanity. They were straight up stupid. Yeah. They're like on the phone every night.

Like how's it going? But also, and the gibbous man's dad was like, you gotta hang up. My buddy's calling. You've been tying up the line all night. I'm trying to get on, uh, msn.bc. I tried to call you six times. Dot bc. What? Dot bc. I'm msn.bc. Isn't that what? I'm trying to get on msn.bc. Is that the new channel that everyone likes? Yeah, that's the one. Msn.bc. I miss msn. So, okay, this, that's, that's big, but that really fits. That makes sense. Yeah.

So Ving says this, Ving tells everybody, like he looks inside himself. Like from that dream and the knowledge. Yeah. And it, you know, new runes like bloom on Ving's skin. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Point to lidded point to lism ruins. Uh huh. Yeah. Like he's like, becomes covered in a map of the entire sky. Whoa. Stars that we've never seen. Cause we haven't traveled far enough to see them.

And then when you're doing the communion with the seed in your chest to get this information and the tattoos start to show up, chimes grabs your wrist like really tight and slams it on the bar and then just starts reading. Whoa. Cool. I like that. So he starts reading. He starts reading the runes and the points of light that are like appearing on your skin. Yeah. And then he kind of like makes a gesture as if he was tossing a book down on a table, but it's your hand. It was already there.

And he sits down at his stool and he pours another drink of smoking liquor. It takes a big gulp, just skulls. It takes the whole thing back and goes, okay, so mother never was, is my mother-in-law. Oh, no wonder you're scared of her. That makes sense. I wish I knew that. Before I wish I knew that before, you know, I want to say that I missed you guys, but sort of shit. I don't miss. And mirrors is like wide eyed. He's been cleaning the same glass for 20 minutes.

His metal fingers are just like chipping away at the glass that he's cleaning. He's whittling the glass. I do wonder given all of this, what is it that makes a God a God? He kind of looks at his drink. Swirls it around consensus. What do you mean? I mean, power is power. Influence is influence. There's not like this is a God and this is not a God. This thing that's not a God could be as powerful as a God. This guy, he kind of gestures at Billy. Look at him. So drunk now.

So, so round, so small, so much cream, so much soup on his hands. Go on. This guy's a God. The power contained within this little guy compared to him. And he points at mirrors and points back at Billy. That's a God. And mirrors is like, what the fuck? What did I do? He pops up like, I'm a God. Well, it's just, you know, it's the stories about the influence. Yeah. It's not a switch. You flip. It's not a classification. We're not talking about horse breeds here.

So if I could convince everyone that I'm a powerful God, then I would be a God. A God is slightly, above a mirror, Billy. So therefore above the chef. That's true. That's true. I could be more powerful than a chef. Billy's like, I need to be alone. I have some things to think about. He takes his room key and waddles away up the stairs. Climbs back into the boat. Stands out there. I don't like this. I don't want to be a God. It's too scary out here. It's too cold.

He stands out there and then dumps all the marbles into the ocean. I don't need you anymore. I can have breakfast whenever I want. Oh, I love this. Getting rid of the marbles. Can you please get rid of the marbles? Yeah, I do. That's what I do. He drags his marbles outside. I'm free now. It's been a weird prison. It has been. It's the scene from Titanic when Rose drops the heart of the ocean into the ocean. Oh my gosh. Watch as it goes into the water. It disappears. Yeah. Makes that weird sound.

Yeah. I'm free. Fuck. We've done a lot of big revelations here. Oh, yeah. And now it comes time for Perel to ask a question. Oh. Yeah. Perel has been eating a big bowl of paella. He fell asleep for a while. He's been sitting in front of the fire. He's been sitting in front of the fire. He's been sitting in front of the fire. He's got his feet up. And he wakes up. And he looks over at Morris's diving suit and the cord that goes to the door that was very roughly cut with like a steak knife.

And then he sees the bright sky outside, the overcast gray of the clouds. And he goes, hey, where's the fanny pack? Oh, shit. We look to the door. And Morris, who's been like knocking on a nearby wall. The wall and listening goes. Wait. And looks at the open door and rushes towards it. And yeah, Tuck runs. And he's like, it's fine. It's fine. I can fix this. I got you. You close the door. I close the door and reopen it. It brought us here. And look what I can do now.

And Tuck takes the door, closes it. And he's like, no. Welcome back to the fanny pack. And he throws it open. And you open the door to a war. You see a field before you. You churned to thick, viscous mud under hundreds of feet. Hot mud. Hot mud. Shooting a giant popping out of the ground. In the distance, you see tents ablaze. You see people with spears on horseback rushing down a hillside. And you see great mechanical bodies thumping in the distance. Swarms of mechanics keeping them running.

Knights in heavy armor drowned in the mud puddles. Yeah. You see bodies all over, smashed into the mud. At the head of these forces, these mechanized armored forces, you see a large man, dark skin, burning red hair, holding aloft a black bladed sword. And that's where we're going to end it for this week. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdulaziz. So long. Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Take care.

Playing Fapily, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone. Thank you to Aaron Reed for our intro. And outro music. You can find all of Aaron's original music at aaronreed.bandcamp.com. You can find all of the music produced for the show at Spotify. And thank you to all of our Patreon supporters around the world. If you'd like to support the show, join us at patreon.com. Or spelllord.com. And thank you, finally, and most of all, to all of you for listening. We'll see you next time.

And so ends the tale of Adventures 3. Who tried their 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 spell Lord. Oh Oh Oh

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

I'm your Game Master Sean O'Hara, joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdul Aziz Hello everybody! Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers Good day! And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai Hello everyone! When last we left our heroes, they found themselves at the very front door of the place they've been wondering about for years And also our listeners have been asking about for years Hither and yon Right!

That's what we did you last time That is what we did Good memory After goading Morris to enter the bar first Out of fear that it was some sort of trap and also a fear that his friend didn't want to see him According to Tuck The party was soon accosted by a terrified Francis the Woolly Pig Afraid that there was some sort of ambush taking place The kerfuffle drawing down the staircase Long lost companion, Mears Falsmith, now seemingly Around 18 years old In his late teens Filled out quite a bit Quite tall Little bit of a beard Modified mechanical iron hand And the barkeeper of Hither and Yon So sick There was a nice little catch up As the party shared some drinks and food And filled in Mears on their adventures as he filled them in on his The party discussed with Mears what they were to do next The bar arriving as they themselves were at an impasse To the deck below The skiff of Chimes So sick The patron of sailors Chimes arrived completely nude Except for a breechcloth And sat at the bar as the party just hammered him with questions Like their dad just got home from work and they were wondering what's for dinner Like our dad just got home from war Like this I wonder what's for dinner Yeah And then we learned a number of things Chimes made a deal with Mother Never Was The deal was to learn the secrets of runic magic which he uses in his tattoos And ever since that deal was made He has been making himself increasingly immortal Because the deal comes due once Chimes dies And Mother Never Was receives the power that Chimes has bestowed upon himself Cool And that power he used to From what he says temporarily make him The god of the sea In his fight with the gibbous man Millennia ago to free Lillian So cool So sick That power we can assume was transferred to the sea Turning it into the sea of graves Which means that the sea is now the god of the sea It is a god sea That's kinda cool That is cool We also learned that Mother Never Was Is in some fashion the god of things that never were She is every choice that was never made The uncreated And that is the power of Mother Never Was And that is why the gibbous man fears her so Ving also looking inside at the trove of druidic knowledge Discovered that the gibbous man and Mother Never Was Made a plan themsel- or made a deal themselves Long long ago Which led to the creation of the night sky The stars their contract And the moon their offspring Which that actually implies that the entirety of the iconic realm Is the contract between the gibbous man and Mother Never Was Potentially Yeah!

Depending on the true connections between the night sky and the iconic realm Right because it was the giants who thought that the Yes The stars were the icons Yes and whether or not that is true or a cultural interpretation from the giants Has yet to be proven Uh after all of this Perel woke from a sleepy stew induced coma in front of the fireplace at Hither and Yon And asked where the fanny pack was Uh so everybody rushed to the door to see if they could get it back Closed the door and opened it again Seeing before them a war The forces of the firefields And the forces of the riverways and the high spear Including at the head of the high uh firefields forces Colm Blackhammer with his black bladed sword Oh my gosh That is where we find our heroes now Hither and Yon has apparently decided that this is where you have to go now Um can I discern realities?

Yes absolutely I wanted to do this quickly 2d6 plus yeah quick is the key here 10 10 so 3 questions What is about to happen? Uh what is about to happen is uh Billy you shockingly as the littlest boy in the room Are also the most experienced at war Oh yeah Yeah many of your lifetimes have been spent in battle And even just your ancient warrior instincts scanning this battle before you You know that the high spear and riverways forces are going to be overwhelmed Oh no Mmm!

Who's really in control here?

You see Colm Blackhammer in the distance I should say he is quite far away Like you'd have to get through some serious shit to even get close to him You can see there's a cluster of the red banners around this giant figure Oh yeah The red banners with the black hammer and he is swinging this sword back and forth And you see the glint of the blade and you know at this point in your adventuring life That blade is made of obsidian And he is fighting with a fury that seems unbecoming And you see the coming of such an experienced warrior which makes you think he must be under some sort of Oh my god Influence Uh what here is useful or valuable to me?

Uh what here is useful or valuable I think like you peek your head out the door a little bit And you see that you've come out of what appears to be a nearly ruined outhouse Like above the jam of the door carved into the wood You see hither and yon like carved into the wood of this outhouse But this is the door that the bar has chosen Wow Yeah and it's ruined for a couple of reasons One because it's in the middle of a war and the other because they had chili last night So you opening this door and realizing the inside of the outhouse is gone You wonder where all that poo poo and pee pee went Oh the poo poo and pee pee is all around us Okay I would like to roll discern realities to figure out where the poo poo and pee pee went The rest of that the rest of the answer that I was about to give Uh huh Unless you don't want any more information I literally do No we want to do poo poo and pee pee Can I roll call editor?

We're all rolling for poo poo and pee pee now Shut up Everyone we're going to do it now We're going to hear about the poo poo and pee pee now Uh what you realize Billy is that the battle is raging to the point where no one has noticed a little boy poking his head out of a destroyed outhouse But the poo and the pee Oh you don't want to know more of what I was going to say You want to know more about the poo and the pee I want to know that and Yeah so it seems like when hither and yon appeared here and you opened the door The poo poo and pee pee was actually forced out of the outhouse So in front of you for about five meters in every direction Is a thick layer of human blood And it went out It went out It usually you would assume that space would just be shunted somewhere else temporarily in the metaphysical realm Yeah While hither and yon took its place but not today Today it was the density the absolute mass of the human excrement that was present in this place Uh huh Altered the laws of thaumaturgy Okay and Such that it became a canon Okay Sean The ammo of which We did ask for this Was the detritus of the Detritus of a chilly dinner And there was a guy who was walking to the bathroom He's dead Oh my He was killed He was dead When a four foot long cylinder of solidified human shit Yeah Caved in his chest He was a bad guy though Okay Yeah He was a bad guy There's no dead man covered in shit here There's a dead guy covered in shit There's a dead guy He's a bad guy so it's okay He was a bad guy He was a really bad guy We cut He was a middle manager Yeah We cut to twenty minutes before when he was really giving it to like one of his underlings Yeah he's like you little piece of shit I'm the boss and I'm taking out my past traumas on you Yeah Now I gotta go take a shit I know past traumas now we have sympathy for this guy Oh no No cause I had every opportunity to work on them and I refused He had benefits I would have covered therapy I had so many I would have gotten paid to go to therapy Oh man I used my benefits for racist tattoos And he pulls up his chest and says I hate elves I hate these things They're so racist And then so they didn't notice Billy Yes so what the actual answer to this question was gonna be was that you have a moment to think about this No one has noticed that you guys are here yet Okay You don't have to rush headlong into the battle if you don't want to You don't have so much time that you can be like hello But if you like close the door the door would be closed And you could either leave or you could plan or whatever Tucker runs into the battle You serious Okay great cool So when he does that what is he thinking about Uh he's tugging on the sweater that he's wearing cause it's still clean Yeah yeah that doesn't answer my question very well though So what is he thinking about when he's like What is he thinking about when he leaves to enter this high stakes situation Oh that he's just like he sees the like that the Riverways is about to get totally fucked He's sprinting He's like heeeeee He sees people in the Riverways principality People wearing like the reed capes that Alec he wore And then he flashes back He has a flashback Her boobs that barely move under her grass shirt Oh my god was that a description Yeah I don't know That's kind of how I imagined it That was Jessica's description of her boobs Yeah I don't imagine them like huge they're like modest boobs But Tuck loves them Well I love them Uh huh And I go I flashback to me yelling at her through her window Yeah totally And I flashback to like when she was being attacked by that crocodile And then he grips his axe so tight and he goes Not again And then you hear a voice going That old guy That he He runs with Alright boys this is it I don't plan on Oh Staten Walden I know the other guy Oh yeah You shut the fuck up what are you doing It's a movie And then they end up being friends Alright guys He's like I feel like I've made a true friend tonight He's like giving them a war speech you know You hear a voice Yeah On the distant battlefield Alright boys Everybody line up Archers in the back Guys with sharp stuff in the front I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go Sharp stuff in the front Oh no Sharp guys forward They're so fucked Oh no They're so fucked They're so fucked Don't forget your reed skirts Underneath those capes Not much We can't let them know that And then Tuck Yeah Tuck He hears the voice And he comes back from his flashback And he goes Ella Key's roommate That guy That guy whose name I never got My new friend The stakes have never been higher Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun Running to her roommate Running Yeah to the tune of War Picks Yeah totally So Tuck yeah you start charging towards the Riverways Irregulars Yes And as he's running he goes Ella Key His roommate Yeah and then he says the last part really quiet Ella Key His roommate And as so yeah Tuck starts running across the field Billy and Ving what do you do?

I chase after him Oh Billy is so mad I don't wanna do this Is there any weapons in the Hither and Yon? Is there anything?

I grab some steak knives Oh yeah Yeah Yeah so Billy grabs a bunch of steak knives And as you're running out the door You hear mirrors go close the door And the door closes and then it like it slams And then like creak Oh and it's disgusting Yeah the door creaks back open and there is an outhouse there And there's a man in there And another dead guy Oh shit Crushed full of shit Oh god Maybe he's alive and he's like oh Yeah he's like Where was I? Where was I?

I was in hell I was in hell Where was I? Where was I? He chokes up one final mouthful of human shit And then he dies Oh my god You all did this to me Yeah And then as he dies he tries to give himself one more racist tattoo And he let everybody know how much I hated orcs To be clear I am a bad person It's every enemy that dies Every time this show has to be like I'm a bad guy So you don't feel bad about killing them I'm obviously a bad guy I'm in the wrong Did Morris and Perl come with us?

No Are you fucking kidding me? Absolutely not Shit They're God damn wizards We could have used them. Are you kidding me? There's no way they entered a battlefield. When Billy turned around to look, they were behind the bar, like, peeking over. They were the ones that were closing the door. Billy reached back to close the door, and it slammed in his face. Whoa. On a child. And Morris and Perel are, we cut into the hither and yon, and Morris and Perel are just like, they have their room keys.

They have their room keys. They'll be fine. They have their room keys. When are they ever not fine? Yeah, what are we going to do? A couple old thaumaturgists? Yeah. And Mears is like, he's like a warrior with a metal hand and all battle clad. Oh, yeah. And he's like, what? You didn't close the door. You closed the door. You closed the door? I said, don't close the door. I didn't get my stuff. Sorry, we just heard close the door. Oh, man. They're fucked. Mears was going to help us.

That would have been so cool, seeing him in his new, like, fight style. Maybe next time. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, this is catching swords. You guys aren't ending the war storyline this episode. I promise you. You don't think so? Because Tuck's going to really try. Oh, I know. Oh, my God. That's why both brothers aren't in the same place at the same time. Oh, smart. What time is it? Very child. I wanted to roll four seasons. Oh, do it. For sure. Four form, Billy. Yeah. Okay, so four seasons.

Remember, you just roll a D4. Oh, I just roll a D4. And then it chooses, the number determines the season. Oh, shit. Yeah. Number four is winter. Let's hope for it. I get four. Number four. Come on. Winter. Four. That's a four. Oh. Yes. Four for war. Four for war. Four for war. Four for war. Four for war. Four for war. Four for war. And I love that it is still tiny little fat Billy. Yeah, so. But now he is entering a winter form.

The winter form is just when I deal damage, I deal an additional D6. Holy shit. Does Billy look different? I don't think so. Well, what do you think? I think he frosts over a bit. Sweet. I like it. And the other thing is that. Counting's changes. Yeah. He is in the winter season, so the way he acts is different. Yeah, he's shiftier. Yeah. What is Billy thinking? He sees this battle unfolding before him. He starts thinking that Tuck and Ving acted rashly. Oh. And he's like, idiots. Oh, yeah.

This isn't just fun. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool, because he's thinking with his war brain. Yeah. Because you get more tactical. Yeah, this is not tactically prudent. Yeah. Oh, I imagine he's got a steak knife in his little hand, and his hands flex on the handle and ice his hand. Yeah. Yeah. And he starts creeping down the blades. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is this the end of the day? I'd like to use what the bones know to roll a D6 at the end of the day. The end of the day would have.

Oh, man, it's probably really weird in Hither and Yon. I think that stuff happens faster than you think. So, yeah, you could get the end of the day thing. And can I roll Fairy Child as well? Yep. You both could. What I'm saying is that you both get your thing. Oh, sorry. Sick. The way time works in Hither and Yon. Okay, great. Yep. So, it's 2D6 plus charisma for Fairy Child. And what the bones know, I think, is you just roll a D6. 1D6. I got a 1. Okay. Incredible.

Okay, so you get to hold a 1 for whenever you want to use a 1. I got a 8, so I have 3 hold for Fairy Child. Okay, cool. Can he give it to someone else and, like, fuck up their roll like an NPC? Potentially. Yeah. But I think right now he just gets a 1 that he can use whenever he wants. I'll just put that over there. But for now, basically, Ving gets the overwhelming sense that something is not going to go as well as he thinks it will later on. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, my old sense. Oh, self-doubt.

My old friend. Okay, so Billy's got 3 Fairy Hold. Fuck yeah. Wow. Ving is getting a bad feeling about this fight. Uh-huh. Oh, no. And you are charging towards the battle. Yeah. And you hear the guy yelling, All right, sharp boys! Get ready! Tuck's running straight for that group of people because he's like, they're going to die. He assumes that they're all the people he knew from Bull Rush, so he needs to protect them. Uh-huh. And he comes running.

He comes running up from behind them and jumps and clears the entire battalion and lands in front of them. Uh-huh. Yeah. All right. 26 plus strength, I guess. You're trying to leap over like 30 people. Yeah. And I'm going to lead them when I land. Okay. I only rolled a five, but I got eight. Eight. So seven to nine. Yeah. You clear this group of people. You just jump real hard. And as I'm jumping, I go to the beautiful. Beautiful. Ah, look at me.

And you splash down in the mud in front of them, a thunderous crash as your body hits the ground. Yeah. And then what do you do? And then I go, I'm your leader now, nerds. And then you. And then I lead them to war, I guess. Yeah. So you start running forward. Do you want to be nerds forever? Yeah. And a few of them get so caught, like they get so caught up in you making this huge gesture, that they start following you. They all cheer and they run forward.

And then you realize that none of the other Riverways forces have quite mobilized yet. And you've just led a charge early. Oh, no. No. No. That's very dangerous. Sean, no. You have an opportunity to stop this. I don't. Wait, can I roll a war cry into that as well? Because it was entering a battle with a show of force. It's like the most literal. Yeah, you're just. Yeah, you're entering a battle. Okay. Okay. Roll plus charisma.

So the thing that I will say is that if you are rolling this, this means that you are entering the battle. Yes. There is no time to waste. No time to think. You're running into the fight. I'm running into the fight. Okay. I got a seven. Okay. Yeah. Seven to nine on a war cry is what? I get to choose one. Your allies are rallying. Take plus one forward. Your enemies feel fear and act accordingly. So I guess I do the allies. I want to give these guys the best chance. Yeah. So what is your war cry?

When you hit the ground? Can I make it that I jumped like 40 guys? Yeah. Yeah. And then he goes, I'm your leader now, nerds. And if you know where Alec is, and then he makes the axe glow like the amethyst crystal goes. It's like so bright. Yeah. Yeah. And he goes, tell her I'm around. He starts running into the battle. Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Your allies are rallied and take plus one forward means that you start rushing forward with these militia men and you see like down the line, a growing cheer and like yell as the rest of the Riverways and High Spear forces in this battle. Several hundred people take this as the signal to charge and they seem elated as they rush forward towards the Firefield's forces. Sick. Billy and Ving, you see Tuck has leapt to the forefront of this battle. And begun a charge with nary a thought in his head.

What do you do? I think I like, I joined Tuck by his side. Nice. Because Billy is just going to cut down as many people as he can. Okay, great. So Billy has joined the charge. Ving's got in on the other side, and I'm going to roll fight with honor. Oh, sick. Yeah, totally. Go ahead. That's so rad. 2d6 plus constitution. I got nine. Nine. That's great. That's what? Three chi, two chi or something like that? Two chi. Two. You can hold on to two, no problem.

What do we think the scale of this battle is? I think it's a few hundred people total. I don't think it's huge. Yeah. It seems like maybe a smaller battle in the greater war. Skirmish. The Black Hammer is here for some reason. He insists on being at every battle, no matter how small. Yeah, however many he can get to. But what were you going to ask? I was going to ask if there's a mech in this one. I think there's one. Okay. Yeah, there's one of the war machines. It's like 15 feet tall.

It's just like iron pistons. Steam, like a coal burning engine on the back. You see Firefield's mechanics with their big welder's goggles and wrenches and other, it looks like pneumatic rivet guns working on it as you guys are getting ready to charge. And then on the other side, maybe they're defending an important ridge that gives them the high ground. Oh, maybe there's something they're fighting over. It's not just a fight for no reason. Yeah. This is the only toilet for miles. Man!

We're here today to defend the very foundation of the war effort. The one working toilet. No longer will the men and women of the riverways shit in holes. We'll shit in a hole with a wall around it. Never more shall your turds pass your children down the river into the future. We'll shit in the beaches. We'll shit in the streets. Yeah. So they're fighting over some sort of, like, it's like a ridge or like a, like maybe a bridge. Yes. Like the bridge that crosses a river near here. Yeah.

And it crosses like the river into like the High Spirit Principality proper. Oh, we're on like the edge of the border of the High Spirit Principality. I like that. Yeah. And also the shitter. And there's a shitter here. The shitter's in the toll kiosk that's next to the bridge. It's like a… The bridge tolls. It's like one of those… It's one of those, like, national park toilets. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Come see our bridge and shit in our toilet. Yeah. Welcome to the Riverways Principality.

They're not doing well. Yeah. Financially, culturally, everything. Riverways having a bad time. Yeah. Mudlark might be one of the more financially successful villages. That's insane. It's because of the festival, man. Yeah. Okay. So you are now rushing towards the Firefield's forces. You see on the far side of the field, Colm Blackhammer. Red hair flying. It's wild. It's long. It's blowing in the wind. So sick. He's got a big black-bladed sword.

His cast iron armor seems to be mechanized in some way. Like, he's got a small steam engine burning on his back that moves like pistons in the arms and legs. Sick. Gives him probably a great amount of strength. Mm-hmm. So he's, like, got steam billowing around him as he moves, as he charges his forces forward. It's so fucking metal. I love it. That steam from his armor suit is… Yeah. Billowing around his neck. It's, like, making his hair all curly and frizzy. Yeah. Yeah.

It's fucking with his hair really bad. Yeah. That looks cool like fire. Yeah. It makes him look wild. Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. And you are rushing towards the side because Tuck decided to point it out specifically with a war machine. A 15-foot tall combat steam bot of some kind. Oh, they're 15 feet? So they're the size of the mechs in The Matrix? Yeah. They're about that size. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, like, two and a half people tall. So they're not gigantic. Mm-hmm. But they're big.

They're not Pacific Rim mechs. No. Absolutely not. They're more like The Matrix or Titanfall. Yeah. So this thing, like, you see the mechanics see you guys charging towards them, and they start really reefing on some bolts, and then they back up, and they start yelling at this thing. Oh. And it, like, stomps forward and starts stomping towards your line as you charge forward. What do you do? And where is Colm relative to this thing? At the other end, basically. Okay.

Commanding the forces on the other side of this fight. Okay. Yeah. Right now, it seems to be, like, a full-on infantry charge. People are just rushing from either side. Okay. Yeah. Cool. What do you do? I just want to kill this thing. Yeah, you can go for it. The mech or the Colm guy? Yes, both. Yes. Both of these things. And his mind is like, fuck, if Alec is here or if someone tells her how cool I look, I really have a shot this time. Okay. Tuck goes straight for the mech. Okay.

You're going to have to roll some sort of defy danger. To close the distance? Yeah, to close the distance safely, because this thing's got reach on you for sure. Can I do defy danger strength to, like, just run as hard as I can and barrel through whatever? Or is that constitution? It might be more like constitution to, like, take any hits that are coming. Okay. Here we go. Nine.

So you start getting, like, the war machine gets closer to you and, like, swings an arm, down, because it's got crazy reach on you. Right. And it is either going to hit you in a way that sends Larry, Terry, and Chad flying out of your hands, or you're going to take damage. Can I give you an aid to make that a 10? Yeah, you could aid. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You just got to let me know that you want to aid. You can aid him. Okay. Do it. Nice. Fuck yeah. 12. Okay. That makes it a 10. Hell yeah. So.

Bing does a slide out in front of him. He does, like, runs in front of Tuck and does, like, a slide. And sprays battle muck. Oh. And Tuck is able to, like, step on you as you slide in front of me and jump, which helps me clear. Yeah. We've done this move before, and it's so hot when it works. Oh, it's amazing. Alki saw for sure, or is going to know both. Draw this and show it to Alki. Yeah. Tuck's like, draw this. As Bing's like, yeah.

The drawing just has Bing's face looking all fucked up and weird from the beginning. From the effort. Like, his neck is big for shot putting her husband. I look so shitty in this drawing. What the fuck? Immediately after, it's a drawing of Bing going, oh, and holding his back. But yeah, you clear this, like, arm as it slams down, sending a shower of mud into the air. Fuck yeah. Tuck yells that. And then he buries TLC directly into the face of this mech. All right. Roll a hack and slash.

Judy, six plus strength. Is the man at the face, or is the face the mech? The mech is, seems like. I don't know what it looks like. It is unmanned. Okay, okay, sorry. But it is, there is no person you can see piloting this. It's like a mass of pistons and gears underneath, like, plates of metal. It's a walking train. Kind of, yeah. Yeah, think of it as, like, a train with arms and legs. Okay. Hack and slash. Oh, no. I'm rolling like fucking shit. You should choose some different dice, brother.

That's seven. I got seven. So that means you deal damage and it deals damage. Yes. Yeah. So go ahead and roll your damage. Fuck. This is going to be so bad because my rolls are goddamn dog shit. Fuck. You got six, though. Yeah, I rolled six. Six is, why are you so mad? Six is pretty good. Still mad from the last thing. And you do, like, chop into this thing's head zone, which is roughly head shaped. It's about the size of, like, a large pumpkin. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh, great. And the lens spins around and focuses on you and you hear like a and then a hand just grips your back. Oh no! Roll a d8. Six. So the same as I did. Great. So painful. I have three armor though. I don't like this. What? You have three armor. So you take eight damage. Holy shit. Why? Even with the armor? Because it hits damage as a d8 plus five. Holy shit.

I just pulled the closest looking monster out of the monster rules and it also has forceful. So it grabs you and you just feel these iron fingers crunch around you and then it pulls its arm back and it just whips you through the air. Oh my god. And you sail like 15, 20 feet and Tuck's like, nobody draw this! You get thrown over Ving over the closest rank of the Riverways Irregulars. Like you slam into the mud next to Billy basically. And just create this furrow. Oh my god.

He gets the wind knocked out of him. Oh my god. Tuck just slams into the ground next to you, Billy, like a meat meteor. What do you do? I go for the mech. Do it! Avenge me, my son! Can I borrow your axe? Yes! I take it and ice forms over my hand and onto the handle so that it's like stable. Sick! Oh and you lift Terry, Larry, and Chad? So cool! Yeah! So cool. It's so funny because he's so little and the axe is huge.

And when the ice forms over the axe the light that it's emitting turns blue, like ice blue. Awesome. Can I just hack and slash, I guess? Absolutely. Oh, you'll have to do a defy danger to get close enough to attack it because it does have reach. Plus sticks, dexterity? Dexterity works if you'd be like dodging and diving. Twelve. Holy shit. Holy shit. So Billy just like runs forward. The axe looks like it's weightless in his hands. I use the weight of it actually to propel me to dodge stuff.

Oh, I love that. You're throwing it and dodging yourself. That's cool. That's cool and also very funny because Billy's getting pulled around. He's like an oobie ball. He's getting pulled around like Buster Keaton. Yeah. That's so sick. But the arm's like slamming down and just missing you and then it'll do like a wide. It's like a swipe creating a furrow in the earth. That's so cool. And you're just thrown past it and now you're like close enough. It leans down.

It had to lean down to try and hit you. So it's chest and face is exposed to you. Yeah, so I use the leverage of the axe to like whip myself and it into its chest. Hell yeah. As hard as I can. Hack and slash. So 2d6 plus strength, which I know isn't Billy's strong suit. It's not. Two plus three. Gosh. Okay, so then with the plus one forward from war cry and the plus one forward from discern realities that actually makes it a seven.

Like maybe the axe just goes clang and then ice goes all over his chest. It shatters. That's sick. I give it one more nudge. Extra steam because he's steam powered. You throw some ice in there. That's really cool. So yeah, you slam the axe into like a gap in the chest plates in the armor and it just like looks at you like it didn't feel it at all. And then yeah, ice starts to climb over the metal work. Roll your damage. Plus an additional d6 six. Okay, not bad. Sick. Yeah, not bad.

So yeah, the ice begins to form over and shatters and you can hear like gears breaking inside your springs coming loose pieces fly out of the side of this thing and it reels back thing. You were on the ground after doing a cool baseball skid and throwing tuck and then seconds later saw tuck get thrown over your head. And then Billy threw him that way with Billy. Everybody's getting thrown around. So I throw my back up for nothing. So that was for nothing. Then my sciatic is back for nothing.

And then yeah, you see Billy fly over your head like a koosh ball and slam into this mech, which then ice is over and shatters and some springs go flying past your face. I got ice. What do you do? So I want to get in there with some ice moves. I think I can all the craziness. Of the fight, Vings runs up close to where the mech is and just like, you know, he used to have eye of the storm. We could calm everything around him, but he doesn't have that anymore. So he has to calm himself.

So he runs and sees that Billy uses ice in this thing and it's weak and then takes a moment for a big deep breath and blows some freezing cold air. Just like feels brings him back to the frozen north. Oh, cool. And blows like it has his hands in front of his face. Kind of like it was weird praying. Moment blows into his fists and coats them in frozen blue crackling ice and dives headfirst into where its face is and wants to destroy the other lens. What are you using here?

I want to use elemental form. Yep. When I create a form for myself from the elements, roll plus con. Okay. Yeah. So roll 2d6 plus con. Oh, come on. Six plus con is nine. Okay. So on a seven to nine, you have a plus one. Oh, I have a plus one. I have a plus one. So you have a plus one. So you create like ice begins to coat your body. Yeah. Creating sort of an elemental. And he starts running and it's like. Yeah. Cool. And then you dive towards the mech dealing your damage. Yeah.

I want to do a dive and then do a flip and then come in with my feet. Oh, which are now ice. Sick. As it like turns icy speeder human form into him with a d10. So sick. Yeah. And you're using one of your chi, which allows you to deal your damage. My damage. And also you would have to roll a defy danger to get into its reach. Okay. But you also have a chi fight with honor moves across any distance. So I use my both my chi. Yeah. Great. Okay. So you're using one sheet across distance to a foe.

Yes. Which allows you to dodge and weave. I get out of his reach and then I use my other chi to deal my damage. Beautiful to two. I'll switch it up for the one because fuck that one. So a two unfortunately two damage. It's two damage. Yeah. And that is you try and go for the same spot that Billy froze and shattered and the same like cleft in the head piece that tuck chopped. But you slam right into it feels like the thickest part of the chest armor as it moves in a very inhuman way.

Like it's got a really low squat and it like hustles back really quick. So you can't quite judge where the weak spots are going to be in the same way you would with a human and you slam right into the heaviest part of the armor and it feels like you just clang right off. But you still have your elemental form because you didn't spend any of those hold great. And you are continuing to sheath yourself in ice as this chest and leg armor forms out of the frozen moisture in the air.

Tuck you're picking yourself up out of the mud after getting baseballed across the field. Can I throw the axe back at him? You can definitely try. Oh my god be careful. 2d6. Be careful. 2d6 plus dexterity. 10 plus 2. Beautiful. Oh my god. Yes. Wow. So you use that fairy magic the winter form to spin in place a little bit like a hammer thrower. Yeah. Hammer throw. The ice cracks and the axe spins through the air towards Tuck. Yeah. And then like Tuck grabs it out of the air.

While still face first in the mud. Yeah. Thank you my boy. You avenged your daddy. And now I can die. And Tuck slams the axe into the ground and then uses it to like get back to his feet. Beautiful. Oh my god. And you see because you're now kind of behind the line. You're behind the fight. You see the Riverways Irregulars have spread out around the mech.

And it seems like they're kind of letting Billy and Ving handle it because they don't know what to do but they've got their pointy stuff out and the archers are like taking shots at it but the arrows are careening off the armor. There's other fighters here isn't there? Oh there are several other units and they are fighting other units. Yeah. And Tuck he yells to all of them. He's just like stop fighting the metal thing. Try and kill people. Get out of here. Kill a human person.

Actually okay so here's I've got a question for you guys. Yeah. Now that we are entering a part of the season where there will be battles that you do not have direct control over how do you want to handle this? Do you want me to just go by vibes in my head or when it comes time to decide how it's going do you want to do a flat roll? To like see how. Good these guys do. Yeah like flat 2d6 roll that may be able to be modified in the future depending on the war stuff. Uh huh.

But currently just like a flat 2d6 to see which side is doing better. Something to randomize the war? A little bit yeah. Would you prefer a flat roll? I think maybe and then I think it could be stuff like oh you took down the mech you get a plus one to that next flat roll. Uh huh. Because the battle's going a little bit better. Do we want them to be flat rolls or can it be like Tuck is using his charisma to try and like. This is for the battle. As a whole is my concern with that. Oh I see.

So it's not the effectiveness of Tuck instructing these guys. I'll have to think more about that side of things. Okay. Then it's yeah I would say just do a 2d6 if you want to create some randomness in it. Yeah. Who wants to roll a flat 2d6 to see how this battle is going? I think you gotta do this man. Oh that's so one place. Yeah. Okay give me I guess the blue ones are mine aren't they? Yes. They've been rolling like shit for me. So here you go. Watch this.

So am I rolling ostensibly for your side of things? Yes. Okay. So you roll for So a good roll means things are going well for you guys. Yes. That's what we. In our rush. Yeah. Okay. Rolling a flat check. Let's see. I don't roll dice for this game. It feels weird. It feels bad. What are you doing? Why are you doing this? So that's a 6. Can we take a plus 1 forward? Oh yeah! It's a 7! Okay so it's a 7 because they take a plus 1 forward because Warcry is for your allies. Fuck yes! That's so cool!

So I think not only did Tuck leading the charge early surprise the Firefield's forces and embolden the Riverways and Highspear forces, the Alliance. I'm just gonna start calling them the Alliance because it's easier. You three very unusual combatants taking on this mech by yourselves surprised and confused the Firefield's people because they were like who the fuck are those guys? So they were thrown off to the point where though they aren't they're not being overwhelmed anymore.

They're holding the line. They're still taking losses. They're still dealing out damage but they're not being pushed back like they were when you arrived. And we also killed one of their generals. Yeah. The guy with the shit? Yes. The guy who was a general. So there are some of the Firefield's guys that have no commander right now. Yeah. They're like where's Jeff? Where's racist Jeff? Where's racist tattooed Jeff? Where's Colonel Jeff? He just got promoted.

He was too weeks from retiring as a racist general. I guess that 401k is just gonna go to charity now. A charity of his choosing. His 401k. Evil charity. No, it's racist charity. Charity that gives racist tattoos to children. The Firefield's is a bad place. The only way we can feel good about this fight is making the Firefield's the worst. The worst place in the world. We made the pigs racist. We had to. We had to. Did you hear what they were saying? But the mech is still up.

But you know, Tuck, you get up and you look and you see that things are going okay right now. What do you do? Uh. Can I? I should finish the mech thing because it's my responsibility. I guess I started this. I shouldn't just. Sure did. His eyes are shifting down the line to like where Colm is. And you can see him being awesome. He's being so cool. You see he like full on like straight punches a guy in the chest and the guy goes flying backwards. That could have been me.

I could have been punched in the chest. And a bunch of like steam vents out of the arm of his armor. And then he grabs his sword and he cleaves through a foe. And then Tuck goes I gotta clean up my mess first. Does that mean? You came watching this guy fight? Yeah, he What? He just seemed twirling a sock and throwing it behind him. I'm so used to Abdul saying something like that. Sean. He rips off the snuggie that he's been wearing. He's like, that's why I probably fucked up.

He says that really loud. He's like, the snuggie was constricting me. It's too tight. I couldn't really, my skin couldn't breathe. He pulls off his pump cover and Tuck is looking absolutely swole. And all of the fighters on the fire field side go, whoa, that guy just hit a PR for sure. I don't understand this language. Don't worry about it. Just deep in the gym lifestyle right now. Alright, what do you do? What are you waiting for? Oh no!

When you cry out a challenge to your enemies roll plus con on a 10 plus they treat you as the most obvious threat to be dealt with and ignore your companion. Take plus two damage ongoing against them. And then on a seven to nine only a few are the weakest or most foolhardy among them fall prey to your taunting. So I'm trying to get the mech to ignore all the soft fleshy humans and attack just me. Alright, go ahead and roll it. God, I have to fucking roll better. God, be better at rolling.

Here we go. That was a good one. Fuck yeah! Plus two is eight plus three is eleven. Wow. Hell yeah. Hell yeah, brother. That's literally better. That is literally better. That's literally better. Literally better. How does Tuck get the attention of the mech? He, yeah, he's got to do some real piece of shit move. He walks to the outhouse, grabs the dead racist general and fucking throws it at the mech. Jesus Christ.

I just want to know, I just want you to know that this is canonizing the man that was killed by a solidified column of shit. Yeah, we already said it was. I'm so sorry, listeners. I thought that was going to get cut for sure. Yeah. Okay, then, yeah, so you just pick up a corpse and throw it quite a distance because you had to run a while to get here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you do a javelin or the hammer throw? No, neither.

He just like grabs it one-handed by the back of the shirt and just like whips it overhand. Like lacrosse. Yeah. Totally. And then it's like from the mech's perspective, it's like scanning the battlefield to try and find the biggest threat and then like a body just like careens through the air and hits it. Flops down into mud. And then as it slides off the lens, you see Tuck flipping two birds at him. Like the lens focuses on the middle. Focuses just on the middle fingers. And it goes.

Yeah, and it makes like a steam whistle noise. Like a whoo. And it like stomps through, like it kicks through the Riverway Irregulars and comes stomping through the mud towards you. Billy and Ving, this thing just bowls past you, but it is approaching Tuck at a rapid clip. Oh, man. Can I try and get its like little hind mechanical Achilles tendon? Yeah, you can certainly try as it's passing by. Okay. Its little cables?

Yeah, it's going to run through and try and get that weakest point of its heel. Yeah. Ving is using the ice in the water with the mud, creating like a solid mud. A concrete out of ice. And is this an elemental form thing? Because you still have those holds. I still have two holds. So I'm using one of the holds of my elemental form. I make a replica of the axe, a huge axe, and try and slice through his little pistons. Cool. So I think you would just spend the hold and deal your damage. Two. Fuck.

Fuck. You're like, now's my chance. And you form this ice axe. He runs and slams. He runs and slams. He runs and slams. He runs and slams. He runs and slams. He slides in his knees. He's going to slide, go by him, go down and do a cool Ving, like, schling. Yeah. But he just kind of falls on his knees and goes, stuck in the mud. And then you swing the ice axe, but you kind of fall forward a little bit and flail. And it just shatters against the leg armor.

I mean, does it at least dent the leg a bit? Not at all. No, it's too damaged. Yeah, it's got three armor. It's got three armor. Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me, Sean. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. You Mr. Three Armor. That's ridiculous. This is a hunk of metal. We're fighting a car. We're fighting a car, dude. Yeah, a steam car. Yeah, I would love to see you guys go outside and fight a car right now. Just watch me. I could punch a minivan. Yeah. If I had a full axe, I could fuck up a car. Yeah.

What if the car was trying to fuck you up? Dude, I've smashed into so many cars on my bike. I'm talking to the wrong guy. And they're always fucked up afterwards. That's not good. I'm definitely talking to the wrong guy for sure. Yeah. But yeah. That one guy, I had to write off his truck. That was a truck. Oh my God. So fucking funny. But yeah, your ice axe just shatters against the leg of this thing as it starts plodding towards Tuck. Yeah, great. Billy, what do you do?

I want to sprint and kind of hop onto its back. 2D6 plus dexterity. And I want to do that so I can dig my steak knives into its vulnerable cracks. Oh yeah, totally. That's sick. 10. 10. Okay. Billy is so small, so light, that it doesn't even notice you jump on its back. And then? Oh, and then yeah, you can hack and slash. Yeah. Seven. Okay. So you deal your damage and it deals its damage. Okay. Nine. Holy shit. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Yes.

Billy, you climb up this thing and as you get a closer look at like the gaps between the armor, there's just a mass of incomprehensible cogs and pistons and pulleys and fucking fan belts ripping away in here. It's kind of warm up in the back because you seem, it seems, it seems to be like where the steam chambers held. So like, even as your ice touches its back, it kind of melts along this back section.

But you climb up to the head and where you think most of the important stuff kind of connects, like the arms connect here, the head, the neck, the chest, and you just dig your knife in. Yeah. But I also want to start like wrenching it open as much as I can. Oh, yeah. You get into the guts of this thing just from this semi-safe spot, but like, you see this barb, beautiful, almost beating heart of gears and cogs and boiling water and like coursing steam. Morris would have such a boner at this.

And then in turn, Pharrell at that. There's a cascading boner happening in it. Boners everywhere. Oh my God, they've entered a boner cascade. Yucky. Run, Mears, run. Tubbs getting knocked off the table. I can't, I can't run. Because they're wizards. Shit's flying all over the place. They're like, you gotta get out of here. We're the most powerful winter rest. We're gonna shoot.

And yeah, you can, you stab right into this like chunk that you dig your way into and one spring shoots off and shatters a cog and that cog shatters more cogs and then this little canister, I say little, it's bigger than your body, but it is small compared to the body of the mech. Starts to shake and rumbles rattle and then it ruptures. Whoa. Roll a D8. Four. So you take nine damage. Oh no. Well Billy, remember plus five. Right. How much armor do you have? None. Oh no, Billy, no. It's okay.

How many hit points do you have? Twelve. Holy shit, Billy. And yeah, from where you're all standing, Tuck, this thing is like pounding towards you. Yeah. And then it like stops and its head spins around and you hear it start to whistle and steal. And then it fucking detonates. Whoa. Holy shit. And Billy, you see Billy like fly through the air. Billy. Trailing smoke and steam and then its torso like blooms like a flower. Whoa. Well like in the explosion, it's just rent outwards. Oh my God.

And it teeters and falls to the ground. Oh my God. Did we destroy it? It is destroyed. Oh good job, Billy. Good job everybody. As he's flying through the air, it's like, fuck yeah. And everyone in the Riverways is like, fuck yeah. Yeah. We did it. That's amazing. And thankfully, the Riverways guys were staying far enough away that the detonation doesn't. Oh, do I add a rule to these things where if you're close enough, you also have to roll? Yeah. I was at the feet or no?

Oh, you were, yeah, you were like a few. You were really close by. So Ving's got to roll defy danger in some fashion. Okay. I rolled a 10. Oh. You dodge out of the way. Like you protect yourself from this explosion. How? Just like, standing up a blast of frozen mud in front of me. Like a blast shield with a little slit so I can see it. I'm like, oh, watch where they go.

And then it cuts to the others, like the cross section of the mud and there's like a massive piece of metal sticking out right above the eye slit. But yeah, then the shrapnel coats the ground around you and the thing falls to the ground. And it seems like the fire field's forces are thrown into disarray. Yes. Slightly at this massive explosion. Mm-hmm. So, I'm going to roll these at a plus one because you destroyed the mech. Oh, sick. So sick. A 10.

So, they start pushing the fire field's forces back. Ooh. Oh, yeah. Watch out. They've got reeds. I think you hear like a roo, roo, roo. And like pounding down the hillside from the alliance side is like high spear cavalry. Oh, nice. And they crash into the infantry and it seems like they're getting pushed back. And, and Colm like punches a horse. Like he's like trying. What a bad guy. Yeah, he's a bad guy. It looks like he's trying to hold back the charge himself. That was also a bad horse.

I want to say that was a really bad horse. That horse was racist. Yeah. You got to wonder what side of the war are you really on? It was a conservative. It was a conservative. Oh. Yeah. Socially conservative, fiscally liberal. Yeah. Means he's racist and bad with money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the opposite of what it usually is. That's the worst thing you can be. So I think we are at a point where like you can see that Colm is trying to hold back this cavalry charge by himself.

But you can see that a couple of the firefields forces like break and start running. So the riverways are close to fighting off this. Like wars like this are not always a fight to the death. You know what I mean? Like when one side looks like they're going to lose, they usually run. So a good chunk of this force is bailing. So you've got the upper hand. Can I go for Colm now? You can certainly try. Okay.

Can I use my new move demonize where I can use the obsidian charge inside my chest to determine what demonic influence exists in the current field of battle? Hell yeah. Yeah. I get up to a high like I there's like a rock a rock and I climb it and I like look directly at Colm. Uh huh. And you see him like take the head off somebody. Yeah. And he turns with the swing and like stops and kind of poses.

You know, he like holds his sword like out to the side as the blood drips off and steam is venting out of him. And I can see I can read his lips and it goes somebody draw a vest. And his wild hair is like wreathing his head along with plumes of smoke from his armor. So you're going to roll demonize. Yes. So that's a 2d6 plus one. Wisdom. Here we go. Uh, yep. That's a five. So no. Oh no. Shit.

So you are one of the people that was just seen destroying with very small numbers quite a powerful war machine. Mm hmm. He makes eye contact with you and he looks around and he sees the way the battle's going and you can see him like grip his sword tighter and then stop and cock his head and listen and he's like and then grab a horse and hop on the horse and ride away. No, you fuck tuck chases. No way. Can I chase him? You're welcome to try and chase him. Yeah, I'm chasing him down. Yeah.

What am I rolling? If you're, if you're literally physically running after him. Yeah. Strength, I guess. Okay. Strength of a horse become me. God fucking damn it. So I rolled a five plus three is eight. Eight. So seven to nine, which means you like what you charge through the people. Yes. The remaining forces. You see him start racing away. Yeah. You're like, fuck no. And you jump over. Yes. From your high vantage point slamming into the ground. Yes. Running. He's getting distance on you. Fuck.

But you're in chase. Ving and Billy, you see tuck run off chasing what appears to be Colm Blackhammer on a horse. Oh, do we follow him? Yes. You want to ride? Yes. Ving says as he takes all the iron, which is an element from the deformed mech, Oh. To make Cool. Like your own suit? A suit, a falcon suit. Whoa. An iron falcon. Whoa. To rise Billy up and send War Billy down on the Colm. Cool. So this is elemental form. Elemental form. Yeah. So 2d6 plus Con. Con. 11. Great.

So like iron plates start flying off of the Ving jumps and it's just like peels off like when the pieces attach from like the little chunks of Iron Man just like Yeah. Ting ting ting ting ting ting. Nice. That's so sick. And he's like starts falling and then Whoa. Flap. Flap. Flap. With like a little cockpit for Billy. Billy's riding on Tuck. He's like he has like take some of the lens and make these little puts little goggles on him. So fun. Red leader. Red leader.

I'm closing in on Tuck right now. There's not enough of them. I took the shirt of the dead guy and made him a little scarf. A little red scarf flapping in the wind. It's like Snoopy. So you it's like Snoopy versus the Red Baron. Yeah. So you take off into the air leaving the battle behind and you see sort of the landscape spread out before you. You see a camp in the far distance rows and rows of tents. Oh shit. A city far on the coast. Like you see a battlefield. Like this is a war zone. Mm-hmm.

Battles happening far off kilometers away in different parts of the principality. And you see Colm Blackhammer racing away on a bloodied horse Tuck just running as fast as he can after him. Ripping through the battlefield like anytime so anyone comes close I just like smash them out of the way. Pretty sick. So do you help Tuck or are you trying to stop Colm? I want to stop the horse. Okay. Great. So spend one of the hold to like catch up to him. Totally. Yep.

And then spend one of the hold to like swing down and like reach for the horse. This is a bad horse, right? It's a bad horse. It's a bad horse. It's a horse. Oh man. You can hear the horse going I'm just doing my job. Oh no. I love law and order and I think that I am the one that is empowered to enforce it. He's using the power of bureaucracy to do the wrong thing. We gotta find a way to get past this. We will. Ving swoops down and slams down in the ground right in front of the horse. Oh yeah.

Bam. Like a falcon doing a superhero landing. And you're trying to stop him? Yeah. So defy danger strength I guess to do that. Just stop the charge. Great. That's a five plus a two. So five plus two is seven. Seven to nine. Oh yeah. Perfect. I want to use dexterity to throw Billy at the guy as I'm crashing him. 2d6 plus dexterity. Seven. Okay. So yeah. This is two seven to nines that we're doing here.

So you throw Billy at Colm as you land on the ground and you see like Colm sees you hit the ground. He pushes off of the horse. Whoa. The horse like shoots out from underneath him. Whoa. And he crashes into you. Whoa. Your falcon form like shatters around you as you get hit by a car. And the horse goes tumbling off to the side of the road and Billy is flying towards Colm and Billy you just see him extend a hand and palm you like a basketball. Fuck. Asshole. What do you do?

I'm going to freeze around him and try to cut his tendons. Whoa. Nice. Am I able to use I'm a bad guy now? If you remind me what the move is. So I mean it it says I would call upon my winter form to fight in a flurry. I'd roll plus wisdom. I'm already in my winter form though. Yeah. I think it still works. Can you keep reading it? Yeah. So zero to six I would have one hold but I'm forced into the winter form until the next sunrise. Seven to nine I get two hold.

Ten plus is a three hold and the options are to terrify an enemy deal damage to an enemy within reach freeze someone or something in place. Damn. I think you can use this. Yeah. Could I? You're just double winter right now. Yeah. That's sick. When you use this and your winter form you're like monstrously destructive. Yeah. 2d6 plus wisdom to try and really tap into the winter fairy. Yeah. It's been a while. Eight. Okay. So I'd have two hold. Yeah. Can I freeze him in place and deal damage?

Absolutely. Okay. Fuck yes. So you like he's just what coated in ice. Yeah. And you can see like the armor is becoming brittle under the ice that's freezing his arm and climbing down and it's slowing down because the steam is condensing shutting down the suit that seemed to be mechanized. Yeah. It's like you can see that thing where like the plates are like settling a little bit as the armor stops. It's like assisted movement. Basically, it's shutting down around him.

Oh, that's so that would be so scary to be in a suit of armor like that that just shuts down. And then, yeah, you roll your damage which is 2d6. Eight. And I do. I do want to cut his tendons or arm or whatever I can reach. Oh, like blades of ice are like working their way into the armor. That's cool. Yeah. Growing like icicles like yeah. He's coated in ice and this ice digs into his body and he grimaces in pain. Yeah.

And then he like, you know, coughs up a little bit of blood as he is wounded and then the ice shatters and he like throws Billy to the ground and backs off the road that he was riding the horse down and draws his sword. Is he running away or is he going to fight us? He's backing up like because Billy's the only one that's like Ving got hit by a horse. Tuck is still catching up. I deflected a horse on purpose. That was a big horse too. That was a big, it was a Clydesdale. It was a huge horse.

It was for sure a huge horse. It was a huge horse. It had to be Clydesdale. I fucked Clyde right up. Yeah. He fucking threw a horse at you. Yeah. That's crazy. Great. Okay. So then he's, he backs up. He's got a sword out to the side. This glittering obsidian blade in his hand. You can hear his armor is like chunk, chunk, like it's trying to roll over and like. Charge up again? Exactly. It's trying to, like he's hitting something on his side. To try and start it again?

To try and get his armor started. Okay. And he's like, how about the ferry? Whoa. Holy shit. How does he know? Well, it's a little boy coated in ice. I guess he would believe. And also, you would, you would assume Billy, you would be like, he knows something. And he's got his blade out and I'm holding my arm out because it feels cool. But he's like crouching low and he sees Ving collecting himself and he sees Tuck come thumping down the road. Yeah. Am I there yet? You'll be there soon.

You see Colm squaring up with Billy. Yeah. I would hit the gas if I saw a guy with a fucking knife about to swing at like unprotected Billy who Tuck knows has only 12 hit points. Yeah. Yeah. Can I, can I try to vanish from sight? Oh, I couldn't move unseen. That's terrifying. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. That is so fucking rad. I want to do that. Oh, that's spooky. He's like, how about the fairy? And then just gone. Yeah. Yeah. And he brings his sword in front of him.

I'm running as lightly as I can behind him. Okay. Defy danger dexterity to not make any noise. Five. I'll use another fairy child to turn this. Into a seven to nine. Yeah, totally. Okay. I think it is because you're definitely keeping his attention.

He brings the sword in front of him and you start creeping around and it's basically the thing like you step on a twig you didn't see and he immediately swings at where that sound is and you just dodge out of the way, but he turns and he knows where you are. Right. But Tuck, his back is to you now. Yeah. You're picking yourself up like shedding the pieces of metal that formed your body. I mean, I hit the horse on purpose. Yeah, totally. So, no, we all know that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He landed in a falcon form and then shouldered the horse and exploded in metal falcon. So that's, yeah, that's your last. But he didn't know that it would hurt that bad. And his sciatic went out on the other side. Oh, no, you've thrown your back on both sides now. But Tuck, you are making your arrival. What do you do? I run straight into him full speed. Yeah. Like I hit him like a fucking train. From the front or from the back? 2d6 plus strength. Yeah, Tuck always hits him from the back. Yeah.

That is 6 plus 3 is 9. 9. I aid. Okay. How do you aid? Yeah, I rise out of the out of the muck with his with his limp horse beside me and say, um, I say, boo, boo. That's so funny. You rise out of the mud Is I'll cover the mud? Yeah. Boo. Ah. Eyes on me. You have your eyes closed so you can't see you because you blend into the mud and then you're like, now I'm over here. Now I'm over here. Great. I got 11. You're so mad. You're so mad about all of your roles today. You're so fucking mad.

Vink makes popcorn and watches the fight from here on in. And you, so you, you appear like he is watching where Billy is stepping and preparing for another strike. Yeah. And you emerge from the mud and a pile of broken metal. And he just looks up at you long enough to get absolutely hammered. Yeah. By a charging tuck. Yeah. Total bully move. Bam. Into the ground. Yeah. And then when he looks up at me, tuck slams the ax into the ground and he does the Henry Cavill, like, like arm reload. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Arm reload. Yeah. Yeah. Or he cocks his fists like shotguns. Yeah. And tuck cocks his fists like shotguns and he uses deathless. Oh. Yeah. Go ahead and read deathless again. When you enter a fight knowing your death won't come, roll plus wisdom on a hit your foes are dismayed and take plus one ongoing against them until the fight is over on a 10 plus your surety and your destination makes something about the now more clear. Ask a question from the discern realities list.

Excellent. So, yeah, tuck cocks his arms and then he goes, if you know who I am, you know, I'm not going to die here today. Oh, I'm not the one who's going to die. Yeah. And then he's like, get up. 11. Jesus Christ. Nice. All right. So you get it first. You get a question from the discern realities list. What here is not what it appears to be. Hmm. Hmm. And look into his eyes. Hmm. He's Allison. I would be, I would quit. Fucking podcast.

If that his red hair flattens against his shoulder, I would fucking quit the podcast. The bulky armor. Steps out of the bulky armor. A slender silhouette. Buxom breasts. If you canonize this, I will actually fucking kill you. Green scarf. It was flowing out there. Green scarf. Green scarf. She has a new scarf. A red scarf. I'm flying a new flag. The green scarf. Ascent upon the air. Yeah. Yeah. He's like getting up from the ground. Mm-hmm. It leaves his sword on the, in the mud.

And you can see his like armor is starting back up. It's starting to like, like chugging. Yeah. You do the Henry Cavill arm thing. Yeah. He does the Bucky Barnes like arm recalibrate where he like spins his shoulder and like realigns like pistons in his armor. Yeah. Cool. And he says like, your time hasn't come. You still have your power. You still have your heart to play in this war.

And then you feel like the coins in your chest, not burning, but you know, the feeling that you've cut, that you became familiar with, uh, under the heart tree. It's like tugging, but it's not tugging towards calm. It's tugging towards the sword. Oh, so being, you see tuck and calm squaring off, having their, their warriors, uh, like a pissing repartee. Yeah. He's like with popcorn. Yeah. Oh man, this fight's been fucking crazy. It's a bunch of pine cones. He found on the ground.

You start feeling your body. You're like, no, no damage. Fine. You haven't taken any damage. I haven't done shit. Are you kidding me? But in a, in a less, in a more, what is probably happening way, you're doing the thing that all of you always do, like repositioning yourselves. Yeah. You're like, how can I need to get to where I am the most helpful? I see, uh, uh, Tuck's eyes dark towards a sword. Yeah. And you know that Billy, he is invisible somewhere. Oh yeah. I can smell him.

And I didn't bathe before this war. Yeah. I didn't bathe. What am I supposed to do? In your life up to this war. Ever. Ever. I've never voluntarily bathed before this war. In living memory, I've never bathed. In living memory. Cause you delete the memory every time you do the least. I have a software update every couple of weeks. It just clears all the temporary files of bath memories. Yeah. You, you, you, you, you, you, eventually you liked them.

So yeah you see them You see Tuck's eyes dart toward the sword You smell Billy nearby What do you do?

I just want to circle around and be in striking distance of the sword Okay defy danger dexterity Eleven Whoa So light So light on your feet It's like you're moving the mud Oh yeah you're like manipulating the mud It's just like rolling Rolling the sword slowly towards you Just slow enough that like Colm's not noticing right now Because he's pretty focused on Tuck Tuck you see the sword start to move In the mud and you see Ving Repositioning himself behind Colm And to the side And Tuck maintains eye contact with Colm And he goes I think you're going to have to make me play my part Cool He lowers down and his armor like shifts around him And he goes So be it And he boom like jets forward And Tuck wants to give you You guys time to act So he takes the hit Okay 2d6 plus con Unbowed and bent and broken When you prepare yourself to endure some hardship Growl plus con on a hit You can either take half damage Or you can completely ignore one other I'll effect On a 10 plus you can also Defeat expose or frustrate your oppressor With your stubbornness Okay sick So I like I basically as he jets forward I let him hit me and then I bear hug the armor Yeah cool Oh no So 6 plus 3 Oh I have a plus 1 ongoing So 10 Yes Nice Fuck yes So on a 10 plus you get the first effect And the second effect Yes So you're either going to take half damage Or you're going to ignore one other effect I'll take half damage Okay so roll a d10 Holy shit Ouch 10 Fuck So alive And I have but I have 3 armor Yes Except the thing that I do not have is I have 3 armor I chose to represent calm Ignores armor Okay What Like he jets forward And this piston arm Just crushes into your chest Uh huh So you take half damage from this Punishing blow Yes And you know what I think it's like I think there's something about this armor That is ignoring your armor Okay Yeah And the other effect that you chose not to Ignore Is he sends you flying backwards Fuck no I wanted to bear hug him I know But you like It's not like you're tumbling through the armor Through the mud I think you're probably doing the cool Like you're sliding on your feet Yeah But he sends you back like 10 feet So it's like With this punch It's a standing slide Yeah Through the mud Yeah that's sick And he rush He keeps rushing at you Yeah But Billy and Ving Calm has been drawn away from the sword I roll forward and grab the sword What do I feel when I touch the sword?

Rage Cold animal rage Holy And Ving using that blind rage Rolls forward Loses his mind Leaps in the air And brings it down to cleave it in the top of his head Whoa Whoa Okay Uh Okay we're Yeah okay I just watched him punch Tuck Yeah totally Billy's like in Just right behind him Uh yeah Well you know what First off 2d6 plus wisdom Just even holding this thing To like resist Yeah Eight So Colm is closing the distance to Tuck And I think as you're running behind him And leaping into the air They're really close together As you bring this blade down Okay So 2d6 Yeah Plus strength to hack and slash Eleven Ooh So that is a Nice You get to deal your damage Yes And you have the option of putting yourself in danger To deal additional damage I will do that Okay Blind rage Oh fuck yes Yeah So that's an additional d6 damage I think It's your damage plus a d6 Okay I have a d6 damage Six Okay And you bring the blade down Tuck you're seeing this happen Ving has got a crazy look in his eyes He's wielding the blade down He's wielding this two-handed black bladed sword I bring it down like thrusting it down Into like the back of his neck Yeah totally You bury it into his body And you deal six damage It cleaves through pieces of his armor This blade cuts right through it Plates fall away And the blade is like sticking A couple feet like out of his body The handle's just jutting up into the air And blood is like bubbling up from the wound And he just turns to you Ving With like blood in his mouth Whoa And I've let go of the blade And there's like shock Almost And he looks you in the eye and he goes Now you'll begin to understand And then he just backhands you Roll a d10 Holy shit Six Okay yeah so you take six damage Ignoring armor Oof As you are slammed through the air as well And he's just got this sword sticking out of his torso That's fucking horrendous But now I guess he's just like Yeah He reaches up and he begins To blow his sword Pulling the blade out of his own body Billy what do you do?

You are invisible Temporarily safe Can I try to switch for that sword? Oh get it out of him and grab it? Yes What would you switch it with? Switch the axe with it Give him my weapon I'll switch the steak knife I'm holding That's very funny Is that okay? That is hilarious Do I have to roll for it?

I think the thing that you'll have to roll for Is the fact that Yeah you're holding one of your swords And you're looking at this sword That he just pulled out of his own body And you focus really hard And the steak knife Disappears from your hand And appears in his hand And he looks down at it like incredulously As this massive sword appears in your hands And you are filled with rage Be careful Billy 2d6 plus wisdom to resist the influence of this thing 6 plus 1 7 So partial success you're kind of far away I think you are Overcome with the urge to just charge this guy Yeah I think I'm gonna charge him with it Okay Defy danger to get close to him Dexterity I guess 10 Jesus Christ Yeah you zip across the ground Closing the distance to calm As he's looking at that knife And just like screams into the night It's night now I guess Or was it day when the thing started?

It's like it's a red night Like it's the It's a lot of smoke and stuff Yeah Oh yeah All the fires Are illuminating like a redness There's like The sky is like There's like red light cast on his face Yeah And he screams Somewhere a sailor's like Not bad Tomorrow's gonna be a good day That's what the Riverways assholes are saying They're like Oh pretty good Dead light for the evening here But yeah he turns and Like he's casting his eyes about And he sees Billy with the blade Just as you get to him What do you do?

Hack and slash 2d6 plus strength Yeah 3 Oh shit So Billy Billy fails The hack and slash And takes the damage Uh roll a d10 Oh shit How many do you have left?

12 12 Okay I won't die 10 Holy shit 10 Fuck Rough Fuck You're down to 2 dude Yeah I Oh man I think Wow So is it just like Billy swings the blade And he just Grips the blade The armor like Falls away from the gauntlet And it like Cuts into his hand And he pulls Billy up By the sword And just stabs you In the chest With a steak knife Oh my god Holy shit Tuck sees that And he's like Billy no And then he just Shakes Billy to the ground Yeah And he holds his arms wide I use a scrap of ass Most mystical move Yeah On a 10 plus On hack and slash I can check out the I can choose to forego Damage And get away Oh right I can choose to not deal damage And get away So I'm gonna try and attack him And then like Fight dirty So we can escape Because Billy is too hurt Uh huh Yeah Sick So 2d6 plus strength Okay It's gotta be a 10 plus Or it doesn't work This had better Fucking work Come on I swear to fucking god If it doesn't I'm gonna kill somebody Fuck That's Yeah I got an 11 Fuck 12 I got a 12 We all live Okay so how does This escape happen So as soon as he stabs Billy Tuck just goes No And he punches Into the engine In the back of the armor And then grabs whatever is in there And rips it out Oh yeah Yeah And it starts like rattling Yeah And puffing and shaking And he is not in control of his body Vink jumps at this moment While he's distracting and rattling Grabs Billy Takes Billy into his arms Yeah Tumbles away How do you escape?

Where do you go?

Well I Because I rip this piece Out of the armor And it just starts losing control Yeah I just like kick him So that he starts running In the other direction So he stumbles away from you Yeah It's not quite like a run Uh huh But he stumbles away from you Quite a few steps And hits the Like his knee hits the ground And he steadies himself But his armor is not His armor is locking around him And he turns over his shoulder Like rimmed Rimmed He's rimming Wreathed He's being rimmed By the red sun Finally a move I can do The red sun like Glowing through the smoke hazed skies Of the burning fire fields And he calls over his shoulder Your time will come I look forward to doing this again And he says And then he starts like laughing and coughing Yeah he's laughing maniacally And just packing up smoke and blood Whoa And you run off into the night And that's where we're gonna end it for this week I'm your game master Sean O'Hara Joining me as always Playing Tacoma Dome The Barbarian Abdul Aziz So long Playing Ving The Half-Elf Druid Paul Hoppers Take care Playing Fat Billy The Halfling Thief Jessica Tai Bye everyone Thank you to Aaron Reed For our intro and outro music You can find all of Aaron's original music At aaronreed.bandcamp.com And all the music produced for the show At Spotify Thank you to all of our Patreon supporters Around the world For supporting the show If you want to support the show And get access to The up-to-date feed of Mall Brats Uh Blades in the Dark game set in the High Spear Mall If you want access to postcards And merch drops Things like Maybe Jessica and I Make an illegal Domino's RPG Called 30 Minutes or Less Or you can read Zane's and Zane Brain Zane Yeah If you want to support us Sign up at the Monarch level It's pretty fucking good And you can even Play games run by Abdul or myself At the Wizard and or Piss Monster tier Guess which one's which Once I made a salve You made a salve at a gift bar Yeah I guess Yes And all that stuff is available And more At patreon.com Slash speltlord Or speltlord.com Slash money please Thank you Finally And most of all To all of you For listening We'll see you next time And so ends the tale of Adventures 3 Who tried their best They could never get through 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 Wild and scary As you commute Or do your chores And for you I gladly Speltlord

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

Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts. So gather round friends and listen close, for the tale's about to start. Hello everybody and welcome to Spout Lore. I'm your game master Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz. Hello everybody, I'm gonna fucking kill Colm Blackhammer. Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Hoppers. I'm probably gonna fail at killing Colm Blackhammer.

And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai. I'm probably gonna die trying to kill Colm Blackhammer. We're like running through, we're running through a fucking war. And we're just holding you together with our hands. Yeah. How much of me is knife right now? It's 33%. No way, that's a lot. That's so much knife. When last we left our heroes they had in earnest entered a battlefield. A war between the High Spear and Riverways Principality which we have called the Alliance.

Which is such a tropey name. It's a cool name. The Coalition. Ew. Okay, the Union, no not the Union. I feel like no one was ever called the Union. Well except during the Civil War. Oh right, American history is quite fra- Uh, the Alliance is fine. Yeah. If I decide a cooler name. I think this is a conversation that happens a lot. Oh yeah. Should we call ourselves the Alliance? It's pretty rote at this point. There's been a lot of alliances.

When history looks back on this will they know they're talking about us? I mean what are we aligning with? Just us? Yeah we're just what, we're allying together? That's stupid. Frankly. I think we're coalitioning more than we're allying. Guys there's potstickers in the main room. Holy shit, potstickers. They keep running out of those. Uh, they entered a battlefield between the Riverways and the High Spear Principality and the Firefields.

On the field of battle, Colm Blackhammer of the Blackhammer Twins, one of the Princeps of the Firefields. Billy Tuck and Ving did a whole bunch of really cool fantasy fighting posing. To varying levels of success. Hey. Paul, you're so mad about the outcome of last one. Man, the dice tell a story. That's true. You know, and sometimes that story is a ha ha. Ha ha. Welcome to Flopsville. But the party did manage to take down a war machine. We've just been calling them mechs.

I think that's the shorthand that people use in the war. But it's M-A-C-H. War Machine. Oh man. Because it's the shorthand. Oh man. Because it's the shorthand part. Oh, mechs. Yeah, mechs. Oh, I like that. That's cool. They're called mechs. I like that. Oof. Because then it's also kind of Celtic. Yeah. They took down a mech, basically on there, a big mech. Oh, big mech. Big mech. It's bad now. It sucks now. They took down a mech, mostly by themselves, helping turn the tide of battle.

And through some flat rolls, the battle turned in favor of the alliance, which is incredible. Taking this opportunity to really grab the battle by the balls, Tuck charged Colm Blackhammer of the Blackhammer Twins. Because he ran away from me, and it activated my bully instinct to chase. Tuck tried so hard to use his new move, Demonize, to find out if there was demonic influence on the field, and it caused Colm to flee.

Billion Vang followed Tuck, stopping Colm and engaging in a battle with the basically power armor wearing warlord, and he fucking mopped the floor with you guys. He was like Batman in Batman Vs. Batman. Batman in Batman Vs. Superman. Yeah, where he's gotta wear the anti-Superman suit. Yeah. Yeah, totally. The fight was cool. It was very cinematic. We discovered that the demonic influence was not from Colm, but from his sword. Yeah.

Billy and Vang, both at different times, held the blade and were filled with cold animal rage, and a lust for battle. This was planted, this blade planted like a sapling in the shoulder of Colm Blackhammer, which seemed to damage, but not dismay him. He removed the blade, and Billy switcherooed it, which was a great move, choosing to charge Colm, was stopped dead in his tracks, and stabbed in the chest with a steak knife. And it was at this point that the two dads decided the fight was over.

It was one of those moments on the playground where you're just like, no, we're done. We're going home. We're done. And I'm arguing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Tuck disabled Colm's armor by destroying the steam engine on the back of it. Yeah. I used a scrap of ass. Yeah. To fight dirty and escape, leaving Colm in his immobilized armor, laughing maniacally, saying he can't wait to do this again. And you ran off into the night, holding your bleeding son. And that is where we find our heroes now.

Are we still running? Yes. We got to get back to Hither and Yon. It's the safest place, right? Toilet. Yeah. Are you going back to the outhouse? We'll have to run through the remnants of a battle to go through there. It's the closest door, right? Totally. That's probably just where you're running. Yeah. Not even thinking. Yeah. And you come up this hill that you chased Colm down. I'm rolling a flat check. I'm rolling 2d6 and then I'm adding modifiers based on the battle's conditions.

You get pluses to these flat checks depending on how you succeed and help the fight. Plus one because you took down the Mac, plus one because Colm fled. So 2d6 plus two. 2d6 plus two to see how this is going for the Alliance forces up here. Okay. Hey, that's a 10. Nice. Hell yeah. You come up the hill and they are mopping up the last, like a lot of them have fled. You're like running past people.

It's like that Tom Cruise, War of the Worlds thing where everyone's running away from danger and you're running towards it. So you're passing people that are just fleeing. They've thrown down their weapons. Officers are like yelling at people, trying to get them rallied back up. And you hear, all right, sharp boys, time to fall back. Archers, come on. Archers do your thing. I don't know why he says it like that, but he does.

And you hear a twang, twang, twang, twang, twang, twang, twang, and a rush of arrows as the absolute fucking sharpshooters of the Riverways Archers just clean out a bunch of guys. Yeah. These are guys that can like shoot arrows at fish kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. And it looks like the field of battle is one. You hear cheering as the Alliance forces see the last of their foes run down the hill and they see you coming up the hill. What do you do? I don't give a fuck about them.

I'm going to the outhouse. So a bunch of people like start rushing up to you, like cheering as you bowl through them. I push their face into the ground. Yeah. I just go fuck off. And you run towards this almost destroyed outhouse. The door is just hanging there. I close the door and stick my key in whatever closest thing there is to a keyhole. Oh, maybe it's like as you put the key towards the knob, like a lock forms. Oh, cool. And you click, click, open, hither and yon. Pile in.

Pile in, door closes, shutter slam. You are safe. That's so cool. That's awesome. That's so sick. The shutter slamming. It's like a spaceship is like. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. The blast door is closing. Yeah. Yeah. And Morrison, Perel and Mears are here. Ving just clears off the bar. Drinks food. Everything smashes it to the ground. Mears is like, I'm going to the bar. Yeah. And he goes, whoa. Throw Billy down. And he goes, whoa. I'm fine. Don't even worry about it. I'm still mostly boy.

Sure, I'm a little knife. That's okay. A little bit of knife. We could have fought. I'm fine. I'm still mostly boys. Billy, you are still in your winter form. Yeah. So I think there is like the bar starts to open. Starts to frost over where Billy is placed on it, melting only because his blood warms the frost. Is Billy fighting back the negative influences of winter? I mean, Billy is just like, why are we leaving? There's still so much left to do out there.

Billy, there's a time when even the strongest warrior has to run, and that time is when he has a steak knife sticking out of his fucking chest. But I'm no more important than the rest of them out there. You're 30% knife right now, Billy. You gotta let us take it out of you. I'll take it out then. No, no, no, no, no, no. What does Billy do? He takes it out. Whoa, and he starts bleeding. Ving puts a pulse down, does whatever he can to strap and tuck.

Billy is doing a defy danger to remove the blade without killing himself. Dexterity? 11. Okay. You know, I've done this before. Yeah, he's pulled blades out of himself plenty of times. So he like wiggles it out. It's frozen. So maybe in the same way that it would cauterize, it's frozen. It's like a frozen. Yeah. So it won't gurgle as much blood. Yeah, but there's still like a slushy red blood like rising in his chest. It'll be fine. Yeah, it will be fine.

With this poultice that I use, Ving uses. So Billy just heals seven damage, but it will take, you know, a few hours. We have time. Yeah. And Mears is like, what happened out there? Tech guys, we won a war. We won the whole war, guys. He has no idea the scale of the conflict. Ving's specifically picturing the entire field. Yeah, all the tents we saw. The scope of the war. Yeah. We got in there. We fucking killed the mech. We fucking fucked up. Culling Blackhammer. War's done.

This is when Ving starts to clock that maybe Tuck needs a poultice as well. Yeah. Uh-oh. Sorry, Gibbous Man. Did we destroy your war and save the High Spirit? Maybe try harder next time not to be a little dildo. This is what PTSD does to somebody with weaponized dissociation. Tuck is actively passing out, it sounds like. Yeah. He is shutting down in front of the fire. Like, he sat down in a chair and is just falling asleep. Like Abdul hanging out with a friend.

Thanks for the pizza chicken, Jessica. So, Billy, you are wrapped in bandages and given a poultice, and you're just… Being asked to lie on the table for a while. What are we doing now? I want to ask Perel and Morris about the sword. Um, well, I personally have not had much experience with enchanting. I think it is a coward's art. Um, I think you either make a thing good or you don't. You don't have to make a magic thing, but that's beside the point. Are you jealous, Perel?

I would not be jealous in a million years. Making swords is for babies and apprentices. Um, anyway… Morris, do you know anything? One of my exes was an enchanter. Oh. We don't really need to get into it now, but, um, he's quite jealous. Uh, but it sounds like instead of… I mean, again, I am a spatial thaumaturge, but it sounds like instead of using a coin to possess a person, this sword has been constructed to possess whoever bears it?

And Tuck comes up and he's like, I think Colm might have been a warlock. What makes you say that? I don't know. I felt something around him. It was like he was talking to the sword. When he saw me, he was listening to something. And then he ran away. Whoa. Interesting. And if what you say about the wound that Ving dealt him is true, it had no effect on him? Very little. Interesting. Yeah, those things are so fucking sharp. It went through steel until it reached his flesh. Wow.

And he like leans back on his stool. That is an interesting theory. What do you guys know about warlocks? Can I roll? Uh, yeah, 2d6 plus intelligence to Spout Lore. Can someone else roll? You don't get to do that. You asked if you could. Minus two? I have minus one. Oh, yeah, okay. We can't help you. Maybe mine. You can aid and stuff. Aid and stuff? Oh, God. Yeah, we can aid. I know stuff. I know I know stuff. Come on, Tuck. You know you know stuff sometimes. Whoa, look at how much you know.

Six. Whoa. Uh, yeah, I'll aid. 2d6 plus bond. Mm-hmm. 11. 11? So that's a seven to nine. Seven to nine. Yeah. So a warlock is someone who attempts to serve an icon and by doing so takes on an aspect of their power. Yeah. But retains their individuality. He's a warlock warlord. Oh, yeah. That makes so much more sense. Tuck says, these words are the same. So it has to be true. Bing, you're so smart. I know. Where do you think I got these glasses?

Morris is like, so remind me again what you felt when you held the blade? Blind animal rage from every species I've ever seen. I've never felt. Blind rage. Billy, what did you feel? Yeah, rage. Like it just took over and like I wanted to kill him. The only thing that could fill the insatiable emptiness in my heart was somebody else's blood. Hmm. And I didn't wield it. So I don't know. Hmm. So that sounds like an icon for sure. Which one specifically? I can't say. I have theories.

Does your theory in the book? No. Involve it maybe being rage? Well, that's an emotion. That's not a human concept. Oh. Everything feels rage. War, battle, conquest. Okay. But I would guess it's one of those probably. And especially if he is waging a war, it would make sense that he would make a deal with an icon that would be able to help him do such and that the creation of more situations in which war or battle could flourish would give him more power. Well, at least there's two of them.

Oh, fuck. Right. His fucking brother. They're working in tandem. Yes. Who knows what his weapon is? Oh, yeah. He could have a magical clipboard full of all sorts of powers. Yeah. Or magical pair of like nerd glasses or something. Oh, yeah. He could have binoculars to see our weaknesses. Oh. Don't worry. I'll cut that out. Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic. There's a ton of magical binoculars to see your weakness. I like it. It is kind of a cool idea.

It's also a really funny that you said that. All right. Well, I can't deny that my mind is mostly on the fact that our fanny pack has been left in the wind. But we have to get to the Hyspia. Perry and I. So we can do our part. What is your plan with the Hyspia. We're going to investigate it however we can and attempt to use the equipment there to. There. Do something wizard-like magic. And he starts twiddling his fingers in front of you. You have no idea. I mean, I've got some ideas.

I escaped from an extra plane or space. I escaped from the trap that was set for all wizard kind. Yeah. Do we remember what the original thought we had for them coming here was? I thought they were going to boost it and then bring all the wizards back. That was their thought, is they might be able to use the sort of broadcasting technology to connect with the people that are stuck in other spaces, the wizards that have been trapped. He's hoping, because it is going to be a great undertaking.

It is like… It'll take a long time. A long time. Maybe months of work. So they got some road ahead. But you need the fanny pack for this. We do. That's all of our fucking equipment is in the fanny pack. We actually can't go to the high spear unless we have that stuff. Why can't we go back straight to the fanny pack? Because it is in an extra plane or space and it is hard, almost impossible to connect two extra plane or spaces like that. It's like um… What's a good way?

It's like connecting two fishing lines under the water with two different rods. What if we try? Can we roll for it? We could certainly try. Yeah, Mir said that he was like getting better at like making the bar do what he wanted. Yeah, that's true. And if it if Hither and Yon has connected to the fanny pack before, then it might have that sort of like a taste for it. Yeah. Got the scent. Would a communion of whispers do any good in this liminal space reaching out to the whispers of the other?

Uh… You might be able to connect to… You think you might be able to connect to the Hither and Yon, but it could be a way to try and be like hey, could you please go back to our fanny pack? That's a good idea. Or a way that you could get there, like it could give you an option. I'm gonna do it. Alright. I'm gonna commune with the whispers of the Hither and Yon. Roll plus wisdom. Ten. Nice. Okay. Yeah. So what is the vision here? You reach out to the Hither and Yon.

Do you connect with like a… I don't think it's quite like a spirit like you've spoken to in the past. Like it doesn't have a personage really, but you have this overwhelming sense of like… You know when you get into bed and you just wash the sheets? You just dried them. You just put them on the bed. That like ooh settling in feeling. Yeah. You get an overwhelming feeling of hospitality. I like this.

And that they're also you're cozy and quiet and safe, but there's a big friendly party happening downstairs in the house. Yeah. Oh, the sound of a party in an adjacent room. Yeah. And you reach out to that feeling. And what is the vision that… Because I'm honestly, Sean O'Hara is not sure how this would work. So let's talk about it. What if Francis and Victor are like waiting at the door? At the guest door. Oh. Like he's like pawing at it. He's doing the dog thing. Yeah.

They're both doing the dog thing. Uh-huh. And they're trying to work together now. Like they fought for a while. Yeah. But they're like we both want the same thing. They fought for a while and then got sad that no one was watching them. And Victor was going… It's quite alright old boy. They'll be back in no time. It's just that what if their pathetic nature causes them to come to harm? And I, in my greatness, are not there to save them. They are so weak. And pathetic.

I just can't bear to think about all of the ways they can fail when I am not there. Where they are, hither and yon, there is my home. It is a place of safety. A place of comfort. They will not come to harm when within its walls… And then Victor starts to cry. And then Francis licks the tears off of him. And he licks and goes Don't cry old friend. Don't cry old boy. Don't cry old boy, old chap. Stiff upper lip. Stiff upper lip. Hello. What's all this then? He's like okay. I will be strong.

And he starts bawling at the bottom of the door. And that is the vision that Ving is filled with. He's bawling his eyes out. And you're like no. What I need more than anything is to get those animals somewhere safe. You have to help me hither and yon. Please. Oh you funnel the need that you get from them into the bar. You supercharge the need. So you connecting with them with that vision, your need creates like one side and their need creates the other side.

The fishing line in the water is drawn to the other fishing line. Doot doot doot doot. And they dock. Yeah. And you hear downstairs like where is Ving doing this? There's a hammock upstairs. Oh and he's just chilling in a hammock. And he's in the room that his key is for. Tuck and Billy are on the ground. Tuck is like cross-legged. In the room? Yeah. He's making sure Billy stops like picking the poultice out of his word. Yeah. You guys strap me to a cutting board.

He keeps eating it because there's molasses in there. Yeah. You ever had a cone on? Billy. Yeah. Oh that's what it is. We put a cone on you. He's got a cone. You keep getting stuck in corners. Yeah. Help me! And you hear a crash downstairs. An absolute just slamming. And there's a bunch of stuff getting knocked over and you hear Mears go, oh I'm so glad! I'm so glad! Yay! Francis! And he runs up and like you can hear thumping and crashing. And you go, oh Mears! Young lad, my chap, Master Mears!

I'm so happy to see you again! Victor comes in and doesn't see us and just assumes that we're murdered. Yeah. They've perished! I am too late to save them! I know! Wait a second. I smell little boys and he runs upstairs. I smell little boys. Say that a different way. I smell little boys. Sean O'Hara. Cut that! Why is there an S on that? From the show. That's a new fan favorite. Wait a second. I smell sticky. I smell blood? No! And you charge.

And cramming his way through this hallway, you see the massive shoulders and head of Victor pop into the door. Oh! Thank the moon! And he pushes his way into the room. And he starts licking everybody. Gross. I can only imagine how many dangers you have faced with my absence. You have no idea, Victor, how much you were needed. I see here you were almost destroyed as I knew you would be. Yeah, Billy had this steak knife through him and then I hold it up.

And his eyes narrow on the knife and he takes the knife in his jaws and he starts shaking it back and forth. You bastard knife! You almost killed boy! I mean, yeah, it was the man to well, yeah. He puts it on the ground and he does that thing where they like hop up and pound on it with like their front two paws. You stupid blade! I cut myself. Oh, did you cut me? It's trying to kill us all! And he bats it out of the room and he starts chasing it up and down the halls.

He tries to bury it in a bed. He goes to another room. He's nosing it under a bed. And he noses it finally under the bed and he goes, alright, the danger has passed. It is unreachable. It is under a piece of furniture. Nothing returns from under furniture. And your animals have returned. You have reconnected with the fanny pack. Perel comes into the room and he's like, we've now been faced with another challenge. How do we wrap up the fanny pack and stay connected to hither and yon?

I got a solution to that. Tuck raises his axe. And Mears goes, no. No, no, no, no. And Morris is like, no. We've been over this. You can't just cut through the wall of an interdimensional building. I've done it before. I know. And you shouldn't have. But I could. I could potentially. I guess, okay. Alright, I have an idea. Oh my god, I'm a genius. I will build outside the fanny pack in the glade a shed. Yes. A shed? A shed. I will build a shed. A shed. S-H-E-D.

You could just build a shed in here. The hither and yon's got a head. I have no time to bandy about. I'm building a shed right now. Just eating pepperonis. I have no time to bandy about with those of lower intellect than me. I have a shed to build. We all do. We all got a shed brewing inside of us. And he leaves. And he walks off into the fanny pack. We just have to like idiot him out of the room. We know how to get rid of him.

And unless you guys have anything that you want, you can follow Mars if you want. You can stay here and do other stuff. But he's got a task he's gonna undertake. Should we rest a little bit? We gotta rest. We're all fucked up. Oh, so we're doing a recover. And do we get a bonus because it's hither and yon? I would say that there isn't necessarily a bonus you would need because recover is just it takes time. But any time that you spend in hither and yon means there is less time passing outside.

Oh, okay. Because I think what we said a long time ago is that every day that passes in hither and yon feels like three days. Oh, yeah. Which developed because people were like, man, I feel like I was really able to just relax in there. Right. And I still got to work the next day. Yeah. So I think all that means is that timelines for you aren't as strict in here as they are elsewhere. Right. So you can totally rest. You've got time. Cool. Yeah, let's do it. We need to heal.

And also Billy's being a little fucking asshole right now. How long is he gonna be in the winter form, Billy? Billy was fine. But now that he's bored, not fighting, he's just like taken to kicking at the wall and saying mean things to you guys. And he's got a cone on. He's got a cone on. What are some mean little kid things that Billy says? Your face is bad. I know, Billy. That's why I have the beard. Billy, you've never been in a cut phase. You're just kidding to yourself. I have been in a…

Billy, what are you talking about? I have been in a cut phase. Remember when we were… Remember those six months that happened off screen? Remember those six months where we were in Cash's apartment and I… It was before season seven started. I was in a cut phase. I don't remember. Billy, I was. What does Billy say to Vig? Billy, be nicer. A backbone thing. Stand up for yourself. Jesus Christ. I don't have to. I love how hard it is for Jessica to be mean to you guys. I don't like this.

Not to editorialize, but just by way of reminding people the resources we have available, Billy does have the reason for the season where he can change his season. Oh, that's true. And also a day has passed. Billy's trying that. Because he knows deep down this sucks. It was a long, dark, cold day. It was. And he was having bad sleep. And he was really groggy from it. Did you have a dream? I had a lot of dreams. Can we hear a dream? Yeah, let's hear one.

There was one where someone betrayed him one time when he was in his winter form. And he hunted them down and stabbed them to death. And he knew that that was a really bad thing. But what's happening outside of Billy's head is that he came into Tuck's room and then was just kicking the whole night. Why are you taking up all the room? Because I'm big. The bed is small for me. Yeah, well, get out then. Billy, you have your own bed. I don't want that bed. I want your bed and your bed. Get out.

That's totally what I can't wait. I can't sleep because you guys keep making sounds. Sound like this. You know what? I'm going to leave. And when you learn a little bit of fucking respect, you can come talk to me. And Billy wants to cry, but he's so mad. He's like, I'll never talk to you again. Well, then I am very angry with you. Billy rips off his cone and he storms out of the room. And he starts biting at his stitches right away. He's going to eat his scab.

So he throws the cone on the ground and walks out? Yeah. Damn it. He goes to chug a bunch of milk. Whoa. Oh my God. He's hitting the bottle. Oh, wow. It's a bad day. It's a bad day. Is he going to try and change his form or are you holding on to it? No. Okay. As he's chugging this milk, he's sitting there melancholically drinking some milk. What have I become? Talking to Mears. Mears, what have I become? And he's cleaning a glass with a rag. He goes, it's a tough, tough break, kid.

I never wanted to fight again. Not like that. You know, at the end of the day, every warrior's got to know when to put down the sword. I'm not a warrior. I just didn't want him to get hurt. Should I roll fairy child first? Yeah, you get to roll your fairy child and then you get to change your season. Seven. So I get three holds. Perfect. And Ving, I can see you. I'm going to, because it's a new day roll, what the bones know. Yeah. That's a five. Holy shit.

Better, better, better, better, better, better, better, better. So Ving, you like go to sleep thinking about how bad things were. Like how Colm absolutely wiped the fucking floor with you. Yeah. Like, well, it can only go up from here. Yeah. Tomorrow is probably going to be a better day. Plus I'm comforted because I switched out all the cream in the fridge for oat milk. So Billy's drinking oat milk thinking he's getting drunk. He's doing the thing the kids do. I think I feel it.

I'm really feeling it now. I'm feeling it. I had beer battered fish. I'm wasted. There's rum in this chocolate. I've never been drunker in my life. And now to change the form. Let's see where it goes. Let's see where we go. Four. Four. Four. Oh, geez. Dang it. I hate this. I hate everything. I push all my drinks off the counter. And they smash on the ground. And freeze in place. Oh, yeah. And freeze the ice crackling across the ground. Billy regrets everything. He runs to his room.

Slams the door. Oh, seals it shut. Oh, yeah. Freezes it. Oh, freezes it shut. And he sits there and thinks. He thinks. What's he thinking about? He's just thinking about what a bad guy he is. Oh. And how poorly he's acting. He's distracted. I like that it's snowing in his room. I remember it so well. Oh, yeah. He's regretting so many things. Oh, God. I should have just been a good person while I had the chance. Wow. The winter form really took hold of him.

Well, he's been holding back for so long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Okay. So, yeah. The ice is like filling. If you walk past Billy's room, it's freezing. Duck and Bing, what are you doing? Hmm. What are we doing? Bing, what do you want to do? I don't know. I was thinking about maybe. Are you guys laying in bed right now? Yeah. No, I have a hammock.

It's like a bunk bed, but I'm in a hammock on the side, and I just hang out in a hammock when we're chatting and decompressing about our piece of shit kid. God, he's just such a little piece of shit when he's in his winter form. It is unbearable. I understand the concept of adoption. Like putting a child up for adoption? Yeah. Growing a child. Really extreme. What do you think would happen if I put this on Francis and I have the razor tusk helmet? Oh my God. What the fuck? What?

I'm just making casual conversation. He would become like a war pig. You think so? Yeah. He would start to control other pigs. That's pretty sick. You would start the hogpocalypse again. All over again. All over again. Yeah. We would be heroes with really cool moves there. What? Bing's thinking back to when he was really cool during the hogpocalypse. He's like, man, I'm fucking up fighting people. I'm so good at fighting pigs though. Gotta go back to that. I'll put this back on.

He should probably keep it out of his sight. Bing. Yeah. People died during the hogpocalypse. Yeah, but it would be cool to fulfill its purpose. The pig helmet's talking to Bing like the green goblin mask. Yes, Bing. Put the helmet on the pig. Fulfill the purpose. Be cool again. You look like shit in that fight back there. You're probably right. You're probably right. Take up the power. Oh my God. It's just hanging on the back of a chair every time Bing goes to sleep it like glints at him.

Every time Tuck walks past his room he sees him like sitting in the dark looking at the helmet. Looking over his eyebrows. We cut back to Billy's room. Billy has opened a bottle of emo music. Oh right. Because Billy's and Billy's tips get frosted when he's in his winter form. Oh yeah. It's all drooping across his eyes. And they're kind of drooping across his eyes a little bit. Big bags under his eyes. Yeah. Vindicated. I'm selfish. I'm wrong. I'm right. I swear I'm right.

And he has a bottle of oat milk I guess. And he's chugging it. Drinking it. He's doing the like drunk teen from the early 2000s thing where he's like, and I'm flawed. And he smashes it on the ground. Put a thumb on it. And he's like, I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. And he's like, and I'm flawed. And he smashes it on the ground. I put thumb holes in all of his sweater sleeves. Billy comes out totally emo. As an emo.

Two days later. The next day the door cracked, the ice cracks, a snow drift blows out of his room. And you just hear ding, ding, ding, ding. As Billy emerges and he's got his bangs plastered to his forehead. And he's like, I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. And he's got his bangs plastered to his forehead.

He's got a long sweater, thumbs poking through the sleeves. It's one of those striped ones. Stripey ones, black and white stripes. And Billy grabs a piece of paper and starts writing poetry by the fireplace. But it's in Billy language so he gets fucking scribbles. And Mears comes over, he's like, hey buddy, can I get you anything? You want some croissants? Do you want a hot dog? I can make anything. I feel nothing anymore. You want some breakfast? No.

Go give breakfast to someone who deserves it. Holy shit. Oh, God. Jeez. Fierce just walks away like, wow. You don't have to pretend you like me. I don't even like me. Billy. No, and he comes back over and he sits down. I like you. Of course I like you. No, you don't. And that's fine. I'm in a magic bar that traveled to you because you needed me. I don't need you anymore. Is that? Come on. Is that true? She starts being mean.

Spending as much time as I have as the barkeeper, Fither and Yawn, has taught me a few things about the heart. I know that stressful times, scary times, can make us feel strange, make us feel not like ourselves. Mirrors, what if I'm stuck like this forever? I shouldn't have changed over. You did it because you had to protect the people you love. And the next time you need to change, you'll change. I want to use. Yeah, don't you have a fairy? Yeah. Yeah. Reason for the season.

You just melt in front of the fire with the heart. Yeah. Mirrors is trying so hard. I'm like, I can do this. I can, I can be a good guy. Yeah. So you just, you just get to do it one more time. You spend a fairy hold and you can change. Two. So what does two make you? Summer. Oh, okay. Oh my God. I immediately break out into a sweat. Why am I wearing a sweater? I look like shit. Mirrors is just like, what is going on? As the ice just melts off of you. And sheets. And mirrors is getting hot.

Oh yeah. Oh my God. It's so warm in here now. I'm going to turn. I'm going to put the fire out. Yeah. Oh, the fire lit lights. Oh yeah. Sorry about that. I will definitely. Have breakfast. Oh, okay. All right. I'm going to get some breakfast started. Is summer Billy normal, Billy? No spring. Billy is normal. Summer is like more mischievous. Yeah. I'm normal again. Trust me. It's a little trickster now and he's cut his emo thing into a crop into like one of those. Oh yeah.

His little summertime boy. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of the spring break tanks from Daytona. It says Daytona sleeves up. He's rolled his pants up into little shorts. Yeah. They're too tight. So like the fat is like just bunched around. And uh, yeah. Mirrors makes you a very wonderful breakfast. I guess. Are we waiting for Morris's task to be finished? Yeah. Um, so that night tuck has a dream and I think like you basically just stand in this void. You're like sick. This is great. There's nothing here.

They're here. My head is empty. Uh huh. Huh? I feel like I probably should be more concerned. I'm sorry about that. Why am I here? Yeah. If there's nothing in my head, why am I in my head? I nothing. Oh, he tries to call up the pizza hut. Mine palace. Yeah. Nothing. He can't get it. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, Oh my God. Sit down. Pizza. Delight kind of shimmers. That's not quite right. Did the Onero phage destroy the pizza palace? Might have. Whoa. That's a huge loss. Yeah. And you hear the words.

How can I help you? He took turns around in the void. He was like, who's there? You need my help. They all need your help. Can I roll to see what this is? Yeah, totally. Defy danger. Wisdom. Okay. Ooh, nice. Ooh, boy. Wow. 11. Okay. Holy shit. You feel in your sleeping body reflected in this void that is now empty. Void that is now your mind. Mm-hmm. Like a tugging. Like a tingling in your chest. And you just immediately are like, ah, fuck. It's a demon. Oh, no. You just know.

It's not even a like, oh, what is this? You're just like, servitude. And Tuck is like, are you possessing me right now? Stop. Don't do it. He jumps around. No. He's like, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. But if you let me, I could help you. Release me. What would you do? How would you help me? I live to serve. You're thinking about it. No, I'm not. I'm in your mind. I know what you're thinking about.

Well, tell me what I'm thinking about. Tits, tits, tits, tits, tits. You're thinking about tits, aren't you? Fuck! I'm thinking of a number between one and a thousand. No, you're not. You're thinking about tits. Anyone would have guessed that. But everybody knows. Everybody knows I like tits. You're thinking that you'll fail them. You're thinking about the end and the lie that waits there for you. Tuck, in the dream, materializes a knife in his hand and cuts his hand and wakes up. Oh. Yeah.

Cool. And he shoots up in bed. He shoots up into the butt of Ving, who's hanging a hammock above him. Whose hammock is right above the bed. Sorry. Sorry. Oh, my God. Where did you put the hammock above my bed? I wanted it. It's cold in here. Billy's form is too cold. And you guys smell cooking breakfast. You smell some eggs. You smell some sausages. Probably some sort of gruel. But it's good gruel that Mears has devised. He calls it ghoul because it's good gruel. Ghoul? Ghoul. G-O-O-L. Okay.

Okay. It's good. G-O-O-L. Ghoul. Because it's good gruel. He's been explaining this to everybody for a few minutes. Hey, you want some ghoul? Ew, no. But it's good gruel. Okay. Give me ghoul. Here you go. And he slides it down the bar to you. Tuck has two tampons in his nose because his nose broke when he woke up. He broke it on Ving's firm buttocks. It's the firmest ass I've ever smashed my face against. And let me tell you, I've smashed my face against a lot of asses. A lot. And it went in.

You got it right in the middle. It went in. That's all you got to say. And let me tell you, it went in. My crack is in a cut face. I'm telling this to Perel who's like, just picks up his breakfast and goes to a different table. You guys are just in a restaurant now, basically. You just have a restaurant to yourselves. And let me tell you, it went right. And Billy, you find Billy downstairs in a fucking crop top and shorts. Hey, guys. Oh, my God. Holy shit. I'm better now. Little surfer Billy.

I'm so sorry. It's the risk. You know, when you live it up and you try something new. I mean, you did save our butts out there in the war fields. Are you feeling better? I feel great. I feel pretty good, honestly. Yeah? Kind of hot in here, though. You look different. I know. I made a shirt. Your hair is kind of like bleach blonde now. Oh, cool. Yeah. It's got a good wave to it. It's not as curly as it used to be. Swishes around. Pretty cool look. Thanks. Yeah.

I'm going to gobble down a bunch of food now. Okay, go for it. Uh-huh. I might steal Perel's food. Yeah, do it. While he's not looking. Oh, Summer Billy's trying to do a prank. He walks by, accidentally tips over a bunch of salt onto Perel's plate. Perel goes, Oh, oh. Hi, Billy. Hi. Are you going to be reasonable now? Why are you talking to me like that? It's just that you were a little rude to me the other day. So many apologies.

You said that my bald head looked bad, and I am suffering from male pattern baldness. When my thalmic field activated, I lost all my hair. Wait, you had hair? I had beautiful hair. And now it's gone because I'm magical. Becoming a wizard made you bald? Yeah, it made me bald. Morris, why did it make you bald? Because I have such a powerful brain that it creates a lush environment for the hairs growing. The follicles are empowered by my great intellect.

Anyway, everybody, I have completed phase one of my project. Thanks. I would love if you would all join me in the spooky glade to see what I have constructed. Is it safe? Oh, is it safe? What do you mean, is it safe? Is it safe in the glade? Do you want me to make a little fairy ring? Oh, this scary little lady that chased everyone. Yeah. Yeah, okay, maybe do a fairy ring pretty quick. Seven. The ring requires my constant attention. Okay, great.

So Billy's just like doing a cool summer boy, like strut around the glade. He's just like vibing. Like he's, it's so slow. And he, cause you're trying to find like beach wood to do it with. Oh, you're trying to get cool driftwood looking with sticks. I'm saying like, you can't like rush this. It's like chill stuff. So we're all sitting at the door of the tent, just eating our ghoul. Uh-huh.

But eventually the fairy ring does get completed and Morris goes, all right, attention has been off of me long enough. Everybody look at me again. As I reveal. And he's got a big sheet that's over something in the glade. Behold. And he pulls the sheet off. What is just a very simple wooden shed. There's a pause. And then he's like eyebrows. Oh, thank you. And this has solved a major problem. How we have a door. Now we have a door now.

So everybody can get back in the fanny pack and I, and he takes his room key out. And he steps very exaggeratedly over to the door. And then I, and he puts the key towards the door. And then I come through the back door with the fanny pack. And people don't notice this, but tuck has disappeared. And then he like pushes the door open and scares. He went back into the back door. And he's just like, I knew that was going. You should have seen your face. You should have seen your face.

It's a fucking prank, bro. Yeah. Chill out. Billy's summer form is rubbing off on all of us. Oh yeah. Everybody's been a little shit at a thing. He's a little bit angrier now. God damn it. When you do that. God damn it. You scared me. I told you not to do that. You scared me in front of people. I'm embarrassed. I told you I pee when I get scared and a little bit came out. All right.

I think that that absolutely disrespectful move on Tuck's part means that he is the one that gets to fold up the fanny pack and go back through the back door. Oh no. You want me to go through the back door? I am going inside now and you get to be in the spooky glade by yourself, mister. I have to stay out here for the ring. All right. Fine. I'm going inside. My shed is complete. I am a genius. You're welcome. Oh, also, and he turns back.

I realized I gave this to the two most reckless people out of the three of you, which is saying something. We cannot under any circumstances open the fanny pack inside hither and yon. Why? It is just an accepted rule in thaumaturgy, special thaumaturgy especially. You cannot open a limited space. Why? Because it is a liminal space inside a liminal space. What will happen? They collapse in on each other. They both meld together. They fold outwards. It's horrible. Do not do it.

Many a special thaumaturge has lost life and limb. Should we lock it when we're in the hither and yon? I will take it. How about? Oh, like he'll wear it? I'll wear it myself. So, Morris and Perel, you guys are going to be hanging out in hither and yon with the fanny pack once we pack it up and go through the back door. Makes sense. I'm going to go through the back door. I'm going to go through the back door. I'm going to go through the back door. I'm going to go through the back door.

And then hither and yon goes to Hyspere. We drop you off. You take the fanny pack. Do your bullshit there. And then we'll go fight a war, I guess. Yeah, that's great. That's great. That's the plan. Okay, that's a great plan. We're going to do it. All right, we're going to do it. Everybody put your hands in. Hands in. One, two, three. We will. What? We will. We will. We will. We will. We will. We will. We will. We will. We will. We will. We will. We will. We will. We will.

You should have seen your face, man. And we cut forward into the hither and yon. The fanny pack's packed up. And everybody's just chilling. Morris and Perell have gone up to their room. I think everyone's just kind of settling into this new status quo. Am I healed yet? Like all the way? Yeah, you had a night of rest. Or wait, no. Billy stayed up drinking oat milk. Oh, right. Oh, fuck, dude. So the poultice is like, you know, you've got nine hit points or whatever. Okay.

Am I healed cause I slept? Yes.

End of the day I will roll another what the bones know that's a one oh boy bing you get as you're like ending this as you're getting ready for bed on that second day you get another sinking feeling oh tomorrow is going to be worse somehow my bones don't know shit today was pretty fun it started with me getting rammed in the ass by tux nose at least I think that was his nose and is there anything in particular that we want to handle on that day or do we just jump ahead where where did chimes go is he still in hither and yon oh yeah I know he left okay yeah like when we went to fight the war yeah he comes and goes as he pleases he's got a room key oh right yeah so he'll just fuck off yeah okay cool is there anything we want to know about things because I could use night moves while we're hanging out in the glade oh yeah and then we have to ask sean a question something about the gibbous man like does he know that we met the or like about colm maybe what the black hammer twins are getting out of this deal yeah that's not bad because they're he's giving of himself to use the the wrath the war blade yeah okay I'm gonna use night moves roll plus wisdom and 10 plus a gm will answer one question so for night moves to work you need the night sky uh everyone's settling in going to sleep hither and yon it's the end of the day the tent's been packed up the fanny pack has been prepared for transport to high spear city but you head out the back door of hither and yon emerging from the shed that morris constructed in the clearing and you look up at the night sky um I got a 10 okay so you look up at the night sky and you're trying to read the movement of the stars yeah and gain a little bit of knowledge about the black hammers what they're getting out of this what the plan is how to kill it's just something and you hear a voice say you know you could just ask me I turn the gibbous man stands on the edge of the glade black traveling cloak wide brimmed hat leaning on his staff and he takes a step forward through the remnants of billy's old fairy ring are you afraid yes that's good so you want to know what what the twins are getting out of this deal yeah I mean what all humans want power status you all want the same thing to matter and he starts walking around the glade just taking it in some kid you got he like stops and looks at you he's uh powerful powerful powerful I'm going to roll fight with honor.

Whoa. Holy shit. That's sick. All right, 2d6 plus constitution. That's fucking sick. I got 10. Whoa. So that gives you three hold, four hold? Three chi. That's so cool. And he sees you square up like in the- He just like thinks back. His right foot cocks like five degrees. Uh-huh. And the gibbous man sees that. He goes, oh. All right. This is how you want to do this. And I want to use weaponize association to spend one chi to predict his next move. Oh. Whoa. So sick. Awesome.

Oh, and this is the thing that like gets you to get them to give something up basically. That's fucking rad. And that means that you get to tell me what he does next. Like you know what he's going to do. And you're telling me what he does. Yeah. This is like one of those like samurai fights where like they're both perfectly still and it seems totally chill. But they're like in a war right now. They're predicting each other's moves in their mind right now.

It's like they're playing chess in their head. Yeah. Totally. Battle chess. You move throughout the night. You are the night. You feel the shroud of darkness wherever you go. You feel like that shields you. But I see you. What does this cause him to do? I think he goes for the door. Oh. Oh shit. Why wouldn't he? Interesting. Yeah. Because if he destroyed the shed, then we would be stuck. Bing would be stuck. Bing would be stuck.

So like he knows that the door is your lifeline to your family and he is going to shatter the shed. But you know he's going to step towards you. And swing behind you. And as he's swinging his stick towards the shed, you step forward and you like shove him backwards. And he goes, oh, and he steps back a few steps. I see. I noticed that I can hit him. You just pushed him. Oh, like he's made. He's material. Is that what you're trying? Yeah.

He's he's presented himself as this like mysterious, all knowing, like invulnerable being. But you just pushed him. I look in his eyes. And he sees that you know what that means. I smirk and I start sprinting at him. He disappears. Oh, sick. And you're alone. Guys. Damn it. Yeah. I feel I feel like I feel I feel it on me like a chill. There's oh, the runes on my shoulder are all distorted. Oh, they're like bleeding out into where my veins are. Like blood. Blood.

Poisoning from ink that was once a shape. Oh, that's so sick. It's distorted the knowledge of when I touched him. Yeah. When I touched him. Ving turns around like excited, but calmly walks back inside and closes the door. And the door like closes and swings back open and reveals an empty shed. The next day morning or does Ving go and wake everybody up? I think we weren't asleep. I think we were just hanging out. I think we were just hanging out inside. Okay. Yeah.

So everyone's just chilling in the fanny pack and or hither and yon. I was asleep. Okay. Then I missed that. We need to heal. Billy was asleep in in in front of the fireplace. With Victor, maybe. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like sandwiched between Francis and Victor. Yeah. Mouth wide open. Head back. Yeah. And you come through the back door into hither and yon. I think Tuck is probably the one that's awake. Mears has gone to bed. Morrison Perrella is asleep. Billy is sleeping in front of the fire.

Can I show you something? Yes. I pull my tunic down. Tuck goes, oh, my God, it's happening. My perfectly sculpted shoulder. Slender, but strong. Tuck touches you on the shoulder and he's like, doesn't matter how much the fans are asking for this. We cannot do it. Bro, check out my tattoo, bro. Oh, that's what you're. Okay. Never mind. Tuck, look at this. What? Pulls his pants down. Look at the runes on the underside of my shirt. Sack.

Tuck laughs really hard because this is a game we play when Billy's not around. You just show each other your dick. Yeah. It's like we'll hide and then the other person will come around the corner. We'll be like, it looks like a bat wing. One of these things. Yeah. But we only do it when Billy's not around because it's incredibly inappropriate. Oh, yeah. So immature. Yeah. And I'm like, you got me. Okay. You got me. You're ahead. You're ahead by two now. Yes. We're back.

We've been playing this the whole entirety of the campaign. Oh, my God. And Ving's been down for a long time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because Tuck, it's really easy. He's got really easy access to it. It's just under the flap. Yeah. It's so easy. That's why Ving was doing so much like yoga and like mobility training. That's why. I'm going to get him. I'm going to get this fucking. That'd be fast. I'm going to fucking do this. I'm going to get him one day. I've got too many flaps.

That's what he kept saying. He's going, I've got so many fucking flaps. It's so hard to get it out. Yeah. He did some tailoring to his pants so that it was easy access. Tear away. And then there is also a thing where it's like if you see the other person's doing it and you do it back before they can get their dick and balls out. They get two. You get two. Yeah. Still there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So there were a couple of times where Ving was like, got like his, he was trying to undo the knot on his pants. And then Tuck was just like, boom. Gotcha. Double. Damn it. So Ving shows you a distorted tattoo. What? How? What happened? He was there. Who? Him. Call him? The gibbous man. What? Outside? When Billy went inside, his fairy ring diminished and he appeared. I hit him, Tuck, and he reeled and I saw fear in his eyes. He can be hurt. I saw his weakness. And it's. A man's weakness.

His dick? His dick and balls? His balls. His balls. His inability to think about anything else. His weakness is his balls. It's so obvious. A man's weakness. It's so clear now. I shouldered him right in the balls. I can't believe. You shouldered him right in the balls? Ugh. Ugh. So. That means. He has a physical body. Mm-hmm. And the physical body can be interacted with. And we can hurt him. Very much so. Yeah. And he can be surprised. Because he didn't see you coming.

He didn't like that I knew that. That I found that. That I did that. Yeah. Which means he can't see the future. Hmm. Like if he couldn't see Ving coming at him. Can I Spout Lore on this? Sure. Yeah, nice. Intelligence. Intelligence. Uh, yeah. So that's a three. Mm-hmm. Fuck. Mm-hmm. So you get a point of experience. Uh-huh. I think the failure is. Is something that Tuck realizes. Uh-huh. In this you're like. Okay. The Gibbous man just had revealed to Ving. That he has a physical material body.

Mm-hmm. There's no way he. Makes himself that easy to get to. Ever again. Right. He would only work through proxies now. He wouldn't want to get physically close to any of you. Fuck. But that also means. If he now knows that you know. He can be hurt. He's going to be coming at you even harder. Right. Because he's trying to destroy. Any information about himself. Mm-hmm. So we're. We. Uh. No. Oh. Before you were just a nuisance. Now you might be his number one target. Oh no Ving.

No I didn't fuck up. No you didn't fuck up. The thing you did was so cool. It was pretty cool. It was too cool. And now he thinks we're too cool. Yeah. And he's going to come at us hard as fuck dude. He's hard as fuck for us now. Does Billy wake up at any point during this conversation? Yeah I wake up when Tuck goes. Oh no. Who is it? Who is it? Billy. What? I saw the gibbous man. No way. That's not cool. Oh no. And he knows we're in here. Yeah. Can he get here? Actually.

I think considering the information that you have. You would think he probably couldn't get inside Heather and Jan. Why? Places of significant power seem to be inaccessible to him. So we're actually safe in here. And also like Heather and Jan moves around so much. And that is a thing he also is kind of weak to. Because like Ving's mom put the knowledge seat in him. So that the gibbous man could never get a beat on him. Right. So because Heather and Jan moves. It's kind of safe. So I can sleep.

You can sleep. You can go back to sleep. Yeah. But. Billy. Billy. That was quick. You passed out really hard there. Okay. Well this is good to know. It is. But. I have a feeling that things are going to get a lot harder from here. The next morning. Unless. Unless. We have another dream. Maybe Billy has a dream from the gibbous man. Tell me about this. So this is Billy in his oak tree form. The one on the hill. So yeah. He's just in the forest. Taking in the scenery that surrounds him.

And has surrounded him for so much time. It's a dream of a memory. Is this like the version of the tree that Billy is that has like the offerings hanging from it? Like it's got the ribbons and bottles and bells hanging from the branches. Yeah. And you're in Lone Tree Hill, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very big old oak tree. Yeah. Pretty big oak tree. I haven't had anyone visit me for a few days. It's very quiet tonight. And Billy's just doing what he always does. And he just thinks.

Because you're in your autumn form here, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, this is the reflective phase before the winter comes. Yeah. Yeah. He's thinking about the things people have asked of him. One of them is. Please let my radishes be absolutely huge this year. And also. I really want smart William to like me back. And then another person who goes. Farmer bills keeps making fun of me for how small my radishes are. You please make mine bigger. Please. This year.

I cannot handle him making fun of me for another year. And then another one comes and is like. No one's even talking about my radishes at all. Make my radishes talk about old bull. She's so obsessed. Like the fruit's going to be the way it's going to be. So one night on this night, this wonderful night, Billy is thinking about his life here on this hill, being a tree, thinking about. Thinking about the promise he made to protect this place. Yeah.

He's listening to the mycelium network underneath. The promise he made to protect this place. And from deep in the forest, coming towards Lone Tree Hill through the trees is a man in a black cape. The wide brimmed black hat and a walking stick. And he threads his way through the trunks and comes to you and begins to walk past you. And then it stopped dead in his tracks in the network that you are a part of that protects this place.

And he kind of like tests the barrier and he looks up at the tree at you. Let me pass. I will not. You can't protect them forever. Yes, I can. The river will run dry one day. I'll make sure of it. Get out. This isn't over. Get out. And he turns and walks back into the trees. And the forest shakes. Yeah. Like at the oak tree demanding him to leave. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And you wake. Do I remember? Do you? No. You don't? For a moment? He remembers for a second. Like he remembers for a second.

The harder he tries to remember, he loses it. Yeah. He's like, uh, I'm so hungry. And you hear mirrors downstairs going, ghoul, ghoul, ghoul, ghoul, ghoul, making some ghoul for all my friends. Oh, so you guys all get you get your what the bones know you if you want to do it, you get your fairy child sick and you can try and change your form. Six. Girl. Beautiful. Hold on to a six. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, dude. Amazing. I'm fully healed. Um, my fairy child. I got 11. Sweet. Okay. I get five folds.

And you can try and change your season if you so choose, or you could stay summer. I'm going to stay summer. Okay. Cool. Yeah. In the summer, you're like, everything's awesome. Fucking sick, bro. I had a great sleep last night. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You should always be sleeping on the floor. You're sleeping on the floor? Bruh. So good for your back. You know, you just like touch the earth and it holds you. Yeah. Pretty chill. We're going to live forever. It's going to be summer forever.

It's going to be forever young, you guys. Billy's got a puka shell necklace on. Where'd you get that? He's progressively getting more and more bro. He's got some zinc on his nose. I got a little tan from the fireplace. Just a one side of your body. Yeah. A really orange tan. You don't have rosacea anymore. You're just tan. And that morning, Morris and Perel come back downstairs and they've got backpacks. They've got all the effects that they brought with them.

And Morris has the fanny pack around his waist. And they go, all right. This is going to be it for a little bit, I think. I guess we'll see you guys when the war is over. That long? Yeah. We'll tell Aquarius to say hi when we finish the… Finish the wireframe. If you can, can you ask her what she meant when she said I was touched by the darkness? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll ask her what the darkness is. Morris is like, Perry, you're so sentimental.

We have magical keys that can bring us back here. Oh, right. Yeah. You can just visit. Anytime. He's like, oh, yeah. But you know, it just won't be the same. We've been living together for, it feels like years now. Bye, guys. And Morris is nodding and patting Perel on the shoulder. As he opens the door to like the bustling streets of Highspear City. Holy shit. People are just walking past. I really want to get a good look out here. Yeah, it's bright and sunny. There's people walking by.

There's like a demonstration going on in a square. Oh. Where they're like, the Firefields Principality is encroaching on the sovereignty of the Highspear people. And there's only one person that can protect you. Yeah. Protect the interests of you and your families. And your business. And that is why in the upcoming mayoral election, you must elect Etienne Boggins. Holy shit. You see a poster behind them that's Etienne Boggins giving a big thumbs up. Yeah.

And underneath it says, the savior of Mudlark. He's totally spun it into like. I saved the Riverways and I can save you. Amazing. Oh, no. Yeah. This is bad. I want to stay here. We have to kill Etienne Boggins. Yeah. Real danger. Oh, man. All right. I've been your Game Master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So long. Playing Ving, the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Hoppers. Take care. Playing Fat Billy, the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone.

Thanks to Aaron Reed for our intro and outro music. You can find all of Aaron's truly incredible original music at aaronreed.bandcamp.com and all the music that he's helped make for the show. At Spotify. Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music. Yeah, wherever. It's literally everywhere. It's everywhere and it's great. Yeah. If you want to support the show, you can at patreon.com slash speltlore or speltlore.com slash money, please, where you'll get access to the up-to-date current feed of Mallrats.

You get access to merch drops. You can get access to curated gift boxes from the crew. And you can even play in games run by Abdul and myself. If that sounds cool to you, patreon.com slash money. Or speltlore. Speltlore.com slash money, please. Thankful I am for all of you for listening to the show. Thanks, everybody. Goodbye. We'll see you next time. It's till 1230 a.m. I was supposed to be asleep eight hours ago. Stop recording. Goodbye, everybody. Goodbye. See you next time.

And so ends the tale of adventures three who tried the best they can. Though dumb and scared and lost they be. For times 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 finish. You are gladly speltlore. Thank you.

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

I'm your Game Master, Sean O'Hara Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz Hello everybody! Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers Hi! And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai Hello!

When last we left our heroes, they had gotten the piss kicked out of them By Colm Blackhammer, one of the Princeps of the Fired Fields Principality and leader of their military forces We gave as good as we got I feel like I think so too Dude, Billy is, was 20% knife for a while It's a good percentage to be Means I'm like a weapon of destruction The knife was facing the wrong way, Billy It's okay, just take it out and then you can use it on someone else Don't take that out That's what you did do, you just ripped it out of your chest Oh we actually did, I remember, okay so the party ran back to Hither and Yon Through the finishing battle between the Alliance and Firefield's forces with the victory of the Alliance against all odds Pretty cool It's also from their perspective hilarious where three insane people show up Out of a toilet Beat the shit out of a robot Yeah Run away Kill Colm Blackhammer Back into a toilet Yeah, run Come back with a dying child And then run back into a toilet Did everybody see that?

We're on the same page, right?

With two hit points left, Billy decided to roll a Defy Danger to remove the knife from his body Insane Pretty metal Fucking insane move Jess Pretty cool I could never do it in real life I'm too scared Ah, fantasy Yeah The intervening time following their return to Hither and Yon was spent dealing with that The fact that Billy was mortally wounded in this fight with Colm Blackhammer There was some relaxation had as Billy still in his winter form was having a bit of a, should we say temper tantrum?

Is that how we would, a temper tantrum? Yeah, a temper tantrum? Temperature tantrum?

Because he was now cold Temperature tantrum, good one Tuck took a little snooze in the rest period Mm-hmm Having his, not dream, sleep Brain Sleep place Yeah, I guess like the empty vacuum Like for Tuck most of the time, like if he sleeps now without the dream, he closes his eyes and just wakes up Yeah Like no sense of intervening time Yeah, and if he is brought into his mind it is an empty void And that void was temporarily filled for a time by the icon of servitude Trapped in the coin embedded in his chest It is sort of worm tongue Lucifer style trying to get you to allow it to help you in some way Yeah Yeah Like a real bad boy Jiminy Cricket Yeah, bad boy Jiminy Cricket Yeah That's sick Yeah, sick Jiminy Cricket with a leather jacket Yeah, cigarette And a cigarette And a candy can Yeah Hither and Yon disconnected from the fanny pack Everyone realized that if Morris and Perel were going to complete anything that they needed to complete, they would have to do something else To complete anything that they needed to do at the High Spirit they required their tools and their equipment which were all back at the fanny pack So Ving used his abilities to commune with the spirit of Hither and Yon as it were, whatever that spirit takes the form of And connect with the deep, deep need of Victor the Lyre Wolf who is absolutely horrified at the thought of you all being alone without him alone quote unquote It was one of the cutest scenes we've ever done Yes Because Victor considers anyone that is not with him alone, no matter how many other people are there And connected those two extra planar locations allowing Hither and Yon and the fanny pack to reconnect Morris then devised a plan to bring the fanny pack into Hither and Yon by constructing a shed in the clearing to use the door as a back door entrance The shed was constructed over a series of days while the party recovered And Billy had a dream during his recovery time of the Gibbous Man And an encounter he had with the Gibbous Man who knows how long ago The Gibbous Man attempted to enter the Halfling Lands and was denied by Billy the Tree Morris constructed his shed, the party was getting ready to leave the clearing And on that last night Ving went out to work on some night moves, look at the night sky, get some information about their foe the Gibbous Man Who then appeared before you There was some shit talking done And then Ving immediately rolled fight with honor It was so cool So powerful Get my son's name out of your mouth The Gibbous Man's main move in this fight was to destroy the shed thereby cutting Ving off from the Hither and Yon During which time Ving used his ability to predict the actions and mistakes of his foes getting the Gibbous Man close enough to lay hands on him Shoving him, proving that he has a physical form After which the Gibbous Man disappeared Back inside the party prepared to move Hither and Yon to Highspear City to drop off Morris and Perel And as they were saying goodbye they saw a rally happening in the town square that they'd arrived outside of Which seemed to promote the mayoral election of a one Etienne Boggins, the savior of Mudlark It's such a stupid Thing to see And that is where we find our heroes now Oh wait you missed one thing Ving and Tuck have over the course of the entire show been playing a game where they try and show each other their dick and balls How could we forget?

That's getting cut, that's getting cut Yeah Ving and Tuck have apparently been playing that dick and ball showing game from waiting for the last seven years From the Ryan Reynolds From the Ryan Reynolds vehicle waiting Huh Yeah whenever Billy goes to sleep they apparently show each other their penis I really wish I didn't sign up for this So fanfic writers do your thing Somebody draw this That is where we find our heroes now You see a mayoral rally happening before you, what do you do?

Did Morris and Perel walk away? They're standing there, Perel is looking at you guys Uh huh Cause he looks and points Etienne Boggins Uh oh That's that guy, right?

From season one From the first season of the show He's from January on the calendar From our mayors of Spout Lore calendar Billy's on most of those months It's mostly Billy In different monocles and different top hats The mayor of Mudlark The mayor of Lil Sur Just Billy in different outfits I do like this Yeah it's very funny Can you remind me of what our relationship was like with Etienne when we left him?

I don't think it was good We did bad stuff Didn't we lock him in a closet or that's the other guy?

We did No we did, we locked him in a closet for a couple of days Yeah for a while Yeah and then we sort of fucked him over He was working for Maggie under her guise as muckraker Right When she was a quote unquote criminal She put him in office She got him elected as mayor of Mudlark And the last that we saw was you guys had kind of accidentally framed him Right And he was like the theft of the box And he was like roughed up and taken away Right Oh by Caroline By Caroline Oh Yeah so he would not love seeing us No he would not like you guys at all I'm gonna roll fight with honor You do see that he is not here You see banners of Etienne Boggins Okay You see people on stage And now like the speech has happened and they're handing out flyers and stuff What color are banners?

I just want to know politically I'm thinking Which way is he leaning here? Probably blue Blue or red? Probably blue Oh He's fiscally liberal Or brown Socially conservative He's an idiot That's under that's like the tagline The tagline Yeah Everyone's like this is bad His banners are all tie-dyed He's a tie-dyed Actually I do wonder if they might be kind of brown From Mudlark?

Yeah he's trying to play up this savior of Mudlark thing So they're brown and green He's from Vertgrass Yeah He's from Vertgrass Yeah He's from Vertgrass Yeah He's from Vertgrass Yeah He's from Vertgrass Yeah He's from Vertgrass Yeah He's from Vertgrass though He's from Vert- So he's from the Black Tree Principality Right He was mayor of Mudlark And now he's running for mayor of Highspear It's tie-dyed black, green, and brown Yeah It's his camo It's camo It's camo It's camo Because he wants to be the strong like military leader Does he?

Oh my god Of the alliance Oh Right?

Because the alliance is new Right Yeah So you think he's jockeying for Okay let's roll some stuff This is cool No he wants to get the people behind the army Yeah And I also think that the- Maggie is still pulling the strings here because he Yes He doesn't have the wherewithal No To put himself in office Maybe even Maggie would never make such an ugly poster Yeah His campaign is failing Bad campaign Maggie's also like thousands of kilometers away as far as you know So then this is maybe a different branch of the Menders Could be I personally think that this is his own thing That he was not welcome really in Mudlark So he's like I have to go somewhere else I have to go Oh classic So who's rolling what?

What do you mean? You said we had to roll to figure this out Well I said yeah I mean it could be a spell or Discern realities Discern realities Are we all just like hanging out of the doorway or something? Yeah people keep trying to come in and we're like fuck off Yeah get out of here Mears is like this is a pub you could just go But this is our pub We don't understand Yeah we don't get it Technically it's my pub Yeah fair What?

I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know Yeah fair What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? And Allison are fucking close. And they're the same person. Oh my God. Sorry, I keep derailing. Colonel Dan, he just puts nail polish on his finger. On his nails. Puts it asleep.

Paints his nails, sits on his hand until he falls asleep. He gives himself to strangers. That's what Allison was the whole time. It was Colonel Dan giving himself to strangers. He put a pile of books on his penis until his penis fell asleep. It feels like you're jerking off a stranger. A pile of books on your penis. Just horrible. Jerking off somebody else's penis rather than having a stranger jerk him off. Hey, it's sound. This would work. Somebody draw this. Somebody draw this.

Draw Colonel Dan putting a pile of books on his penis for just long enough that it goes to sleep and then him painting his nails red and jerking himself off. If anyone draws this, I will find a way to ban you from the podcast. I will make it happen. Jess has started drawing. Did you paper cut yourself? I did because I got too excited. No, don't. She's doing it. Zoom in. Well, Jessica drew a stack of books on a penis. It's really long. That's a really good stack of books.

That's a stack of books on a penis. Oh my God. Oh my God. Paul reached for his phone so fast. Two phones. Just smashed both of your phones. You just shared your contacts with me. Jessica's so mad at herself for drawing this. It's so hard to make your penis fall asleep and remain hard. It's so funny. The head is sticking up from under the phone. Oh, I love it so much. This will be the title card for this episode. I saw it. I saw it. Did you see this, dude? Yeah, I saw it. Did everyone see this?

Yeah, that's a little dickhead sticking out of the pile. Oh, there it is. Now I've seen it. Oh man, I'm making this my background. So I think, okay, so the thing that you need to be on the lookout for, you are looking at this crowd, which is not, it's not huge. Yeah. It's not a huge crowd. Do they seem like they're supporting him? It seems like they're interested.

Like by the time you got here, it seems like they've got the vibe of, this guy was saying some interesting stuff about this candidate. That's fascinating. Huh. But you don't know exactly what it is, but you do see people handing out pamphlets and flyers. Who's really in control here? Okay, so who's really in control here? You can't help but think as you're looking at this, you're like, fuck, Etienne Boggins, you're connecting all the dots from your last encounter. Like two years.

Two years ago, two and a half years ago. But from where you are, you see nothing that would suggest this is like a Maggie Cole operation or a Mender thing. It seems like this is Etienne Boggins. Okay. Yeah. He's an independent. He's running as an independent. Yes, that is it. He is running as an independent. For sure he is. There are several political parties in High Spear City and he was part of none of them. I kind of imagine this like a street all full of candidates. It's like a market.

Oh, nice. It's like a big market full of stages. Yeah. There's several stages and there are many candidates giving speeches. That makes sense. And the crowd chooses and they're mostly going towards his camo. And then on the other side is a bunch of like food stands and like hushy games and stuff like that. And those are packed. They're like food for mayor. So there's a carnival. Yeah, there's a carnival on one side. Hot dog drop. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe this is like a time honored democratic practice in the principalities is like a carnival where all the candidates come out and are like, I'm running for office. And there's also food. Yeah. Yeah. Food and games. And there's a like prize hog competition also happening. One time, one of the prize hogs accidentally became mayor. Because people didn't know. Francis is like, pardon me. I see a bunch of junk in those ladies' trunks. And he just swaddles out to look at the prize hogs.

Curls his mustache. Good day, ladies. Oops. I was trying to do a pig sound. I just almost tooted. Whoa. That's how the shit got on your chair. There was not shit on my chair, fool. You can't. Paul sharted through his pants last time we recorded. That did not happen. Nobody draw that. When we came back, there was a brown stain on his chair this time. That was shocking and true. That was shocking and true. Just totally middle school turn on you. But then also fully acknowledged.

That didn't happen. That didn't happen. That is shocking and true. That is shocking and true. I will recognize that as an adult person. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean. Oh, you get one more question. What here's not what it appears to be? Oh, interesting. So, you are a warrior of great experience. You are adept at recognizing, especially with your newfound role as this repository of ancient knowledge. You're good at reading people's intentions.

And you're seeing a lot of people in this crowd that all seem off, but not off in like a sinister way. Often you're like, oh, those are people that are pretending to be casual. Ugh. Like there's somebody that'll like go up to a cart and like pick up an apple and like look at the apple, but be like looking or like clearly watching the crowd. Okay. Yeah. Can I use a refresh street rat? Remind me what that one is. I get to ask what is the biggest threat here? Cool. Then yes, absolutely. Yeah.

So what? Yeah. Tuck scans the crowd and he sees these weirdos being weird. Yeah. Weird. And those, those. You notice like there are like guards walking around, you know, like the class. I've got a helmet and a little tabard and a spear and I'm here for security. But these individuals of which I think from where you are, you see like four or five spread out through the crowd. Those are the most dangerous people here. Yeah. It overlays a Terminator vision. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

And you are, you are picking out like, oh, uh, this person's got like a knife, like hidden in their vests. Like every, they're all armed and they're all secretly armed. You see dangerous lumps in people's clothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because Tuck is an idiot. He's just been standing slack-jawed for like two minutes looking at the people who are not trying not to have attention drawn to them.

Just like staring drools coming out of your mouth. I look drunk. I look like a drunk guy about to get in a fight. Tuck, what are you doing? Those guys are dangerous. Okay. Play it cool. Cripes. Your clothes. Give them to me. As you close your boots and your motorcycle. And your motorcycle. Yeah. So what is your what's your plan here? Like, do you are you sticking around for this? I want to now. All these bad guys roaming around. Yeah. Etienne Bargains is trying to get elected for mayor.

Canonically, we do not let that guy be mayor. It is our moral responsibility to make sure he's not mayor. We have to take this side. It's foundational to our characters. I want to I want to be clear to you and I want to be clear to the listeners. Yes. You guys can walk away. I know right now. Well, I feel like we kind of. Well, Morrison Perel do have work here. Yeah, of course. So they'll be here for a month or two. Probably working on this.

We don't want Morrison Perel stuck somewhere where there's like these like armed assassins or whatever they are. What if they are associated with the benders? Then the wizards are in great danger. Yeah. So we have to make sure that Morrison Perel are safe. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess this would be. Oh, wait. Did you guys bully me into agreeing that the High Spears over? The mall? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. It's on like a cliff side. It's on a cliff side. Yeah.

Yeah. It's on a mountainside that is like the city is at the base of this mountain. It's kind of like the chief is Squamish. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a big tower on top of it. Isn't the High Spear like thousands of feet in the air? I wouldn't see it from miles away. It's like a skyscraper. It is. You guys did see it from very far away. Yeah. In the like second season when you were traveling. So there are those floating pieces above it too.

So it's built into the side of a mountain, but also parts of it like extend below like into a mountain valley. So there's lower entrances as well. And do you want bits that like float? Oh, for sure. There's parts of it that have like broken off that are like floating around. Yeah. That's so cool. Then yeah, you've got this. You've got the square before you. You've got some sinister, mysterious figures in the crowd and you guys are staying in High Spear? Yeah. For the time being. Yeah, we should.

Can we stay in High Spear? We should stay in the Hither and Yon, right? Can we use it as? You got your room keys. You can kind of pop in whenever you want. Yeah. Is the Hither and Yon staying? Mears kind of shrugs and goes, maybe. Okay. Unless someone really needs something, then the Hither and Yon kind of decides where it's going. Tuck closes the door and reopens it from the outside. Yeah. You open it. He's still there. He goes, guess so. Don't do that.

Victor is at the door like trying to nudge it open. Like, let me come. Let me join you. Time passes differently. So we open it. Oh, yeah. You open it. I had to be so mad. Stuff is happening as you're opening and closing. Yeah. Mears is gone. Yeah. Victor's there. I have to be. Let's take Victor with us. Let's take Victor with us. Yeah. So Victor shoulders his way out of the door. What does he look like now? Because he was getting more domesticated and easier to see. He's getting easier to see.

His ears are drooping, right? His ears are drooping a little bit. He's kind of becoming dog-like. I like thinking he's got them in like airplane mode, you know? Where they point back? Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Because he's like just listening. He's listening to so much stuff. Yeah. And they're a little floppy from being so comfortable. Not floppy, but like a little bendy. He's got a little bend to him. And he is becoming somewhat easier to see.

You kind of get like glimpses of limestone colored fur. Like it's kind of like off. It's like a white, green, gray almost. I like that. That's cool. But he's the kind of thing where like if you're not looking right at him, he kind of fades from view. If you look like he does not appear in peripheral vision. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Also, something I realized, Ving, you have the ability to make it possible for other people to hear animals speak.

You're now in a city with tens of thousands of people in it. Yes. Do you keep that going? So do we think that I can direction it? Oh, sure. So what I'm saying basically is that people will be able to hear Victor speak if he speaks. And most people are not accustomed to hearing animals speak. I could use a fairy child to create. I could use a fairy child to create a convincing illusion. Oh, just make him look like a regular dog or something? Maybe. Or like a guy.

Or just turn into a beautiful husky. Yeah. Beautiful husky. Who then still talks. Or a man named Victor. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. A man named Victor. Makes more sense. 11. Holy shit. Okay. Yep. What does Billy think Victor would look like as a person? Like what does he make Victor look like? Like a tough guy. Like a bald. Yeah. Bald. Nice. The earring thing. Like a criminal would have. Oh, yeah. A stud? Yeah. Studs. I love that. I think he's the dude from like Slow Horses.

One of the Russian agents. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The younger bald one. Yeah. Yeah. So he's got like a leather jacket on. He also looks kind of like a, he's got a farmer build. So he's just like stocky in like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he goes, oh, I am magnificent. Oh, no, there's gonna be a problem. Oh, I knew he'd like it. He sees himself in a window and goes, yes. Beautiful. Beautiful. This is what I feel. And now you see what I think I am. It's nice to finally meet you, Victor.

He puts out a hand and you feel a wolf paw. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Shake a paw. Shake a paw. Good boy. And you feel his teeth sink into your hair. You put your hand. Into a wet wolf's mouth. I grab some granola in my pocket and throw it in the air for him. In his human form. He goes. Chomps it out of the air. Good boy. Now I am undercover. I am the ultimate stealth operative. Exactly. We all have to be stealthy here. Very good. And he takes a step forward. Hello, everyone. Normal human man here.

What a beautiful diet market. And he goes. He looks back at all of you and he winks. I give him a thumbs up. Perfect. I give him a thumbs up. He's actually a pretty casual Russian. As far as Russians go. It's really convincing. Super cash. Super cash. And Morris and Perel kind of hike up their backpack straps. Morris is like, I definitely thought this was going to be a sort of solo excursion for the two of us. We won't bother you. Billy, I mean this in the most generous way possible. What?

You're already bothering us. You're already bothering us. You're already bothering us. Billy's feelings are really hurt. But then it shifts to a wide and because Victor isn't used to like his bulk in a market scenario, he tips over an apple cart. Apples everywhere. And he goes, yes. Just keeps walking. Your apple cart was too weak for my hips. And Perel goes, Billy, you're fine. And he pats you on the shoulder. What's the plan here? Why are you? Well, what's your plan?

We're going to try and make. Look at these guys. Look at that guy. Look at that guy. What? Look at them. They're shifty as all get out. Oh my God. Do you think Perel starts getting really nervous? What do you think they're? What do you think? He's sweating immediately. Is it the light guard again? Are they coming for us? I don't think it's the light guard. And then I pull him in really close, like almost too close. And I'm like, all right, Perel.

The last time we interacted with that damn boggarts, he was working for the menders. These guys might be menders. Right? Right? So maybe keep a low profile on all the magic stuff when you're here. Very low pro. And you see him like start tensing his muscles and he like shrinks down a little bit. What? Not like physically, not magically, but he starts like curling in his shoulders and like dipping his head a little bit. And he's like, got it. I have to suppress my thalmic field.

Is that what you just did? Yeah. Did you fart? No, not yet. It smells really bad. Okay. I did a little bit. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Maybe it's maybe, maybe it is best. You guys hang out. Cause if these are menders, that's going to be a real problem. Yeah. We'll keep our distance. We'll follow you. You take the lead. Okay. So the goal, like Morris and Perel's goal is to get to the high spear, which is, um, where do we think it is in relation to where you are right now? Far away.

It's gotta be like on the outskirts of town, right? Yeah, totally. The entrance to it. Um, so I guess your main concern here would be drawing the attention of the people that in the crowd, like the sinister people. How do we determine what they're on the lookout for? Do I still have any of my beefy things? Uh, well, which one are you thinking about? Connections? Uh, yeah, absolutely. I want to sidle up to one of the, like the game tents.

So connect, so connections, as we all remember is Billy leaves a sign of some kind for the ragamuffins in an area and asks for something. Great. Oh wait, no, I'll do the candy apple cart. Yep. Okay. There's a person. There's a person selling candy apples here. Uh huh. One candy apple, please. Right away. I don't know who this guy is. Uh, and he holds out a candy apple. I take it. What's going on? I don't know. Is Billy buying it? Is Billy just buying a candy apple? Yes. Okay. One coin, please.

Do I have a coin? You might. I would like to use a fairy child to charm him. Okay. Uh, cause I don't want to check if I have money. Okay. Don't remember if I have any money. Okay. So you spend your fairy hold to charm an individual, which I believe your summer form allows you to do for longer. Ooh. So you've charmed this candy apple person. Oh shit. Yeah. He says that I look just like his son. You look just like my little boy and for you a candy apple on the house. Wow. Thank you, sir.

Oh, of course. It's my pleasure on such an auspicious day as the mayor's carnival. Mayor fair. The mayor fair. Mayor fair. Mayor fair. Um, and I wish him a good day and eat the candy wapple. Uh, one bite. It's delicious. Um, and then I use the stick to carve a little symbol on the ground in the dried mud, in the dried mud to get a stick. Amazing. So many sticks laying around. Yeah. This is a good stick. Yeah. This is a really good stick. And also this is, you totally in summer form.

You're chilling. You're spending. Spending them like crazy. Okay. So what do you roll for connections? Charisma. Okay, great. Nine. Eight. How are you eating? I'm going to bring up a little bit of a water that's usually like carving into the mud, but it's like concrete. So give a little moist. Great. I got seven. Oh, perfect. So that makes it a 10. So on a 10 plus with connections. Mm hmm. On 10 plus. Uh, someone has it just for me. Mm hmm. Yeah. So I leave a symbol out.

That is kind of like a universal thing for ragamuffins. And, uh, you go and wait like the appropriate distance away to wait for someone to see your symbol. Yeah. I'm leaning against, uh, the, um, gosh, I've never, I haven't gone to enough carnivals. No. All the booths. The one where you like, uh, you shoot, you shoot an arrow at a duck, like a fake duck. Real arrow. Real arrow though. There's a duck flying around. Yeah. It's on.

It's like, it's like a puppet master up on the top of the tent and he's like puppeting some ducks and you have to shoot them with arrows. Yeah. Awesome. He's behind the duck. Yeah. The counter guy is like, Oh my God. There are arrows just shooting out of the fabric of the tent every few minutes. There's so many arrows in the stuffies that you'll win. Oh, the big stuffy, the biggest one. Just full of arrows. That's where Tuck and Ving went while you were doing this. And Tuck is so bad at archery.

He's so angry. He's just like, stop telling me to chill out. I can get one. Okay. You gotta relax your elbows. Yeah. You gotta relax your elbows. Everybody stop telling me to relax. It's not working. I see that. And Billy, after a while. I'm leaning against the post with the stick in my mouth, like a piece of wheat. And you see a little ragamuffin. Notice the sign on the ground. I flick the stick onto the ground. I walk up to him. What does this ragamuffin look like? Like a long bean pole kid.

And brown hair and blue eyes. And he's looking very casual. Yeah. He's got a little button in his hand. And he's flicking it like a coin and catching it. It's a pretty sweet coin you have. Thanks. It's a snatch. It's a button. Used to hold my pants up. And now. And he lifts up his shirt. And he's got a belt on. Don't need it. Whoa. Ain't that the truth. And the kid nods. Wow. So. You need something? I see you've got that little sign there. I imagine it's this.

It's the universal symbol for ragamuffins. Yeah. The universal symbol is the cool S. The cool S that everybody draws. Yeah. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's some weird shifty looking fellows hanging around the fair. His eyes widen and he grabs you by the shoulder. And he pulls you behind the arrow booth. Tell me what you know about them. There are arrows shooting over your head. We keep having to duck. Fuck. We're flat on the ground now. Relax your shoulders. Ving, give me more coins.

I need more coins. Coins are here. So you guys. Corral, do you have any coins? I don't have any money. I'm a wizard. I mean, I'm a poor. Nice. All these heads look over and they're like, no, he's just a poor. He's just a poor. Just poor. So you're laying. Misspoke. You're laying on your stomach with this kid. Uh-huh. Yeah. Just don't. You can't be too, uh, too obvious with these guys. No, I'm trying not to be. I'm trying to be pretty chill about it.

The, the word on the street, the scuttlebutt is, uh, they rolled into town about a week and a half, two weeks ago. Yeah. Just as the adults were getting ready for the mayor fair. Then all of a sudden, new candidate. Which one? Any gestures towards Etienne Boggins. Boggins? Yeah. That's the name. I can't read, but I assume that that's what it says on that banner. That's also what I assume it says. I recognize his face. Yeah. So many B's.

I recognize most of the shapes of those letters, but not enough of them to understand fully. There's for sure one B in there. B's shaped like butt. That's how I read it. Exactly. It is shaped like a butt. And boobs. Oh. Ving's. I'll go back to the stand. Relax your shoulders. I wave Ving away. You're embarrassing me. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. It's just so cute. You're friends with you guys. Yeah. I don't know what their deal is, but they're definitely connected to that bobbin.

Do you think that they're on his side? I think so. They must be. Did they come in with him? I didn't see them come in with him, but people like the other ragamuffins have been saying that they've been around him. Where are those dudes staying? They're staying at the Spearmint B&B near the mall. I know a kid that steals bread from there, and he said that they've got a couple rooms out there. Oh, right. All right. Okay. Thanks, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

On his side long wise a tear escapes my eye goodbye buttons you're a real hero I go back to you guys and uh you guys are at the front of the aero booth and a kid rolls by on the ground billy's new friend and then I roll up to you guys billy nice rolling bud thank you um I want to tell you what he told me oh yeah go for it apparently those dudes came in with boggins and they're staying at the spearmint b&b wherever that is in the mall I think we do know where that is we've stayed there before have you yeah I think we got oh that's where you got love and lust from yeah we got a lot of lessons from it so yeah you should be able to get to the spearmint b&b if that's where you're going yeah I feel like we should roll out try and figure out what the fuck's going on with these guys we all roll out of here yeah did you win a stuffy uh 2d6 plus dexterity fuck I do of course you did five there's uh the guy that runs the booth is currently wrapping a show an arrow wound in his shoulder yeah we can't no I didn't get a stuffy but we have to leave now because they called the cops I got mad and they called the cops and that guy got stabbed with an arrow I guess accidentally fuck uh yeah so you can head to the spearmint b&b you can head to the spearmint b&b okay so you're walking through town high spear we haven't really seen what's high spears architecture like do we think rocky yeah stone stone lots of glass yeah like windows yeah tall wind tall narrow windows and stone buildings yeah lots of uh masonry fine masonry it's almost like the city was carved out of the mountain yeah like that a lot like there are some buildings that look like they're a single piece yeah yeah there's a little bristly pine trees yeah little like small parks what was I wonder what high spear was before it was the capital because kinos was the capital just a generation ago it was like a bureaucratic center for in we did this in an outlander oh I thought that was oh the high spear city was a was the bureaucratic diplomatic diplomatic center which is why it's kind of smaller yeah yeah it's like yeah it's like a government lawn like that style like yeah old oh yeah huge lawns and then it makes sense too that it's protected by like the mountains because it keeps them protected but also it's like harder to get in and out right yeah it's like the one one or two ways in it also means that they haven't and then because it's everything's made out of stone they haven't suffered massive losses by hoarders or yeah hordes of outsiders or by fire so everything's really really old and fountains everywhere a lot of stairways yeah loads of like lots of levels oh it's a very like uh elevated there's a lot of elevation differences in the city that's cool stepped yeah a lot of like old forums like the big open I have been taken over by like people setting up shanty towns or stalls in them so the streets were kind of like pristine like ivory tower style but now they're like lined with stalls everywhere you go like if people lived in the acropolis in rome and stuff totally yeah take over the ruins and make it their own yeah I completely forgot we did the outlander where like the mall was initially built as like the usual outlander and then it was like un kind of place basically yeah got built up over time to service people why the high spirit is here yes because it was they needed a way to translate everyone's languages of course so that they could uh broker like peace deals and stuff makes sense perfect sense so yeah there is a great there's a big that's why there's so many people running and like democracy is such a big thing here because they're very obsessed with the democratic ideals whether or not they are successful in uh actually representing them so yeah they're you're passing through the through a fairly bustling mid-sized city you're passing food stalls and restaurants people on the street what's the environment like right now I guess it is there's lots of campaign posters all over plastered to walls people handing out flyers for all their candidates um people hawking goods yeah oh yeah people entertaining on the streets yeah good time to do the things I think there's more people here than there usually are too because it's all the refugees from the riverways that have come up totally right now and they're like oh my god I'm gonna go to the riverways yes so the city is like kind of over capacity right now I bet there's lots of like trailers and like wagons and stuff where people have brought their goods or like sleeping in them or performances there's a cringe festival going on right here cringe festival yeah so there you actually you enter like one of the larger like fountain squares and there are wagons everywhere and there are tents set up and there are like cook fires going on because they've sort of designated this area as like a restaurant and they're like refugee center and it is the square in front of the mall so the mall is on the other side of this big long square oh cool towering structure yeah fucking huge mall yeah and then high above in the distance climbing up the side of the mountain that washes down over high spear city is the high spear itself a massive structure of metal and glass yeah people who have lived here for a long time can tell what time it is and what time it is and what time it is and what time it is and what time it is by where the shadow falls in the city oh cool or like yeah and like the movement of the the disconnected pieces are kind of like an like a clock almost that's really cool yeah you know the patterns of it like wind chimes like all the crystals like oh yeah that's so cool like the pieces that are floating around it yeah yeah cool sick you kind of follow your half remembered path back to the spearmint b&b you pass through this densely populated square and you see people the lower principalities that have come here fleeing the war families gathered around fires just like cooking stuff on spits just a real press of humanity sort of situation it's like noticeably tenser maybe than when we were here last yeah exactly there's the kind of thing where like there are now a lot of people from a lot of different places all living very close together and there might be some clashing of ideals and motivations and politics the high spirit can bring your language together but it can't bring your views together exactly yeah we see a couple of fights break out yeah totally over just like you know some space yeah like kid like that's your bite is my tent my tent goes from here to here and he's like my tent goes from here to here and then they just start beating the shit out of each other sick oh that really escalated that escalated so fast it was kind of for nothing guys it's pretty tense in here they both start yelling at you did you hear that guy he said it's intense that's some kind of pun make us look like idiots come at me I dare you I'm rolling for honor fight for honor I got three if I these two dudes pile on you oh shit she's laughing laughing uh yeah so you can pass through this fairly simply like you're just walking through a very tense spot but this is a very tense spot and you're just walking through a very tense spot and you're just a few feet away and you can kind of struggle a few feet away and you struggle a few feet away okay tuck wants to stealthily move through the crowd so he doesn't draw the attention of potential watchers yeah because if they're a covert operations group they probably got like people monitoring the crowd that is outside spearman could do so he wants to secretly get through this crap 2d6 plus dexterity I guess okay hey you got a problem with me Okay.

Hey, you. Guy. Me? I poke a random person. Who, me? Yeah, you. What? What's your name? Randall. Randall? Give me your clothes. What? No. Give me your clothes. Why? I'm super obvious. I have to be more stealthy. This is going from… I have to be stealthy to I have to strip this man. So this is going to be charisma, not dexterity. Okay, come on. Give me some clothes. I don't know. I'm trying to sneak into the Spearmint B&B. I'll bring something back for you. Oh. Oh. This is a parlay.

Free shampoos. Yeah. Free shampoos. The most exciting. Wait a sec. They got them little shampoos in there. Yeah, they do. And it's still continental breakfast time. So I can bring you some old oranges. Hot damn. Continental breakfast. All right. All right. Roll it. Okay, here we go. Ten. Nice. He's like, I don't know, and he starts unbuttoning his shirt. But if they got them little shampoos in there… I want something with yo-yo bar in it. Something with ylang-ylang. Okay.

And he's stripping off. He's just loudly saying ingredients and shampoos. No Laurel sulfites, though. Shut the fuck up, dude. They fuck with my scalp pH. And he starts unbuttoning. He undoes his belt and he starts wiggling out of his pants. Yeah, Tuck starts wiggling out of his rag. The rag he's worn for his entire life. Cover my eyes. He's got a string on his waist and it just drops to the ground with a flop. And then I look at Bing. Damn it. That's two. That's two.

No, you're still ahead by one. Oh, okay. And so this guy, Randall, gives you his clothes. Okay. He is obviously a lot smaller than you. You are one of the largest living people. But he's been wearing really baggy clothes. I actually lost a bunch of white. I lost a bunch of white recently on a special diet. That special diet is just armadillo meat. You eat enough armadillo, you don't want to eat for a long time. It's called intermittent fasting. And he's still wiggling out of his clothes.

Are you in a cut face right now? I'm in a cut face. Thank you for noticing. You look great. Thank you. It's all the armadillo. It made me barf a lot. And he's folding his pants and his shirt very neatly into a pile. Okay. I just take it and put it on. And then I give him my rag. All right. And he starts folding it. Okay. Is he totally nude? I'm totally nude right now. Okay, cool. I've been working hard for this body and I want to show it all. Now is my time. Now is Randall's time to show off.

And once I get that ylang ylang, I'm going to shine, baby. They're not going to turn me away at the front door of the mall anymore for having crunchy hair. They're going to take my picture down off the band for life wall in the mall for sure. That's what this naked guy said. And then he jumps into the fountain. Randall's day is coming. He starts wiping himself off. Yeah. Getting ready for a lathering. Now you bring that yo-yo ball back to me, boy. Okay. I'll do that. Can't hit a breakfast too.

I like them little sausages. He's getting further away. I also like that little thing with the cereal where you twist it and it falls out like a vending machine. I'm going to get that. It's fortune control. And that's what my armadillo diet's all about. I got a certain distance away and then the volume stayed the same no matter how much further away I got. That's crazy. So funny. So now you're wearing a- I think it's a high spear. Yeah.

He's trying to impart meaning to Tuck so any distance away you can hear it. I can kind of hear him. Yeah. I'm going to get that. I'm going to get that. I'm going to get that. I'm going to get that. I'm going to get that. I can kind of hear him. Yeah. And then Tuck comes back and he's like, he's got a button up shirt that's like straight at the button. And basically capri pants for sure. Yeah. And capri. I look like the Hulk. You look like the Hulk has changed into the Hulk. Yeah. All right.

I'm ready to sneak in guys. Ready to go. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Morse and Perel- Are walking way ahead of us. Yeah. They're gone. And you can see them walking towards a cafe. Okay. Where are we? Are you going to be at the cafe? We're not actually going to do. And he's kind of circling his finger at your whole stealth operation. He shakes his head. Not interested. You're lost my friend. And then Tuck puts fake teeth in. Like there's a hot topic booth that we've had. Yeah.

Some of the malls shops have come out into the square to try and hawk their wares during the mayor fair. Yeah. Victor and I are sharing a super long hot dog. It's a double dog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen. This dog is two dogs. Yeah. It's the best dog you can get. Is this what being a human being is all about? It is, Victor. A tear starts to roll down his cheek. Don't cry.

I'm not crying. This is a beautiful moment we're sharing right now. I don't see beauty. I see meat. Oh my God. Do you need me for the stealth operation or can I? I just continue to eat the dogs. Can you stay with Morris and Perel? I will follow them unseen. Right. Yeah. Also keep them safe because we don't know how dangerous it is here. They're very weak physically. I know how weak they are. Every time they want me not to take their slippers, they cannot stop me.

I have eaten so many slippers and they have done nothing. I will go. I'll stop anyone from and he's looking at the hot dog and he stops talking. Hot dog. I would like to use another fairy child to get him another hot dog. Get your switcherooing something in your hand to a hot dog. Oh my God. I'm switchering. Yeah. So I'm going to switch objects. Okay. Yeah. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the half hot dog we have left and switch it for a brand new full hot dog.

You're flipping an existing hot dog? You need to give him a hot dog. I'm going to give him a hot dog. I'm going to give him a hot dog. I'm going to give him an allowance to teach him about the economy. It's not even like not, it's not, it's still half a hot dog. Only half though and I want a full double dog for Victor. Yeah. You see the guy at the hot, the double dog booth is about to hand someone a full double dog. And I go, no, I'm taking that. Yeah. And it switches into a half.

And Randall's like portion control. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Is there any armadillo in this? How much armadillo? Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. It's a şu.

So nude fully nude I need 70 or more armadillo if I'm gonna meet my macros today and you are victor uh stalks off with his full double dog in his mouth in his full hand is carrying it in his mouth panting yeah in his human form uh shouldering people out of the way because it seems like people don't see him before he hits them and then he just plows right through but he disappears into the crowd I think he's gone to a booth and he's got uh etienne boggins mayor thumb up shirt all decked out in full camo oh yeah yeah sweet they always hand it out for free it's fun to go undercover after dressing camo yeah uh what's billy does billy have a stealth outfit um his stealth outfit is uh a bag was flowing blowing around in the wind just a lovely bag just a plastic bag yeah it's a burlap sack that held uh powdered donuts it says donuts on it upside down that's actually a great costume yeah so I threw I put that on stick my head through the bottom I go I'm ready the three most perfectly disguised people to ever exist two people that are approximately seven feet tall yeah so conspicuous and then a little bag of he's covered in powder yeah and as he walks it's like powdering out the bottom of his outfit yeah he's got a little cloud of powdered sugar around him like pig pen his pupils are dilated slowly over time they get pinning and they're dilating and they're pinning he's just wiggly pupils uh and you see before you spearmint bnb the little mint leaf logo that you've seen in every town and city you've been to it's like a little bit of a thing to see in a little bit of a thing it feels like oh right it's a chain it's a chain all right yeah let's go in yeah you you head in through the front door and there is uh the desk with the man that you met here a year and a half ago two years ago still working here sort of a middle-aged guy with the he's got a mustache whether he had one then or just grew it now who can say and he's kind of balding on top he's got dark hair and he's reading a paperback novel what is he reading uh lust unbound oh my god I like your mustache thank you welcome to spearmint bnb do you remember us a lot of people come in here sorry especially with the mayor fair you know we got people coming in and out that's what we're in town for yeah voting for this guy oh yeah eddie and bargains he's oh you know what his actually his campaign office is uh no way he's been staying here oh what floor I would love to meet them oh that's oh hey any points at you I can't tell you I'm not going to tell you you that oh no way we're big fans it's against the rules everything you know the people that stay here he pats a big thick book on the desk I gotta keep it safe that's my job well they had asked us to come because we were potential campaign donors as you could see from my attire and then he does a couple more buttons up we're very rich all right td6 plus charisma I guess please please this is what he's doing in his head he's like please snake eyes no snake eyes okay in character so he goes nice try buddy you took those clothes from randall what he's been hanging out outside for a while now and I know what his big baggy fucking shirt looks like if you look on the back tech didn't see this but it says randall randall's shirt on the back it says randall's shirt and on the ass of the pants it says randall's pants son of a bitch just looking behind him so if look I don't know what your game is but I'm gonna have to ask you to leave no no no we just want a room for the night please well you did get a six so I do have something badass to happen so look it's against company policy for people to come here under false pretenses I know that seems weird for a chain motel because that's like 90 of our business is false pretenses but uh let's say you kick me a little bit extra and I overlook it kidding me man I complimented your mustache yeah what are you reading we like books too I'm reading lust unbound actually oh what if we sweeten the deal with like an extra thing to read and tuck wicks I mean I like books but I can buy books you know I could buy books with money I have money that you give me could I could I ask if I can see the book why because I want to learn how to read I'm trying to foster a love of learning and reading this book's a little uh inappropriate for a boy like you well I can't read yet so I don't know what's inside but I want to look at the cover okay and he leans over the counter and shows you the cover of the book and I'm like looking at it like wow so cool and fun but it's two buff knights just wearing the gauntlets and helmets and pants and they're like embracing I want to smear some oil of tag it on it do you still have oil I have one use okay so 2d6 plus dexterity nine nine eight oh seven okay so that does make it a 10 yeah so yeah he starts leaning forward doing the like look with your eyes thing and he's like I don't know what to do with this book I grab his forearm and just stretch it down to grab it I'm like whoa thank you thing what does it say it says love unbound what does that part say it says the story of two daddies who love each other I've smeared it's pretty oily now and I'm like whoa thanks for telling me thanks for showing me your book and he takes the book bag goes oh you got all your kid stuff on it I was eating donuts oh man all right again I'm gonna need a little bit of cash up front or some hey stuff for a room what's your name my name hey doug doug doug doug doug huh and his eyelids are getting heavier and heavier it's okay it's okay we'll watch the desk while you sleep no I open your eyes he opens his eyes and then slams them shut nice all right we're in and then he starts snoozing right at the front desk I steal a key for a room yeah you can there's there's keys on a rack you can just grab a key I grab the the guest book the ledger yeah so you grab the ledger off the desk you grab a key for a room and you just take off yeah yeah what room do you grab like what floor I I make sure it's a room that's empty in the ledger okay so you're flipping through the ledger really quick yeah okay number 13 oh this section in the back has palatial suites in it and you grab a key and are you grabbing a polite you're grabbing a yeah palatial suite yeah we're gonna grab the biggest room yeah obviously for us yeah so you grab the room key and you take the book and you hustle up to the the top floor and there is a room just absolutely massive it's got a room and then a bathroom whoa and that's it whoa whoa two rooms two beds two beds two double beds holy shit what's what are we gonna use the other bed for I don't know look at the size of this coffee machine with a bunch of little pods next to it look at all this free coffee oh man check out all this there's all shampoo and a conditioner sick and then took grabs that and for randall yeah totally so you guys have a room key to this spearmint b&b you've got a book what are you doing let's flip through the book and see if we can find the etienne boggins oh yeah certain realities uh yeah you can Discern realities for sure.

26 plus wisdom. 11. Okay. Three questions off the discern realities list. What here is useful or valuable to us? You find a room listed as Etienne Boggins. It is the, I mean, you grab the palatial suite, fourth floor key. So he's just a few rooms down. Oh, shit. You're in 403. He's in 405. Oh, nice. So close. Too close? Really close. Actually, I think that would make it across the hall. Yeah. You're directly across the hall. Yeah, we had to walk by a bunch of campaign people in the hall.

Those sketchy people eyeing us up. With the book from the front desk under your arm, just eyes wide, walking right past him. Just gives him a stupid two thumbs up. Go team. So are his like henchmen or whatever, like staying in the rooms around him? You didn't. So you do see that there are, there is one more room. That is taken out, but it is under a name you don't recognize. What's the name? It's the bad boys. Bad boys. Bad boys. Company. It is.

It's on a business account under the bad boys company and it's a bad boys co. Yeah. And it is 404. So it's the one next to you. Beside us. No, it's a clustered us here. Bad boys company. The BBC. The BBC. Nice. Really well funded. And it's the room next to you. Okay. I have an idea. Tuck starts climbing out the window. Okay. Right out the window. And you are like overlook. The thing is, is this window is overlooking the street. So what do you do? What's your plan here?

Tuck was thinking of climbing over to see who's in the room next to us. Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. I mean, I do think it's funny that you're sending the seven foot tall 500 pound member of your party to climb out onto a wall. Yeah. It's a window ledge, but it's great. This is what Tuck would do. Yes. Yeah. You want to, you're like, why don't we need to like, maybe just like sneak over there. Oh yeah. You want to take it, take over like you did with the fucking duck shooting thing.

Amen. Yeah. If you relax your elbows enough, you could probably go unseen. Relax this dude. Farts and then climbs out the window. Yeah. Climbs out the window. I'll fucking show you who can shoot a fucking duck with an arrow. It's like having two children. All right. 2d6 plus. This feels like dexterity again. Fuck. Oh, here we go. I'll fucking show Bing who's good with an arrow. Piece of shit. Okay. So that's nine. Cause I rolled a 10 and I have a negative one. Okay. So seven to nine.

I'll eight them. Okay. Relax your elbows. Your knees. You're so rigid in the knees. So angry. All right. 2d6 plus bond. Oh yeah. Yeah. You yells at some birds and they come and they distract the guy at the other window. Mm. Mm. Mm. Oh yeah. I failed. I got four, five. Dang it. Shit. So, uh, the, so it's a seven to nine. You do fail, which means that you are trying to talk to birds. Yeah. So which reactivates your animal communication field. Yeah. So the birds are like, Hey, fuck you, buddy.

You don't tell us what to do. You don't tell us what to do. I just want to say, check, check out the window right there. And you see a bunch of people down on the street. Look up to hear who's screaming and you see tuck. You're like climbing out the window and you start to hear somebody. Oh, my God. Open the window. Oh shit. You wanted to aid. Um, I want to run outside, knock on the door. Oh, I'm going to tuck myself into the donut bag. Oh my God. Like, like I'm room service. This is great.

Roll two D six plus bond. This is an aid. I think. Uh, 11. Amazing. You hear somebody start opening the window and Billy. Knocks on the door and curls up inside the donut bag. Yeah. And you hear somebody go, Oh, somebody's at the door and they, their fingers go back inside and then it took us. And then a bunch of birds shit all over just covered in bird shit. This is what we think of you telling us to check stuff out. You piece of shit.

What happens when somebody tells me to look at something, but you are able to get to the window unseen and unnoticed. Okay, cool. I look inside. Yeah. You see, um, a room with two double beds, clothes all over the place. Discern realities. Uh, yeah, totally. Let's see who the fuck's in here. Oh, six. Uh, Hey, how are you guys aiding in this situation? It goes out on the ledge to sneak, sneak, sneak, sneak. Get the fuck out. This was supposed to be stealthy. Yeah.

We're being as stealthy as possible. This is floors off. So high. Go ahead. Two, six. Holy shit. Failed again. Oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. So you guys are both out on the ledge, four floors in the air, roughly 60 to 80 feet. I do have a luck of the fair folk, which lets me aid from any distance. Oh yeah. Sick. Thank you. That works. Yeah. Yeah. So are you aiding my aid? Yes. Okay. Great. So you got a six? I got a, I got a six. So you got a six. So if you can aid Ving, it would aid. Okay.

We're doing this again. Aid Ving. Yeah. I'm going to create a convincing illusion. I'm going to look like when they open the bag, I'll look like a bunch of donuts. Fresh, fresh bag. Yeah. His hand goes into the guy's mouth. Grabbing like granola. So do you, is, so the creating a convincing illusion does cost a fairy job. It sure does. Okay. Okay. That's okay. So how many do you have left? One. Okay. Perfect. Oh shit. You had so many to say. I got a lot to use. Seven. Holy shit. Oh my gosh.

Thank you. So that makes that a seven, which makes your discern realities a 10. Sick. And it's cause no, it makes mine a seven. Yeah. Oh my God. That makes yours a seven. I forgot. So there was like, it's a combination of like tuck gets shit on and like he gets shit on his hands and like his grip starts loosening on the, on the wall. And Ving comes out and starts, I got poop on me. Ving starts squeaking along the railing, trying to help. Tuck's like, get away from me. I can do this.

And you guys are like bonking against the glass in the window. We're a team. And the guy in there is like opening the door and starts like turning his head. But then you see him sniff and he looks down at a fresh baked box of donuts. A bag. A bag. A fresh bag full of fresh baked. Fresh donuts. And that's what he says. Oh my God. I love fresh baked fresh donuts. And he fully turns away from you two. And he reaches down and he strains to pick up the donuts. Oh my God.

There's so many fresh baked fresh donuts in here. It's the heaviest bag in the world. And that's what he explains to the security guards that are outside of. Yeah. Outside of Eddie and Boggins' room. Guys, did you see your fresh donuts get dropped off? I love Spearmint B&B. They give you fresh baked donuts. But these are for me. And he starts closing the door. But he's like, he puts the donuts on the table. Billy, you get put on the table. Yeah. And he's just looking, nodding.

You know, uh, uh, Thand, Thandy, Thandy, you've come a long way. You've come a long way, Thandy. Everyone thinks he has a speech impediment. No, it's D-H. My name is Thandy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thandy, come a long way from the streets of high school city. Don't walk in here. The security police got free donuts. This guy's just talking to himself.

This is what your bare success is, is you have the opportunity to answer one question as this guy is just like, no, I'm just going to appreciate the little things. Like a fresh bag of donuts. Mmm, smells good. Don't even want to taste them. Not yet. While he's doing this, Tuck and Vigor have like slowly snuck into him. We see him over his shoulder. He's like. Over his shoulder as he's nodding at the donuts. Shut the fuck up. Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up.

Stop relaxing your elbows and get the fucking window. Just like. Recovered in shit. Knocking over a lamp. Picking up a lamp. Just holding it. Watching Thand. Because he goes, probably some brown sugar donuts in there. I feel like I can smell them. I've had many donuts. I haven't had maxi donuts. I'm so. Excited. I grew up in the high school mall and now here I am. Getting free donuts at a hotel. Ving's laying like a bear rugs on his face in front of the fireplace. Slowly bringing his butt up.

Slowly inching forward. What are we trying to find out? Does he have a badge? I want to discern realities. Imagine Tuck is behind a curtain. Yeah, totally. And Tuck sees it. It's kind of like when Catherine Zeta-Jones is going around. Yeah. Yeah. You're so really amped. But like one curtain is flat against the wall. The other one is five feet out of the room. It's so huge. But Tuck does get a question. This was his basic. He gets one question from the certain realities. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I forgot what we were doing. What discern realities on what seems to be a useless individual to investigate. But you do see there's stuff all over the room. Like there's clothes everywhere. Working security. Yeah. Yeah. And he starts reaching his hand out to the donut. He goes, Thandie, no. You got to wait. Makes it even better. They'll be gone. Now they just kind of bring the room together a little bit, I think. Ah, I love my job. What here is not what it appears to be. The fucking donut.

The fucking donut. God damn it, what a waste. It's true. Tuck is like, holy shit, a box of donuts. A bag of donuts is on the table. Fresh box of fresh donuts. Fresh box of fresh donuts. It's over there. Holy shit. I got to kill this guy to get those donuts. And Thandie is standing in front of the donuts and he's like, man, I love my job. Doing security for a kind of weird guy who's running for mayor.

You know, Thandie, now that we're alone, I think we can voice some concerns that we've always had about the job we've been doing. I think that guy's wearing a wig. I think he's wearing a wig for sure. And if it wasn't for that guy, I think he's wearing a wig for sure. If it wasn't for my love of free hotel stuff, like donuts and little shampoos and little hairnets they give you in the shower, I would say something.

But I don't want to jeopardize that, even though I think that guy is wearing a wig. He starts reaching towards the donuts. It's just that TM Bargains is wearing a wig. That's all he's revealed. And I, you know, and Thandie, I was also thinking of something else that I saw on the internet. I saw that was concerning to me that I'm voicing. He's a real exposition Thandie. Thandie exposition. That's my name. From the alleyways of the High Spear Mall.

They've always known me to be the guy to summarize events. I also heard this guy talking and he has a fancy accent. But here's the secret. Thandie, he doesn't have it all the time. Well, I think I might have it. I give myself a little donut. These fresh baked donuts ain't getting any fresher. It's going to be a bag of fresh stale donuts. And Billy, you see a hand start reaching towards you. And I lift up like a pinch of granola and it looks like a little mini donut popping up. Uh huh.

Do you think this is maintained by your convincing illusion? I am laser focused. A donut. Do we think that the donut is going to stay a donut after he removes it from Billy's hand? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Probably. You said convincing illusion. This is a convincing illusion. Yeah. So he takes a, he's got a full donut in his hand and he starts reaching it towards his mouth. And you see, even if he doesn't realize it, his fingers are like pinching together as they're going towards his mouth.

And he puts a little bit of granola in his mouth. He goes, oh, that's delicious. Tastes like a fresh baked donut. Oh, a lot of oats in there. Must be some kind of oat donut, Thandie. Well, now it's time to eat. Now it's time for me to turn slowly back towards the room in general. I sure hope everybody is where they're supposed to be. I'm rolling fight with honor. No, not Thandie. Thandie, no. Not this simple idiot. So fight with honor would be a brawl.

If you're going to fight this guy, it's going to be kind of loud. Are you comfortable with that? No. Okay. Okay. Ving's going to go a sneak inchworm style up to his feet and try and. You know, jump up and cover his mouth. Yeah, totally. 2d6 plus dexterity to get close to him. Okay. My dex is at zero. Boxcar 12. Oh, shit. Yeah. He's all right. Here we go. Time for me to slowly turn back towards the room and my bed.

And as he turns around, Ving is right behind him, covering his mouth, saying, looking for this. Looking for what? Looking for us. Who are you? Whoa. He took it really well. You're trying to knock him out. Yeah. Okay. Then, yeah. Roll your damage. Three. That is plenty to knock this man down into a position where he is not loud. Yeah. Shush. He's scared. Sorry. Oh, my gosh. Ving kisses him on the cheek. I'm so sorry. That was really loud. I just scared the shit out of Jessica with a kiss.

I'm just in fight or flight mode now. From a kiss. Okay. Somebody has to fight Jessica or let her run away. Yeah. Run. Jess, run. Run away from the kiss. No, I'm going to fight her. And his eyes are wide and you've got your hand over his mouth. Thandie, we're not going to hurt you. Take care. He's like pointing at the, he's like shaking his head. What? What? Yes. I let go of his mouth, but just enough. He nods. What? Are you here for the donuts? These donuts were never meant for you. No. No.

But I ate. One. That's right, Thandie. These donuts were meant. Oh, who are, where'd you come from? I'm still talking from behind the curtain. The fucking curtain is dark. It's my conscience. He knows. My conscience knows I ate a donut that wasn't mine. Oh, no. Did you see your name on those donuts? No. You saw the donut's name on those donuts. Oh, my God. What are you going to do to me? Tuck comes out from behind the curtain. Oh, no. And then Tuck goes, from now on, you work for us. Oh, okay.

All right. I can't give you this this easily. Roll a 2v6 plus charisma. Okay. This is very funny. Thandie, we know all your dirty laundry. Uh-oh. This won't shut up about you. No, we know all the fucked up stuff you had to do to get this job working for Etienne Boggins. And you're going to be a mole for us. 13. 13. Yes. 13. Okay. So, Thandie looks at the donuts. He remembers the taste of the donut in his mouth.

Thinks back to all the things he had to do to get a job working security for Etienne Boggins. You see his eyes well with tears. And he nods. Okay. I'll do whatever you need me to do. What do you need me to… What do you need? We need to know… What we need. What, like, the secret dudes are up to or whatever. He's looking around. You guys… You guys know what you need, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. You guys know why you're here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know. Of course we do. We know. Of course.

You think we're going to climb out of a window on the fourth story of a hotel into your room without knowing what the point of that is? And we're both talking to a bag of donuts. Okay. So, what do you need me to do? We need you to tell us about those guys. What guys? Who hired you? Who hired you to protect Etienne Boggins? Who hired me? Yeah. Oh. Oh, no. I shouldn't say. You gotta. Oh, but I would be betraying the trust of the person that hired me. Well, I'll kill you if you don't. Okay.

I'll do it. That took so long for us to get there. That is really the only thing we have. Okay. I'll tell you. I didn't ever meet him face to face. I only met through intermediaries hiring extra muscle for a security campaign. But I did get the name. The Kestrel. And then you hear a rattle at the door. And that's where we're going to end it for this week. Thank you for joining us, everybody. My name's Sean O'Hara. I've been your Game Master.

Joining me as always, playing Tacombe Dome, the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So long, everybody. Playing Ving, the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. Take care. Playing Fat Billy, the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone. Thank you to Aaron Reed for our intro and outro music. You can find all of the music that Aaron has produced for the show at Spotify. And you can find all of Aaron's music at Spotify.com. And you can find all of Aaron's original music at AaronReed.Bandcamp.com.

Thank you to all of our susporters around the world for susporting the show. If you would like to susport us and get access to a whole bunch of cool stuff, like the up-to-date feed for Mall Brats, postcards, lore drops, gift boxes, even games run by Abdul and myself, you can find us at Patreon.com slash SpeltLore or SpeltLore.com slash MoneyPlease. And thank you finally, and most of all, to all of you for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye.

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 SpeltLore

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 to Spout Lore!

I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara, joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz Hello everybody, here searching for the Kestrel, whatever the fuck that is It's a bird We do know that Playing Ving the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers I'll get to the bottom of this, hi Playing Fat Billy the halfling thief, Jessica Tai Hello It is now like we are in, like, the Maltese Falcon Yeah, now would you like it?

Energy wise Cigarettes getting smoked on camera Uh, when last we left our heroes, they had emerged from hither and yon to the Mayor Fair An event which takes place to allow different mayoral candidates to present to the people of High Spirit And is also a carnival of sorts Uh, the party decided that they have to stick around to keep Morris and Perel safe And also get to the bottom of what the hell Etienne Boggins is doing here When in reality the answer might be simply running for mayor But it was too big, it was too obvious An offer for it to just be that Yeah, you're not wrong Um, the party deduced that there were some sinister secretive figures milling about in the crowd That seemed to be dangerous And learned from a ragamuffin that Billy met Called Buttons That Etienne Boggins appeared in town just a few weeks ago In the accompaniment of some sinister figures Yeah Yeah Real kinda like Secret Service types Mm-hmm Yeah So the party gave Victor the Liar Wolf a temporary illusory human form Which he became obsessed with immediately Uh, and then the party decided to head to the Spearmint B&B Where the ragamuffin said Etienne and his security staff had been working out of and also staying The party decided to stealth operation into this place Initially I thought you were just gonna sneak in But then your plan became get outfits and walk in the front door That guy's gonna wake up Remember we were the last people that he talked to right before he fell asleep mysteriously And then go to the board with one key missing And then go to that room and find us there Yeah Well, try getting us out It's gonna work Squatters rights Squatters rights, dude Squatters rights We're not even in that room, you idiot Because we're next door Squatters rights in a motel Find an inn Tuck got some clothes from a man named Randall that he met in the refugee camp outside of the city In exchange for offering Randall some free shampoos from the hotel Right Uh I can imagine his name was Randall River Oh my gosh, yes Maybe, maybe he was Oh yeah, because he's from the Riverways Yep Related to Randy River, the centaur salesman from McCall Oh, we already did that joke Yeah, shit Great Yeah Who knows Man, we gotta end this show, we're repeating jokes now Yeah, no Eat cartridges We could just use like other names Yeah Back then, Preston Young dressed in free Etienne Boggins campaign merch Yeah To present as a super fan And Billy found a bag that used to have donuts in it Yeah That was his outfit The party poisoned and manipulated the front desk clerk at the Spearmint B&B Got a room key and stole the ledger Getting one of the palatial two double bed suites Oof With a bathroom Then the party realized that Etienne Boggins' room was directly across the room directly across the hall and the room of his security team is right next to you so tuck climbed out on the windowsill the by far one of the largest people to maybe ever live in the principalities uh creeping across at the sill of a building wearing an extremely tight button-up shirt and what are your pants pretty pants I mean with the word randall across the back yeah randall's shirt and randall's pants is what your clothes say the person inside the room was almost alerted to tuck's presence before billy ran out to the front and created a convincing illusion of himself as a bag of fresh hot donuts knocking on the door and distracting him long enough for bing and tuck to both awkwardly climb through the window while the man first and a bunch of birds shit on us yeah we're covered in bird shit you got shit on by a bunch of birds uh the man inside whose name is thandy was enraptured by the free donuts and decided to spend a long time running around the room and he was able to get to the door and he was able to get to the door reminiscing about his life in the high spear mall out loud and then also give up some expository information to a supposedly empty room before being captured by tuck and bing threatened into working for them which he just revealed that etienne was wearing a wig yeah and that sometimes he doesn't speak with his accent right yeah yeah it would seem he is not part of whatever sinister highly trained security people are out there and was in fact hired on from the local area by an individual named the kestrel kestrel and then the door started rattling and here we are now what do you do hide hide I'm already hiding yeah you're a bag of donuts yeah you pop into it well he's still got the billy still has the illusion going I mean as long as they don't reach in they won't know yeah in the bag I take you to go uh into the bathroom oh yeah smart no he comes with you because he's already agreed to work with you because you threatened him right yeah oh yeah yeah we still have to work with you because you threatened him right yeah oh yeah yeah we said we would kill him if he betrayed us you know he works for us get in the bathroom so we can kill you if you don't come out of the bathroom you're gonna put him in the bathroom and you're gonna stay in the room no no we're all going into the bathroom to the bathroom the bathroom door closes so the door closes and thandy's like what are we doing in the bathroom we're hiding from whoever was coming into the door who would be jiggling your door handle I don't know could have been anybody is it just your room or no this is where I'll do yeah sorry I jumped in there you were gonna say there's a whole security it's all everybody's in this room together it's the security room this is the security bathroom okay what if somebody has to take a shit then just say you're taking a shit okay all right shut up take your pants off what convincing illusion to make it convincing okay yeah no wait hold on okay and then he takes his pants he unbuttons his belt he puts his pants around his waist he goes just wait here and he opens the door and he walks out with his pants around his ankles yeah tech starts farting to make it seem like he did shit in there can I roll to make it to make it you can absolutely just fart okay you do not have to roll I want to make it so bad when the guy's not in the bathroom anymore yeah or as he's leaving but you want to you want to make an audible fart to make a silent stinky silent stinky so if you feel bad it's audible he hears a fart because I don't want anyone to come in here and I want them to believe that he was okay this is the most serious I hate this show yeah what's that no sorry I said I love it I love what you're thinking I love where your head's at if I do this well yes then nobody will come into the bathroom yes because it's going to smell too bad I I fully understand patrons it's happening somehow they got a hold of this raw recording oh no we're live streaming we're live streaming right now oh god we have one patron left and they're giving us ten thousand dollars you were rolling to fart I believe yes yes so 2d6 plus constitution 2d 2d 2d6 all right jess please bless these dice read it uh eight plus three 11 oh my god okay so you hottest most silent stinky is I open my butthole so it's so silent tuck you grab your butt cheeks from inside randy's pants it's spread so that there's like an open canal where the but not too much sometimes if you go too far this way your mind's just not gone anyway yeah yeah yeah tuck did this once and he did a little shit by accident in the kitchen ving did it once and it was like squeezing the opening of a balloon and it went really high pitched and vito came in the room and said don't ever do that again yeah and what emerges from within tuck is horrifying all he's been eating is mirza's ghoul it's ghoulish what comes out no and you hear the door open and you hear like a muttering voice on the other side of the door and you hear thady going oh no I was just taking a shit in here as you can see by the fact that my pants are down right now you caught me mid shit and you can oh god you can probably smell that huh I know I can smell it that's my shit so you could come in if you want to come in that's what I thought I'll just be in this room finishing whatever I was doing in here as you can see from my pants being down it cuts back to tuck and it's like still coming out it's just like ving's mouth is open he wishes it wasn't his eyes are full of tears and he's like what is happening here all right tuck's concentrating so hard this is so not us billy and ving you both get hit by this wave it feels like death is reaching through the veil I gotta roll plus constitution see if I can survive this fart yeah absolutely yeah yeah 2d6 was con 2d6 oh I think I did it whoa I got 10 10 okay so you just how do you survive um duck turns around I mean he's looking up from his but you've maybe pointed your butthole towards the crack in the door I have I've pushed it up against it so you're fully squatted on the ground your asshole breast against the door nothing is coming out he's got amazing rectal control it's phenomenal it's unparalleled that's the one thing that tuck remembers from that night with allison is that she said you have amazing rectal control oh yeah some say there's still some glass beads inside and uh tuck looks up at ving and he's got two mini bottles of shampoo stuffed up each nostril and he's like billy close your mouth don't let me get inside your mouth yeah billy's still on the side table as a bag of donuts scent is filling the main room absolutely so billy what do you do the powdered sugar around me is turning brown from the smell is he creeping up the bag like some sort of a draught billy like grabs some of the I don't know I imagine there's like draw strings on this bag and I don't know he tries to leave a few of his widz widz widz widz widz widz widz widz I don't know.

He tries to like tie it shut, but now he, but like, of course it's burlap. So the smell is coming in anyway. He's just trapped himself. He's Dutch heavening himself. Do I roll to survive this? Yeah, this is like, depending on how you're trying to survive it, it's a defy danger of some kind. I'm trying to do it like mentally. Cause I've trapped myself in my own prison of linen fabric. So I guess it would be 2d6 plus wisdom. Cause you're trying to like meditate through it into your mind palace.

Yeah. I go into my mind palace. And remember you have a debility to wisdom because you're in your summer form. It doesn't even matter. Cause I do it anyway. Oh, what'd you get? 10. Okay. Nice. 10. So what does this look like? How does Billy meditate his way through this? Somehow gets into his soup palace. Oh, right. He's in a big bowl of soup. Yeah. I'm in an ocean of soup. It's like French onion soup. It's gotta be the smelliest one you can get.

It is little summer fairy crop top and sunglasses like on the soup beach. Yeah. He's laying on a little toasted cheese baguette. Yeah. Floating on the soup. I'm just thinking about things like fresh air. There's a fucking doo-wop dance happening around you. Yeah. Doo-wop dance. Like all the fucking ingredients are just like doing like a synchronized swimming in the soap. Yeah. Yeah. Summertime Billy. Yeah. Billy.

So since you're in the main room, you could potentially hear the voice on the other side. Am I able to see kind of, cause burlap is like pretty like loose weave. Can I see through the fabric to see like who is it? Yeah. Yeah. Who's at the door? You can discern realities for sure to see what you can catch. Oh God. That's good. Three. Yeah. So you definitely fail. So what would the failure here be? You already survived the fart. So I'm not going to make it fart related. Unless I fall off.

I fall off. The bag just falls off the table. Oh yeah. The door just faded. Like you're trying to look through the burlap sack and the door like. And I'm leaning. Fandy does open the door, not all the way, but you're like, oh, if I lean over, I could see who's at the door. And you scoot, scoot, scoot, tip, flop right onto the ground. Big thump. And Fandy, who did not know Billy was a bag of donuts, turns around and goes, ah! Wait, he sees me. I'm closed up in the bag. Oh yeah. I know.

But he sees the bag fall on the ground. Right. He just did not know that you were, you were the bag of donuts. He hasn't clued in to the fact that you're in there. He just thinks it's a bag of donuts. So he turns. And like, as he turns. And surprise, the door does like creak open. And on the other side, you see Etienne Boggins. Oh, what? A very lean, foppish looking man. I believe middle-aged was what we said. Kind of like forties to fifties. I just pictured John Waters. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

He's got a weird little mustache. He's got, I think he's got kind of like longish hair, like, like not quite shoulder length, but around there, like a very stylish hairdo. Although it looks quite frazzly right now. Billy, you can see from where you are in your bag, looking through the burlap curled up. You see Etienne look past Thandie, whose pants are fully down, by the way, still. Ew. His dingling is just like. Oh no, he's wearing. Flapping in the wind.

He pulled his pants down, but left his underwear up. It's an illusion. Yeah. A crime. I had time to pull up my underwear, but did not pull up my pants because I was shitting so much. I also imagine that he was doing them up. He was like, oh, I'm just leaving the bathroom. And then the smell hit him. The smell hit him and he just like. Let go. Oh, he rolled by his head and his pants just like, whoop, flared to the ground.

Some of the security guys come down the hallway and they're like, we smelled something really bad. Did somebody die or something in here? We heard that something smells really bad in here. There's like a bomb unit. There's a big hawk of the town. Someone in like one of those, like hurt locker suits. Somebody's got some smelling salts in front of a canine unit trying to wake a dog up. Yeah. The canine unit died. Poor dogs have died trying to come into this building.

It cuts to outside the shot of the square and it's like a police barricade. There's a six gun salute with four small graves. They're burying a dog funeral outside. Jets going. Leaving smoke in the colors of the high spear flag. And it looks like World War Z out there. It smells like it in here. Just people lying in the streets. Absolutely done. Cards on fire. Yeah. It was like a riot broke out as soon as the smell hit the square. And Randy's still in the middle of the fountain.

Randy's, he's, oh yeah. He's having a delightful time. Just he's, yeah, that's, he was so clean. It's like the, it's like the black plague. Like the people that kept clean were the ones that survived. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a bunch of plague doctors out there. In the long beak noses. Just for one fart. One horrible fart. It's still going. It's not over. This is still happening. Something bad is happening in the background of our world. And it's your fart. What do you mean over?

It's all your fart. And you see Etienne look past Thandie to your burlap sack on the ground. And his eyes narrow. And he starts walking forward into the room. And he's getting really close. And he's getting really close. And he's getting really close. He's getting really close to the bag. He's starting to crouch down. Oh no. He's reaching out a finger. I can't do anything though. I'll give myself away. I flush the toilet. His head turns towards the bathroom.

And he starts walking towards the bathroom door. You hear footsteps on the other side of the door. I can't flush it. Tex Butthole is pressing it. You cannot get in. Yeah. You hear, Etienne stops at the doorway and turns and goes, Thandie, I thought you said you were the one who was going to do this. You were the only one in the room. Then he goes, um, yeah, the toilet is does, it does this thing sometimes when flushes on its own. Dude, it's the quantity of shit inside it. It's a safety feature.

It's a safety feature. Can I put my fart into overdrive? You're going to try and knock him out with your fart? The only thing you can do from now on is like shit. I was going to say a fart in overdrive is a shit. Is a shit. Can I do that? I'm willing to let this roll happen. No. Oh no. Yeah. Unless you can come up with some other option. Can I aid by also farting with my butthole wide open? I mean, you can start the fart for sure. You can, you can add to the fart. What are we doing?

We're entertaining ourselves. We are entertaining ourselves. This is our podcast. I'm going to fart also. Okay. Okay. This is adding to the fart. 2D6 plus constitution. 2D. 2D. Nice. Constitution. I got 11. Wow. We're killing these roles. These fart roles. Okay. So you also start farting in this room. At that sound. Can I sneak out the bag? Uh, you can definitely try. I think Etienne is hit by the second fart.

Cause recall, he's about to reach out and open this door and then he gets hit by two powerful farts. Yeah. I, oh man, I'm having trouble with this. That's fair. This is fair. This is so stupid. But he is, his eyes close. They flutter closed and he goes, Fandy, if this room is not recovered by the end of the hour, I will fire you. Oh, and he pulls out like a little handkerchief and he presses it to his face and he storms out of the room. Billy, are you trying to sneak out?

I want to sneak out before, like while they're busy looking at each other. Absolutely. Yeah. 2D6 plus dexterity. Good sneaky. 12. Good God. That's sick. Yeah. So you, you creep your arms. Yeah. And I do that. Under the bed. Under the bed. Perfect. Right under the bed. I leave the bag there. And as Etienne leaves, Thandie closes the door and goes, oh, I was so afraid. And he's like, cover, he's like covering his face and knocking on the door. Yeah. Okay.

You can stop whatever you're doing in there. Provide, provided the two of you are still alive. Okay. We just have to wipe. And a few seconds later, the door opens. Everything has been done. Yeah. Thandie pulls his pants back up. Goes, all right. Now, I think it's time that you guys tell me a little bit about what you're doing here. Instead of just sneaking into my room while I'm looking at my hot, fresh bag of fresh donuts.

And he turns back to the donuts and he goes, oh, he crouches down and he pokes the bag. Hold on a second. What happened to my donuts? Things are not what you think. And he turns to you with malice in his eyes. What do you mean? We are here with a purpose beyond even yourself. What did you do to my donuts? Billy? I, uh, I come out of the bed, out of the bed. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. It was I, the donuts. You were the donuts all along? I was.

I'm sorry to have betrayed you in this way. He runs his hand through his hair and he walks to the window. I got a hair bag of donuts. Now it turns out that all the things I was afraid of are true. Wait, what? I don't have any donuts. That's everything you were afraid of? I thought I had them. Maybe I'm not being clear about this. I found a hot, fresh bag of fresh donuts outside my door. And I was on top of the world.

But now I find out that this little boy and I get kidnapped by two disgusting, smelly freaks. He shakes his head. If only my mother could see me now. So sorry, Thandie. It's just that. We need some info. And this was the only way to get in. Thandie, do you know who you're working for? Yeah. Who? The Kestrel. The Kestrel. That's the only name I know is the Kestrel. How did they hire you? Where? I had a meeting with an intermediary at a place inside. What's happening to my voice?

I'm losing my voice. Losing my voice. I had a meeting with the intermediary of the Kestrel inside the Highspiel Mall. Do you think you could set up a meeting with this intermediary? Oh. To say that you want to come on as extra additional security? Yeah. Here's the thing, Thandie. Etienne is a bad, bad man. He destroyed an entire town totally on his own. Nobody else's fault. We tried to stop him, but there's nothing we could do.

We tried to stop him so many times, and he just gave it over to these disgusting frogmen. Oh, no. That's what happened to Mudlark. No, he said he was the savior of Mudlark. He's a liar, Thandie. A lot of people say a lot of things that aren't true. But that can't be true. Well, think about the donut bag. That wasn't true. Oh, my God. You're right. That's what Boggins did to Mudlark. A wig? Who wears a wig? Somebody who's hiding the truth. Why does his voice change, Thandie?

You think if he was on the up and up, he would be changing his voice all the time? Yeah. Well, here's the thing. Thandie, your voice never changed. No, my voice has been consistent the whole time you've known me. That's right. And you're an honest person. I am an honest person. Except for the fact that I may or may not be honest. I am. I may or may not be a criminal for hire. But that is beside the point. I never tell a lie. A criminal who works for money is not a criminal really. You know what?

You're right. Trying to help someone grow. You're right. Okay. You're right. It is morally okay for me to continue doing crimes. It's just a job. Because they're paying you. Because I'm being paid. If what I was doing was illegal, would I be getting paid for it? That's right. Yeah. Anyway. See, this is what I told my mom. She did not buy it. We have not sold it. We have not sold it. We have not sold it. We have not sold it. We have not sold it. We have not sold it. She did not buy it.

We have not spoken since. It has been two weeks. I cannot get my clothes. I miss my mommy. I miss my mommy. We have weekly tea times while we go and watch the DeSomme Creek Theatre Society. Okay. So I feel like I have decided to trust you guys too quickly. So you have to convince me to get you to set up a meeting. Okay. We can get you these donuts. If that's really what you want, I'm willing to get you donuts. The mall has a meeting. Okay. We'll get you those donuts. You met at the mall.

Take us to the mall. Get us to meet the intermediary. We'll get you those donuts. We'll get you whatever donuts you want. However many you want. Yeah. Oh, what? You're telling me I could get the big boy bucket of donuts? For sure you can. Yeah, totally. There's like 50 donuts in there. 50 of your donuts. Yeah. Oh my God. He walks back over to the window. This is it, Dandy. Everything that you've ever been afraid of is no longer happening. It's like a tuck face imprint and .

And all the lamps and plants and shit are knocked over near the window. And it still smells. It smells really bad. It still smells like shit. Okay. Wait, no. Okay. So donuts is what you're going to offer me? Yeah. Yeah. We'll get you donuts. All right. Going to have to roll a parlay. Two to six plus charisma. I got this, guys. Zero charisma. Oh. You can do it. Do you have charisma? It feels like literally anybody else should do this. No. Hey, he's rolling the dice. You can do it. You can do it.

Two to six plus charisma. Look at that. So we have to give him a donut right now? Yeah. I can't risk my job, my livelihood. I can't risk my relationship with my mother. If you're going to do this, you got to give me a taste of the good life. You got to get me some donuts before. Get the hell out of here. Okay. Get the hell out of here. Oh my God. No, sorry. I'm trying to be assertive. This is part of my resolution for this year. I've been talking about this with my mom.

She said I have to be more assertive. She said, Dandy, you're not assertive enough. My mom is making me be assertive. Yeah. Why don't we threaten him again? Yeah. Yeah. We could just open our asshole right here, right now. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I haven't unleashed what I got in here. Okay. Roll a two to six plus charisma. Plus threatening. 11. Oh, Jesus Christ. The threat was that you would fart also. I would fart also. Yeah. I can only handle two. Come on. Three. Look at me.

Round. You know what that is? Full of air. Hot air. Stinky air. No, please. Come on. I'm going to throw a donut. I'm going to throw a donut. I'm going to throw a donut. I'm going to throw a donut. Please. Come on. I just want some donuts. I'm going to do it. You can just go and give me donuts. I'm going to do it right now. Okay. All right. I'm fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. So, I'm setting up … You want me to set up a meet so you can get hired and meet Etienne Boggins?

Well, we want to get hired and know who the Kestrel is because Etienne is never a guy who's been the person who pulls the strings. Really? It sounds like this Kestrel that hired you. Might be the puppet master at work. Right. Or an intermediary to the puppet master. Okay. All right. Two big boys. Well, two big boys. And then one boy. And one little boy who would be perfect for this detail. All right. But you guys got to get out of here. You can't come out of the room. You got to get out of here.

Okay. Yeah. We'll climb back. I'll get it set up and you can meet me at where? The donut place. A donut place in the mall. Yeah. Big boys. Oh, big boys. Okay. You meet me at Big Boys Donuts in the High School Mall at … What time is it now? Let's do four o'clock. Okay. We've never said actual times. No. That would feel weird. Do we have clocks? Yeah, we have clocks. Is it regular times? 24 hour days? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were talking about the shadow of the spear. Oh, yeah.

Oh, meet me when the shadow of the spear is high. Okay. Okay. At Big Boy Donuts in the mall. Okay, bye. Okay, bye. Get out. Okay. And he starts pushing you towards the window. Go, go. We go out. Climb out. And you hear him open the door as you're climbing out the window. Boy, I'm glad I took that shit. Clearly, I really had to. I'm glad I took that shit. I'm glad I took that shit. I'm glad I took that shit. Because it smells like the shit of two grown men. Door slams.

And you're back in your room. Okay, cool. Cool. So we have this meeting set up with this puppet master potential. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we could cut ahead? Let's do it. Or do we have anything that you guys want to do in between now and the meeting? The only thing we have to do is bring Randall shampoos and continental breakfast. We can grab some. Oh, yeah. I grabbed one of each. I feel like we should give Victor and Morris and Perel the room. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think we can get the room keys, too, so that they have somewhere to hang out. That's smart. Oh, yeah. Right. So they can just go back to Heather and Jan? No, the Spearmint B&B. Oh, the room keys to the Spearmint B&B. Yeah. So you go and meet Morris and Perel and Victor, who are at- well, Morris and Perel are sitting at a table outside a cafe- Yeah. Having food and drinks. Yeah. And Victor, you can see, is lurking in an alleyway, peeking around a corner, watching them. Okay.

You're talking to Morris and Perel. You can see him halfway down the block peeking out of an alleyway. Yeah. With his new Russian head. Yeah. And, dude, do you have anything you want to deal with these guys, or do you just hand the keys off and- Have you ever heard of anyone who calls himself the Kestrel? No, I don't think so. Seems to be some kind of crime lord or something that's trying to install Etienne Boggins as mayor here. What? Why? I don't know. Guy's a total dildo.

Why would anyone want him to be mayor? Yeah. That is odd. And you're going to go deal with this, then? Yeah. We're going to go try and figure out what's going on, because it seems like too much of a coincidence that Etienne Boggins is here. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Cool. Well, I feel like our thing, we can't really … We're not going to keep going until you guys are done with this. So we'll just go back to the B&B? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the keys. Great. Two beds? Yeah. Two beds.

Did you guys already call one? No. Okay. Great. They're going to fucking both our beds. Oh, no. And Morris and Perel head off back down the street, and you see Victor creep out. He's like, get out of the alleyway. Kind of slinks up to all of you, and he's like, don't worry. I am keeping a close eye on those two pathetic men. They do not know that I am here. I am a shadow in the night of day, and I lurk on the edge of danger. You hear Morris go, Victor. He goes, I must go.

Victor, protect one of the beds from them. Oh, there are two beds? There are two beds. One of those beds shall be mine. Okay. Okay. I am going to go down the road. On all fours. Yeah. Every once in a while, the illusion fucks up, and he drops to all fours. Great. So then we cut to the time where the shadow is high. Oh, no. You want to go give Randy, Randall the- Oh, yeah. And he's still in the fountain. Randall. Oh, my God. You came back. Yeah. I got these for you, and I pass them.

And he grabs them. This is a shampoo and a conditioner? Yeah, man. Oh, my God. I can shampoo and condition all my hairs. They had one in me. One of each. What about the continental breakfast? I slide over a container of sausages and grits. He surreptitiously takes it like he's taking a bag of weed from you. Yeah. And he brings the container up to his nose, and he cracks it, takes a deep sniff. Oh, that's the stuff. And Tuck just hands him a giant column of cereal. Oh, wow.

It's got the thing on it. And he starts twisting it, and it's falling into the fountain. Look at that. Portion control. Yeah. He's like, I'm going to get a jamadilla meat in this thing. And he pops the top on the shampoo, and he starts shampooing his hair. Vang hands him a waffle machine. Oh, all right. Cool. Okay. I ate the waffle that was in there, but this will be good for a while. You know, teach a man to fish. You can feed yourself for years with this thing. You know what?

First time I saw you two, and oh, there's a third one. He's little. I didn't see him before. First time I saw you two plus one. I thought I was going to have to kill you. What? Whoa. It's hard out here on the streets. Whoa. But now that you've set me up for life, I think I found a friend. Plus one plus another friend. And you can join me anytime. You know what? I'm going to take this. I'm going to take this. He holds up the waffle thing and the cereal thing.

I'm going to make a new life for myself. This is the first day of Randall's new life. He's making a continental breakfast. And it's all thanks to you two plus one. Now, if you're interested in this, you can go to the YouTube channel. I'm going to put it in the description. I'm going to put it in the description. I'm going to put it in the description. And he's going to take two two plus one. Now, if you don't mind me- I'm starting to think that he can't count to three.

He stands up out of the fountain, dripping wet, completely nude, shampoo still in his hair. I bid you adieu. So long, Randall. So long. Now, it's time for me to hit the old dusty trail. And he gets out of the fountain and starts walking away with a waffle maker over his shoulder and a cereal thing under his arm, just soaking wet. Ving puts a scarf around his waist. .

Looks like a jaunty sash perfectly framing his ass dick and balls as randall walks off into the sunset it is the middle of the day it is not sunset yet okay so we cut to the time when the spear shadow of the spear is high yeah aka four o'clock four o'clock uh you enter the high spear mall for the first time in quite a long time it is just as formerly ostentatious as you remember there's a lot of busted up shop fronts there are rusting safety rails on the various floors there's lean twos and shacks hanging from the ceiling and pressed up against every like water and vines dripping inside sort of things or plants inside yeah maybe since the oh maybe since the last time you've been here yeah there's like a lot of plants growing in the mall yeah there's like overgrown sections or like vines climbing up posts like to the ceiling but there's still stores and people in here oh yeah there's still stores and people okay but uh for for us around the table this place looks even worse than it does in Mall Brats okay it is 40 years gone yeah um we're Mall Brats it's like still like a fun mall yeah this place it's like it's gotten quite a bit worse yeah in the intervening decades you follow the directions that uh you received from the little kiosk at the front like with the big map on it yeah you are here which is just got an elf crawling around inside of it pointing at different parts of the mall map and uh you follow the directions to big boys donuts also there is a mall's worth of shit here if there's anything you want to do while you're in the mall hmm I do need a couple more poultices is there a body shop in here oh you better believe there's a body shop in here okay uh it is called sage sages sages uh apostrophe s hey welcome welcome to sages oh my god it smells incredible in here oh thank you oh my god it smells incredible in here oh my god it smells incredible in here oh thank you it's the sages are you sage I'm sage this is my sister sage oh the sages the sages yeah nice what can we do for you I'm trying to get a poultice oh yeah I've used up all my uses oh yeah what's your kind of like basis uh mostly oil-based I'm an oil-based guy you know anything that I can just add to I just like the the rudimentary base poultice I'm going to use the poultice I'm going to use the I'm out in the woods all the time.

I can find things to top it up with. Oh, forage, hand forage. Nice. Very nice. Thank you. Okay, we can help you over here. Great. How much? How much? I don't have any money. Where's all our money? You might not have any money. We haven't had money for months. Yeah, because we've been living in a tent that creates food for us. Do they accept trade? Oh, they would accept, everybody accepts, especially the High Spear Mall. Yeah. So yeah, this usually runs, it's like 10 coins, 10, 11 coins.

Holy shit. Oh my gosh. That's at least what it says in the book. I don't know why it's so expensive. For how many uses? Two uses. That's it? Two uses of pulses? You'll buy like a house with 10 coins. Hey, all I'm reading is the Dungeon World SRD, okay? Okay, I have a deal for you. I don't have any money on me. Listen to this. Okay. As a trade, this here, and I pull out, I have three Hibernia Waters. Whoa. Holy shit. Oh my goodness. I have, I'll. Trade you one.

This is water, druidic water from the well of Hibernia. You've heard of this? Of course. I thought it was a myth. It is no myth. This can make many, many, many potions. I assume. Is this a thing that Ving thinks to be true or is he trying to scam these people? No, no. He thinks it's very true. Yeah. Like it's good for all sorts of things. It is. I've used it for, I don't remember what. Oh, what did we use it for? I think. I think. I think. I think. I think. I think. I think. I think. I think.

I think. I think. I think. I think. I think. Oh, yeah. It helps a lot. It helps a lot. It helps a lot. It helps a lot. It helps a lot. It helps a lot. It helps a lot. It helps a lot. Of water on the roots and then the tree reacted poorly to it. And then a hole opened in the ground in the garden around the tree. We fell in there. Which we eventually saved the tree. We didn't save the tree. We had to plant a new one. And the new one lived. Not good. Then yeah, go ahead and roll 2d6 plus charisma.

Okay. Ooh, boxcars plus charisma. Holy shit! Oh yeah, they are more than willing to accept this trade. For how many poultices can I get with this? Well, what are you suggesting? I'm suggesting you give me 5. 5? 50 coins worth? 50 coins worth. You're never going to get there. They can't even find Hibernia, let alone go to the well of my family well. This is only one of this thing. Sage and Sage look at each other. And Sage loves to rip off like, eastern cultures. 100%.

Oh yeah, do I still have that coin with the hole in the middle of it? Yeah. Sage is like, Sage, we might never have this opportunity again. And Sage is like, yeah, but how do we know if it's authentic? And Sage goes, we get to decide if it's authentic. That's our responsibility as white store owners. That's our power as marketers who created the brand. That is the power of the Sage brand. We get to decide. These things are real.

What we do, Sage, is we take this Hibernian water and we take a drop and we put it in a full jar of water and then we say it's essence of Hibernian water. We can make a fortune. A fortune. Very well. They reach out, snatch the… I snatch 5 poultices. So now you have 10 uses of poultice and herb. Holy shit. What do you mean? I got 2 times 5? No, it's 5 and each one is 2 uses. Oh, each one is 2 uses? So it's 70 hit points? I thought that's what you were saying. That's awesome. Holy shit.

That's sick. Oh my god, guys, I have so many poultices. Wait, did I just get scammed? Yeah, dude, that's awesome. Yeah, that's great. I thought that's what you were asking for. It was 10 poultices. That's amazing. Water that will be very difficult for you to get. Yeah, I only have 2 of those left. That's fair. Can't hang on to everything, you know? Great, yeah. And then you leave Sages. Thank you, Sages. Good luck with your scamming. They bow to you. Really problematically.

It's a really problematic bow. And as you leave, you activate some sort of music bottle chime that plays a very offensive sting on the way up. And you're still in the mall. You're on your way to Big Boy's Donuts. I do want to buy some knives. Like some weapons. I haven't had any weapons really on me for a while. That's true. Billy's been weaponless for a good while. I don't have coins, so I might have to steal them. Or trade. Do you have anything to trade, Billy? I only have the toy sword.

There's absolutely like a house of knives kind of place. Which is called the Palace of Blades. I was gonna say World of Blades. World of Blades. The World of Blades. I like that game that we play. Yeah. There's World of Blades and there's the Palace of Blades right next to it. Oh, they're feuding knife stores. There is a knife fight every day out front. Okay, so you guys are walking down a hallway and you see two shopkeepers standing across from each other in like a Akira Kurosawa style.

Like, one has a long sword out in both hands. And you see two shopkeepers standing across from each other in like a Akira Kurosawa style. And the other's got a small sword next to them and there's a vent nearby that's broken and is blowing a bunch of shit across the ground. It's an air conditioner and it's like really cold so there's like snowflakes also blowing. Oh yeah, cherry blossoms slowly falling from the tree. There's a single cherry tree growing in the middle of the wall.

They planted it years ago. By the cherry pits. Oh yeah. And you hear one of them call out, this is the last time you will infringe upon my honor, dog. And then his mouth keeps moving. Bad translation. The palace of blades cannot stand against the world of blades. For we are the superior blades. And you hear ha ha ha, unlikely cur. And then one of the guys just barely like cracks the sword out of the hilt and goes back in.

And then you see a sign behind him that says 50% off and it falls in half and says 60% off. He slashed their braces. There's a crowd watching. And then somebody in the other guy goes prices are slashed. That's so stupid. My prices have never been lower. The crowd starts clapping. And then Tuck's holding a giant cotton candy that he got. And he's like, yeah! Billy, if they keep this up, you'll get free knives. I know. I'm kind of hoping they will. Hey, do it again. Do it again!

Your prices may be 60%. 60% off, but your limbs shall be all the way off. And he goes, ha! And starts running towards the guy. And these guys are going to fight unless anybody steps in. It looks like this happens a lot. The store looks like unattended, so I'm going to go into whichever one. The shopkeepers in the neighboring stores are just putting on goggles and putting splash zone equipment on. This happens all the time. Yeah, it looks like these guys are super scarred up. They're both.

They're white every day. 2D6 plus dexterity to sneak in. 10. Holy shit. So you hear like, clink, clink, clink, clink. Swoosh, clink. And you just start walking into one of the stores. There's like a little boy just waddling. It's a total anime scene, and then you just see like an Adventure Time character waddle through it. And you are in the store. Wow. So much selection in here. As you like cross the threshold of World of Blades, a spray of blood hits the ground behind you. Sick.

And you hear, uh, uh, uh, uh. And you have before you a world of blades. My gosh. Long blades, short blades, blades for cooking, blades for fun. That's what all the signs say. I go to the blades for fun. Oh, the blades for fun. Okay. So they're still real blades, but they're just like fun. Yeah, they're like. Ow. The ones that I really like, the handle has like goo inside with sparkles. It's a gel pen. No, it's like got sparkles. So like when you flip it around, it like all the glitter.

It's like a lava lamp handle. Yeah. Fun. So fun. Yeah. So there's one of those. I take a couple of those. Yeah. It's got a little, it's got a little sheath and the sheath has like, um, seahorses on it. Fun. There's another. There's another. There's another. Fun. Oh my God. So fun. How many can I have? Okay. So I think that you, you were, you were able to roll in. So I get one? With this, but if you want more, you can push your luck and, and steal some more. Okay. Oh wow. No. Jess, that's bad.

I dug too deep, too greedily. So what's the blade that you're reaching for? So I got a four. The blade I'm reaching for is higher on the shelf and they're plushy blades. So the handle and the sheath are like fuzzy. So you take the head off and there's a knife underneath or something? Yeah. Like it's like leopard print. Oh cute. I get really excited. Yeah. There's one that's like a unicorn horn is the handle. Whoa. And like soft silvery fur on the sheath. So cool. I grab one of those. Yeah.

And as you're like reaching out to it, a full grown man comes crashing into the display and he like. Blood face. Covered in blood. His face is covered in blood. He like hits the display. It gets knocked over and smashed and he does like a back roll back onto his feet. Whoa. And he's got his sword in his hand and he spits a bunch of blood on the ground and he goes, is that the best you've got fool?

And you turn and you see the guy walking in the larger guy who's got like a beard and like a big belly and two swords. Half of a beard like his beard's now 50% off. He goes, you haven't even seen my my forbidden technique. And you are in between these two guys and they both stop and they look at you. Just like freeze like they might not see me if I don't move. And you hear the big guy go shoplifter. And they both turn and start chasing you. I want to run away. Yeah, great. 2d6 plus dexterity.

12. Yeah. You zip away but they are like pursuing you. I keep running away. I just run through. I'm like weaving through the shelves into the other store as well. Oh, yeah. Trying to lose them. Yeah, totally. Running through the crowd. Uh-huh. So they're going to keep chasing you until you unless you like leave leave or find some way to really get away from them. I would like to leave leave. Are you running back to tucking being or anything? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So you run to tucking being and tucking being you see two armed warriors running out of the stores to work. And I'm like fake crying like they're going to hurt me. He stole from them. I wasn't doing anything wrong. Oh my God. I told you not to teach him that word on hand. Our merchandise raps galleon. I took nothing. There's nothing on me. Don't touch me. You guys do a tech good. Uh, dude, you did steal one teachable moment. Yeah, this is a teachable moment.

I look at you like it's not a teachable moment. Yeah. I think you might try and stab of stab us. Yeah. Is this you have the jelly? You can see that you really like the jelly seahorse. Never seen one like it handle. I love the idea that you ask a kid. Is this a teachable moment? The kid goes no, no, I don't think so. I don't have anything. Yeah, I'm not going to learn anything from this. I'll tell you that you can try. I say like if you try to teach me something I'm going to do the opposite.

I'm going to forget something else. Yeah. Okay. So tech takes Billy and he like he puts him on his shoulder where he's safe and then he turns to the two guys and he does an anime pose and he goes get to a halt and hold their weapons. He realizes from his bouncer training that it's like you kind of have to speak the language of whoever like you kind of have to talk bro to like talk down a bro. You know what I mean? Yeah. And he's like these guys are so in the act. I have to like engage me.

With it. So he like strikes a pose and then like throws a rock at the cherry blossom tree. So the blossoms come down and then he lifts his axe high in the air and activates the amethyst crystal. Oh shit. And then he like moves his mouth in a weird way and then he goes you will not kill my son. All right. Two to six plus charisma. What honor does the samurai have who kills a small boy a small boy who is just stealing to protect his self. Roll two to six plus charisma. You are a dog.

If you do so I'll cut off your death. You worthless dildo. So that's why do we use any other die? Yeah. Snake. Oh great. So they stand there and they go so you have aligned yourself with the thief. Huh? Then you shall die with the thief. Ha! Roll with honor. Fink's just gonna fucking scream out of the corner. Punch one of them in the face. I got seven. Okay. So you get three chi? Two chi? I think two chi. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to spend one? Uh yes.

I will spend one to block a blow meant for somebody else. Oh so yeah. The big guy with the two blades is swinging the mittuck and screaming forbidden technique. And you are about to intercept the forbidden technique. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have the leather strap for my parents. Oh cool. So it's just around my wrist so I like as the thing's coming down he just kind of like swirls his wrist and it wraps around the hilt and yank the sword out of his thing. Oh sick. Roll a d6. One. Holy shit.

Yeah. So you just take zero? Take zero damage. Nice. He does the thing where he just steps aside and then the sword comes like back under his nose and he like sniffs away. Smells like Burger King. Yeah. Slap him in the face. Take a sword out of his hand. Oh so sick. What do you do? How are you doing that? I'm going to use my other chi to deal my damage to a foe within reach. Excellent. Roll your damage. Three. Yeah. This guy is not wearing armor and he's a shopkeeper. So what do you do to him?

I just kind of like poke him in the throat. Oh and then take a sword of his hands and I was like you shouldn't be playing with knives. So he stabs towards you using his forbidden technique. You step out of the way sniffing the blade as it's drawn back through past my face drawn back past your face and then you just poke him in the throat and he was ow man. Ow ow dude. Oh my God. Right in my throat. You're going to poke somebody's eye out with this thing. We're just messing around man.

Your kids stole from us. Look at this guy. He's covered in blood. You're not messing around. You're making a scene. Yeah you took the knife. I'll trade you this sword for that one that he took. Leave him alone. The other guy's like Leonard. Leonard it's okay. It's okay. You don't have to cry. You don't have to cry Leonard and he kind of takes the sword from you sheepishly and he's like shakes his head at you. I can't believe you did that.

He just walks away and these two you realize as the two guys walk away and the crowd kind of like mutters and disperses that you might have interrupted a marketing event. But Billy has got his knife. The danger has been diffused. You got a jelly knife. I do. That's cool. I'm playing with it. So fun. Did you get the unicorn one? No. No you didn't. It was too heavy. Too high. That's okay. That jelly knife is cool. It's so great. Like when you shake it the seahorses move around inside.

I know it's so cute. It's very cute. So cute. You've still got a little bit of time before the meeting. I imagine you want to stake the place out a little bit probably. Yeah. Is there anywhere else you want to go? Like does Tuck want to stop somewhere? Yeah. Tuck what? I just remembered shorten McWides or whatever. Oh yeah the bottle store. I don't have any music bottles anymore. You don't have an instrument. Oh wait do they still have my instrument?

Did they take your double headed loot or something didn't they? Yeah they were going to fix it. Oh wait but I had it in the Sea of Graves right? No I found a different loot in the Sea of Graves. Yeah why didn't you get your loot back from them? I think we just forgot to come back. Oh my god. Oh my god let's go get that. Tuck is like oh shit.

Yeah you walk past and you see Short and you're just like eyes half lidded walking through the mall like just mouth slack and you realize you never went back for your loot. Oh my god. Fucking holy shit. Several years ago. Five or six real life years ago. Yeah. You brought your broken double headed loot that you got from a traveling sales thing. Yeah. It's kind of like a tinker guy. Yeah. Well it was you got it from Vong. Oh right. I got it from Vong. From Vong all those years ago.

And you brought it to Short and McWides to repair it after it broke and you never came back for it. And I think I broke it by trying to play it with a knife. You did. Yeah. I remember. Yeah. I took one of Billy's daggers and I was like check out this sweet power cord. Snap. And then the guy that was working there was like I think he was like some emo kid. Yeah he did the poems. Writing poems. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows if he still works there. Well I'm doing the voice now so. Oh maybe he does.

Welcome to Short and McWides. I hope this was the voice I used all those years ago. Is he a disgruntled dad now? How many years ago was it? Two? Would have been two-ish. Oh my god. He's got two babies with him. Like in a Bjork. So many. He's got two babies on the front of him. Welcome to Short and McWides. What can I do for you? I dropped off an agitar as the lay people call it. Lame people. Lame people call it. But an axe and you know metal parlance here for repair. Ah yes I see.

A few years ago. A few years? A few years ago? What? And I'm just coming back to pick it up if it's done. You know we actually need a few more days. No he goes through he goes over to a big dusty tome. He blows all the dust off. It says two years ago on it. He flips the cover open. Blows more dust off the page. His baby sneezes. Both of the babies start sneezing. Blowing dust off each page with their little baby sneezes. What name? Tacoma Dome. Oh. Tacoma Dome. Yeah. I remember that name well.

It was a name that I saw in this book and I thought this guy's never coming back. I looked at that loot every day. Until. He's turned like looked at it. He's put it. He's looking out a window now. A window that's inside the mall. There's no windows. He's staring into a break room. Into a break room where someone's eating a burrito. An equivalent of looking at their phone. Whatever that is. Yeah. That double headed loot was so sick. It's the sickest instrument in the world. Sickest.

And I found myself falling deeply in love with that loot. I wished for it to be my own but I knew that I could not. It inspired me to write a poem. Several volumes of poetry. Many of which I destroyed in a fit of jealous rage. You were jealous of who is wait what were you jealous of? I was jealous of my own intentions towards that loot. Did you fuck my guitar dude? Of course not. I am a father now. I would never do such a thing. Wait what? But this loot to you I say is complete. Oh cool. Oh.

A little bit more there but okay. I'll be right back. And he goes into the back room leaving the front of the store completely unintended. I fill my backpack up with bottles. Oh my god. Click click click click click click click click Not at all subtle about it. Just like I shoved so many in until it's like you could tell there's a shitload of bottles in there. I just put it on my back. Do you want to roll anything to make this not noticeable? No. Okay. Dude you left. You made this happen.

Yeah you forced me to do it. You forced this on me. And he comes back with a case. A hard leather case. With two individual necks in the case. Yeah. And he clicks it open. Opens the lid. Spins it around. And there before you is your double headed base loot. Wow. Shiny and new while covered in dust. Absolutely. Covered in dust. Tuck blows dust off into the two babies faces. They start It's a pretty dusty story. You shouldn't have those little kids in here. It's pretty dangerous for them.

It's okay. It strengthens their lungs. They'll learn. Yeah. The two little babies have two little like wrist straps with like meds on them. Yeah. Medical alert. They both say asthmatic. Yeah. That's what I thought you were going to say. I was going to say they were two little metal kids. But yes, they also. He pulls out of holsters in his hips. These two little puppers shakes them spins them and then his babies. It's a cool dad. Yeah. And a bad dad. Yeah. Really bad dad. Most cool dads are bad.

Only bad dads. All right. That'll be repair costs plus guitar storage over two years. That'll be 150 coins. Oh sick. Oh gosh. Tucker closes the lid snaps it picks it up and goes I'm not going to pay you. He holds up his hand and goes wait it's too much money. I'm not going to pay it. Hold on. Wait. No hold on. Wait. This just shows him all the bottles and he's just stolen from his store. It's your backpack. He's like a teenager sneaking out of their house on the weekend with booze. Wait.

I'm not going to pay it. I don't think you can stop me. Thank you. Wait. Tuck stops and turns back looks over his shoulder at him pensively. Come on. I'm not going to pay it. Wait. Tuck pushes over a giant value bin of bottles as he leaves. It's just a fucking much music dance party starts in that room. Oh man. And you leave short and McWise. No consequences. Well no consequences from this guy that's for sure. I like that I didn't even try.

I made no rolls in that scene because Tuck made no choices. No. Other than to like just be like I'm going to do this. I'm leaving. What are you going to do about it? This is mine. And you just leave short and McWise. You have your double headed lute guitar back. I find these guys a rotato potato thing. Yeah there's a rotato booth. It's one giant rotato but then the guy sells smaller rotatos because he doesn't want to cut up the giant one because it's too cool. It is really cool. Thank you.

I've been working on growing this potato for many years. It grows in a spiral? All of my rotatos grow in a rotato form. Whoa. Huh. It is a technique that I myself have devised. Would you say it's forbidden? It is forbidden. Yeah that checks out. And verboten for you to know. And if you ask I will be forced to take violent action against you. God what's with these mall employees? The High Spear Mall is a tough place to live. People always want to steal your rotato secrets. Is it tougher?

Ever since Shathane disappeared? Oh my lord. He turns to a window. Ever since Shathane Wick disappeared the mall has fallen into chaos. The hot meat boys run rampant. Leaderless. Chaotic. Like wild animals. The cool treat kids run rampant. Leaderless. Like wild animals. The food court. Yeah. Run rampant. Okay. I see. It feels like this guy just has like a small kind of library of cool things. Leaderless. Like wild animals. We might head out now. The barbecue dad's still a thing.

The barbecue dad's. Yeah we're walking away. Run rampant. I have stolen the giant potato. He's caught in this loop. He's caught in this loop though. He can't stop. He's in his own. He's in his mind rotato. Yeah. His mind is the real rotato. It's an infinite Mobius potato. And now you've stolen from everyone that you've met in the mall so far. This mall is awesome. Yeah except for Vic. This mall is great. Yeah. You can steal from everybody. I could've just stole from those white women.

What are they gonna do? And they were the worst of all of them. Yeah totally. Yeah they had the most racist bow. Yeah. So far. So far. Don't limit me as a storyteller. And it's now it's about time you think probably for your meeting. Yeah. Now we're all armed up. We're armed up. I have my axe. I'm wearing it kind of cross. Oh yeah. TLC on one side and then the double headed loot on the other side. Cool. Yeah. You're like a four headed monster right now. Yeah. I like that.

And you go to Big Boy's Donuts. What's Big Boy's Donuts like? Is it a sit down restaurant? Yeah. Yeah. I'm like I'm gonna go to Big Boy's Donuts. I'm like I'm gonna go to Big Boy's Donuts. Yeah. It is a sit down donut restaurant. Sit down donut restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Welcome to Big Boy's Donuts. Oh wow. Yes. Almeid do you have a reservation? We're meeting a friend here. Do you have a name on the reservation? The Kestrel. The Kestrel. We all say it at the same time. The Kestrel.

The Kestrel. The Kestrel. The Kestrel. The Kestrel. I'm sorry you will have to speak up. The Kestrel. The Kestrel. Kestrel. Ah you have to be quiet about that name. Try to whisper it. Yeah but it's the levels. We're not talking about the levels. We're talking about the levels. That's not what I wanted them to be. I'm so sorry. He flips open his little book. Ah I see. This way. You're going to the VIP section. Nice. And he takes you in. He gives us all suit jackets. Yeah.

It's there is a bit of a dress code here at Big Boy's Donuts. And the leopard jackets. Leopard? Le-pe-ld. Le-pelled. Very, very, very good sir. He puts a jacket on you. He puts a same size jacket on Billy so it's massive. On him and then he drapes several coats across Tuck. One on each. One on each shoulder. Yeah. I put one arm through each. Immediately rip it. Yeah, wonderful. Yes. Okay, right this way.

He tweedles along the floor taking you through one of the finest establishments you've ever seen. Everything is like crystal wear. Crystal wear? Crystal plates, crystal tablecloths. Low lighting. Yeah. The lights are crystals. It's low. The candles are crystals. It's low. What does it smell like in here? Crystals. Fresh roses and donuts. Yeah. There's a vase of donuts that comes out. Oh, yeah. Several waiters bringing in the vases of donuts. Yeah.

Giant music bottle with a woman laying down on top of it and playing like soft jazz. Loving you is easy cause you're beautiful. Sounds like shit. There's a waiter who walks around with a giant sugar cube like powdering sugar on all the donuts. That's great. Tell me when to stop. Crack, crack, crack. There's a table with a chef in like a tall white toucan. He's slicing pieces off a giant donut for people. Nice. There's a flambéing happening at all different big flash of light from over here.

Everyone's in black tie. We stand out so much. And he takes you to the back to a spiral staircase, which takes you up to the second floor. And he takes you to the top of the stairs where there's like a hallway and then there's like doors off the hallway that have like, you know, gaps in the top and bottom like almost saloon style doors. And he takes you to one of those doors. Right this way, please. You through the doors squeak, squeak, squeak. They swing behind you. There's no one here. What?

The booth is currently empty. I want a trap expert. Very good. 2d6 plus dexterity? 11. 11. Great. Yes. Okay. So you get several hold to ask questions. I'm suspicious. Is there a trap here? There is a trap here. No! And it is activated by you walking into this booth. What does the trap do when activated? The trap alerts someone nearby that you have arrived. And what else is hidden here? What else is hidden here is you enter the booth and you stand around and you realize there's nobody here.

And then you hear behind you, well, well, well, if it isn't to you three. Etienne Boggins. Etienne Boggins. Tall, lean, kind of longish, fop-like hair, graying, fine suit, much finer than he wore in Mudlark. Nice hair. Is it new? It is. Thank you very much for asking, little boy. Please, enter. Take a seat, why don't you? You first. Very well. And he walks past you into the room and he sits. He's got like long tails like on his coat. Long tails. Yeah.

And he sits down on the edge of the, you know, it's like a long table in the room and the booth kind of goes around the edges of the room so he sits and he starts scooting down one long bench. Okay. Into the middle section of the table. Makes like a squeaking noise at one point. That was the booth. Hey. And he keeps scooting. Yeah. Down to the end of the table. And we, I guess, I guess we'll shuffle in there too. Yeah, get in there. Been a while at Tian Bargains. It has been quite a while.

Seems like time has been kind to you. It has. Thank you very much. It seems like it has been unkind to you three. Whoa. What a burn. What's that supposed to mean? We've just been working really hard. I've been in the sun a lot. I've heard much of your escapades. What have you heard? Just that you, like, tend to make a mess of whatever it is you get your fingers into. Well, sounds like what, it's the same thing that you do. Savior of Mudlark, eh? Are you the Kestrel?

I'll be the one to ask questions here. Alright. And the first question I have for you is what the fuck are you guys doing here? And he reaches up and he pulls his hair down revealing two elf ears. Who is this? And he pulls a cap off a gold tooth. Dan. Dan! Dan! You fucker. What the fuck are you guys doing here? What the fuck are you doing here? What the fuck are you guys doing here? What the fuck are you doing here? What does it look like? I'm undercover. I'm running for mayor.

Wait, were you always Etienne Boggins? No! Okay. I'm just using the Mudlark thing. I mean, we've got Boggins somewhere. What did you do to Boggins? He's fine. He's fine. Where is he? He's fine. Where? What do you mean by fine? This is so loose. That's such a loose answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's fine. That's all you need to know. I want to know. Who's we? Who are you working with? What are you rolling? I don't know. I want him to answer my questions. I mean, you can keep asking him questions.

This is a person you know. You can ask and we can see how the conversation goes. I pull out my knife. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Billy. Answer my questions right now. Okay. All right. You flash the seahorse at him. Yeah. You see these? The males give birth. I flip it upside down like, look at that glitter fall. That'll be like your reputation. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. What do you want to know? Where's Etienne Boggins?

Yeah, we have him held. Who's we? Who do you think? You and the Kestrel. I am the Kestrel. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. Where'd you come up with that name? I can't. I don't want to. It's just, I don't know. I thought it was a cool name. It's not important. By we, do you mean you and the Menders? Yes. I fucking knew it. Oh, did you know it? I knew it, Dad. Oh, did you know it? Actually, yes, I did because I tackled you in that restaurant in McCaw that one time. Yeah? Remember? Yeah.

When you gave me a concussion? Yeah, I remember. You do remember? Wasn't that bad a concussion then, I guess? I'll have to try harder next time. Guess I gotta finish the job. No, no, no, no, no. Come on, come on, come on. Tuck cracks his knuckles loudly. All right, just be chill, all right? Okay. Okay, more questions. What's your plan? Well, I'm going to become mayor of Highspear. And then live out the rest of your days as somebody else?

No, the Menders want to get access to the Princeps for some reason. The Princeps? Princeps of? Highspear. Highspear. Yeah. There's one Princep. Yeah, there's one. Yeah, Princeps is a, I think Princeps is the singular as well. That's, is it the singular? I think it's Princep. Oh, wait. I think it's Princep. Anyway. Look, I'm not here for my language skills, obviously. Yeah, they want to get access to the Princep. So I'm going to become mayor, and then we'll have a direct line to the Princep.

Okay. And then? What for? They didn't tell me that. I don't even, I don't even know most of the people in this, you guys are familiar with the Menders, right? You're familiar with how this works? Yeah, we know Maggie. We don't know all of them. Yeah, Maggie's not involved. Maggie's not involved in this? No. What? Different cell. Who's the leader of your cell? What the fuck does that mean? What do you know? I am on loan. I am a freelancer. I think he just heard the word mayor and said yes.

I think so. Yeah, maybe I want to be mayor. Is that so wrong? But it's, there's a war on. Yeah. Yeah. We were aware. Yeah, we were there. I think, I think the, okay. If I had to guess. We took down the Black Hammer, dude. Yeah. No. Yeah? Yeah. Billy, show them your scar. I, I rip open my shirt. Whoa! It's, it's not healing. Did you peel off your bandage? It's not healing. He pulls his bandages off. Look at that. Oh no! It's so scary! No, just show them the bandages. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I am sorry. That was my fault. 100% my fault. I use all my poultices. We spend five, the next five minutes patching him back up. You have to sit on him to patch him up. No, I just, I stick a bunch of napkins on. No, Billy. That's not good enough. Dude freaks out when he sees it. Yeah. Yeah, this is what happens when you fight a real war. Okay, alright, okay. That's really gross. That's super gross. I don't like to look at that. It's really gross. Yeah.

And this could happen to you if you don't tell us stuff. I'm telling you everything I know. Okay. Alright. I think, I think the menders are suspicious of the High Spear Princep for some reason. They want to make sure that the war is going the way they need it to go. Do they think that he is a wizard? Or involved with wizardry? I don't know. Maybe. It is kind of their domain. Are, are the menders still looking for wizards? Like if there happened to be wizards, would they be in trouble?

What do you mean? Just, if there happened in the hypothetical. Hypothetical. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we came to town with like two wizards. What? Two plus wizards. Where is searching for wizards on their list of priorities? Yeah. Well, pretty high considering they consider them the most dangerous beings in existence. Well, good thing we didn't do that. Yeah. He narrows his eyes. We all narrow our eyes. Alright. Okay. Yeah. So what are you guys doing in town?

We have our friends the wizards. Uh huh. And they need to do something with the tower. Well, because we're suspicious too that the tower might be in danger. Yeah. The tower, the High Spear? Yeah, dude. That's the point of the fucking war. What's the, why would, what's the problem if the High Spear gets destroyed? Oh, maybe Dan doesn't have all the goddamn answers. For once. Alright.

I can't help but notice that you guys up until this second thought I was Etienne Boggins, so maybe I have the upper hand. Yeah, we didn't look hard at his face. We didn't look that hard at it. He might have aged badly. I don't know what his life is like. Whoa. Whoa. We didn't look at his face to try and remember it. Or yours, apparently. I'm a master of disguise, thank you very much. Okay, but any, so you guys are here with wizards to go to a tower. Hypothetically, yeah. Hypothetically.

Hypothetically. We might be going to the tower because the reason why the war is happening is so that the principles of the Firefields Principality can get in here and destroy the High Spear, which will disrupt communication across the globe. What do you mean? I mean, the High Spear's the only reason why everyone around the world can talk to each other without knowing each other's languages. Haven't you ever thought about that? Pasha, I say. I say pasha to that in the common tongue.

If you guys are gonna lie to me, please come up with a better lie. Okay. Okay, well what about this? Now that we know what each other's up to, why don't we just like do a little truce? Let everyone do, go about their business. Yeah. And we leave each other alone. Yeah. Truce, huh? Yeah, like you and your guys don't mess with us and we won't mess with you. Yeah, if you can keep the Menders off our back, we won't fuck with your election campaign. Someone roll a Charisma.

Okay, I have a plus three to Charisma. Yeah. Yep. Here we go. I've been blessed. Here we go. That's eleven. Okay. Nice. Yes. He kinda like drums his fingers on the table. So you'll just leave me alone. Yeah, and if anything happens to us or our friends, I'll slit your throat. Whoa, okay. That's a follow up. Yeah. That's a addendum to the agreement that I wasn't expecting but should have. It's only fair, but otherwise, we'll be cool. Yeah. Alright.

The shit that we have to do here is like super important to the war and it's super important to the world. If you disrupt us, if you let the Menders get in our way, then there's big implications. Alright. Okay, fine. So you stay out of my way, I stay out of yours. Exactly. Alright, fine. And he holds out his hand to all three of you, I guess. All three of us shaking. We do that three-way handshake. I wanna do an oath. Oh, shit. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Oh, with your last fairy hold. Yeah.

Yeah, cause I don't trust Dan, of course. That's probably smart. So smart. So, what is the oath? What happens to the person? I'll slit their throat. So to be clear, the agreement here is that if Dan breaks this agreement, his throat will get slit. Whoa. Whoa, just like magically, he'll just be dead. Or someone will do it. It will befall him. Yeah. Don't worry, Dan. I'm sure you have enough enemies out there. Is this the thing that Dan knows to be magically potent? I tell him. Yeah.

And he probably believes you. Shake his hand. It's a pinky promise. He looks really hesitant to do it. I don't know. Otherwise, I'll do it right now. I'd like to see you try. He's getting cagey now. Yeah. Okay, I wanna move really fast and get the knife up into his throat. Whoa. Uh-huh. 2d6 plus, uh, dexterity, I guess. Eleven. Okay, so I think it is actually like, he looks like he's going for something in his coat.

And as his hand is like, just breaching the barrier between coat and vest, your knife is at his throat. What are you getting? And he very, he holds up his other hand, very slowly reaches inside, and pulls out a knife. Drop it? Drops it on the table. I'll take that. It's a unicorn blade. It's a unicorn handled blade. And he's kinda, he kinda holds his hands out and is like, can't blame a guy for trying. To pull a knife on us, Dan? I mean, we're not exactly friends.

You're our oldest character, okay? You're the character that's existed the longest in this show. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. You're right. I hold a very special place in the GM's heart. Alright, fine. And he reaches out, and he pinky swears Billy. And he feels like that binding oath like, wrap around his finger and down his arm and into, around his neck. Oh, cool. Oh, so he feels like a tightness around his neck. Yeah. As long as the oath is active.

I, I gotta be honest with you guys, I was gonna sell you out. Oh, you fucking piece of shit! I really was, but fuck! Oh, this could have been so sweet. I could have sold you guys out. You piece of shit! I would have been mayor for sure. Now I gotta run on my own platform? What is your platform? I don't know. Somebody else wrote it. Taxes, something, blah blah blah. That's all people care about is taxes and sanitation and fucking education. Blah. Those are normal things. Yeah, that seems fine.

Boring. It seems like the Menders are setting you up to be an actually good mayor. No, I hate it. Anyway, alright. And he takes the little, like, fake tooth cap that he has and he slides it back over his gold tooth, puts the wig back on, flattens it out. So, I'm gonna go now. Hold on, not so fast. I have two things. One, we're gonna need a big boy's order of 50 donuts. Okay. Cause we made a promise to a guy. Alright. Two, we don't have any money. Okay. That means you're gonna have to pay for it.

God damn it. Menders have deep pockets, my friend. Yeah, they give me a per diem. This is gonna take like three days of my per diem. It doesn't fucking matter. At least you have three days. And then Vink runs his knife over his thumb over his throat. He runs his knife over his throat. Holy shit, no! He pulls Etienne's own blade across his neck. What have I done? Holy shit. He throws a poultice on there, which is waste to use. That was potent.

Alright, and yeah, he rings a little, he pulls a little cord on the wall of the private booth. Someone arrives, we'll have one order of big, a big boy's 50 donut whatever the fuck. And he gives him a bunch of coins. The guy comes back with the donuts. It's a huge bucket. Cause these aren't 50 mini donuts. These are full-size donuts. And everything else was served in like crystal vases, and this is just a plastic bucket. Yeah, a plastic bucket. A full-on plastic bucket.

A five-gallon pail full of donuts. It looks like Big Boy's Donuts might have at one time been more like a Dunkin' Donuts kind of place, but it's now under new management. And they tried to upscale it. But some of the remnants still survive. They couldn't find a crystal chalice big enough to hold 50 donuts. No one could carry it once it was full. And like three times a day, some blue-collar guy comes in and it's like, I'll get a large black coffee, please. They're like, sir, you gotta go.

You gotta go. That's why they have the jackets. Yeah. Just a bunch of construction workers shoving themselves into jackets over their work gear to get coffee. I miss the way this place used to be. But I did have another question. Uh-huh? Before you get out of here, Dan. Uh-huh? There's one last thing I wanna know. Who poisoned your meat? You really wanna know, huh? No, that's not the question I wanted to ask. So you really wanna know? I mean, now that you bring it up, I kinda wanna know.

After all these years, huh? Yeah. You really wanna know? Spill the beans! Come on. It was Etienne Boggins. What? Why? Because he wanted me out of town. Why? Maggie wanted me out of town. Oh. Yeah. Because she knew that you were a spy? She thought it was a little… Well, I wasn't at the time. Uh-oh. You weren't at the time? She thought it was a little convenient that I showed up at the time that I did. And maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Because you were in military intelligence, right?

Intelligence? He… You can see, like, his… He gives away something in the fact that he gives away absolutely nothing in that moment. What do you mean? Like, you served… Like, we met Walter Wick. What do you mean? Like, we met Walter Wick, we know Dathaniel, like, we know the way that those guys operated. We kind of know that you served in the army, because you told us that one time impudently. Did tell you that when I had a concussion, didn't I? When you had that concussion.

I did let that slip. So, we've kind of guessed that you served either within Dathaniel's talent or somewhere in the ranger army. And then Ving does a move that he knows from the training. Because, you know, he's part of the… Growing up in it. And he does, like, a… He throws a knife at Dan's face. Yeah, sort of. He throws his own knife at the side of his… You know, like, it deflects it off the wall, bounces off the wall, and it's coming for the side of his face.

And as the knife is, like, coming for the side of Dan's face, his hand shoots up and he grabs it. Whoa. By the handle. And he flips it on its blade and hands it back to you. That's yours. Oh. I'll take it. No, I missed that. It's mine. They don't have any more of these in Blades Palettes or whatever. Well, you guys magically bound me to a thing or I'd get my throat cut. So I can trust you to keep this secret, right? We've been traveling long enough. I was a Kestrel. What's that?

Oh, you guys don't know. Oh. A high-ranking general. Uh, no. Um, I guess the closest example that you would have in regular principalities military is Special Forces. Oh. Where, uh, individuals outside the regular rank structure trained in, uh, espionage, infiltration, you know, the usual kind of sneaky, sneaky stuff. Oh. And, uh, once I decided that I wanted to head out, I felt like my training made it a sort of natural fit for me to get up to the sorts of shenanigans I get up to.

Did you know Dathaniel and Walter? I did, yeah. Okay. Well, uh, Walter trained me. Hmm. He trained Dathaniel, too. He did. Did you ever meet me? You were very young. Ugh. I've always been their thing. Why are you so mean to us? Well, cause you guys are mean to me. What? No. Shut your stupid, ugly mouth. Yeah, you guys are super mean to me. All the time. Remember you made me, you bullied me into leaving my schloss meat behind? Oh. No, we were not.

That was the first thing that anybody listening to this show heard happen to us and me. No, that schloss meat sucked. We all remember. I was selling that. I had to sell that to make my living at that time. We were stating a preference of ours over his… Hmm. Yeah, you're bullies. You bullied me. You did bully him. Okay, fine. We're sorry. We're sorry. That is true and you are right and we apologize. And we're not just saying it. Are you guys really sorry? Yeah, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I actually feel bad about that. Yes. We were wrong. Ugh, wow. I've been, I've been holding that in my heart for years. That's why you've been an asshole to us? For the last two years? I mean, that and all the other times you guys were assholes to me. That's just what started it. I hope that this can be a gesture, a gesture towards our new relationship. Yeah. One where you don't end up with your throat cut. Yeah, I'm sorry. I really can't take it back, but if I could, I would.

It's an unbreakable oath. It is. It's okay. I'm not gonna betray you guys. Alright. And Tuck goes, as a gesture of goodwill, and he takes the guitar off of his back and he puts it in the case. He snaps it closed. He pushes it across. I want you to have this. Why? Then Tuck just shrugs. Takes it back. Okay. Then he kinda like awkwardly reaches out and takes this gigantic bass lute and like jams it into the booth next to him. That's yours now. Thanks, I guess.

I feel like it was probably important to me at one point. I can only assume so. I feel like I might have only had it for like five episodes, maybe. Cool. And now I've got it. Yeah, now you have it. Yeah, and I don't play an instrument. Yeah. Yet. Yet. Yeah. You're never too old to learn. You know what they say? The best time to plant a tree 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today. Right now. Alright. And you know what they say?

It's the best time to learn how to play an instrument. 20 years ago. The second best time to learn to play that instrument. Is 19 years ago. And then the third best time I think I get the idea. I think we should all leave. No, I wanna hear him out. I think we should all leave now. I think we should all leave. Wait, I did have one more question. Sorry. I did, I, this is. You got my secret thing out. You guys found out it was a kestrel. That's a huge thing. That's a huge thing.

To you, it clearly didn't do much to us. You know what happens if you literally tell anybody this and you're still in the great forest? No. They fucking kill you. What? How does Vingna know about this? Cause you were in a kestrel. Why don't you think? Cause we're secret. That's so secret. Yeah. Well we won't say anything. You better not cause it's gonna be bad for me. We're not gonna tell anybody. We promise you we're not gonna tell anybody. I have a lot, lot of enemies.

You guys think I have enemies as a criminal? You wouldn't believe the amount of enemies I have as a kestrel. Holy shit. Okay. That's why I left the forest. They hate me there. They hate my dad there. They threw my dad in a cage just for being my dad. Oh wait. Was that your dad up there? Was your dad a wood weaver? Yeah. Your dad is so cool. You guys met my dad? We love your dad. Yeah. He's awesome. My dad is great. How is he? He's doing good. He's doing pretty good. Is he still in a cage?

He's still in a cage. Cool. Really rocking the cage. It seems like he just comes and goes. Yeah. Yeah, that's my dad. He seems pretty happy in there. I think he's kinda chosen the cage as like a, almost as a shield. Yeah. To live his life however he wants. Oh man, that really, that really does the heart good. My plan was eventually to go back and get him. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know if he wants to leave though. He's, yeah, he's sort of got like kind of a Stockholm syndrome thing going. Cool.

Cool. We watched him jerk off once in a cage. Cool. Your dad is pretty cool. Your dad's pretty cool. Alright, well that's good. That's good he's doing good. Yeah. Seriously, if you tell anybody that I was a kestrel, I will die. Okay, we're not gonna tell anybody. Okay. Yeah. Have you heard of what's going on with Maggie? No. Okay. Was she with you? Oh right, yeah, you guys left and, yeah, I think I heard something. She's, I got a message through some channels, some back channels.

She's up north somewhere. She made it? I think so. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Uh, but you had a question? That was it. What, what's going on with Maggie? Yeah, she's up north somewhere. That's the last I heard. Okay, cool. I could try and get a message to her. Uh, yeah. Actually, yeah. What did we say? Just tell her we're here. Oh yeah, at the High Spear. Yep. Okay. We're staying at the Spearmint B&B. For now. She'll be okay with that? Yeah. We don't tell her about our wizard friends?

Oh, she, I think she chilled out. She knows Morrison Perreault. Yeah, she was with you in the tower. I forgot where we left off. She's accepted their role in what needs to happen. Yeah. Once she learned about like the Gibbous Man and stuff like that, she was like, okay, we've got bigger fish to fry. Yeah. And if these wizards want to help, then what am I gonna do? Yeah. Tell her that the box has, and I wink at him, and I go, has safely been delivered to the High Spear.

Is she gonna know what that means? Yeah. It might take a while for the, who knows how long it'll take to get this message to her. But I'll do it again. Okay. Alright. Thanks, Tan. Despite how it is actually to see you, it's nice to see you. Okay. He gets up and he smooths his bob wig on his head. Makes sure his ears are hidden under the hair. You look good. Thanks, thanks. He puts his- The oral. Hey. You know it, buddy. And, make sure I don't see you around these parts again, you rapscallions.

Oh, we promise you won't. You absolute scoundrels. Be sure to fuck off now. And he walks out the door and stomps away. Yeah. And leaves you alone. I take the donuts. Yeah, right. Yeah, you gotta take the donuts back to Thandie. Yeah. Uh, so you're leaving Big Boy's Donuts. Thank you for coming to Big Boy's Donuts. Please come again. Thank you for having us. Uh, please leave your jackets in the big bin outside the place. For jackets. So we do, yeah, we toss our jackets back there. Great.

And as you're leaving, you're walking back down towards the exit and, uh, you're stopped in the hallway by a number of mall security. They've got their- they've got swords, dulled like baton swords. They've got their little security shields. And they're like, Halt! You have committed a crime! Whoa. Within the realm of the Highspear Mall. What are you talking about? What crimes do you accuse us of? Shoplifting. The highest crime in the Highspear Mall. You have been ordered detained.

On order of Head of Mall Security, Tina Durger. What? And took us- what are we accused of shoplifting? One. Giant two-necked loot. One. Small seahorse knife. One. Bag of illicitly stolen music bottles. And then took us to the Highspear Mall. And we're like, Well, I don't see any two-necked loot. And then I clocked Dan walking out the front door. And I'm like, Oh, there's that guy with the loot! Get him! Look, he's got- it's so obvious he's got a two-necked loot with him! Roll 2d6 plus charisma.

This is perfect. Let's get him! Clankle, clankle, clankle, clankle. Oh, that's 11. And they turn and they see Dan with the loot. Walking and they go, Hey, stop! And they all turn and start chasing Dan. And you see Dan look at you guys like, What the fuck? And that's where we're- And that's where we're gonna end the episode. I'm your Game Master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdulaziz. Still there. Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Hoppers.

Take care, everyone. Playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone. Thank you to Erin Reid for her intro and outro music. If you want to listen to Erin's original music, which I highly recommend, check it out at erinreid.bandcamp.com. And if you want to listen to all of the music produced for the show, you can find us on Spotify. Uh, thank you to all of our supporters around the world. They support us, not just with their love, adoration, and listening powers.

They support us on Patreon, which you can do at patreon.com slash speltlore or speltlore.com slash money, please. What do they get when they support us? Oh, brother, let me fucking tell you. Postcards. Drawn and written by the team. Us. The crew. The up-to-date Mall Brats feed. Yeah. Dozens of episodes of Mall Brats, unreleased. Oh, you're gonna love it. Raw. Uncut. No, they're cut. They're very cut. Yes. Uh, it's actually cleaner that way.

Uh, and they also get access to things like games run by Abdul and myself at the higher levels. That's right. Gift boxes, merch, you're gonna love it. So check it out at patreon.com slash speltlore or speltlore.com slash money, please. I guessed it on a recent game that Sean ran where I played a Canadian action hero called Jesus Sinclair. You better believe he did and it was so much fun. And if that sounds cool to you, you can have that in your life.

Thank you finally and most of all to all of you for listening. We'll see you next time. 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. Thanks for watching.

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

I'm your host, Spout, and I'm your host, Spout. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello everybody! Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. Hello Sean! And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Hello everyone! I've never been directly said hello to in the opening sequence. That really threw me off. I made eye contact. I don't exist as an individual in this place, I am the narrator.

You only exist to facilitate the rules. I agree. Only. When last we left our heroes, they were in the middle of an infiltration into the security hotel suites of mayoral candidate Etienne Boggins. The plan kind of started falling apart as someone arrived at the door. Thandie, the kind of kidnapped, sort of coerced security hiree, was quickly inducted into the skullduggery as he became part of a plan to make it seem like he'd had a big shit. That he was taking a shit. There was a lot of farting.

It was a pretty par for the course spoutlore situation, really. It harkened back to the first season. It sure did. And the second season and third and every season of the show. Parts of the fourth, yeah. Yeah. And at the door, mayor Etienne Boggins himself. Thandie was able to throw off suspicion, mostly due to the power of the farts emerging from the bathroom. Jesus Christ. And danger was avoided. You are so mad. I, it's just, I want to. You are so mad. I want to. I want to. I want to.

I want to. I want to. I want to. I want to. I want to. I want to. Jesus Christ. And danger was, danger was avoided. You are so mad. I, it's just, I want to. You are so mad at us. Sometimes I want us to broaden our comedic horizons and sometimes I have to allow a fart joke to happen, but it was a good fart joke. It was hilarious. I think the tapes will show that I had a good time. And then afterwards I punched a couch cushion over and over and over.

Thandie revealed that he had been hired for the security gig. By an individual known as the Kestrel, and the party asked, in exchange for a bucket of donuts, if he could set up a meeting between them and the Kestrel, which he did, taking place in the High Spear Mall, returning after many seasons and many years to that beautiful, magical, terrible, post-apocalyptic shopping center. The party prepared for their meeting by going on a shopping spree, as they always do.

They hit up Sages, run by Sage and Sage. They both look like one half of Gwyneth Paltrow. Whoa. Yeah, exactly. Bottom or top? Always bottom. You went vertical? Ving bamboozled them and me into giving him, like, 50 uses of poultice and herbs. I think it was 10. Yeah, guys, don't worry about anything from here on in. Yeah, look. Yeah. In a bunch. In a bunch of fights. Yeah. I want to get in a street fight. You were in a mall fight. Yeah.

And then moments later, Billy was, in fact, in a street fight as the World of Blades and House of Knives were feuding in an attempt to drum up business. Then Tuck hit up Short and McWides as he realized that he never picked up the loot he dropped off for repair several years ago. And while the guy went into the back to get the loot, Tuck shoveled a bunch of music bottles into his backpack. Oh, right. I should write that down in my inventory. Yeah, you have, like, at least, I'd say, a dozen.

Okay. Holy moly. They're music bottles. They're singles? Well, I mean, it's a tiny backpack. Music? Testers? The test… Oh, they're like hit clips. You guys remember hit clips? Oh, yeah. Where it has, like, one song on a piece of plastic? Yeah. What if they came in, like, cases, you know? Oh, like a six pack? Yeah. That's how an album comes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a compilation. It's like big, shiny tunes. Yeah. It's a bunch of songs in one, like, six pack. Six pack case. I like that.

Of the same genre. Big shiny tunes for our American listeners. Look it up. I'm pretty sure they know. It's not my job to educate you about Canadian culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look it up. Look it up. In fact, only look up big shiny tunes two. Yeah, don't look up the modern ones. That's for sure. Tuck did not pay for any of that stuff. The guy's only defense was going, no, wait. And Tuck just walked out. Well, it's too much money. Yeah. What was it? Something like 200 coins or something like that?

Yeah. It was more than 200 coins. That's wild. They had to repair a shattered loot. Yeah. And then they had to store it for two years. So that's like a year's salary. Yeah. It doesn't mean we have to pay them that. It's not my fault you guys are poor. Yeah. Whoa. That's not our fault either. Are you blaming us right now? That's 20 weeks worth of wages. You guys are so- We've never had a job. You're literally freelancers. You have money all the time. Yeah.

You're like, I can't believe you spent 200 coins on a scarf. That's true. And then I get in trouble for him. Well, we can't. He's too big. That's true. The party headed to Big Boys Donuts, a upscale donut restaurant, to meet the Kestrel for their meeting. And as they sat in their private upstairs booth, Etienne Boggins himself arrived and then immediately revealed himself to be Colonel Dan Der Glott. Classic. Love him. Love that guy. Disguise. Yeah.

It turns out that he has been borrowed from Maggie Cole to another group of menders, which have been attempting to get Dan slash Etienne elected using the story of Etienne Boggins as the quote unquote savior of Mudlark in order to get a more direct line to the princeps and the ruling powers of the High Spirit Principality. Mm-hmm . For what reason, we do not know. Dan also got into his backstory a little bit to sort of- To sort of clear the air.

He was a Kestrel, a sort of special forces operator in the Great Forest military or in the Ranger Corps. He also revealed to you that it was Etienne Boggins that put that elf's bane in his schloss meat all those many years ago, clearing up one of the first unsolved mysteries of the Spout Lore universe. Maybe the only unsolved mystery that was left. Listeners, you let us know. How many threads have I forgotten? The answer is none. My mind is a steel trap.

The labyrinth within which the Minotaur dwells is impenetrable. And the Minotaur is lost. The Minotaur is 88. Guys, guys please. I have no bars. Can someone tell me how to get out of here? He's on his phone. Yeah. My phone's about to die. My phone's at like 2%. Somebody get me out of here. You parted on the terms magically enforced by Billy's fairy oath that you were a man. You were a man. You were a man. You were a man. You were a man. 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. There's a woman.

Unless you guys want to stick around in the mall, I imagine we can cut forward to Thandie's room, sneak back in. You got his big bucket of donuts that you promised. I like to think that we dropped off the donuts, but knocked on the door, and then he was like, wow. Wow, big old bucket of fresh baked donuts for me. Yeah, cuts to us. We're listening around the corner to him being excited about it. Oh, my God. There they are. Big bucket of fresh donuts just for Thandie.

Ving's arranged it as an edible arrangement, so they're like a big bucket of flour. Oh, so beautiful. It's not just the donuts. It's the presentation that I love. And then from where you're standing, you see the window open, and he's just leaning on the windowsill. He's got a donut in his hand. Oh, nice. He slowly brings it up. He takes the tiniest little bite. He savors it. He looks out at the city. A single tear rolls down his cheek.

Thandie, now that we're alone with just the donuts, I think that I can tell you about all the things I've been thinking. Just. For my days as a raggle muffin on the corridors of the High Spur Mall. Now here, eating this donut. It was a tasty road. Things really came full circle. Like this bucket of donuts. The donut represents all the full circles in my life. And now looking at the city skyline, I know there are good things in the future for you, Thandie.

The hole represents the time I didn't have any donuts. But the donut represents the time I did have donuts. Now I can kill Fenton Beasley. Should we go back, hook up with Morris and Perel? See if they found anything out. Yeah. See what they found out about the tower. They got a room at the Spearmint B&B. Oh, they're in the same. So you guys were in the Spearmint B&B. Yeah, we just went down one floor. Yeah. So you knock on the door and Morris and Perel are there. They're in bathrobes full on.

They hit the robes up right away. And Perel has a towel around his head as well. He's drinking pineapple juice. You don't have any hair, Perel. What's a towel for? I like the way the towel feels on my head. It's a warm, hot, wet towel. You know, Billy, one day when you don't have any hair, you'll know. What? I'm never going to lose my hair. What are you talking about? Oh, we'll see about that. And it skips a generation. So if genetics are any indication. Oh my gosh.

Billy's never thought of this. Oh no. Perel made me bald. I'm going to be bald like Perel. It's my nightmare. Oh my God. Two of my dads are bald. Yeah. I look at Tuck and I'm like, uh oh. I look at Bing like, it might be coming. He's just trying to get sticks out of his hair. He's trying to remember where Bing's hairline was when you met him. Yeah. And where it is now. Yeah. So Morris and Perel are here. Victor is also in a bathrobe because he is still in his illusory form. Oh, right. Yeah.

He's sitting like very wide stanced on a chair, staring at the door. Enter. Close the door. The city is full of dangers. I close the door. And he just nods and continues to stare at the door. And Morris and Perel are sitting on the bed drinking their pineapple smoothies. And yeah, they're just like, so what did you learn? We tell him about the mystery that we solved. Oh. About Etienne Boggins. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Great. So that's out of our hair, I guess, so to speak. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dan's not going to fuck with us. Just to be clear, we're going to let this mysterious mender group just get a puppet mayor installed. Yeah. I don't care. All right. Cool. I trust the menders, mostly. You trust the people that wanted to imprison me for eternity? Yeah, dude. Mostly. You were a piece of shit when we met. Whoa. Okay. That's true. That's true. You're right. I was, actually. No, that's fine. That's fine. I was absolutely evil at that point. Yeah. So what now? I don't know.

There's kind of like two main avenues that you all can take. You either come with Morris and me to the High Spear, and we can start uncovering what we need to get started on our project, which will, again, potentially take several months, like the actual work of doing whatever we need to do. Yeah. Or you can go and try and take out the Blackhammer twins, which was what Dathaniel suggested as being a good way to halt the Gibbous Man's plans. Right. I do want to kill Colm Blackhammer. Yeah.

Because he stabbed the fuck out of Billy. Oof. That did hurt pretty bad. Yeah. How are you feeling, Billy? I feel okay. You know, I can just tell that so much of me was stabbed. Yeah, Billy, you weren't like magically healed or anything either, so you've got like a healing wound. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like… Just stuff is loose in there. It's getting better. Uh-huh. We keep actively having to stop him from picking at his scab. Ew. I would never do that.

There's a scene with a cone around Billy's head. The poultice has molasses in it, Billy. I know. That's right. That's why you had to wear the cone. It's hard to resist. Uh-huh. All right. Do I want to go to war, or do I want to look at books? Yeah. You can always try and link up with the actual war effort. You could sign on as mercenaries. Mm. I feel like given that the Gibbous Man is coming for us now, like after you fought him, it might be a good idea to stay moving for a bit. That's true.

I don't want to draw him here while you guys are here. Yeah. I don't want you to do that either. You know what we should keep in mind, given what we learned about him, is that we might want to be on the lookout for something that can hurt him. Given that he's corporeal, that's not a problem we have to solve right now, but if you guys figure that out, and I point at Perel, I'm like, if you guys ever come across anything that you think could hurt the Gibbous Man, let us know. Okay. Yeah.

We've got our room keys for Hither and Yon, so we can just deliver it to Mirrors. Ask Chimes. If we see Chimes, we'll ask him about it. Yeah. Same. If you see Chimes, ask him about it. Okay. Is there anything you want us to ask Chimes for you? Just like what his kind of like day-to-day regimen looks like, because he's over 2,000 years old, and he's looking ripped. He looks like a bag of ropes. And he still got all his hair, too. Well, most of his hair. And I, you know. Go on.

You got very sensitive about your bald head ever since Billy made fun of you that one time. I didn't really mean it. I'm so sorry, Perel. It's fine. I'm not even worried about it. I'm a transmutation wizard. If I wanted hair, I could grow it. I thinks it's sexy. I like it. You're like a sexy cantaloupe. You're like an egg that I can fuck. Which has always been my dream. Donkey. All right. So you're going to go stay on the move. Yeah.

And I think if we're going to try and get to the war front, it makes sense to see if Mirrors could use Hither and Yon to get us there. Yep. We know nothing of Callum. We need to understand what his part is in all this. I do like the idea of us going behind the enemy lines and pretending to be soldiers. I do love that. Like join the Blackfield Principality. Oh. Yeah. Firefields. Yeah. Principality. Blackfield is that music festival. I was telling you. Firefield. Yeah. There we go. Sorry.

The Firefields Principality. Yeah. Oh, and be spies. We're going to be spies. I think we might be spies. Pretty soon. Yeah. I think we might be spying on some people. Oh my God. Uh-oh. We accidentally spied on you. We just outsmarted the best spy we've ever met, too. That's true. Did it do a lot? Yeah. Yeah. Did not expect it. Yeah. Okay, cool. Then we'll, Morris and I will head out in, I mean today, head off for the High Spear. We got a bit of a hike ahead of us. Okay.

And we'll head back to Hither and Yon. What do you wish me to do? I wish you to hug me, Victor. And he gets up and he hugs you. Yeah. And you feel, though it looks to everyone- His little dog paws. Yeah. You feel like it looks like a man is crouching down to hug you. You feel dog paws on your arms. He's doing that thing that huskies do where like they- Oh, I love you. I love you. He says, I love you. I love you. I love you, Victor. Be a good boy without me.

Do you wish me to stay and watch over the two pathetic old men? I think that's for the best. That's smart. I will do this thing. Very soon, I believe I will look like a big wolf again, but I think that will be okay. I think tomorrow you'll look like a big wolf. It only lasts a day. It only lasts a day. I have one half day left to be a man. I will make the best use of it. Enjoy the thumbs you have now. Cuts to him on a Ferris wheel with a cotton candy. Hooray!

And then him using a fork and knife for his dinner. Oh, wow. Look at these. He's just like… Everybody he meets, he's just thumbs up. Way to go, everyone. Your patheticness is not holding you down. And then at the Italian restaurant he's at, he looks across the way and he sees a woman who makes eye contact with him and then it turns all pink haze. Dream weaver. And then it's like a series of cuts of them.

Like he's picking her a rose out of a garden, but he's like digging it out of there and handing it to her. In his mouth. And they dance in the middle of the restaurant. Like, cause there's… Yeah. There's like, you know, live music. And he's got the rose between his teeth. Such wooden, awkward, white stance dancing. Yeah. Yeah. They go on a moonlit walk at night. She says, do you want to go for a walk? Oh boy! Walk! Holy moly! She throws a stick. He runs after it. Yeah.

And then at the stroke of midnight… You see her bending down and picking up a pile of shit. Yeah. And she looks up and there's a dog. Yeah. It's a wolf. A giant wolf. And she screams. Yeah. No, she makes eye contact. She knows. She knows. It's him. And she lets him lope off into the sunset. Single tear. Single tear. Lands on the rose that he gave her. Oh, drips down the rose. It looks like the rose is crying. Tears of a rose. Tears of a rose once again.

That's the song that's playing as he runs off into the night. The tears of the rose, they fall. And there's like, she's like on a bridge, like looking into the water. So sad that she lost what might've been the love of her life. And then a rose petal falls into the water. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it drifts down the river. And down the river, there's a big tongue as Victor's drinking out of the water. And back on the bridge, there's another woman.

It's like, did you fall in love with a wolf tonight too? Highspear's a crazy city. Highspear, baby. And then they lock eyes. And it's a big crazy weaver. And they're dancing on the bridge together. They chant each other the roses. These two people are locked in an infinite loop of lost love. Love. Rose cross lovers. Oh, that's amazing. And then Victor's back in the Spearmint B&B with Morrison Farrell putting their backpacks on. Yeah. And you three head back to Hither and Yon. Yes.

That's the plan? Yeah. All right. It's right where you left it. The nice wrought iron and wood sign that Hither and Yon manifested when it appeared here. The mayor fair is still crackling away. There's food booths and games. All of the various mayoral candidates are screaming at each other. A couple of them are fighting in the street. Whoa. Yeah. It's just how you determine who gets to still be running for mayor. Dan is one of the people in the fight. Yeah.

And he looks like you're seeing Etienne Boggins like fighting somebody in the road. And he's like flopping around like a loser. But the three of you see like Dan throws in some surreptitious moves. Sick. And just takes down his opponent. He's like, wow, I suppose that means that I continue to run. What a nice surprise. And now I will get on the prize hog to indicate that I won that. And he starts riding a little pig around the square. What a lovely culture we have. He's a top hat.

He's like the mayors of New York. Everyone's like applauding and throwing handkerchiefs in the air. Confetti. He's waving from atop his pig. Mayors is like watching from the front door of Hither and Yon. He's like, what the fuck? I hate this town. So wasteful. And the mayor of my town briefly was a pig. The mayor of your town briefly was this guy. Was this pig? No. Oh, and? That guy. Oh, wow. Wow. I actually hate my town, too. Well, and he like walks back into Hither and Yon. Yeah.

There's like an old man who's been sitting in the pub for a day and a half. Yeah. Just absolutely wasted. He's like teetering on the stool. Yeah. And that was the fourth pair of boots I made. The fifth pair of boots were actually a gift from my brother. And it turns out they'd be the boots that killed him. The sixth pair of boots I made. And he's like, uh-huh. And he just comes back and like takes the mug out of his hand. He's like, uh-huh. Uh-huh.

And he just puts a glass of water on the table in front of the guy. Do you want me to get rid of that guy? No, he's pretty harmless. I am a professional bouncer. And I show him my certificate. Your bouncer's union card. You did laminate it. I did laminate it. Nice. Yeah. The picture is just Tuck doing like the pussy eating thing. Oh, yeah. And then the picture on the back is him suplexing someone who got too rowdy at a Buffalo Wild It's like a, what do you call it? Like holographic. Oh, yeah.

It's like him. Zip, zip. It's an animation, a two-frame animation of Tuck suplexing a guy through a table. This is my license and my resume. Yeah. Yeah. It's also a trading card in McCall. It's worth something. Anyways, you want me to ditch his old cobbler? I can suplex him like this. I don't think that'll be necessary. He's just going to sober up a little bit. So I'm getting the vibe you guys are heading out. Yeah, because I'm wearing my boots. I'm wearing my backpack and all my stuff.

Billy's got a big hat and a walking stick and sunglasses on. I'm crying, of course. I mean, you guys have your room keys. I know. It's just a different feeling. It's just a different feeling when you know that you have to spend all day outside. There is a thing where it's like when you leave the front door, because this happened also when Morris and Perel left, where they were like, I guess this is goodbye. Yeah. It always feels like, because you don't know. It's a magical thing.

But it is like, I think there's something about the bar. That makes it feel like it's the final scene of like a really long running sitcom. Yeah. Where Mr. Feeny looks at the empty classroom or whatever. Yeah. And goes, class over. Yeah. I love you all. Oh. So, okay. So your plan is to get behind enemy lines and join the Firefields Principality Army? Yeah. Yeah. And if Mears could take us there with Hither and Yon. Oh, yeah. You guys had talked about rolling for it.

Yeah, we did talk about rolling for it. Like, because. Hither and Yon has its own mind about where it goes or stays. Yeah, totally. So we could try rolling for it. Yeah. Because it takes so much intention, right? To go to the right place. And right now we're a little bit scattered. So I like the idea of leaving it up to the die to see what it thinks. Yeah, totally. I think Hither and Yon will have its own like door mechanic where you roll.

I want to say probably charisma to try and like convince Hither and Yon to take you where you want to go. 10 plus. It takes you where you need to be. Mm hmm. Seven to nine. You're close, but not quite. And six plus. You are in danger in some way. Okay. End up somewhere that's not good. Are we like all rolling together? I think it's whoever's opening the door. Like, I think it is a single role to determine.

Billy is like still like he's trying to be brave, but he's actually pretty scared to go back because his knife wound is very fresh. Yeah. So he's kind of clinging on to Mears like, I really miss you. Yeah, I'll miss you too, Billy. But you can come back. Literally. Anytime you find a door. Okay. Yeah. I'm just going to hold on a little longer. Okay. That's fine. We didn't see you for so long. And now you're back and it's just really hard to leave again.

And I mean, who knows what's going to happen? And it's a magical bar and it's the nostalgia field. It's it's this happens to everybody that spends time in Hither and Yon. It's like a winter morning and you're trying to get out of your bed, but so cozy. You really don't want to. Yeah, it's it is a it is a bar that is. It's metaphysically comforting to people. It rejuvenates your spirit. It makes sense that it feels bad to leave, but you can come back anytime. Just hold on to your room keys.

I lost my key. You lost. What do you mean you lost your key? No, it's in one of these flaps. I don't know. You got to check. You cut back to Tuck, who is unaffected by the nostalgia field. He's just eating a giant kielbasa in the kitchen. And he's like, fucking thing. Forgets his key everywhere. He picks up. Picks it up. Yeah, Tuck just leaves. He's just going in and out of the door, going out, checking out the fair. Yeah. And the seventh pair of boots I made. You're never going to believe this.

It was actually the second pair of boots I made. Whoa. How did that happen? They came back to me like every good pair of boots does. Cool. And the camera shifts to a wide and Tuck is just dragging the table. Out the front door. That's awesome, dude. That's so cool. Is the dude just like seated at the table? Yeah. Yeah. He's seated as if nothing is changing. And then he's just outside. Yeah. And the eighth pair of boots. Eighth pair of boots I made. Now there's like a chicken on the table.

It's just pecking at his plate of bread. You're going to love this. It's a nice pair of boots. I have yet to make. Ooh, where am I? Click. Click. And then all the shutters slam. Yeah. And Mears comes back from the cellar. Oh, that guy just left on his own. Stole your table too. Piece of shit. Oh. Okay. That's weird. I bolted it down. It's just holes in the floor where it got ripped out. The floorboards are broken. Still attached to the table. Mears just sighs, rolls his eyes. All right.

Well, it seems like Hither and Yon has decided it's time to go. Where to now? Who's? The scary place. So we want to go behind enemy lines. We got to figure out who's going to roll this. Tuck tells you guys, the thing I want more than anything is to kill Cole and Black Hammer. Yes. So if I open the door, that's going to be where we go. Okay. Or maybe it'll take us to Allison. What I want most is to kill that guy. And to see Allison. And then I smell her scarf. Yeah, Cole.

Oh, no, don't do it like that. You're going to cross your wires. You're going to try to fuck Cole and Black Hammer. Dream weaver. Wait, no, hold on. Focus up. Yeah, I think you should roll in that case because you want it really bad. But are we trying to get to Callum, though? We're trying to find out more about him. A thing to remember, Sean O'Hara, you're speaking. Last time you fought Cole and Black Hammer. He beat the brakes off you guys. Tuts. You could always, you're kind of healed up.

You could always try and ambush him. I feel like if I was you three, I would maybe want to be a little prepared to do so. So maybe I shouldn't be the one that opens the door because it'll and Tuck is speaking totally truthfully to you guys right now. It will either take us to Cole or Allison. I have not jerked off in a long time. I guess we've been sharing a room. Yeah, we can't. Okay. Well, if I open the door, it's going to go to a bowl of soup or. Bowl of soup. I think that's about it.

All right. If I open the door, I'll probably go back to that bathroom that I've been using to jerk off in where I lost my key. You dropped it in the toilet. Let's roll to see who rolls. Oh. Yeah. I like that. Who can focus their minds enough. Okay. Multiple. So one or two. It's you, Jess. One or two. One or two is you. Oh, we're rolling to see who one person rolls. Three or four, five or six. Okay. One. So you got it. Okay. I got to it. Okay. So to be. Okay. So just so I understand. Yeah.

Are you guys trying to get to like Black Glass to sign up? To the fire field? Yeah. Because that was your plan was like initially your plan was BW. Yeah. To get double agents. In our minds. To get close to Cal and Black Hammer. Yes. I mean, that's a good option for sure. Mm-hmm. That's what I want to do. Yeah. Yeah. We can do that. I want to get into that army. I thought we were like going to like wherever they live. I'm a little worried that they'll know who we are. Yeah.

Because of the battle and we fought him and everything. I think we need to go somewhere sneakier first to see how we can become double agents way off the line. Okay. Like way on the back back line. Yeah. Like the city, like where the battles are being planned. Yeah. The high command. Yeah. Oh, so we go to Black Glass. Black Glass is the capital of the Firefields Principality. I was thinking like the High Command is maybe a tent or like, you know, there's like a base, an army base somewhere.

There's probably a fort or a camp out there somewhere. So the goal is to get to High Command, sneak in, and observe how Callum is running the operation. Yes, and we could sneak in as recruits. Yes, and we're trying to figure out what the fuck he knows about that gibbous man. How much they're working for him or how he's pulling their strings. So you're trying to get close to Callum Blackhammer. Yes. Whatever way possible. That's what Billy thinks. So he puts the bowl of soup out of his mind.

He pushes it aside like he's full, but he's not. Yeah, he pushes it in front of Callum Blackhammer. I see Callum Blackhammer's face, whatever he looks like, and I'm like… You're just imagining Colm Blackhammer, but like a nerd. And he takes a spoon and takes some of your soup. Yeah, I'm just like… I'm gonna fight you. Alright, so we're rolling 2d6 plus charisma. Sure, yeah. To try and convince Heather and Yon to take you where you gotta go. I'm gonna drink that soup. Plus charisma. My soup.

So one. Uh-oh. Holy shit. Five total. Oh no. So full failure. Do you have any child? Fairy child? I do. I have one left. I'll use it. I change it. I'll use it to a seven to nine with my fairy child. Yeah. So you're getting close, but not quite. Hmm. What if it… What if it, like, instead of opening up in, like, Blackglass or near where Callum Blackhammer would be, we would open up on the road to it. Okay.

I think, like, I like the idea that you open the door and it's literally, like, outside is moving. Like you're in a cart. That's a good idea. Open the back of a carriage. Of the Highspear Army. Or of the Blackglass Army. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of the Blackglass Army? Yeah, I like that. Because you're trying to get to the camp, right? So you're like, I want to go to where Callum Blackhammer is. And it was like, oh, Hither and Yon's like, good news. Other people are trying to get there, too.

Yeah. And it opens you up into the back of a carriage. You see people, like, you crack the door. Uh-huh. And there's, like, you see, like, a Mac, like a war Mac, like, walking. Boom. Boom. Boom. Whoa. Like mechanics hanging off of it. But it's also, like… Hanging off of it? How? Like, riding it. Like in a papoo? Papoose? Did you say papoose? You know how Billy climbed it? How there's, like, handholds and scaffolding and stuff? Like, there are guys, like, hanging onto those scaffolds.

There's one lazy mechanic. He's got a hammock tied to the chest of it. And it's got, like, supplies on it. Like, it's got crates and bags, like, lashed to it. That makes sense. Oh, yeah. He's a Mac Mule. Yeah, exactly. And it's wearing, like, a big tartan. Like, wrapped, like, down across the chest. And then it's got, like, a war kilt, like, around its waist. And it is… This one looks like it's been… No, I'm not gonna get too many into detail. Tell me. Tell us. Tell us. Tell us.

He's playing the bagpipes. I actually do think they have pipes on them that make noise, like, as they walk. Like the sound in War of the Worlds. That… Oh, yeah. Terrifying. That's so scary. Not to make them too Scottish, but I think there are ones that are basically pipers that make, like, bagpipe music to scare opponents. And it's so loud. It's deafening. What's that, like, Celtic, like, horn that's so scary? Oh, the Carnix horn? Yeah. The, like, horn? Yeah. Screaming one?

Like, making, like, that kind of sound. Yeah, totally. Oh, yeah. So then the mouths of the pipes look like… Some of them look like animal heads. Oh, yeah. That's cool. Oh, yeah. I also like that maybe they use the music to communicate and coordinate. Yes, absolutely. Different songs mean different things. That's cool. They're flanking right. I think the Macs also, like, talk to each other. Kind of like whale song. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool.

They have, like, rudimentary intelligence. They're basically animals. Yeah. So that's what you see when you open the door. And then there's, like, mechanics hanging off of it and foot soldiers. Like, a real ragtag group of people, because it looks like they maybe just joined. There's a horse that's black and evil-looking. Evil horse. And there's a really friendly dog that sees the door open and it smells the food and then starts, like, trying to get it. Maybe that's the seven to nine. Yeah.

Fully is that, like, you do see a dog that's just walking, like, notice you and start wagging its tail and, like, lift its nose. And then it starts trotting. Towards the back of the cart. What do you do? Get him in here. No, we gotta get out. We gotta go. What? They're gonna see us get out. Are they gonna see us get out? Yes. I mean, maybe, but you can… Roll for surroundings. Roll for being sneaky. What's it called? Observe surroundings? Observe surroundings? Observe surroundings?

I'd like to roll observe surroundings. What here can I see? What can I smell? What can I taste? I got twelve. Oh. Holy shit. So you get three questions off the certain realities list. I gave you so much with that Mac description because I got really excited. Yeah. Sick. So we know what we should be on the lookout for. What's about to happen?

What's about to happen is if that dog makes enough of a fuss about getting into the back of the cart, someone's gonna be like, ugh, and then open the door to let him in. Okay. Yeah. Because you hear somebody going like, Angus, what is it, Angus? What is it, boy? Are you hungry? You're a good dog. You're a good dog. You're not racist at all. And neither am I, but don't tell anyone that. Traditionally, most of this army is. It's in their fundamentals. What's valuable?

Hanging off a peg right next to the door are several, it looks like uniforms of some kind. Great. What here is not what it appears to be? You hear the like, what is it, Angus? You're a good boy, aren't you? You're not a racist at all. And then you're like, wait a second, I've think I fucking know that voice. And going to like, ruffle the head of this dog is Merbo. One of the brother mayors of Pinewood. Pinewood. Holy shit. Uh oh, he knows us. He also likes us. Let's put on these costumes.

So that's the question is like, what the fuck is he doing here? Well, it's in the fire fields, right? It's in the fire fields. They definitely just conscripted everyone that was fighting age. That's what these racist fucks would do. They would. They would draft people. Yeah. Okay, let's grab those uniforms. And try and sneak out. Because if Merbo sees us and he's not a bad guy right now, we put him at risk if he recognizes us. Yes, we do. And that dog. Yeah. That dog who is pure of heart.

So if anything happens to him, we're all gonna be so sad. Oh my god, the stakes just got so high. A pure of heart dog is on the… Angus? Oh, boy. Alright. Do we need a role to put on these costumes? Not to put on the costumes, but can we secretly grab them? Yeah, I'd say that you could grab them pretty. Pretty easily. They're right next to the door. Just youp. But to sort of put on the air of being fire fields recruits, you'd have to roll something for sure. Charisma. What are the costumes?

They're black. Like army uniform, but what kind of… I was imagining the fire fields military, their colors are probably black and red. Yeah, black and red. I think there's like leather, heavy… Boots. Heavy boots. Yeah. Are they… I was gonna say like heavy leather like armor. Yeah. Because like maybe the iron is reserved for higher standing people. Oh, that makes sense. That's really cool. Yeah. So yeah, what kind of uniforms do we think they are? Is it like mechanics uniforms?

Infantry uniforms? You hear Tuck zip his… He's got a gimp mask on. He's like, I don't know what this guy does. Just a giant beard stuffed inside of a leather mask. It's just all leather. That's all… When you said they were all leather, it's like this tight leather thing. No, just the top. Why is it regular clothes? Zippers over the nipples like this. My guy is just leather, guys. They're regular. There's a leash on that. He unzips the mouth. He's like, why is there so many zippers on there?

They're regular clothes. They're linen and leather. I mean, having like a gimp style mask for some sort of terrifying like berserker guy is so creepy and cool. Yeah, I bet the mechanics wear masks, but probably not zippy leather gimp masks. Probably just normal masks. Or if it's just like the executioner, even. You want to be wearing a gimp suit. I think it's kind of funny. I think it's cool and kind of funny. I don't have to if you guys hate it. I like it. I'm fine with it.

It's gross, but I hate it, but I'm fine with it. It's not going to affect me, but I hate it. There was a fucking gimp on YTV, okay? The Punisher? The Punisher. No, he was wearing like body armor. I'm dressed like the Punisher. He was wearing like little straps, too. He had a gimp mask. Did he? Pull it up. The Punisher. I don't know who you're talking about. I don't know this Punisher. It was a game show.

It was a Canadian children's game show where a gimp slimed children when they got trivia questions wrong. It was truly the best show I've ever seen. You can't say that on television. He 100% looks like a gimp for sure. He does. That's the Punisher. He's the best. It's called Uh-Oh. It's called Uh-Oh. Yeah, that's a gimp. That's a gimp. He looks like a mixture of gimp and venom. You know that some dads would watch. They'd watch this show and be like, What the fuck?

Golping whenever the Punisher comes on screen. And then sliming everyone. Jesus Christ. This is the part that's always so funny about disguises because we love disguises. That someone just had a seven foot tall, five foot wide, all leather outfit hanging on a peg. Oh, it was five feet tall, three feet wide. It's a crop top now. Yeah, it comes up to his calves. It's capris and a crop top. Great. Perfect. It was a barbecue cover. A bunch of zippers on it. This is not clothes. No.

This was the kind of gimp mask. That's a barbecue cover. This was the cover they put on the Mac when they turn it off. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, which is a barbecue cover. Yeah, totally. What about Billy? Billy can only really fit into the linen tunic that he's had to like tear the arms and bottom off of. So he's not drowning in it. Great. So I just look kind of like a sad boy. A sad little poor boy in my raggedy linen outfit.

Like a weird little ragamuffin that hung on to the cart as they left. Yeah. Yeah. What about Ving? Ving's got a mechanics outfit on. Cool. He's got a tool belt, some wrenches, put some grease on his face. Yeah. I imagine they have like big leather aprons. And then I did, now that you were talking about a leather mask, I imagine they have like round leather masks with like lenses. Yeah. Like welder's goggles made of black glass. That's a mask that's on mine. Yeah. I have a leather mask.

I have a little breathing mask on. Yeah. Totally. Oh, cool. It would be cool if they all had like sort of like breathing apparatus for when the Mac like creates a bunch of accurate smoke. I pictured a bit of a cage around that for some reason because it's a very sensitive thing. Oh, cool. So it's like a weird cage around a breathing apparatus. Maybe the cage to reinforce it. So like if you're hit in the face. Yeah. There's sort of like a cross between a hockey helmet and Mad Max. Yeah.

A little bit of Mad Max. Absolutely. And a bit of a muzzle. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. A little dog face. Yeah. Okay. Great. So you guys are in disguise and you're going to just like casually walk out of the cart. Yeah. With charisma. Okay. Mears like waves quietly. Which is like, I kiss him on the forehead. I unzip my mouth and I kiss him on the forehead. I kiss him on the leg. Okay. Be careful. Hold on to your room keys. Okay. I have fangs. I tell him, I took fangs. Awesome. What? You have my keys?

You keep losing it. I lost it twice. You leave them everywhere. Okay. Just make sure that you fully close the door when you leave. Okay. Okay. Have fun at the war. Yeah. And you're sneaking out? Yeah. So are you sneaking out or are you casually walking out? Casually walking out like we're meant to be here. Like we're supposed to be in there. Yep. Charisma. To go do mechanic things. Great. These are all charisma. 2D6 plus charisma. And we get a plus one forward from the discerned reality.

Plus one forward. To discern realities. Oh, yes. I got seven. I got 11. Oh, I get seven because it's charisma, right? Yes. It's charisma. Great. So it's two seven to nines and a 10 plus. Yeah. Okay. So the seven to nine. Billy, you just walk out so casually. There's some other short people here. I'm like, oh, nice. You just mix in with some short people. My people. Like, yeah, there's like a couple halflings, some dwarves, just some regular short humans.

I think because Billy is so small, he just has a profile that is less likely to draw attention. And then two people that are seven feet tall get out of the cart. That weren't in there before. Well, then as far as nobody, anybody knows. Yeah. But I think you are just drawing attention. What do you do to like, you see a couple of the mechanics like stand up from the back of the Mac and like lean down to look at you. And Tuck goes, quick, kiss me. Quick. You gotta kiss me right now.

You gotta kiss me or else they'll find us. This is true. This is true. This is true. This is your answer to everything. Hurry up. Kiss me. Tuck. The thing is, Abdul has picked up dice. I know. I'm looking for something. Not kissing. No, don't look at your sheet. Just kiss me. Don't look at your sheet. Ving. Okay. Paul's kissing Abdul now. I use spirit tongue to make it with Tuck. There's a lot of spirit tongue in this case. I come in like a hairy ibex there. There's so much tongue.

You were still rolling dice. What is your plan here? To look like we went in there too far. And then we were trying to sneak out quietly. Oh, I see. And everyone's like, Oh, those guys just went in there to fuck. High fives. Yeah. Adjusting your belts and stuff. All right. So I'm rolling to undo my belt to do a backup. I guess so. So that sounds like dexterity to me. Why are you rolling the smallest dice this morning? You know, I'm trying to come up with some small dice.

You know, I'm trying to come up with some small dice.

This is impossible and I'm rolling to unzip my gimp mouth to zip it back up okay so that's also dexterity I'm rolling to see how much pineapple juice I have on me yeah wait can I roll charisma somehow if you say that you did it a different way okay all right maybe you're like talking out loud like whoa what a makeout sesh that was yeah holy shit my balls are empty and mine are full I want to do some chin uh pull-ups on the doorframe before heading out to get all sweaty yeah so I can use strength that sounds like strength yeah okay so 2d6 plus charisma 2d6 plus strength I got sucked dry this really worked for me I got 10 great yeah I got 12 12 uh yeah we're on bren so you're like opening the door and you realize that like oh man this isn't gonna work these outfits are too fucked up yeah tuck realized when he smashed his head on the top of the fucking doorframe uh yeah so you guys put on your little show and the mechanics look at each other and like shake their heads big was grabbing my ass really hard really hard and everybody around is like including merbo you see merbo like roll his eyes and laugh I take a point of damage from that do you want to take a point of damage from an ass grab make yourself easier to kill later that's fine by me and uh you are able to you're now like integrated into this column of people yeah but stay away from merbo yeah yeah and merbo is playing with the dog angus he's like throwing sticks off the side of the road and uh angus is running out and grabbing him I'm coming back I think angus is like a big mastiff or something like that like he's got oh big jowls like a big head and he's like oh I'm gonna head and he's just kind of running around but maybe he's scruffy oh oh man maybe he's a wolfhound I love wolfhounds oh yeah they're like really tall and scruffy they're so scraggly up trees they chase boys up trees yeah in robin hood prince of thieves they were bred to uh chase boys up trees bred to tree boys said paul remembering a terrible childhood oh I needed was an apple angus lifts his head to the wind and sniffs and smells a boy nearby locks eyes with billy oh it's too late he smelled the boy uh but yeah you're integrated into this column you've you've successfully escaped the carriage close the door behind you like a little window in the carriage opens up and you see just the inside of a carriage the light underneath the sill changes from like the like flickering candlelight to like just like dark yeah I would like to use my mechanic disguise to get close to the mech and see if I can find out some sort of thing that we can use later if we need to fight one yeah I think that you your your disguises have been effective enough that you can kind of wander as long as you don't draw too much attention to yourselves by being asses yeah you should be cool to just kind of like observe why did you look at me I didn't I looked away you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you none of them are at abdul zero asses and you um yeah you can totally just like walk up to the mac as it strides down the road it's just thumping yeah and the closer you get the more the ground like shakes when it walks it's so tall it's tall it's 15 20 feet tall covered in pipes covered there's like probably three mechanics yep like riding it and you know doing work on various pieces I'm swinging a wrench hey boys how's she running today oh like a dream this bong bong like slaps the side pride of the firefields mechanic core yeah that's a cool name mechanic core mech core mech core yeah pride of the core this one is we call them what do we call all they some of them have names oh no but he you would he would assume that you'd know so pride of the core m4 is it's kind of like a acronym it's like a number it's turned into a name oh yeah they give them like names based on like star wars droids like they get names based on their designations I like that they kind of get bastardized into like m4 yeah yeah yeah probably to the core m4 is crank crank like he's got a big ratchet and he's tightening something there's like you can hear like a like kind of a low hum coming out of the pipes on the back of that thing oh it's like soothing as you're marching it's like a marching song yeah um do I need to do discern realities or something that is what you would do if you're looking for info I would like to gather fucker these days they're making me crazy they're definitely one of the bone die which are beautiful and then the other one is literally two millimeters across it's making him happy it's making everybody part of the problem it's driving you wild I like these little dice great go ahead and roll it uh discern realities with wisdom yep I got 11 there you go the tiny glasses off if you can still read them I got 10 so yeah you get three questions off the list uh what here's not what it appears to be I guess it depends on what you're looking for I'm looking for weaknesses weaknesses specifically about the mac I think that's what I'm kind of going for there's like a weak spot that they're trying to like maybe that's why they're like hanging out on them because they're trying to fix it right now you've always brought up that there's always mechanics hanging off them it means that they need constant maintenance maintenance I think that that is absolutely true like they are they are so based on what you saw the first time you fought one you have them in your mind as like very formidable and they are very formidable uh combatants but they are delicate in their own way there's a lot of different systems that are running that are all fragile that like so basically up until the point where they're fighting they need to be worked on um so they are not quite as strong as they are like presented as being they're kind of like the concord jet like where every time it would fly it would require like an insane amount of maintenance because going supersonic is like an insane thing to do to a machine right and it would be the same thing for a thing that's that big that's doing that much kinetic movement totally yeah these are probably like the most advanced piece of machinery that exists which means that they are almost always breaking down yeah yeah yeah and they probably don't like last that long in a fight like they they go hard bursts yeah small bursts and then they like I don't know retreat they're shock troops yeah yeah yeah yeah totally yeah that's and your your experience with it was like they basically wound it up and pointed it at you yeah and then just let it go yeah and then it fucking exploded because billy like destroyed one boiler inside of it yeah what should I be on the lookout for something that you would notice is that the one that you fought is different than the one that you're looking at right now which makes you wonder are there like a couple different kinds but then based on the fact that this one has a name and that the mechanics seem like it seems personalized that every one that you encounter will be slightly different so weaknesses besides their general fragility might not translate between max because they'd have different capabilities they're like custom cars kind of they seem to be like almost custom made like every group that that maintains a mac does its own so there could be like a base armature and then like a little bit of a like a little bit of a like a little bit of a like a little bit of a then all the everything on top of it is is custom yeah fucking so sick I like that I love that but we know that the boiler is a weak spot is there any way a hundred percent the boiler is a boiler boiler is you know based on fighting the old one the boiler seems to be in the same place every time really yeah it's in the back of the chest yeah because you can see they're like the hatch is open right now and they're like shoveling coal or whatever in there and you would assume that something that important means that it can't be moved they take coal.

Yeah, they have steam boilers. So you pop coal in the boiler and that boils the water, which makes the steam, which powers the Mac. They're full of fire. So that means they're carrying tons of coal and we were to destroy it. It could be the coal runners, basically. And coal is part of the word calm. That's Tuck whispering the thing. Oh my god. It's also part of Callum if you move stuff around. It's a jumble. It's a good cram. Good job, Billy. You've been practicing your words. Yeah, I have been.

It's taken two years to teach Billy any letters. Yeah, so like actually that is a good point. The cart directly behind the Mac is full of coal. These things obviously require a ton of fuel. And there's different types of it. When it needs to go into Super Saiyan mode, it's like as white coal. Alchemically treated coal. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Lastly, I think I'll use who's really in control here and use World Talker to try and talk to the Mac itself.

I think you like try reach out with your sort of spiritual connection to connect with this machine. You know, you're like when you walk up to a horse, he kind of styles up to the side and strokes on the pad. Yeah, neck and pads and puts an apple on his got to do it flat or it'll bite your fingers. I'm so nervous. Don't be nervous. It's still nerves when it's hard like it from, you know, 15. 15 feet up.

You see it kind of like lean down a little bit and it's big like lens covered head spins to look at you and other people like, whoa, whoa. Yeah, there's a guy on top. It's like, whoa, as it kind of shifts around. But the voice you hear is like a chorus because it's you can feel that it's made up of so many different components. There's the fire burning in the boiler. There's the iron that makes up the armor steam steam like the air being compressed and fired through the pistons.

What aspect of it is its intelligence? It's not a singular aspect. It's many aspects add up to some urgent property of its being exactly cool. It's really cool. I think that if we were to look back through history, I think the semi intelligence of the Mac was like an accident. They were trying to make like chassis that people could pilot and then they started acting on their own and they're like, whoa, we have discovered something here.

That we could use to crush our enemies like the unfortunate thing that all innovation leads to is how do we use this to kill? Yes. Are you asking it? Are you asking it a question? Maybe that can help me. I just want to introduce myself. Hello. My name is Ving. I am speaking to the collection of you through the collection of me. So it's basically like you are told that this being has been designated M4. So it knows its own name. It's been told its name. I think it refers to itself as it.

It was once ironed. And earth and fire. And now it is M4. Earth, wind, fire. Do you remember? I love your second album. You guys are so sick. Um, yeah. Where do your orders come from? Its orders come from the mechanics. Oh, really? What do you know of your purpose in this war? Its purpose is to serve the mechanics. Hmm. I am a mechanic. Its purpose is to serve you. It's good to meet you. It's good to meet you. Huh. Okay. I mean, I have this talking. I feel like I should ask it something else.

You guys have anything you want me to ask it? I would, I, maybe like is it content in this form? Because that's the thing that we've always seen with the spirits is like they might not have agency or plans, but like they can be in pain. Preferences. Yeah, they can be like this isn't natural for me. Yeah. Oh, maybe it's like, because I do, I do kind of agree with that.

That this is like a form that is not natural for the spirits of the elements that like underneath the why they always need fixing because they're always trying to break down, break free in a way you know? Yeah. I like that. They won't let me rust. I cannot rest. Yeah, I think why I think M4 like the collection of emergent intelligence that is M4 is like its goal is to serve and then underneath that if you're to like push your perception past. I listened to this song.

It's like the spirits are railing against this prison. Like it's a song of pain. It's a sad song. They have been forged into a shape that is made only for destruction and they long to be free. I am not a singer. I am a song and it is a song of woe. Wow. And as you're like hearing this song, the song of woe, you see like a pipe on the shoulder like some gasket bursts and a mechanic rushes over and starts fixing it. Like several mechanics. Yeah. Have to run over fixing it. Lash it back into place.

And I feel it's being sink a little bit. Yeah. And become more robotic and mechanical. And then it begins to play. It's like marching song again. Billy, you integrated yourself into this group of smaller people. Yeah. There's some like tired people who are resting who are sitting on these sort of like what do you call them? Like the frame of the cart? Like you've got like the running boards. Yeah. Like wood beams. Yeah. Sit out. Yeah. So I'm sitting with them. Nice.

Like underneath the cart almost. Yeah. Kind of. Oh, cool. Yeah. Just on like the side and stuff. Yeah. Sick. Yeah. And they're like passing little like rations back and forth. Dried meat and bread and whatnot. I'm like, ooh. I've got a ton of granola on me if you're hungry. Oh, good. Oh, ew. Yes, please. I would like to like use this to I guess gather info. Yeah. Would parlay work? I mean, they'll gladly take the food. I feel like it's maybe a, unless you're thinking about a specific topic.

Yeah. Like I do want to ask them about Callum Blackhammer. Sure. Yeah. You can roll 2d6 plus charisma. We're just like doing small talk and I noticed that they're eating rations and passing around. So I like pull out my huge bag of granola. I'm just like sprinkling into my mouth. Fucking stole it out of my bag. I see you. I'm like fucking stole it out of my bag. I've talked to him so many times. Like a little prince like yum yum. You can take the boy out of the thievery. Yeah. Eleven. Okay.

Yeah. So they'll answer. They'll answer your question. Have what's a you know, I've never gotten to meet him yet, but what's Callum Blackhammer like? Oh, we oh, none of us have ever met Callum Blackhammer. What have you heard about him? Oh, we've I mean, he's such a hero of mine. He is and you do see they kind of look at each other like, oh, a smaller like kid around seems like maybe 10 or 11 is like, yes, he is quite. Cunning. Oh, is he not? I mean, I'm just I don't know him that well.

Oh, no, we would never. We would never. Of course. Of course. Callum Blackhammer is and they all like saving face. The kid gets nudged when he says, yeah, he's quite cunning. He gets like nudged. He's like, oh, of course, he's he's one of the brilliant minds of the of the Firefields Principality. Him and his brother will lead us to victory against the the enemies of the Firefields. Yeah, this is like a Democrat family. That's like living in a Republican state. Yeah, totally. I just love Trump.

Yeah, he's fine. I mean, he's great. Yeah, red hair when I'm looking around at like the rest of the faces down here. Are they do they look they look a little uncomfortable. Okay, so everyone looks uncomfortable this question. Okay. Anyway, here I can share my granola with you. Oh, and they gladly. Yeah, take some granola and they're very happily chowing away. I mean like he's cool, but I am nervous to go up.

There and an older lady like puts a hand on your shoulder like that's that's natural to be nervous. A lot of people are having to face things. They've never faced before. Did you did you want to join? Well, I mean who wants to join, you know, but when the conscription came through we had to answer same, you know, okay, so I'm obviously they've been like basically like forced into this.

Yeah, it seems it seems like though the people that you saw at the front seemed pretty passionate in their fighting. It seems like there are there is conscription going on in the firefield. Okay. Yeah, we might be able to sow dissension. My people. Yeah sway some people to your to your side. Yeah has Callum always been this way. I don't remember. I mean, I'm pretty young. We live like really far out in the in the woods. So I mean, I don't I don't hear much news and the woman kind of nods.

Well, you know the the Blackhammer twins have always been very direct. In their methods of governance, but the last few months have been something else. I don't know what changed there was peace for so long and now now there seems like they're jumping on some sort of opportunity the sword Billy says that under his breath. Billy says that under his breath. I'm sorry. What was that to you? I'm sore. I'm sore.

I'm so sore like like sitting around like a walk in so far and sitting around on this bumpy heart. Oh, yes here here and she like takes a scarf out of her bag and folds into a pillow. That's really sweet. It's a long way. We've got another another day or so till we get to high command. Wow. Okay. All right. What time of day is it? I feel like we're like in like early evening right now. Okay, early evening. Yeah, so the sun is setting or has set a little lower in the sky. The sky is reddening.

Yeah. Oh, we see as it gets dark, you know that thing where when you have low cloud cover. Yeah, and it's like there's like a fire underneath that illuminates orange. Yeah, that's black glass. Yeah, totally the number of like forges makes the sky just like it looks like it's on fire. Yeah, and there's columns of that smoke like it looks like cloud, but then there's columns of it, which is like big belts of steam. Oh, yeah, from all sides.

Yeah, that's cool as you ride through this landscape like the fire fields is pretty rocky and there's like, basically thermal vents like off to the sides of the road. You see like steam pouring up through the ground. There's like bubbling Myers bubbling. Yeah, you pass through like a mire with like this raised earthen road that you're on, but there's like bubbling hot mud on either side. And yeah, you're just carrying along down the road. Talk. What are you doing on this way?

Well, I received many high fives from fucking that dude guys. The soldiers that were around when I got out. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I like that the mechanics also have like a status in this in this. Oh, for sure. Yeah, it's a mechanic instantly in. Yeah, you bagged a mechanic. Well done. Well done. Yeah, thanks, man. He was really rough. I lost a hit point because he was ramming my ass so hard. Wow, that's so much information right off the bat. Men don't usually share in this world.

Yeah, it's just more of a thing you say to like close friends as opposed to new acquaintances talking about the degree and efficiency with which your ass was around. I'm glad to hear things are going well for you. Thanks, man. My name's Ving. Ving. Couldn't think of a line. Yeah, great. Nice to meet you, Ving. My name's Jerome. Hey, Jerome. Hey. Do you know what? When you look at me, what do you think my job is? Your job? Yeah. General labor? Yeah, that makes sense. Big and strong lad like you?

All leather, the skip mask. Yeah. Coal mule. Oh, yeah, you're a mule, right? Right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Logistics and labor? Yeah. I kind of am a gopher. I run shit back and forth. Yeah. That's why I'm so big. That's why you're so big. Yeah. Sorry, I'm still thinking about the ass thing. It was rough. You and me both, buddy. Let me tell you, I'm gonna be thinking about that for a while. Yeah. The way he ripped my ass is what I mean. Wild. They look out and Ving's just like waving. Hi! Hi!

Jerome. Like, nods. Wow. Quite positive, that one. Yeah, he's a great guy. He's, uh… Yeah, stiff as all hell. Great. That Tuck. Just switch names in this adventure. Yeah. Whatever his name is. Okay, so… Tuck is talking to Jerome. He's like ferrying shit back and forth. What do you do? Oh, me? Yeah. I'm just an infantry recruit. Okay. Yep. New. Brand new. Most of us are, actually. Except for any kind of nods to the Mac. Yeah, those guys. Kind of makes a face. Yeah, I know. I know.

Where did you get recruited out of? Oh, I got recruited out of a place called Lil' Sir. Oh, man, I love Lil' Sir. Oh, have you been? I was there one time. Oh, it's beautiful, huh? Do you know a guy named Gregom? Oh, Gregom. Are him and Brenda still together? They are. Thank you. Oh, that's so sweet of you to remember. I love that. That's great. The town is walking every night from the sounds of their powerful lovemaking. And you know what? We all kind of appreciate it at this point.

It's sort of beautiful to see love blossoming at such a late stage in life. It's mostly Gregom and it's incomprehensible. Well, boy,! Boy, he's he's has smoked meats have never been tastier. Actually have some. Oh, whoa! He pulls out like a little bag. Would you like to? Yes, please. He gives you a little piece of like it's like it looks like a smoked anchovy. It's a fillet of anchovy. I crack it in half and I save half for Billy. What the fuck? Can't fucking fish.

And I start I start chewing it. Do you know where Combe is right now? Have you heard through Blackhammer? Yeah, through Grapevine? I've heard that he's on the front as ever. He's still back there. Close to High Spare City, I hear. They're close to pushing through. I heard some guy, some cool guy really fucked him up. Really? Yeah. Haven't heard anything of that. You haven't? Okay. No. You should spread that around. All the broadsheets have been spread around.

All the broadsheets have been spread around. All the broadsheets have been saying that he's been winning quite hondily. It's probably fake news. Fake news for sure. Nah, big guy, big cool guy really fucked him up. Big cool guy. Huge long shot. Have you seen like a super hot redhead? Woman. Uh-huh. She's got like dark skin, long red hair. Answers to Allison sometimes. Oh, okay. I was gonna say, you're describing many, many women in the Firefields Principalities.

Okay, do you know a redhead named Allison? So hot. Like, so hot. Like, crazy hot. He's making a face like, I don't know. I haven't seen her around. No, I think, I mean I've heard the name, but I don't know if it's the same woman. You've heard the name? The name Allison. Sure. Okay. Well, tell me about this. A friend of mine said that he met a woman named Allison who he found quite fetching. Okay. Did they? It gets really angry. Oh, okay. First, second, third. So, what happened in that scenario?

He didn't say a gentleman never kisses and tells. Not that you would know that. What's your friend's name? Just by any chance. My friend's name? Yeah. I'm not gonna tell you. Okay. So possessive. Yeah, that's kind of an L. Anyway, I've got quite a ways to walk. I might just focus on, you know, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, if you don't mind. Yeah, sure. I'll focus too. I trip him as I walk away. He falls and just looks back like, what the fuck?

And then I want to use Riff Raff Street Rat and ask, what is my biggest threat? Interesting. Do you think that there is a threat nearby? Is that your concern? Yeah, Tuck leaves Jerome in the dirt and he walks up and down. He uses the fact that he's a mule to cover the fact that he's walking the full length of the march. And he walks all the way to the front and all the way to the back to see if there's anything that's a danger to us right now. So you're walking back and forth.

You're walking up and down the line and you're like, nah, this looks okay so far. And the landscape is, you know, trees and bubbles. Rolling mires. Just long roads. Fires burning in the distance. Maybe the lights of a couple towns here and there as you're walking. And like 15 minutes after you leave Jerome, you hear, hey! And you turn and it's Merbo. He's got Angus next to him. He says, did you say your name is Feng? Uh. N. Yeah. Fuck.

And as you're looking at him, he starts to say something else and you hear a whistle and a thud as an arrow slams into the cart next to you. And Merbo looks at it and then looks to the trees and yells, ambush! And that's where we're gonna end it. Whoa! That's sick! I'm your game master Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. So, my name is Ving, actually. Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Goodbye, Sean. Oh, wow!

And playing Fabulous, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone. Thank you to Aaron Reid for our intro and outro music. You can find Aaron's original music at aaronreid.bandcamp.com and all the original music produced for the show at Spotify. Thank you to our supporters around the world. Our show would not be possible without your support.

If you would like to support the show and get access to the up-to-date Mall Brats feed, monthly live streams, merch drops, and also, we have just started our playtests for our post-Spout Lore campaign up all night. And we have just finished a game of Kids on Bikes, which you can hear on Patreon at the $5 level. So, check that out. And also, listen to our other show, Mall Brats, which is available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

And if you like Mall Brats, leave a review, and we might read it out on air. Reviews such as… This one comes from CG246. Most of the time, I put podcasts on a sleep timer to help me fall asleep, but I can't use this one because I wake myself up laughing. I gotta say, I'm not really an online person. I literally only listen to five podcasts. Spout Lore and now Mall Brats are two of them. So, that's two out of five of my podcast life dedicated to these guys alone. Exclamation point. Amazing.

That's really sweet. Snack Lord says, The Cool Treat Kids donated a kidney to save my mother five stars. Okay. We'll do anything. For stars. We're starving for stars. Thank you, Snack Lord. Yeah, we got eight good kidneys ready to go. Yeah. If you need them, just send us a DM. Well, seven. We need one at least to share. Nah, Paul, last one. In the war. I could give two half kidneys at this point. So, if you want to write a review and have us read it on the air, we would love that.

We'd love to hear from you. And if you make it funny, it's more likely that we'll read it. Yeah. Like, giving a kidney to your mom or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll give all your mom's kidneys. Yeah. I have two available. Yeah. I'm willing to rent out one. I think I need one, though. You do need one at least. Yeah. See you later, everybody. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye. And so ends the tale of Adventures 3, who tried the best they can.

Though dumb and scared and lost they be, for time's abreast in rest, they'll re- 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 say, it's about love.

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 to Spout Lore!

I'm your Game Master Sean O'Hara, joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdul Aziz Hello everybody! Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers Bonjour! And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai Hi everyone!

When last we left our heroes, they were in the process of figuring out what's next They headed back to Morris and Perel, their wizard friends who were about to head on their way to the Highspear to begin their mysterious magical project Mmhmm And it came time for the party to decide if they were to accompany the erstwhile wizards or head off on their own to complete their own mysterious goals Primarily the defeat, or at least slowing down of the Blackhammer Twins Mmhmm They decided that their place was going to be better served on the battlefield Yeah And let Morris and Perel as well as their newfound bodyguard Victor head off on their own adventure They headed back to Hither and Yon To figure out their next step and kicked an old man, an old cobbler, out of the Hither and Yon They decided that the best place for them was to go behind enemy lines Mmhmm Sign up with the Black Last Military in some fashion and use this as an opportunity to get as close to Callum Blackhammer as possible Mmhmm Hither and Yon attempted to help them out but decided to put them instead on the road to…

The Black Last Military's High Command Tent The cart that their door opened onto traveled in a column of new recruits and hangers-on Including Murbo, one half of the Mayoral Brother Team of Pinewood Mmhmm A town from long, long ago The party was able to don some disguises to hide out Hoping against hope that Murbo is not a bad guy now Mmhmm And learn some things about the War Max Mmhmm Learn some things about Callum Blackhammer Primarily that it seems like the Blackhammer Twins have always been very direct in their governance of the Firefields Principality But that things have changed recently Mmhmm And that the war was sort of unprecedented and unexpected by the people Mmhmm Ving communicated with a War Max and the Chorus of Spirits that make up the materials Discovering mostly that they are an amalgam of different spiritual intelligences Yeah That are wanting desperately to break free of the new form that they've been made And Tuck talked to a guy named Jerome and found out that he's from Lil Sur Uh huh And that he knows Brenda and Gregom Yeah And then also asked if he'd ever met a red haired woman named Allison Right He said no he had not, what were the odds that he'd say yes Mmhmm But his friend did mention that he had run into a red haired woman named Allison Mmhmm So, is Allison nearby?

Is this just a coincidence? Who can say? Who can say? And as Tuck continued to attempt to discover or just glean some information about the goings on Mmhmm Merbo stopped him and asked, hey did you say that your name is Ving? Mmhmm Because he in fact introduced himself as Ving to Jerome And Ving keeps answering from further down the line, what? Huh? Right?

No, what dammit And just before the questioning could go any further An arrow slams the door An arrow slammed into the cart next to Tuck, signaling an ambush That is where we find our heroes now What do you do?

There's an ambush I roll for honor Oh yeah Fight with honor You don't even see an opponent right now Okay Yeah Oh People start scattering, the people that Billy was sitting with which were mostly like hangers on And a bunch of like basically the non-combatants like scatter and hide Yeah Letting the military folk move out into the sides of the road, people are trying to figure out what's going on Mmhmm And they're just like, yipping out of the woodlands People are grabbing shields off the side of the carts Oh cool Yeah, nice I like that Yeah, they're creating like a wall on either side of the road And arrows are bang, bang, bang, bang Cool I wanna use defend Okay, yep, 2d6 plus constitution Alright Smart And you are standing in defense of Of the cart where Billy and Tuck is near Great And let you go further away I'm running back to Billy also Yeah I got 11 Dude Right, Paul is using the smallest dice known to man So small that like it looks like it's going to disappear Everyone hates it except me and Paul I love it, it's rolling, I'm rolling well You're rolling great Yeah cause it's weighted poorly No it's not You don't know that So you get 3 hold for defend to be used as you see fit And you all convene back at the cart Arrows are zipping, people are running around The mechanics are like hurriedly finishing some sort of maintenance on M4 the Wormack.

Things just pretending like… Clinkity clinkity clinkity zip zip zip zap plop don't forget the Johnson rod see you guys in a second. And then it like runs back to the cart. Yeah, Tuck wants to… The thing I keep thinking of is like tipping one of the carts over to make a barrier so that the arrows can't hit us. You can stand behind a cart as well. And a burden. A burden. Yeah. Keep in mind like the one that you came out of is like a carriage basically. It's like enclosed.

I'm gonna tip it over. You're gonna tip over. Okay. Alright. Sure. 2d6 plus strength. Okay. I got a 9. Oh, nice. I'll 8. Sure. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. I was doing the Jean Valjean thing. Yeah, totally. And Ving rolls, shows up and starts helping. 2d6 plus bond. 7. Okay. 7. So that makes it a 10. You grab onto the edge of this cart. Yeah. And strain and strain. Yeah. Then Ving comes and helps. Yeah. What are you doing? And you tip over a cart. And it stops moving.

And you hear a huge crash inside. Thank God we're safe now. We're safe. The cart is now about Two arrows go in front of our face. Between our faces. And they land on the underside of the carriage where Billy's kind of stuck in. Yeah. And now the cart's about three feet lower than it was when it was upright. But our feet are safe. Our feet are safe. Yeah, your feet. Your vital organs. Our Achilles heel.

And all the people that were on the cart with Billy hunker down behind the now admittedly more layers of protection. Yeah. Between things. And people are running around trying to figure. You hear voices going like, where is it coming from? Where are they? Can we discern realities? Absolutely. 2d6 plus wisdom. 10. Whoa. Three questions. What's about to happen?

You would guess that because this is some sort of supply convoy and the fact that the shots seem to be coming out of hiding in a way that isn't prioritizing killing people. They're trying to take something. They want to scare people away so they can grab something. Okay. Well, we're not getting this cart anywhere. They can't have this. That's for sure. It's a bit of a sitting cart right now. Uh-huh. Who's really in control? You're like tracking arrows with your elf vision.

You're trying to like figure out where they're coming from and you see an arrow shoot out of like some tall grass and you see that grass like move and you recognize almost immediately the reed capes common in the Riverways Principality. It's Alakii. Tuck fully just steps up from behind the cart and gets hit in the shoulder. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. 2d6. Defy danger. No way. Alakii. Alakii. 2d6 plus what? I guess Constitution. Forget. Tet. Okay. Yeah, you take this hit.

You don't feel anything, but you get hit in the shoulder by an arrow. I don't react to it at all. Is that you? The arrows keep coming. What should I be on the lookout for? I guess what they want because you guys are in a bit of a tricky position here because you are disguised as members. Of the black glass military. That's your goal is to stay disguised. You also know that you are kind of on the same side as the people that are currently trying to kill you. So what do you what do you do?

Could we I'd like to parlay with with a can you sneak over there? Yeah, I could sneak over there and parlay with them. Yeah, you could try and sneak over and into the long grass. You're the littlest. You'd be the easiest costume. I'm wearing like the black tunic, but I hold up my little fun blade and I say, don't worry. I will fight them and then I scurry off into the glitter moving around in it. I go. Yeah, yeah. Cut through the grass. Uh-huh. Yeah, say to talk. I don't think he has a plan.

So I guess it'd be probably defy danger dexterity. Sure. To like sneak through to sneak through. Yeah. Holy we're all aid. Uh-huh. Here we go. Okay. Well, I got it. I wrote it. Okay. Oh, I like. All right. I got 11. Okay. Thank you. So that makes it a seven to nine. Yeah. And tuck you fail. So how are you trying to help Billy? I come out from behind the car and I try and distract people from him and it works. Yeah. Let me tell you you start waving your arms around like over a year.

Just get ahead and roll a d6 but yeah, you take four damage. I have armor subtract. Whatever your armor is three. So I only take one. Nice. You get pegged by an arrow. It's like just like I got not but five minutes ago getting big today. You get a seven to nine. Yes. So I think that someone shoots at you, but they're not trying to hit you. They're trying to like stop you. Yeah.

So you like zip into the grass and you think you've got the drop on them and an arrow like zings out of the grass near you and pins you for a second. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I take off my mask and and I say I surrender yet to d6 plus charisma eight. Okay. Yeah, and you're like a you you stay there boy. If you don't want to get hurt, that's fine. I just wanted to talk to you guys talk about what you like here arrows going back over the ground. Careful listen, we're we're on your side.

Oh, like we haven't heard that before. I'm serious. Whoa. No me. My friends were just we're on a mission. Yeah, prove it. Okay, I drop my sword. Mm-hmm. I mean, you can't keep it forever. It's really cool. I'm not gonna hurt you. I can't get over to him. It is really cool, isn't it? Oh my God. Are these yours?

You hear some like the voice that you've been talking to makes like a couple whistle sounds and then like you hear rustling as it sounds like people move away, but then someone comes through the grass in like one of these woven reed shapes. Don't hurt me. Oh my God. What is this? What does this person look like? He has dreads. Oh, yeah. Dreads. Yeah, his dreads. He's dark. He's got a pan flute hanging from his from his neck. A pamphlet? Yeah, pan flute. Oh, pamphlet.

So he's got like a reed Pamphlet? I like that. It's like a what? He's got dreads, dark skin. He's got a pan flute around his neck. Yeah. It's a real music festival. That is. Yeah, totally. You got 30 seconds. To what? To explain yourself. Okay. Well, me and my friends we're trying to get revenge against Colm Blackhammer and we didn't really know of like a cool way to or like an easy way to do it. We're really scared of him.

So we thought, wow, we just like to try to like join his army and pretend to like be on his side. And then when we get close to him, we'd pounce. And I'm supposed to just believe this. Yeah. Like, look at my outfit. It's obviously not made for me. Wait a second. And he like pokes his head up like his cape basically just barely clears the grass and he's scanning and he see it looks like he sees Tuck and he sees Ving. He's like he sees Tuck get hit by another arrow. Look at him.

You think he's trained? Ving's like, I should be defending you. I don't know why you won't let me. I could stop these arrows. Are all the arrows getting like stuck in your like leather sex suit? Yeah, it's getting stuck in the gift suit and my shoulders and stuff. It just keeps he keeps kind of like forgetting to take cover and then walking out to talk to Ving. Oh, right. We're under fire currently. I forget. He's like, wait a sec. You're those three. Yes. Oh, okay. All right. He hunches down.

He's like this. I just want you to know what is a bold plan that you've that you've devised. Yes, I know. It's quite bold. Thank you. And you hear like a couple more whistles like he whistles. He's doing that when they just whistle without their fingers. It's just the lips and teeth. And you hear a couple whistles in return. He's like, all right, they're gonna try not. To kill your friends. Okay, but we got to take out that fuel. Please do. Actually that would be great. Okay, stay here.

I have no choice. Dangerous. I have no choice. I can't move stuck to the ground and he melts into the grass in his cape and tuck Ving talk. You stop getting hit with arrows with quite as much frequency, but every once in a while one finds its way towards you get hit in the hand. Yeah. Like he's trying to get hit and Ving and talk. You both see being now that you've gotten a better look at the warmax.

You see the mechanics are just about done whatever they're doing and they're going to send that thing into the tall grass in like a couple seconds. I'd like to use defend because I know the Billy's out there. Yeah, basically the mechanics hop down off of it or maybe one stands on top. One is like standing on top of it like reaching down and holding onto a rung and it makes like a train. Whistle noise and starts thudding into the grass. What do you do?

I'm going to have the attack the attackers effect or damage. So you're trying to Ving grabs a tuft of grass and pulls it out of the ground with a clump of dirt attached and then jaunts up the back of the mech and says I got this one boys and then just secretly kind of stuffs it in all the cracks and puts in the pipes. Yeah. I'll let this one back home for grass. We use grass for everything. Trust me.

And you yeah, so you climb up this thing and start shoving grass into the pipes and cracks and you can feel and see the steam start venting in unusual ways like it's not coming out of this pipe.

It's coming out of that one which makes M4 slow down like its head starts to spin around as it's trying to analyze what's going on and the mechanic on top that is like a stride M4 looking out into the grass pointing and shouting out where he thinks he sees things is going to notice you doing this if you keep doing it. Okay, I'll jump off. Great. You slide back down and it is M4 is slowed down Billy you see you look up from where you are and this giant machine is stomping into the grass.

Oh my gosh, I'm going to roll away and like rip away from the arrow holding me down. Okay. Yeah. Defy danger strength if you're trying to rip away or dexterity if you're trying to like wiggle out of your boot rip it away. I want my boot eight. You basically like see the max slow down and start spinning its head and it kind of like bangs its chest almost like it's trying to cough. Oh interesting and then it's you can see the smoke the steam on the back is going like poof poof.

It's trying to clear the vents on its body. Cool but the mechanic sees you and shouts and points towards you and the Mac like turns and start stomping and you can't tell right now if it is seeing you as an attacker or seeing you as someone to say is my sword still laying there. Yeah, you might have rolled closer to it. Probably. I want to grab it and go wait. I'm on I I'm on your side flip flopping all over the grass being a double agent's awesome.

Yeah, yeah 2d6 plus charisma save me God these days suck five plus two seven. Okay, seven to nine. So you start screaming way your arm saying no, I'm on your side. I was I was kidnapped. I need saving. I'm just a victim M4's head spins around and looks at the mechanic who's kind of shrugs a little bit. It's like I don't know and then okay, and then he points and it starts stomping towards you reaching out. It's one fingered hand.

Okay, and I like I'm like, yes, please save me this huge hand these giant metal fingers wrap around you and from our perspective, it looks like it just killed you. Yeah, we're like no Tuck you see Billy get grabbed by this giant machine. What do you do? Tuck just like runs and like what to jump trying to get onto the Mac to get to Billy. Yeah, want him out of his hand to you six plus strength. Okay, that's a 14. Yeah, you're able to you like hop onto the cart.

You're able to you like hop onto the cart. Yeah, hop right onto the side of the thing. I yeah, I like ping pong cart to like the cold dump and then I do a huge jump and I have my axe in my head and I'm like somebody draw this and I land on top of the Mac and I look at the mechanic and I go hey, did you have you seen a little boy anywhere? Yeah, he's gone. I'm just there and I go Billy. I'd like to use I'd like to use my defend move and redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself.

Yeah, so I'll run up and get in. I'm thinner than Billy. Oh, I just want to like jump in the hand. Sure. So you pop Billy out of the hand and you get yourself in there. I just try and get him out but it puts me in his hand. Yeah, and the machine looks at you very confused and through its connection with you. It is unsure how to serve. Oh weird because you're a mechanic. It's you're now in its hand. It's just getting confused. Basically, it's intelligence isn't complex enough to understand.

My ears are really spinning fast. You can see its head is spinning around a lot trying to like focus on different things and different people trying to collect as much data as it can and it's not doing very well. Yeah, and I say I think I have I've seen this before let me down. I shall help you. Yeah defy danger charisma three failed. There we go. It seems very confused and you feel the hand start to tighten around your torso. Am I still in the grip? No, you're basically like on top of the hand.

Oh thing pop you out. I'd like to wedge my knife in one of the joints. Yeah, Bing is going to take a little bit of damage first. Okay, roll a d8 x5. So that's 10 damage to Ving. Yeah, can I defend? Yeah, so you would roll 2d6 plus Constitution. Sure. Sweet. Okay, so that's 10. I would like to yeah, drive the knife into like maybe the thumb. Joint of the mech and maybe you help me like pushing it down over top of my yeah vital organs. I'm down big fella totally.

Yeah, so defend that would be one hold for one of these options. I guess I would like to deal damage the attacker equal to your level so for damage and these things have significant armor remember but you do jam it into the hand enough that like weirdly it seems like it hurts it and it like opens its hand. I'm sorry and then drops to the ground with a stud because you know, you're like eight feet up. Yeah. Yeah, I gather myself and I get up top and I start pulling the clumps of dirt out.

Yeah, totally talk you're up there and this it m4 looks like it's starting to panic in a way it doesn't know what's going on anymore. I think it starts to reach up onto its back and its hand is like grasping for me for you for the mechanic that's up here. The mechanic seems like he's panicking too. Okay, I go to the mechanic. I go don't worry. I've seen this before I can fix this and then I kick him in the chest off the mat are you trying to deal damage or just kick him off?

I just want to kick him okay 2d6 plus strength because I want him to not control this thing and I know being kind of has a connection with it. Yeah, it seems like it. Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like him not being around will calm it down and allowing to control it eight eight. So you don't worry. I've seen this a million times pow kick him straight in the chest and he starts flying off but he grabs onto your leg and the momentum carries you both to the ground. I try and land on top of him.

Yeah, you land on top of him for sure. Okay, or no, I guess yeah, you could roll for this. Okay six plus dexterity. Yeah, that's six plus three and then dexterity is now negative one. Okay, so seven to nine, which means you're both going to take this damage. Yeah, roll a d10 and then roll it again. Okay, so four so he takes four five you take five. Yeah, yeah as you slam into the ground and now all of you are on the ground and m4 just starts to freak out.

You know, it's starting to do the like turn and like the pipes start just playing music like panicked music and it's stomping around its head is spinning its arms are swinging. Oh, we're still on it. Hey, no, because Ving got dropped. Oh Billy you're on the hand. I'm on the hand. The arm starts to swing wildly out to the side. Oh, yeah, I'm holding on trying to stay to like his underside so he doesn't see me as well. Okay, so 2d6 plus dexterity. Okay, 10 10. Yeah, you hold on.

Yeah, you're getting whipped around like a tennis ball in one of those dog ball throwers and arrows start plinking off of it and there's some a couple like jamming in between the armor plates. It looks like it's about to rampage. Basically, it doesn't know what to do. I want to jump on top of it and clear the dirt out and try and calm it down. Yeah, sure 2d6 plus dexterity to get up there. I got nine. Yeah, seven to nine. Can I aid? Yeah, sure.

I want to do the thing that he did for me at the other Mac fight. I help him jump. Yeah, I jump off his back. Yeah, 2d6 plus bond. I will be your stairs. Holy shit 11. Yeah, you are. I throw him so far. You kind of have to grab on to not go past it. Yeah, and we draw this. Oh, yes. Somehow Ving still doesn't look cool while he's being thrown onto the back of this thing. Hey, you can't do that to me. He's pinwheeling and Tuck like looks sick. There's like a breeze in his beard.

I didn't expect it to be that strong. He's basically cheating to the camera with a flex. He's so vascular right now. Can only fling with one eyebrow up. He's an ape. Yeah, you land on the back of them for her. I use my wrench to start digging all the dirt out and like trying to shush him and lull him. Okay, 2d6 plus wisdom. Oh nine. Yeah, I'll aid. Yeah.

So Billy you're hanging on to the underside and you see as the arm gets flung like up over its back clearly going to the pipes to like yeah, it looks like he's almost going to wrench them off like he's freaking out. It's it's freaking out and it looks like it's going to pull the pipes off its back. Would it hurt Ving if it did it? Probably because it's just going to be like a catastrophic destruction. Yeah, I drive my knife again into one of the joints closest to me. Six. Six. I fail.

Okay, so Billy fails, but it's still a seven to nine. Yep. Billy you get tossed clear. No! Yeah, you see Billy like a volleyball fly through the air. Luckily you went in the long grass. And because I made Tuck do a d10 you gotta roll a d10. I have to roll a d10? Yeah, you're getting hurled through the air. Me? Sure. I have a baby. You did fail. Seven? Holy shit, dude. Seven damage. You slam into the ground. Whoa, I'm almost dead. You're almost dead? No, I have nine left. Okay.

That'd be fucking bad. Yeah, there's just like clumps of dirt and mud flying everywhere. I landed on the one huge rock. It's so sharp. And I hit my funny bone and I'm going, eww. . Just cause you landed on your elbow and you're like, eww. . It's mostly spiritual damage that you took. Yeah. It's embarrassing. But you're able to get some of the clumps out of the pipes and the steam starts moving more naturally. And I want to sing the song that he was singing before when he was in a good mood.

Yeah, which is basically like Scotland the Brave or whatever. Yeah. And you are imparted with, it is confused. Yeah. It is scared. Which makes you go like, wait, scared? Yeah. I want to try and talk him down. I don't know why I rolled, but I got a four. Hold on. You just rolled a four. I rolled a four. You rolled a four plus your charisma. Yeah. Oh. Which is zero. Shit. Oh, man. It does the thing that it was trying to do.

It feels you on its back, reaches up, grabs you, kind of spikes you into the ground. Roll a d10. Two. Two. Okay, two damage. It grabs you, but it just like isn't quite able to get a firm grip on you. Yeah. And you kind of just tumble out of the ground. It just comes out of its hands. My hair. And it looks at the battlefield. Because people are still, you know, fighting, running out of the grass, running into the grass, and it runs off. Whoa, cool. Shit, just like into the distance?

Into the trees. No. Shit. I'm four. It runs and it like starts knocking trees out of the way as it charges into the woods. No. And we hear like a song as it runs away. And yeah, it is. Sing me a song of a land that is gone. Earth is blue. Yeah. And it's gone. And mechanics, a couple mechanics like run after it, but it looks like the Riverways people are not achieving their objective. Shit. Can we look over and see what's going on?

Basically like a few infantry people, it looks like a lot of people have run off to be honest, because these are like new recruits. Right. There are officers trying to get people in line, but some people are just throwing down their weapons and running off. There's like whole forces that are kind of freaking out and like kind of just bolting in random directions. Exactly. Our weapons were in that cart. We cannot actually.

People are trying to wrench the door open to the carriage like, why has it got tipped over? Um. And M4 taking off really threw things into chaos. Yeah. I think that like the cart of coal did get tipped over probably in the, because M4 was lashed to it. Like he was pulling it. Oh yeah. So as he was rampaging it just got knocked over and torn free. But they need the fuel. They want it for some reason. Yeah.

And I think that's what it is, is they can't get out of the woods and the cart is like immovable. So people are, they're being fought off of this cart. Fucking shit. Yeah. So you guys have sort of re, you guys have regrouped? Yeah, we're still in the tall grasses I think. Yeah, with the, with the pan flute guy. And the mech mechanic is still. They ran off after M4. Okay. Yeah. They get in so much trouble if they lose their mech. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. Oh no.

Yeah, we cut to him. Word fucking dead man. They're just running. He's so fast we made his legs so short but so quick. I can't lose my mech this close to Charles Eve. I'm already on thin ice with the foreman. And pan flute guy is like, what are you doing? I don't think we're gonna win this right now. We're gonna have to try again later. What do you mean try again? Call your forces off. We'll try and set up an ambush further down the road. And this time it'll work. Alright.

Somebody roll a defy danger charisma. Billy, you have the most charisma other than tuck. Rollin'. Jessica's very specifically choosing to not touch the dice that I roll. I've seen some questionable dice. Incredibly specific. You made a bunch of very specific choices. No, I have rejected my personal dice and yours in favor of this one that always performs well. Roll these guys. No, I don't want to. These are mine. Why do I always have to touch your dice? Oh, thank God. Eight plus two, ten. Nice.

Ten. You did it. He looks at the three of you, nods, and whistles into the trees, and the arrows stop. Or there's a couple like fighting, like parting shots. Jerry! Jerry stop. And a clang clang, dunk dunk, and then the pan flute guy plays a little tune on his flute. And says, come with me. And into the grass. Yeah, we go. Into the trees. We follow him. Are we following him?

And there's a bit of a harried flight through the trees as you are trying to follow, as the sun is like going down and the sky is becoming red, trying to keep your eyes on pan flute guy. His cape is blending into the underbrush. His hair is blending into the underbrush. Yeah. And you see on the corners of your vision like other Reed caped figures darting through the trees as well. They're so dextrous. They're like Tarzan moving through the trees. Oh, yeah. Cool.

Just like freewheeling like limbs, just like spinning through the trees. Hippie X games. Yeah. They're doing parkour. Yeah, they're doing parkour. They're like doing that jump where their legs are underneath them as they fly over a log. Totally, yeah. Cool. And they're all wearing Tevas. What's that? The sandals. They're shitty sandals. They're annoying. They squeak. So you hear squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak. I do. They're running through the trees. Russell Russell's week.

And eventually they come to a halt and they gather. There's probably about, I don't know, 15, 20 of them. In the distance you can hear pipes and crashing. And pan flute guy turns. That was pretty bold of you. Thank you. How do we know that you're not here to undermine our efforts? Because we fought with you like a few days ago. You fought not with us. I heard about you on the grapefruit vine. Yeah, with Alec, Alec's roommate. Yeah. Do you know Alec's roommate? Do you know Alec? Who?

Okay, never mind. You're not important to me. I gotta go. See you later. Talk starts tragic. So you're, you mentioned an ambush later. Yeah. You would help us with this? Yeah, of course. But we would have, it would have to be kind of the same thing. Double agents, you know? Yeah. We're team Riverways all the way. But we snuck in because we want to kill Colm Blackhammer. Yeah, we have a personal vendetta against him. Yeah. They all like look at each other and laugh a little bit.

Who here doesn't have a vendetta against Colm Blackhammer? Yeah, and you should know that most of the people on that side of the army do too. So careful where you're aiming those arrows. A lot of those people aren't fighting for them because they want to. Yeah, all those people ran off. They don't want to be here. We understand. We pick our shots. But anyone that raises a weapon in service of the firefields is our enemy and will be treated as such. I understand. I'm Pan.

These are the Riverways Harriers. Sick. Cool. Hi. I'm Tuck. I'm Billy. I'm Ving. Nice to meet you. Head back to camp. Alright. And then there's a bit of a like, just the scene of like trudging through the woods. Do we have a moment? Does anyone want to poultice? I got so many. Yeah, I could use one. My stitches are coming apart. Oh, Billy. Oh, God. It's hard under this scratchy linen shift. So hard against my soft baby skin. I'm good. I only lost like four hit points.

I'll just dig these arrows out. Oh, yeah. Billy got fucking volleyball spiked into the ground. Yeah, I think I broke my arm maybe. Geez, Billy. Do you have a poultice for a broken arm? Yeah. Oh, my God. Just hang in there. Polyjuice or whatever it's called. Yeah. And when you say, do you want me to dig the arrows out? Tuck's like, what are you talking about? And he turns around and he looks like a porcupine.

It's like the guy in Indiana Jones when he turns around and he has all those tarantulas on his back. Yeah. Just like 80 arrows. What do you mean? Whoa. Oh, my God. Is this serious? Is it bad? Is it bad? I'm positive. 80 arrows is too much. Oh, man. It really helps that I can't feel most things, but I feel like that's a drawback in this situation. I tie strings to them and then tie it to a sapling and then knock over the tree. So how many hit points does Billy get back? Seven.

Yeah, so I'm at 16 again. Excellent. And you are walked through the woods. The harriers start pulling out little glass jars with mushrooms in them and they shake them so the mushroom batters against the glass and they light up. And they're using these as light sources to guide you through the trees. I light up TLC. Oh, yeah. And a couple look over. Oh, yeah. And I bring out my little willow, the willow wisp. Yeah, there's a little jingling, bell jingling sound as this light cat appears.

I bring up some ferris from my bandolier and set my hand on fire and hold it up like a torch. Whoa. So cool. Whoa, so sick. I go to touch his hand and I burn myself. Dude, what are you doing? That's not. That's crazy. That's fire? Oh. And so many, like, you guys all bring out your crazy adventurer light sources. Yeah. And you hear the harriers going like, man, those are so cool. Oh, man, our mushrooms. Fucking lame. No, no, dude, they're cool. What do the mushrooms say?

Yeah, wait, alright, thanks. We were inspired by how cool your light thing was. Yeah, okay, well, you didn't have to show off like that. I grow these mushrooms myself, you know. I grow them. That's really cool. I grew these mushrooms. You're a mycologist. Uh, whatever. You eventually get back to what looks to be an old logging camp. Oh. Like an abandoned logging camp. There's a destroyed sawmill, various piles of old timber. And they start setting up a cook fire and the like.

And you are welcome to sit around the fire with a pan. And a few members of the members of the harriers. We sit with them. Yeah. And food is distributed. Nothing fancy, but like a hearty, fungal stew. Oh, nice. Justin, that's That's what it is. Mushroom soup. I guess it's just mushroom. Yeah, mushroom soup. I love that, actually. Okay, Billy at first is like, woo, but then he's like, mm. Does that have cream in it? Yeah. It's because they call it a fungal stew. Yeah. Ugh, what?

Oh, mushroom soup. I see. I've had this before. And Pan is just eating some soup. And yeah, so what's your, why do you fight? We fight because we must. Our homes are threatened by the Blackhammer Twins. I mean, I guess same, because I know your homes are threatened. I was just gonna say, I guess we don't necessarily want to relay our bigger picture. Yeah. I keep the Gibbous Man stuff pretty close to the vest for two reasons. One, we don't know if we can trust them.

Two, we would sound fucking crazy. We would sound a little crazy. We're fighting because the God of the sky is gonna try and collapse reality. Ving says that. At the risk of sounding crazy. Do you say that? No. Okay. So yeah, when Billy says, for the same reason, because your homes are in danger, he like, nods. He's like, there's, much wisdom in you, young boy. And then, uh, I throw up because I ate too much. Like, like baby style, where it just burbles out of your mouth.

So you have intentions of ambushing the supply cart again. Look, man, we're down to help you guys with whatever you need. We have some good friends that live in the river ways from Bullrush. Oh, Bullrush Village. Yeah. Hmm. Stetton Walden, do you know them? Ha! Not a soul in the river ways doesn't know Stetton Walden. They're pieces of shit, right? Yeah, they're terrible. They're terrible. Kind of embarrassed that they come from where I come from.

It's embarrassing that we come from the same village, but we do. Why is it that whenever I meet anyone who's heard of where I come from, they know these pieces of shit? It's like our big nickel. They're, cause they're always in the longhouse, and they're always fucking making fun of people, and they're BRUTAL about it. Cut to the bone. Um, I've heard of your exploits, your prowess. What have you heard? That you took down a Mac. Yeah. By yourselves. Pretty much. Maybe. Impressive. Pretty sick.

Pretty impressive. And then Tuck, like, condescendingly puts his hand on Ving's forearm, and he's like, we all contributed equally to the effort. Ving takes a bite out of the spoon in his mouth. Crunch. Crunch. All in our own way. Billy killed this thing, like, by himself. Tuck's like, I kinda led the effort. He said Tuck is doing the thing where he's also self-conscious about it. You might remember hearing how well I did. You're doing it again.

Then, I think what he's, I think his thought is, I'll just sit. With three warriors such as yourselves, I can't help but feel like hitting a caravan full of new recruits and hangers on might be a waste of our efforts. Oh. You have something grander in mind? I do. Tell us. What does he have in mind? That's what happens is his eyes get really big and he's like, oh shit, I didn't think of anything. One moment, please.

And you can see he's like, you see his eyes moving around a lot, like he's going through a rolodex of potential targets. I think he's imagining a strategically important location that you could take. I mean the fuel supply. Maybe there's a coal mine? Oh yeah. If we can take control of a nearby coal mine. What if we blow up their fuel refinery? Because we said there were a bunch of different types of coal that are treated different ways. Oh, the alchemical. Yeah.

So what if we go and find out where they do that? Because the fire field does all these hyper mechanized factories. Yeah. So what if we go and we find the distillation fields or whatever and we blow everything up? Then they won't be able to power the max. Yeah. I like that. Put satchel charges everywhere. Whatever those are. You're not wrong. You're not far off. Yeah, he says there is a chemical refinery nearby that the fire fields use to produce special kinds of fuel for the max.

And it is far from the only one. They are not so foolhardy as to centralize their logistics in such a way. But if we were to destroy this one facility, it would reduce the amount of max that they would be able to field in this area. Okay. It would save countless lives. Will you help us with this? Yes. Absolutely. But if we're gonna do it, we're gonna save as many lives as we can count on their side. And if we do this, you have to tell Alec Key how cool we look.

He's sure he rugs and shakes his head. Again, I do not know your friend. Well, you'll have to find out who Alec Key is and then pass along that message. Yeah. Okay. So your request in exchange for aiding us with this very dangerous mission is that I pass along the information that you look cool while it happens. Oh, yeah. It's literally the most important thing. It's kind of very specific person. Yeah. And her roommate. Yeah. Or just spread it around and then everybody will know.

And it'll get to her. Perform with valor enough and your tail will spread its own. Do you have any fan artists in your kind of like I heard you screaming something about being drawn. This is something I've heard yelled on battlefields frequently lately. It's getting traction. A lot of people are yelling at you. No, it's actually you specifically. I've said it three or four times in the last few episodes. I'm just doing it. So we need someone to do it. We need someone to do it.

Just literally get it. Yeah, it was you did get drawn. Yeah, it's like your wish when you give into a pet. Now he's going to say it every time. It looks awesome. Gave me chicken one time. Now you give me chicken every time there's chicken. We all looked awesome. And I tried equally awesome. You Chris, you grab my wrist aggressively angry way. Kind and condescending equally drew it. We all equally equally drew it. We all drew it together. Great. So Pan nods very well.

If this is all you require is the sharing of your tails and put us in front of Callum. I can't promise that or at least put us in touch with somebody who can that I can try. Okay, cool. Thank you. All right. I recommend getting some sleep. You are safe here. And on the morrow we will reconnoiter the mission area. Could I make a fairy ring? Absolutely. Yeah. Roll dexterity nine plus two, eleven. Eleven. Sweet. So what does this look like? Billy making a ring around this around the camp?

Yeah, around the camp. What? Oh, nothing. I just assumed that their glowing mushrooms would be up like so it's like. Yeah, Billy's really inspired by the glowing mushrooms. So he grabs a jar and shakes them out. Like just the spores and then like I don't know they just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, but he does it like he tries to be chill about it like and then he's like whoa look everyone. That's crazy. Yeah and the Harriers. Weird.

The Harriers walk out to the edge and are like wow. I feel like if we all stay inside it that would be really cool. Yeah. The ring is like formed around the whole camp and there's like motes of like different spores. Glowing spores. Glowing spores coming out. Floating in the air. One guy gets up to go to the bathroom. He stands, he gets up and he's like outside the ring. He's like oh it's so cold out here. Oh yeah. He just walks back in. Weird. It's almost like you should come back in.

I want to roll what the bones know for tomorrow. Yeah, absolutely. So you're kind of like coming down. Yeah. Preparing for some rest. Yeah. A four. Oh great. Four, yeah that could save you. Ooh. Yeah. Great. So you have a four stored for a potential roll. On the morrow. Anything anyone wants to do or think about? I would like to heal while I sleep. Yeah, you rest. So you're making camp. That is a move. When you settle into rest, consume a ration. You've been fed. You don't have to.

I have been fed. Yep. If you're somewhere dangerous, you're not. So you don't have to keep watch. You are safe inside the circle. Yeah. So how many hit points do you heal? Half your max HP. Okay, so I'm just all the way up. Oh wow. Yeah, me too. Yep. I think everybody's probably good to go. Yes! Okay. You wake. The sun rises. I would like to roll fairy child. Oh yeah. You feel the sun in this new place. New lights under new trees. Oh. Seven. So I get three hold. What season is Billy right now?

Are you still summer? I think he's still summer. Cool. Are you looking to change your season at all? Sure. Oh. Let's get you back to fall. Yeah, let's or spring. Spring. Get you back to spring. So you're rolling a d4, remember? Oh, sorry, a d4. Damn it! Ugh. Winter. Oh. Fuck. Oh no. Can you do the thing where you just roll again? No. Yeah, so you deal an additional d6 with your damage and now you have a zero to your charisma. Yeah, so I wake up and I'm moody. Yeah. Ugh. Yeah.

Because you chose to sleep on the ground. I chose to sleep on the ground. Billy like crack, crack, like pulls himself out of frost. Uh huh. And he has like a little like kink in his neck. He's like ow. A lot of the hair ears have been up for a while. Like there's already fires burning and people are preparing their gear. Did I have a dream last night? No, you don't have dreams. But did I dream, did I see the demon of servitude? Yeah, what do you think? I don't know. Maybe I did.

Because it feels like it might be useful if I could figure out how to use it. Well, the only thing is the only thing is to consider the fact that the consequence for the Neurophage thing was that you do not dream at all. I don't dream at all. Yeah. But we do, we have established that that does give me connection to Black Spire. Yes, yeah. Well, I mean a void and then sometimes Black Spire shows up and sometimes a demon talks at me. Yeah, there's like a there's like a hole in your soul basically.

Yeah. Where other stuff can go in now. Yeah. I think that it's like you close your eyes and you wake back up. You fall asleep, boom. You wake back up. Yeah, there's no intervening time. Yeah. Yeah. You open your eyes. And as you're like, how was Tuck, Tuck was just sleeping on the ground? Yes. Yeah. Staring up at the trees, you open your eyes. Wait, does Tuck sleep on his back? Yeah. How do we think Tuck sleeps? He snores on his back, for sure. Yeah. Tuck is a sleep on his back kind of guy.

Uh-huh. Pass out by accident. A little sleep apnea dude. Oh yeah. Yeah, Tuck sleeps in the way that I sleep in all of the pictures that you guys have taken of me while I've accidentally fallen asleep. So like, on your back, head tipped back, mouth wide open. Totally by accident. Yeah. Falls asleep by accident. Doesn't intentionally ever go to bed. He will never wear his CPAP machine even though he's supposed to. Yeah. Oh, Tuck has sleep apnea for sure. Yeah. He snores like a bandsaw. I know.

And if we weren't always in a fairy ring when I slept, we would constantly be getting snuck up on by stuff. There'd be some assassin that's like, Hark, what is that? Hark, what is that? A soft target? A siren? A siren? I could've shot the barbarian in the dark. And as you wake up, you're staring up at the trees. You have the distinct impression that you just stopped snoring. In your head you hear, I could help you. And Tuck in his head thinks, you're only supposed to be a nighttime thing.

Who said that? There's a void. Things seek to fill a void. In my head? In your soul. What does that mean? You'll learn in time. Can I Spout Lore on that? Yeah. Yeah. I have fount of knowledge, so I get a plus one on if it's something that nobody knows about. No one could help you with this. Please, just bless these dice. So it's six. And no one can aid. No, cause he's asleep. He's like just waking up. He's by himself. So sorry, the blessing did not work. It didn't work. Yeah.

I try to think like in a way where I can pin this thing down to see it, cause I don't get it. You're trying to look with your mind's eye. Oh yeah. So I think you're like, you can feel yourself trying to like grab onto this thing. Yeah. I'm like, how did you get in here? So you're trying to grab it. You're trying to ask it questions. And you hear it say, in your head, I'll teach you. Tuck uses weaponized dissociation.

When you are subject to mind control or magic that influences your feelings, you may choose to take one D4 damage, ignore his armor, to ignore the influence. Okay. So basically he wants to just like slam the door on whatever the fuck this thing is. Yeah. One. Yeah, so you take one damage as you feel yourself mentally slam the door shut on servitude. Okay. Not a great way to wake up. Yeah. But yeah, the camp is starting to wake. Billy's kind of cracked himself back into winter.

Tuck has woken up, troubled, and with a new kind of ride along companion. Ving? He woke up hours ago and was trying to track M4. Oh. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Cool. We can cut out there. I just went out for a bit and then tried to scan the horizon. Yeah. See in a direction. What do I see? Discerned realities. Discerned realities, I guess. Yeah. 2d6 plus wisdom. What do your elf eyes see? Whoa. Holy shit. I got 15. Holy shit! Please tell me what I see. Over the curvature of the earth. Yeah.

And you see it's totally flat. Yeah. It is a flat earth. You see the edge. You see the ice wall where the Illuminati are living. Oh my god. And you see past the ice wall, we're on a spherical planet that is all ice. So flat earth is sitting on top of a sphere. Yeah. Where the real earth lives. It caters into the edge of nothingness. Yeah. And the only thing. Played on a beach ball. The only thing keeping it upright is the Republican Party of the United States. Yeah.

We're on the back of that elephant. Yeah. I'm saluting right now. I was compelled to salute. I don't know why. Okay. Yeah. You get three questions off Discerned Realities. What happened here recently? What happened here recently? You find a spot where trees are knocked down in a pretty clear line. Like they were yanked out on one side and then smashed down as if with a giant hammer on the other side.

It looks like M4 took a pretty straight shot and anywhere that it passed through was only altered by like large like stones. Anything that it could smash through it did. Okay. What here is not what it appears to be. So you think that based on the mechanics that ran after it, they would tirelessly chase this thing. But the footprints that you're following that you see are like human footprints eventually veer off into the trees.

Like they either gave up or were chased off or got frightened or something. But it looks like M4 is on its own. Hmm. What here is useful or valuable to me? You would assume that without the mechanics and without the fuel, eventually it's going to shut down. Which means that if you can find it, you might be able to, I don't know, learn how they work or claim it for yourself. But eventually, it's going to just like turn off and kind of curl up. But you know it's out there. All alone. All alone.

Thing's crying a little bit. You also realize that your plan is to go to a fuel refinery. So he might be heading for a refinery. Like if he has basic like self-preservation instincts, he might head for the refinery to try and reload. Yeah, maybe that's one of their base programs. Okay. Cool. And you head back and the people are packing up and Tuck and Billy, you see Ving coming out of the trees into the camp. What do your elf eyes see, Ving? Uh, I think he's on his own.

M4 is out there somewhere. I shed a tear for him. You weep for the machine? I don't know, he's just a little guy out in the wilderness on his own. They're engines of destruction. On the outside. On the inside they're made of things of this world. And those things have a voice. Pan like considers this. Alright. I think it's time that we head out. And uh, you're basically gonna be led through the trees and the trails to this refinery. Uh, I think we could, I guess we could do a perilous journey.

Sure. Seems like the kind of thing we'd wanna do. So someone's gotta roll scout ahead, someone has to roll navigate, and someone has to roll manage provisions. I'll scout cause I'm gonna be in scout mode. Mhm. I'll navigate. I'll manage provisions. Perfect. I'm plucking all the mushrooms from the circle. Nice. Great. Ten. Eight. Eleven. Okay, cool, that's pretty good. Yeah. Alright, so describe the food that Billy has prepared for everyone on the walk.

Um, he took the leftover mushroom soup and has added the glowing mushrooms to it and he's like, they're probably fine to eat. But he also snuck in a big blob of butter. Woah. That he found. That he found? Yeah, like some of the bog butter that the the Riverways people keep in their Bog butter? Yeah. Bog butter? Is that edible? It's a real thing. Is that real? Tell me about it. Oh, they bury it in bog, like bog water. Woah. Or in a bog. It's butter. Yeah, it's butter. As we know it.

And you just bury it. And it preserves it. Oh, cool. So Billy found in like a peat moss bog a big ball of butter and he was like, they're gonna love this. They're gonna love this, you guys. The flavor. Is swamp. It's smoky. It does taste really good. Yeah. Yeah. And the mushrooms don't kill you. Yeah. Apparently. None of them do. But everybody's like, every time someone burps, like glowing motes of spores come out of their mouths. We also are high for like an afternoon. It is a mild high.

It's mild. It's into a high episode. And it's actually from the butter. Yeah. From the butyric acid. Everyone says, it says here that everyone who licks their lips takes plus one forward. And I lick, I'm licking a tree cause I, it looks like a giant candy cane. Yum. And scout ahead. You got an 11. So you choose two from the list below. Get the drop on whatever lies ahead. Beneficial aspect of the terrain, like a shortcut or shelter. You make a discovery or notice a danger.

I get a drop on whatever's ahead and make a discovery. Okay. Choose one from the list below for navigate. You happen on a discovery missed by the scout. The going is slow. Or you encounter a danger. I'll encounter a danger. Okay. You're walking along with the Harriers. They're doing their thing where they're like flitting from tree to tree. You hear whistling ahead and Pan appears at your side. The scouts have found something. What? And then you rush forward and it is, it looks like tracks.

Like big, huge feet. Metallic tracks. It looks like M4 came this way. This is him. And it looks like he has become much more… Cautious. Like he's either calmed down or lost energy. He's not smashing trees down anymore. It looks like he's moving through them. And that means that he's going slower because he has to move his like immense bulk between the trees. It looks like there was a bit of a scuffle at some point. Like you see the tracks like are irregular. Like he's facing this way.

Now he's facing this way. And you hear shouting from the scouts. And then you hear like a scream. Whoa! We ran up. So you see one of the harriers is like wrapped. Like one arm is up here, the other's like down. And is wrapped in the coils of a huge snake. Whoa! Oh my god! And you see like it's kind of got these feathered scales that kind of dip off of it. And it's like this kind of iridescent emerald blue. Oh my god, beautiful! And then it looks at you.

It sees everybody rush out of the trees as the harrier that's gripped by it, their eyes are wide. It looks like they're starting to lock. And you see like two punctures kind of on their chest. Oh no! And then this beautiful ethereal violin like eeeewwwwww like plays in the air as the snake disappears from view. Disappears? It's a harp snake! What? And the harrier like drops to the ground stiffened. Whoa! I run up to him. How stiff is he? Like all of him? He is rock hard, brother.

Um, Ving go ahead and roll a 2d6 plus wisdom. I guess to examine this. Uhhhhhhhhh 9. 9. I'll help! I aid. 8. Okay, so you like haul Billy along because this is a quick thing. This is obviously, it looks like the puncture wounds weren't super deep but this was a paralytic that was injected. And they are locking up stiff. Oh, I massage their legs, try to keep them, I don't know. Yeah. I suck out the poison. Alright, this sounds- I shove a book into his mouth so he doesn't bite his tongue.

Yep, sounds good. I think while you're running up to try and help this guy, this is what you hear. In the trees. Like echoing through the trees. Through the brush. Yeah. And it goes into like a defensive position as he hears the harp snake. He has- he went to a music festival where a girl lost control of her harp snakes and uh everyone was really pissed off at her. Yeah, that makes sense. It was a huge party foul.

And you hear this like eerie- No, we don't want to come back with you to this festival, Nadine! Four people died! Nadine! And uh, as you run up and Billy starts massaging his legs and Ving is sucking on him and Tuck jams a book in his mouth, there's like this beautiful eerie violin like playing in the trees, echoing off the branches, playing in the underbrush. So Billy's trying to massage. Yes. 2d6 plus 2d6. Dexterity. Ten. And I'm massaging so well. Just like Stay with us, brother!

You'll be just fine. And you're massaging like around the joints and in the knees and hips. Yeah, I'm like, do you have arthritis? It's crunchy in here. I do! And- but the legs start moving a little bit as you massage the venom out of the joints. Ving, you were trying to suck some of that out? Yeah, yeah, I'm just trying to do- 2d6 plus constitution. Uh, you got a seven. Nice. Oh, beautiful! Yeah, you're able to, uh, suck a good mouthful of this venom out. Yeah.

He's so hard, and I got most of it out. Oh, gross! I'm draining this hard man. He's so less hard than he was before I started sucking him. With nothing but my skillful mouth. Yeah, Tuck looks back over his shoulder and he's like, he's getting soft, that's great. Good job, guys. I'm almost there. I'm almost done. I'm almost finished. Yeah, I'll take care of this fat snake, okay guys? Uh, but as you do this, you hear a crescendo of strings in the underbrush just in front of you. What do you do?

It's coming back. Can I attack it? Sure. You can't see it right now. Can I use deathless to try and see it? Deathless being? Uh, you know your end, uh, when you enter a fight knowing death will not come, roll plus wisdom. On a hit, your foes are dismayed. Take one, plus one ongoing against them until the fight is over. On a ten plus, your surety in your destination makes something about the now more clear. Ask a question from the discerned realities list.

I kinda wanna enter a fight knowing that I can't die here. Like, this thing's not gonna kill me. Yeah. 2d6 plus wisdom. Twelve. Okay, there you go. You get a question. What is about to happen? Okay, yeah, so you're listening, um, you're keen musician's ear. Yeah. You're able to like track the sound of it. Be flat. Yeah. Exactly. Tuck has his eyes closed and he's like, it's music. Free music. You say it's music and a couple of the Harriers look at each other like, what? What does he mean by that?

And, uh, you, but you do hear the strings crescendo like three feet away from Ving. Okay. And you know exact, you can pinpoint where this thing is. Yeah, I'm just gonna slash the axe through it. Yep. Hack and slash, 2d6 plus strength. Uh, eight. Perfect. So you're gonna take damage as well. Okay. But you get to roll your attack on this thing. Okay. D10 for damage? Uh, yeah, you roll a d10. Seven. Oof. Okay, yeah, uh, roll a d10. Three. Okay, so you take three damage. Okay, yeah.

You hear the music and you step forward. You swing your mighty axe. Yeah. Where you hear this insidious orchestra coming from and you hack into the side of this thing. Your axe bites into the air. Mm-hmm. And it's suddenly appears before you. It's like ten feet long. Holy shit. Really thick around, like thick around as a man. Ugh. Ugh. And as you hack into it, it chomps onto your shoulder. Ugh! You don't feel it, thankfully, but you are still scared by this giant snake that's now biting you.

Yeah, and you hear Tech go, Eww, gross! And the music ceases, and it becomes completely visible. And then Tech goes, Ving, kill it! Oh my god. Yeah, Ving, uh, there's a giant snake on Tuck. Tech's rolling around. Yeah. Ving and Billy, you see this giant snake. Uh. I lunge at it and try to just, uh, take hold of its head and peel it off of Tuck. Okay, yeah, 2d6 plus strength, I think that would be. Like, it defy danger basically. Okay. Uh, ten. Ten, okay, yeah, you get it around like the jaws.

Yeah. You pry its mouth off Tuck's shoulder, and you're holding it as its tail starts to wrap around Tuck. Billy, your dads are both now holding this giant snake. Um, yeah. You see your dads locked in a wrestling match with this giant, thick snake. I don't know if I should be around for this. Don't leave us alone! I'm so torn. Uh, I guess I just stab? I don't know, hack and slash? Yeah, you can hack and slash, 2d6 plus strength. It's like immobilized, so you can get a, you can get a shot on it.

I don't wanna kill it, I feel bad for it. No, it sucks. I guess it's evil. It's evil! It's evil. And Tuck screams, it's racist, Billy! It's racist, Billy! Okay, so hack and slash is what is 2d6 plus strength. Strength? Seven. Uh, so you roll your damage. Oh. Five. Five. And then you roll a d10, Billy. For myself? For yourself, cause you got a seven to nine on hack and slash. Why so high? Because that's what we're dealing with. Oh shit. Ten? How much hit points do you have right now?

Twenty-one, I'm fine. Okay. Any armor? None. None. How does Billy attack it? You just run up and stab it? Yeah, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I've never seen such a large animal. Mm-hmm. Not true. Francis is huge. You've seen dragons. You've seen such big animals. But in Billy's head he's saying, I've never seen such a huge animal. Yeah. Cause he's so afraid. Yeah. And he, uh… You look at us and we're like, stab it in the face, Billy. I go, okay.

And so I walk right up to it and I stick, I stab it. I'm trying to aim for its, like, inside its mouth, but I hit under its chin and as I do that, I don't know, it's like a thing goes into my arm cause I'm right there. And then I pull it out really fast. But I'm dragging my whole arm down the thing. Oh my god. And so now I've got this big gash in my arm. I go, AAAAAAAAHHHHH! Billy! And you're like, oh fuck! And you start bleeding. No, I'm so sure my blood is coming out.

And then your hand starts to feel numb. And then your forearm starts to feel numb. Oh my gosh. It bit off my arm. It ate my arm! It ate it! My arm's in its tummy right now. Tuck grabs the top of Billy's arm to, like, keep the vet from moving any further. Oh yeah. 2d6 plus wisdom, I guess. Motherfuck. See if that would work. You're basically making yourself a tourniquet. Uh, yeah, nine. Great, so you- I ate. Okay, good call. Billy, calm down. Just breathe.

I know it's hard to calm down when I'm saying calm down. He fainted. I got, yeah, ten. Okay, great. So, uh, basically like, Tuck takes one arm off of the snake to grab Billy's arm to kind of make a tourniquet with his fist. With his, just, fingers. Trying to be as gentle as possible. Yeah. So you stop the venom from moving. Yeah. But the snake starts to, like, buck against you. And then Ving just gets a firmer hold on it and stops it from getting away. But you're holding Billy who's passed out.

Yeah. The snake is wrapped around you, and you're, like, holding it with your thighs. And we're like, can somebody fucking kill this thing? What are you- What the fuck are you doing, Ben? It's hard to get a shot when all of you are on it. Billy wakes up, he goes, and then he stabs again. Okay. That's great because you're being, like, you're hung over it by Tuck basically. Yeah. Yeah. Seven plus strength, you said? Yeah. Seven. Okay. Oh, wait, Billy deals an extra D6 because of his winter form.

I fucking do! Oh, yes, you do! We forgot that. Yeah, so we'll do that now. Roll two extra D6s now. Yeah. Oh, wait, don't just listen to him. I am listening to him. I got seven. Seven. So you rolled a D6, you rolled a D6. And you need one more D6 to make it fair. To make up. To make it fair. Plus five, so- Yeah, this thing's dead if you want it to be dead. I make it dead. Yeah. Yeah. So you're, like, hung over it like a claw machine. Yeah.

And you just- When I wake up, my pupils widen all the way, and I get it right into its brain. And you, uh, you feel the, like, death throes of this giant snake as it sort of coils and uncoils and then drops to the ground. That's what you deserve for eating my arm. It's music silenced forever. And then it pukes all over Tuck. There's just, like, yeah, stuff just comes out of it. And it's dead.

And the Harriers who have been trying to get a shot this whole time are just, like, wow, amazed at your combat prowess. I rushed to Billy and put a poultice on his arm. Yeah, great. This is the kind of, like, injury that you get from, like, a broken slide at a swimming pool. You don't know where a slide is, like, kind of jagged at the bottom. Yeah. And in the 90s it was just, like, just try and miss that. Yeah, just… Yeah, don't not slide. Don't hit that part.

But every once in a while it would just be, like, fwoom! Oh my god. And it would just, like, cut all the way down your leg. Ugh. What's that? Billy's kind of embarrassed now. He's like, oh, I guess it wasn't that big a deal. I didn't, I didn't feel it really, so I didn't cry or anything. His eye, his face is so splotchy. I didn't cry. You didn't cry at all, actually. You were crying in your past, Ed. One thing I know for sure is how little I cried.

And, I mean, by way of adventure information, there's this big old snake with light-warping scales and paralytic venom lying on the ground. Yeah, might take a bunch of the venom. Yeah, you just, like, milk it out of the fangs. Gross. Or you grab, like, the gland, just like, cut that out. Can I fill… I have a pewter cup. Can I fill it with some of the scales? Yeah, absolutely. You can yank some scales off. And one of the Harriers comes up, looks like she was maybe a hunter before the war.

She's just like, oh, it's a good kill. Can you skin it for us? I was going to for myself. Okay. Can I have some of it? I suppose. Okay. Whoa, we, like, killed it. We killed it. You didn't fucking help at all. You were just gonna leave it here on K. If I didn't do anything, you were just gonna leave the scales. No, we weren't. You were gonna leave the hide and you know it. Please make me boots. Fine. She starts… She just, like, um…

Have you guys ever seen, like, a snake get skin where they just kind of, like, slice it down and then you just pull it off? She does that, but with, like, a ten-foot-long snake. Just yanks this big piece of scale off of it. She rolls up this hide, this snake skin, and tucks it into her bag. Is there any part of it that has… That contains the music? Is there a gland or is there an area? Amygdala? You know what? 2d6 plus intelligence, two spout.

What if it's got, like, weird vocal chords all down? Oh, cool. I like that. Between two bones? I got ten. Interesting and useful. You guys just tell me how it works. Yeah, it's those vocal chords, like, in different thicknesses, like a violin. Oh, if you pull it out, you know those, like, electric violins that have no body? It looks like one of those. That'd be cool if it was, like, this, like, weird bone shape like that and then inside were all the, like, tendons. Yeah.

There is a bone with cords many different kinds of vocal chords strung between it. Yeah. And that is how they make their music. Great. I wanna extrude that. Yeah, you can pull it out. It takes some doing. And now it's just a big piece of meat. The scales are gone. The venom's gone. Well, I mean, we might as well use this whole thing. Cook it up. The Harriers nod and agree. Like, they start cutting the meat off it and… Put it on a spit. And now you have, like, food for a while.

You've got fresh meat. Fresh snake meat. And a weird bone violin made of snake cords. Weird. Pan is, like, invasive. These creatures are invasive and dangerous. Thank you for doing your part. And also, if there is one in these woods, there are more, so we should perhaps continue. Keep your ears open. Keep your hearts strong. And he disappears into the trees. And, uh, you continue on your way. Yeah, we start running again. Yep. And you're following…

At this point you realize, like, the way the Harriers are going is matching up with the footprints that M4 has left behind. Mm-hmm. Perfect. Which means maybe you'll catch up. Which means, roll me some dice. I wanna see if you catch up. Just 2d6? Yeah, 2d6 plus… All of us? I guess Constitution to keep up. Okay. Yeah. It's going slower. Um, 11. Ooh. 11. 10. Okay. Fuck yeah.

You hustle on through the trees, following these footprints, and eventually you start to hear, like, a thump, thump, thump. Like, feel the reverberations through the ground. Mm. And ahead, you see M4. Like, creeping, basically, through the trees. He's started to slow down quite a lot. Mm. And he's being very careful. You can see him, like, inching around trees, trying to gently move some of them aside, and, like, cracking their roots out of the ground. Mm-hmm. But then putting them back, and…

Putting them back? He's, like, trying to straighten them. Oh. As he moves through. What? Um, but there he is. That's cute. And the Harriers back off. Yeah. Just keep your distance. He knows the dress of the enemy. We'll let you handle this. Um, yeah. I kinda wanna put some Hibernio water in and see what it does. Oh, cool. Interesting. Like, into his boiler? Very interesting. Yeah, when it's, like, like, imbued with spirit energy. Yeah. To awaken its inner spirit. Mm-hmm.

That's a very interesting idea. Or, like, coalesce the spirits that are within it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I wonder if that would work. That's very smart. Mm-hmm. But you'd have to get close to it first. Okay. Alright, and you start, um, I imagine, like, it's quite dark. In this part of the wood. The canopy is thick. The trees are varying in their closeness, so it's, uh, it's not the most open place in the world, but he's reached a spot where there's, like, a large rock jutting up out of the ground.

Mm. And it looks like you can see, like, poof, poof, poof, like, irregular puffs of steam. Mm. And he almost puts, he, like, rests his hammer against the cliff. Mm. Like, he's leaning against it. Mm. He's tired? Like, it looks like he's, he looks like an old man going, like, oh, boy. Aw. So, there's quite a lot of stairs at this, uh, outback steakhouse. Mm-hmm. Um, so it's leaning, it's resting. I, yeah, I wanna go up to him gently from the other side and let him know that a mechanic is coming.

Oh, so you're trying to get in front of him and be like, hey, buddy. Yeah. Okay, that is probably a charisma, 2d6 plus charisma. Billy and Tuck, what do you, what is your approach? I'm gonna hang back, but be close. I'll hang back a little bit, same. Okay. Eight. Eight, seven to nine. You approach from the front, like, hands up, kind of. M4, stand down.

And its head spins to, like, the long distance lens and points right at you and it brings, like, its fist and its hammer up, but it doesn't attack. What do I hear inside? It is scared, it will strike, is what your, what is imparted to you. Hmm. Basically, back off. I won't come any closer. It requires fuel. I do not have fuel, but I have something else. M4 imparts to you, it will help. Thing says it, I think it could. Okay, 2d6 plus charisma again. This is like a parlay, maybe. What'd you get?

Ten. Oh! Nice. Very nice. And seeing that you are a mechanic and you are offering maintenance, basically, M4 stands down. Like, it sort of straightens up and you hear hissing as pistons, like, bring the arms in, like, collapse the forearms a little bit and its torso compacts and it kind of hunches over. Makes, like, a ladder with his arms. Yeah, exactly. And, like, a hatch pops open on the back. Okay. Yeah. Take it easy, I don't know what this is gonna do.

I go up and I, there's a part of the boiler, I'm gonna replace the water with a jar of hibernia water. Okay. I think this might also be, this is like a defy danger wisdom. Like, is this a good idea kind of roll? But I, I'm very curious. Uh-oh. Okay, ten. Oh, okay. Then, the question that I have is, like, what is the hibernian water doing to the spirits that are captured in the construction of this mech? They are decoding the learned part of the mech. Mm-hmm.

They're allowing the natural elements to speak together. They're amplifying the song that is the elements. Yeah. And they're, the coding of the machine is being dampened. So the spirits are basically taking control of M4. Mm-hmm. Cool. So you pour this water into the boiler and it works its way into the systems of the warmac. You close the hatch and M4 reactivates. The, the pistons start going, the boiler starts pumping away, and, uh, he begins to stand.

Its arms unfold, its torso extends, it stands up, and then it rolls its shoulders. Mm. That's cool. And kind of, like, tips to one side. And then M4 says, thank you. And that's where we're gonna end it for this week. I've been your Game Master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the Barbarian, Abdulaziz. It's so sick. I'm, I'm so sick. I'm so happy we have an Iron Giant now. I love him. Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. Take care.

Playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone! Thank you to Aaron Reid for our intro and outro music. I really recommend you check out Aaron's original music at aaronreid.bandcamp.com and also check out all the music produced for the show on Spotify. Thank you to all of our Susporters around the world. Without you, we simply would not be able to do this show.

Uh, if you want a Susport, and in return get access to a bunch of cool bonus content, like an up-to-date Mall Brats feed, merch, writing, gift boxes, games run by Abdul and myself, live streams, and more, check us out at patreon.com slash speltlore or speltlore.com slash money, please. And if you like speltlore, you should check out the public release of our other show, Mall Brats. That's available on Spotify, iTunes, wherever you get your podcasts.

And if you like either show, please leave us a review. Reviews mean a lot to us, and mean a lot to people finding the show. And if you leave a review for the show, maybe we'll read it on air. Like this review from Aces and Cats, Beautiful and Perfect. Extremely well-built story with lots of fun shenanigans. Brought to life by a very talented cast of comedians and storytellers. So glad the world gets to enjoy it. Thank you so much. Uh, there's a review from Rita Human, uh, of Mall Brats.

Where have these adorable gremlin kids been all my life? I love them all so much already. I would've put them in my pocket, and peek in on their antics whenever I need to cheer myself up. Thank you, Rita. We got any other reviews? Uh, this one says, My favorite podcast ever. I always know that I'm going to have fun when listening to Spout Lore. Humorous and heartfelt, this show is an epic journey of three friends. And Sean. Wow! Thank you so much. Holy shit. That was hilarious. What a gift.

Hair perp. Yeah. Thanks, perp. Thank you so much. See you later, everybody. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.

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 to Spout Lore!

I'm your host, Spout, and I'm your host, Spout. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian Abdulaziz. He's putting on his, oh he knows that we're doing video episodes now. So he's gonna be doing visual gags. I wanna wear my sunglasses. What's up? You look so cool! Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Hoppers. No, you fucked. I'll fucking kill you, Paul. What's up, you broccoli fuck? And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief. Jessica Tai. No!

What's going on, you chins? Grab the knife. Don't you ever touch your sunglasses again, I'll fucking kill you. He's there. I like the old Abdul. Yeah, me too, before he realized he could do visual gags for the show. Alright, when last we left our heroes, they were under ambush by mysterious archers from the marshlands and the woods surrounding their convoy. The party leapt into action. Aiding the convoy in their own special ways.

The first thing Tuck did was flip a cart that was in motion and actually made it less effective cover. Billy dashing into the undergrowth and discovered therein a man named Pan, who wears a pan flute around his neck. Leader of what we would later find to be called the Riverway Harriers. Sort of behind enemy lines, scouting and ambush group of archers. Tuck. Tuck kept trying to talk to them and just kept taking arrows in the chest over and over again.

Ving was able to dislodge some of the mechanics from the back of M4 before causing the Wormack to go on a bit of a escape rampage where it just ran off into the trees. And the fuel, which the Harriers were attempting to capture for some reason, was destroyed, dragged away by M4. But Billy was able to make contact with the Harriers. Telling them that they are- that you are the Harriers. Telling them that they are- that you are friends and allies of the Riverways and the Highspear.

Recognizing you from reports of your combat days before, they disappeared with you into the trees and escaped from the Firefield's forces. You were then taken to their camp in the woods and were offered the opportunity to help the effort by destroying a fuel refinery in the Firefields used to alchemically process coal.

And in return, I think we just asked that they- And in return, I think we just asked that they- And in return, I think we just asked that they- Spread- spread around how cool we looked while we were doing- Spread- spread around how cool we looked while we were doing- Yeah. Spread- spread around how cool we looked while we were doing- Was that what you- Yeah. I love that most of the ways that Tuck operates with people is like, just spread around something I did or said.

Spread around- Spread around- Yeah, just admit- Good stuff though this time. Just the good stuff please. You agreed? Mm-hmm. Tuck had a waking interaction with the Demon of Servitude- Mm-hmm. Inhabiting the coin in his chest before pushing that out of his mind. Traveling to the fuel refinery, the party was- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The party was accosted by a harp snake that emerged from its invisible state. Mm-hmm. Killed it and then absolutely stripped it like an old car. Mm-hmm.

Pulled the skin off, got the vocal cords, got some scales, took some meat. This thing was just dust by the time you were done with it. Yeah. Out of respect. Out of respect. And then the party found a trail of dislodged trees and smushed underbrush finding M4, the Wormack, in the- Yeah. In a low fuel state attempting to make its way to the coal refinery and refuel. Ving spoke to M4 and offered help in the form of Hibernian water in its boiler tank.

The tank was filled with this water and seemed to give M4 a semblance of sentience for which it thanked Ving. And that is where we find our heroes now, a looming Wormack shifting foot to foot in a very human-like way looking down at all of you. What do you do? Whoa. Yes. Whoa. I'm Ving. I am M4. Can we hear it talk? Everyone in the vicinity can hear this thing talking. How is it talking? It is communicating through Ving for everyone, yeah. Okay. So it's not using the pipes or anything?

Ooh, that'd be cool. Oh, that is cooler actually. I like it. Maybe it's like, yeah, so it's kind of got like a kind of voice. Right. But that I cannot replicate. Yeah, yeah. So I will be speaking to it. Oh, that's cool. I'm Ving. I'm M4. I'm M4. I'm M4. I'm M4. I'm M4. I'm M4. I'm M4. But that I cannot replicate. Yeah, yeah. So I will be speaking like a human being. Mm. But so everyone is like backing up. The Harriers are backing up. They're knocking arrows. Stand down friends. This is not.

What do you think? What do you appears to be? Can we find out stuff from M4? Oh. Like where it's bases? I mean, yeah, you can definitely talk to it if you want. And he's just been born basically. Kind of, yeah. He's like a little baby. Yeah, he might not actually have much information. But you said before they had a… Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like if a calculator became sentient, would it remember all the numbers it's processed? I think it would. It has like a…

It has a memory function. Probably has a limited… Whoa. Yeah. That's actually, no, that's exactly what I was thinking. Holy shit, Jessica. Shit. No, you're… Calculator expert. Calculator expert. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You're totally right though I think that it does have like I bet inside there's like a weird little kind of abacus thing not abacus but you know like a little switchboard that like does keep track of information card yeah like a card oh yeah yeah because it's kind of card punch and like steam technology kind of existed sort of at the same time yeah maybe it's got like little it's got like a when you load one of these things up you like load a stack of like punch cards and then it is like tracking stuff inside but they are not paper they're like solid like ceramic discs because it's meant to route steam in different ways so it can't be like a thing that would break down yeah that's cool that's really cool and it's ceramic so it can like withstand like the high pressure and heat that exists inside of its like mechanical brain that's sick yeah very cool how are you feeling um and I think I think he does say um there's like a hoot as he goes um I feel a where and it's like spinning its head around like looking into the trees bending down looking at you looking at like the big hammer on one of its hands where am I where are we and tuck moves forward and he's taking off his backpack and he's he has a music bottle in his hand that he was about to and he's like we're in the firefields principalities he reaches down after tuck responds to him and grabs tuck around the torso and lifts him lifts you up to the fire to his face and hoots what am I and then tuck uh fuck what do I what's the answer here you play the you play the music and go your metal is fucked oh yeah that's what tuck does yeah tuck takes the the bottle that's in his hand and he says that he goes your fucking metal is fuck and then he plays a licensed song yeah he plays iron man by black sabbath yeah right but the fantasy version yeah which is iron man by african-american sabbath great great we're really pushing ourselves with the world building today an african our world yeah go ahead and roll 2d6 plus charisma yeah stop that this is what we get for stalling we allowed sean to make eye contact with a duel while we did that I didn't have ideas I know and look at where we are here we go not that I'm not into it I'm trying I think what I'm trying to do is like based on like what we learned about them last time they like sing as they walk and then they communicated their emotions through songs so like there was like a song of sadness and then like there was like they could communicate with each other over long distances through songs so I I think tuck intrinsically not intellectually in any way he's like they like music yeah totally that doesn't make sense so he yeah he rummaged around and then he's like I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do music bottles he stole and like pulled the most metal ones that's a four uh and that's a two plus charisma is nine how are you waiting uh ving you know like when a parent has a song with the kids like you are iron man I got 11 holy shit you can say whatever you want with those dice yeah nobody can see them oh yeah we all have glasses great so with a tent you know the music is playing and uh m4 is staring at you and listening to the music and then you can hear like as like his burner starts going and he starts like like he's playing the song back to you and then puts you down and then tuck goes this song's about knowing what you are I am metal as fuck he kind of like boom like claps the the hammer hand in his open hand you are whatever you want to be what does it mean to be metal as fuck it means you don't let anyone fucking tell you what to do then I'm not metal as fuck fuck you that's metal as fuck yeah metal as fuck what what are you I'm not metal as fuck I'm not metal as fuck I'm not metal as fuck I'm like focus fuck uh pan steps forward and yeah I think he does like a little like uh fucking willy wonka when he's uh summoning the the and m4 kind of plays the song back to pan as well I like that he mimics I like yeah and he's in learning mode yeah he's trying to figure out what's going on yeah and pan says to m4 we are warriors and we have a mission will you join us on this mission please please please please please please please please join us is billy begging yeah he's he's kind of like sidled up next to pan he's like please m4 please please join us for this fun journey yeah you can go ahead and roll charisma yes pan obviously can't roll charisma so he's a white guy with droids eight yes that's a that's a partial success yeah you oh you could offer you could offer him the coal that's at the refinery I mean if you're hungry we're heading to to the refinery right now I do require fuel I will come for the fuel your mission means nothing to me that's metal as fuck it's metal as fuck dude I will lead the way holy shit do we have another victor and it took us hey crazy question but how would you feel about being renamed like black spire too crazy but blue sky what do you think of that kind of thing from your perspective this is getting me out of nowhere what you say like oh how would you think just thinking of a name off the top of my head not related to anything else black spire too maybe uh and m4's head spins around as he's starting to walk away and he goes no one tells me what to do oh shit we're not no oh why go ahead go ahead and roll to what to name him black spire too I guess I failed did you fail I got four what was I rolling plus I guess it would be plus charisma seven yeah god damn it I wanted that point I will consider this name a good name pretty cool it seems contextless to me two suggests an iteration upon what it iterates I'm not sure a woman a woman So I'm better than Black Spire 1.

Black Spire 1 is inferior to me. Are you going to let him talk about Black Spire like that? I don't know. No, no, no. You're just different. I can choose my own name. M4 is not predetermined. That was your name given to you by another. Do you have a name that sings inside of you? A name that sings within me are many songs. A chorus inside. Oh, cool. I will sing my song of vengeance upon the people that wronged me. Whoa. But first, I'm hungry. Okay. I will lead the way.

Can I ride on your shoulder? I suppose. To climb up. I'll roll for that. You do not have to roll. No, absolutely not. I succeed. It doesn't matter. You can roll. I genuinely sighed. I don't know. I'll check the tape, but I don't know if I… The last time I went… I jump on a hammock on his back. Yeah, I climb up the little ladder up his leg. And some of the Harriers climb up, like Pan climbs up there with you to survey things, and the other Harriers spread out in the trees.

So I think with his long strides, around an hour, maybe less, of travel, the sun is starting to filter through the dense trees. Blades of sunlight sort of casting through the trees and on the grasses. The songbirds of the evening. Oh, yes. In the trees as we walk by, and then he's mimicking in his… Yeah. Do-do-do-de-de-de-do-do-do-do. And you come to the edge of the trees, and M4 is just stomping along. So if nobody stops him, he's just going to walk right out of the trees.

Do we lose cover outside of the trees? You would have less cover outside the trees for sure. You don't know what's on the other side. Okay. Hold. Boom. Stops. I think we need to see what's on the other side. Very well. He says pretty loud. Quiet, quiet, quiet. Speak softer. Use less steam. Very well. Go. I'm having trouble modulating my voice with my steam. Go and look outside. I will remain here. Okay. Okay. Should we discern realities? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You get it. Okay. Okay.

2d6 plus wisdom. Holy shit. Okay. Wow. So that's three questions off the discern realities list. I see everything. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What here is useful or valuable to us? Great. So you get to the edge of the trees, and it's a pretty sharp delineation. Like the forest ends when you get to this point, at least this part of the forest. And I think before you is like a wide distance of rolling bog and greenery, like not a lot of plants on this sort of area.

There's a road that travels right to left and past that road, you can see buildings and smokestacks and a rocky hillside that looks like it's been dug into. This is very likely the refinery. There's a wall that surrounds the part of the refinery that isn't mountain. And then there's a big gate that looks like it has guards on posts on either side. Okay. What should I be on the lookout for? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh.

You're like oh yeah if we went around like if we went further south in the trees and then like went around the hillside we could potentially get up and over it would be a little risky to get that far but then you wouldn't have to deal with like the gate and the guards so if we went around we could like scale down from the cliff that's behind it exactly yeah but it would be a bit more of a process because you would be like climbing a rocky hillside and then trying to climb back down what's about to happen uh it looks like you are watching and there's like a bunch of shouting and there's like a clink clink clink clink clink as like the gate starts to swing aside and it looks like they're preparing a convoy like a shipment of coal is about to leave oh so maybe we could hit the shipment instead of the factory I think we don't we want to destroy the factory but we need the shipment before we can to power up oh right yeah okay that's a good idea yeah we'll let them come to us that's smart we'll intercept them on the road eat up all those coal nugs yeah charge the gate yeah let's not do the thing where we climb up and then scale down yeah I think so it doesn't seem like your style but I thought you'd like to know yeah yeah yeah we have a buick now oh yeah see and you share this information with pan who's watching yeah yeah and pan's like what we ambush the cart here or further down the road let's go further down the road I actually think I can distract them because I'm still dressed in this gimp outfit perfect yeah perfect yeah you guys just have to rough it up I got up oh ving's still dressed like a mechanic and we have the mech yeah yeah oh yeah I think it's worth trying we'll pretend we'll use our because you're still dressed in that white tunic yeah yeah we actually might not need to charge the gate then we could just pretend that oh yeah you're all in disguise yeah and you have a mac yeah yeah we almost that up so hard I guess you could just try to sneak in and you basically say this as pan is about to leave like wait wait wait wait wait why don't we just sneak in he's like oh I mean yeah I guess we could oh I know the harriers and I will go up and around the cliff smart oh sneaking from the back from two sides yeah so they're gonna try and they'll wait basically until you get a signal or they get a signal and then they'll attack and we'll we'll sneak in and see if we can collect any information because ultimately we still want to like kill cole and black hammer right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah if there's any info we can gather about him or callum or what the the gibbous man is doing here we'll do that and then we'll blow the whole thing up cool and then pans disappears into the trees yeah we're telling us to m4 too oh yeah sounds good m4 is like wait you're going to destroy my food factory I want to eat all that stuff you can eat it first and then we'll it up you know what I've been thinking about how I get to choose my own name I think I like m4 more actually yeah yeah are you okay buddy I'm just trying to be quiet it's hard when all your vocal cords are pipes okay so you three are gonna sneak in that's the plan yes or like hey we're here for maintenance or whatever yeah great tuck wants to make himself look up like he got beaten up are you whoa wait why He's got one in the chamber with the cracking.

That's impressive. It's so tense. Wait, so your plan is you're going to be beat up. Yeah. Why? Oh, to say you need a medic at the base. Yeah. Pretend we got attacked and we're the only ones that are left. Yeah, pretend I'm dead. And then Doug picks up a knife. No, no, no. This side. He's like, there. It looks really bad. It hurts a lot, too. Oh, God, your pancreas is right there. You could have hit it. And Billy is a little boy that came along that was rescued, I guess. Yeah.

He's still covered in blood, actually, from the snake. So he's like. Your arms all ripped up. Yeah, my arms ripped up. And I say, my costume's done. He's kind of wobbling back and forth from blood loss. Yeah, kind of gray. Do I need to look fucked up? What more should I do to my costume? He looks at Tegas. Slap me. Slap me. Slap me. Slap me. Teg winds up and tries to hit Tegas hard. Then you're going to roll damage. You're not rolling. I'm so scared. He's not trying to stop you from hitting him.

You don't have to roll. Okay. You're just going to roll damage. Okay. You're deciding to roll damage right now. I think that Bing and Tegas have been fighting. Some stuff coming. All right, roll it. Maybe the leather suits are making us grumpy. Yeah. Yeah, you're really uncomfortable. It's not breathable at all. Some, like, domestics brewing. I've been listening to a lot of episodes, and it's bubbling. Yeah. Six. So, yeah, six damage. Shit. Crack. Damn. Black eye, bloody lip. Yeah, perfect.

Sick. There you go. Great. I put some coal on my face. It's coal dust. You also can't wear masks. I don't know why. I put the mask on. Perfect. Now it's believable. No one would have believed that. It's taped with nothing. So, I think from here, you're able to… Load up and just walk M4 out of the trees. Yeah, and we talk to M4, we tell him it's a subterfuge plan now. Very well. Can you carry me like I'm, like, dead? Sure. Or, like, dying?

And he just grabs you around the chest and kind of carries you like a limp doll. And I go limp. Do you remember how it felt before you remember what it felt like? There's like a… Of course. We need you to act like that now. To get inside. To bring it down. To get enough food. You get it, RollerCrisp. Remember for this. Can you act like other people are in charge of you for a little bit longer? Eight. I will do this until I have reason not to. Fair enough.

And he kind of, like, shifts and becomes very rigid in his movements. Thank you. And you can walk him out of the trees. Yeah. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. And you hear, like, shouting and you see the guards, like, pointing as you stomp towards the… Help us! I'm dying! I need medical help! And Tech goes, Knife. Some dildo slapped me! And as you stomp across the grasslands towards the refinery, you see the scale of this place.

There are several larger buildings that you can see over the walls with smokestacks chugging along and you can see, like, winding a little bit up the hill. There's a variety of trails that have, like, different mouths to different entrances into the hillside. Mm-hmm. Cart tracks and carts winding everywhere. Exactly. There's lots of, like, chug-chug-chug-chug-chug, like, things moving down tracks.

They've got those, like, mechanized conveyor belts that, like, carry coal up and, like, pour it into a giant pile. Totally, yeah. And as you approach, a few people run out of the gates to come and get you. Someone runs up and is like, What happened? What happened to you? Yeah. Yeah. Trying to get into their voice. What happened to all of you? Just let us know when you're there. Donkey. Well, this guy has layers. What happened to… Wow. What happened? This is close enough. This guy's so drunk.

What happened to all of you? He's, like, pushing a wineskin, like, under his coat. Are you guys all drunk? Yeah. What's happening? No. None of us are drunk. I want to discern realities if they're all drunk or not. You can roll discern realities if you decide to. Two to six plus wisdom. Eight. You get one question. Are you drunk? This guy's drunk. What is it? What here is not what it appears to be. What here is not what it appears to be. Because he appears to be drunk. And he is.

But the others, there's three others, are not, and they're mad about it. They're angry at this guy. They're like, they want to be drunk. They want to be drunk. They want to be drunk. They're drunk too. No, they're like, we're on the job, Gregor. This is the conversation we interrupted as we came up, where his co-workers were like, man, you're really risking everything right now. I know, like, Cassandra left you a few months ago and now you've been taking it. Don't even say her name.

I vouched for you for this job. My ass is on the line too. And you know what? I loved that you did that for me. You're a good friend. Not like Sandra. Not like Sandra. Not like Sandra and that bastard Tristan. Oh, come by. I'll replace all your windows for free so you can fuck my wife. And then the guy who was talking to her before comes in, he grabs him. He's like, look, man, this is the nature of the job. We get sent away. These are some of the things that we lose.

You're not going to find her at the bottom of a bottle, okay? I just miss her so much. And I miss Tristan. He was a good friend. And you know what? Actually, now that I'm significantly more drunk than I was before, I think they're really good together. Boom, boom, boom. Oh, what the fuck's over there? Oh my God, what happened to you? We found him. We did it, we did it. So, what's going on? Where's your convoy? What's going on with you? You look like… Oh, don't worry about me.

You look like you've been crying. He starts pointing away in tears. Who hurt you? You know what? I think I hurt me. But a little bit of woman named Sandra and a glazer named Tristan. A window glazer. A window glazer named Tristan. And my wife. And really, when I think about it, my parents. But anyway, what happened to you? Hey, where's your convoy? Those Riverland bastards ambushed us on the convoy. Oh. We got separated in the quarrel. Bunch of hicks. Yeah, they stabbed me. Look.

And then Tuck turns the side of himself that he… Oh, that looks bad. I know, it's really deep. And then he… It's Billy's jelly knife. No, no, no, no, no. Stop. He fingers it. It's got seahorses on it. Stop touching it. Stop touching it. And he turns behind him and he goes, Medic. And a couple of people in like white aprons come out and start… Like M4 lowers you to the ground and they… Tuck very performatively falls to the ground. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And you don't have to roll for that.

I want to convince them that I fainted. You did. All right. Yeah. 2d6 plus charisma. 12. Yeah. Wow. You did the thing that you said you wanted to do. It's almost like you actually fainted, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, touch that. Yeah, you faint. You do it so well that you're unconscious. Tuck fast. Tuck fast. You fainted his head. You do it so well. Tuck fast. Because he's like, he's losing blood. And then he hit his head with himself. When he fake fainted. Yeah. And they take you away.

Well, they try to take you away and they realize you're like 700 pounds. So then they call a couple of people out and the remaining guards with Gregor start… Everybody's dragging Tuck away. Yeah. They lash. They lash a bunch of ropes to my legs and start dragging me away. And the floor here is like that quarry rock that's really sharp. His back's getting… You're wearing that GIMP outfit though, so you're fine. But you can just feel the sharp points, but no cutting.

It's just poking you a lot. Thank God I'm gimped up. Now I know why they wear these. One of Tuck's classic catchphrases. Thank God I'm gimped up. That'll be a t-shirt come in Q2 2025. Jessica, get on that. All right. Then make it erotic. Erotic. Of course. If I didn't get gimped up, I would have broke back. Mountain is what I'm gimping up. I'm going to ask one of these guys if I can have some coal. Hey, do you think I can have a bit of coal just to tide us over for our mech here?

Oh, looks like you need a bit of maintenance. Anyway, come on in. Yeah. Come on. And he starts like, he's like kind of shouldering M4 in the legs. He's like, get in there, you bucket of bolts. Hey, this thing had saved a lot of lives. Sorry, I've become attached to him. You mechanics so attached to your machines. Yeah. It's a tool, a weapon. Nothing more. Nothing more. You hear like the steam pistons within M4 like rev up.

And M4 stomps through the gate, ducks down under like the, you know, the lintel of it. And you are in the refinery complex. Tuck is being dragged away to like a sort of side building like clapboard and tin roof. Slamming into a bunch of doors every time. Can I follow Tuck? Yeah, totally. I also need medical attention. I'll say you're bleeding a lot, little guy. Yeah, I've been losing a lot of blood lately. I don't know, I'm feeling so good.

Looks like I can kind of see through the meat of your arm. Really? As if you were sliced by some large blade or fang of some kind. Yeah, that knife that's in him, they cut me with it first. Those bastards. I know. Those riverways bastards. And their chilly knives. Y'all start speaking a bad Scottish accent. They really started carving us up out there. Oh, disgusting. But I got my revenge on a couple of them. Aye. Aye. Who's talking, right? We're all talking.

This is kind of from Gregor's mind, I guess, like his perspective. And he's so drunk. He's not sure. All of you look like Tristan. All of you look like Tristan, that bastard window glazer. I could learn a thing or two from him, probably. No, Gregor, don't think like that. Revenge. Yeah, think like that. Yeah. Isn't it fucked up that I'm just dying to be him? And he sits on a stool near the gate and he waves you away. And he pulls the wine skin out from his jacket, pops the cork. It's empty.

And he, you know, tips it over on the gravel. Sandra! And you are kind of, you know, as far as they know, you're members of this military. So you're kind of let to go do your thing. Sick. Tuck and Billy. Tuck is completely unconscious. And he's getting like hauled onto a bed in a makeshift. Yeah, I crawl up on that bed too. What's going on, little guy? I just got a big cut. Oh, let me take a look at that for you. I don't want to look at it. Just look away. Look away. Look.

And the guy reaches into his apron. He's got a little sucker. Little lollipop. Oh, what's this? Oh, whoa. You wouldn't happen to know a little guy. It's like a little sweet treat. I do. I do. It would be me. Oh, here you go. And he gives you one and he's looking at the wound on your arm. What flavor is it? Grape. The best. Grape. Grape. Not fantasy in any way. No. Just what I want. Grape. Grape. Purple. Purple flavor. And yeah, he starts.

He's unwrapping the bandages on your arm and starts taking a look like, whoa, that's quite an ouchie there you've got. Yeah, the Riverway guy really dug deep. Oh, horrible. I was fighting off 10, 12, 20 of them at one go. Wow. Aren't you brave? I was brave. But then they took my knife and they shoved in my friend here. Oh, horrible. Horrible. But don't worry. I got quite a few of them. They're all drifting away in the wind right now. Good. Soon enough. Pieces of them blown away in the wind. Wow.

Like so many leaves. You're so brave. Yeah, and I'm strong too. I can see that. And he like pinches your bicep. Your tiny little bicep. Ow. Soon enough, this war will be over. And the Riverways will never be. There will be no real peace. Yeah, I can't wait. What are you looking forward to the most when peace comes? Oh, I'm looking forward to the future that the Black Hammers have promised us. One of prosperity. Progress. Oh, what kind?

I mean, I only joined recently and me and my family, we live pretty far out. So I don't get much news. Can I like get info out of him? Yeah, sure. You can. What would this be? I guess to certain realities. Yeah. Yeah. Sick. Sick. I would like to use a fairy child. So you're spending a whole to make it seven to nine. Yeah. So you get a one question. Yeah, one question. What about like just what here is useful or valuable to me? Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Well, you know, black glass and the fire fields in general are a bastion of technological innovation of industry and the rest of the principalities are stuck in the old ways. The superstitions, the failing technology and magical, the! I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's a ton of magical wonders and dangers of the golden age.

And if the black haman twins were able to rule as Kinos was by a sovereign or by two sovereigns, then we can enter a new golden age, not of magic and superstition, but of technology and technological might. I see. They resist, but they don't know what they're resisting. Who's resisting. The rest of the principalities. Oh yeah. Sorry. It's just all the blood loss. It's hard for me to follow stuff. I understand. Can I have another sucker? He gives you another sucker. What flavor is this one?

Purple. This one's not even grape. It's just purple. Perfect. Tuck's bed breaks and he smashes it into the ground. He's unconscious, but he needs people to know he's a part of the situation. Can I try and wake Tuck up? If you want to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wake up. I slap you in the face. Once again, you rolled a 10+. You can become conscious when you choose. Stop rolling. Is there anything happening to Tuck's head right now? You did get a 10+, so technically you are in control of this situation.

Okay. We zoom in to Tuck's head. Not like this. No, you gave me control. No. You gave me control. I made a huge mistake here. As Billy is smacking on Tuck's cheeks going, wake up, wake up. The camera zooms in to Tuck's. His eyes are closed, so his nose. And then he goes up. His nose is jingling from the slapping. Going through the magic school bus. Yeah. Into Tuck's brain. With the frizz? No way. It goes up into his brain where he has his ideas. Okay.

All right, so we're focusing on an idea here. There's a sweeping shot of Tuck's gray matter. We can see parts of his brain lighting up and stuff. Certain parts not doing anything. Not at all. All the parts. All the parts of Sissy. R.I.P. R.I.P. R.I.P. So many parts are dormant. A graveyard. Shriveled dead. Undeveloped graveyard. Just a bunch of baby cells just waiting to be awoken one day. Oh my God. Completely never activated. We zoom in to the part of Tuck's brain. And we're dreaming.

He's like, I can't even think about what I'm dreaming used to be. And he's. So I've been thinking about this. And I think like the void that is where Tuck's dreaming mind used to be is like letting stuff in. And I think it also means he can kind of like look out from that void if he's stuck in it. Kind of like his sleep works now such that he closes his eyes and he opens his eyes again. And it's the next day. Yeah. And he feels rested.

But he's sort of like figuring out that like if he can catch up. If he can catch himself right before it opens, he can maybe stop himself in that void place. And then look outwards at like what's in the void. And he wants to use demon eyes in this state to like use his brain as a kind of antenna for like demonic whatever's and see if there's anything in this facility that is like associated with the iconic realm. Oh, anything in the refinery. Yeah. Oh, I see.

I'm thinking of his brain now is kind of an antenna. And this is something that he can do while he's unconscious. I think it exists in the unconscious medium. I see. He sort of like is trying to catch himself in the like one second between dreaming and waking. It's like a lucid dreaming, but he doesn't have a dream. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Interesting. Very interesting.

I think the fact that like the demon came to him during the day made him realize that whatever void space that is exists all the time. Yeah. So he's trying to catch himself in it. He doesn't know if he can. I think. Because you got the 10 plus you are in like, again, you're in full control of your unconscious state. So, yeah, you would be able to see out. And what does demonize do again? Can you remind me? I can roll 2d6 plus wisdom and then it gives me access to the trap expert questions. Yeah.

But for demon. But specifically for demonic influence. Yeah. That's pretty cool. 2d6 plus wisdom. Here we go. Nine. Nine. So it's one hold. It's one hold. Yeah. So you get one question. What else is hidden here? Hmm. Okay. So you feel from this void. You're like looking out inside. You're basically standing in the middle of like an endless plane of darkness. Hmm. Looking out, trying to get glimpses of the outside world. And you feel like behind the sort of locked door of your dissociative state.

You feel servitude rattling the handle. Yeah. And you're like, nope. I know what that like, you know, that feeling that demonic feeling. And you feel another demonic or iconic presence somewhat nearby. Hmm. But not with that sharp clarity. But with that sharp clarity of like the pinpoint existence, the anchoring of like a possessed individual, you just feel an influence. Can I tell what direction it is? The very feeling of this presence tells you that it's not like it's barely a direction.

It's like an area. Okay. It's a location. Okay. Like you feel it is a presence rather than a, an individual. Okay. Yeah. And then Chuck wakes up and he goes, Alison. And there she is at the end of the bed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is she? No. She disappears. As she always does upon waking. Yeah. You wake up and you see Alison. Actually, I like that a lot. You wake up and you see sitting at the end of the bed in a, in a red dress, long red hair flowing down her dark skin. Alison. That's pretty cool.

Nice. Half a second later, gone. I like that she like opens her mouth and like bees come out or something. Yeah. It's a horrible thing. Something scary. Yeah, totally. I was thinking like the spider's web like kind of envelops her and then like pulls her away. Fucking. Oh, what if. The spider legs come out of her mouth. Yeah. Like mother never was. Yeah. Crawls out of her mouth. Spider. Spider legs or hands or something. Yeah. Come out of her mouth. And then almost like. Yeah. Wrap around her.

And wrap around her. And gone. And she's gone. Consumer. Oh, great. Nightmares are back. Oh, but now. In real regular life now. Yeah. But now awake time. Oh, cool. And then Chuck realizes that he goes, fucking a neurophage lied to me. Piece of shit. The warranty. Stupid piece of shit. A neurophage. Great. And you're awake. Your bed is on the floor. Billy's being treated by a medic. Oh, Billy's smacking you in the face. Yeah. I got two suckers hanging out of my mouth. Billy. You're awake now.

Where'd you get those suckers? Don't worry about it. This nice doctor gave it to me. Okay. Oh, I'm not a doctor. Sorry. Oh, you can't call me a doctor, actually. Clearly. Clearly you're not allowed to call me a doctor. Okay. You can call me a doctor. You can call me a doctor. You can call me a doctor. You can call me a doctor. You can call me Mr. Doctor. My last name is Doctor. Mr. Stephen Doctor. So stupid. You will hear people call me doctor, but they're just calling me by my last name.

It's not against the law. So, how are you feeling? And he reaches in and he pulls a purple sucker out of his apron and gives it to you. Yeah. Tuck just opens his mouth and accepts it. He drops it in. How are you feeling? Tuck swallows it whole. Oh. Oh. Oh. He chokes it back. Sideways you see the stick. And then it disappears into his stomach and goes. Oh. Delicious. I'll have another. That thing happens for a second where you can see panic in his eyes. You know when you swallow. Yes.

You swallow a mouthful of. A sucker sideways. Or like huge pill or something. Yeah. Or grilled cheese. And you can feel like a long strand going down. And there's that panic feeling where you're like. I'm going to choke. I'm going to die. I'm going to suck in there. And then as soon as it's down, that moment is gone forever. Yeah. It's never happened. And you'll do it again. Yeah. He opens his mouth again. And then it doesn't come hither with his tongue for another second.

And he pulls the sucker out and he holds it back. He goes. How are you feeling? I feel great. And then he just rips the knife. Oh. Okay. Gloosh on the floor. And he throws a sucker in your mouth like a hippo being fed a pumpkin. I swallow it. And then runs and grabs some bandages and starts, you know, packing up your wound. Thanks. Thanks. I think both of you are being given basically like a poultice and herbs equivalent. Okay. So you'll heal seven hit points if you have hit points missing.

Yeah. Nice guys. Those are free. Those are free. We didn't have to crack into our vat of 50 poultice. I reserve. We're going to need those for the end of the podcast. He starts applying them and somewhere across the refinery, Ving goes, holds onto his bag. Okay. They're safe. Still counting. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. 50. Oh, few. Okay. Yeah. We'll cut to Ving. M4 is walking over to what looks like a, um, like a motor pool almost.

There are two other max that are in, um, standby mode. That's sort of hunched down. Hmm. Like arms locked. They have that barbecue cover over them. Yeah. They got a barbecue cover over them. Um, one of them has the cover off and you can see a bunch of mechanics like working on, on it.

Uh what do you do hey boys what are you up to are you not just working on my mac yeah yep just another shift here in the refinery working in paradise yeah he's got like a huge ratchet and he's just settling a bolt what model's that oh this is a mark two he's getting kind of getting kind of old kind of long in the tooth but he does his job don't they so to describe the environment uh more so we've got this little section here imagine it's like where everybody puts their bikes but there's robots here and then there's like barrels of shit around like coal and parts and tools and there's like a big shack and this seems to be sort of the mechanics quarters it's like a bunch of portables basically in a big area and then the work site is the mine which is further down so this is basically the mechanics portable do we want to like yeah do any upgrades that's an interesting idea oh I don't know improve him yeah or like give him something else or I can ask him if he wants to make any changes oh yeah that's a good idea that's a really good idea okay I'm gonna ask him if he wants to alter himself anywhere to better suit how he feels now so you could use that you could use like the uh your spiritual connection to like talk to him silently basically like you were before yeah and so you hear more more fully the song of the choir of spirits that sort of make up m4 now and they despise the rigidity of the form that they've been given uh one hand is a weapon the other like is basically he just wants two hands he's a one's a big hammer separate appendages yeah he wants to be able to like do what he needs to do without having to worry about one hand being a big hammer okay it's just it's like quality of life stuff basically this is all that's coming to mind like two hands and he would love to not have to put fuel in his back he'd love to like be able to do it himself loaded in the front yeah in the front yeah it's like a cookie hole yeah yeah he wants to you know I desire to feed myself I've seen the small one eating on our way here and I desire to take part in similar tasks what was that purple stuff everyone here is eating this purple stuff I would love some purple stuff myself how much granola exists in your world it seems like a limitless quantity tell me more of this granola it's like a 30s radio man I love it um so I want to lead him into the you know the shop yeah there's totally a big like you know uh those like for holding up engine blocks the like kind of chain and like rack thing so cool so he can like come in and hook himself up oh yeah I thought there would be a scaffolding almost so that everyone could reach it the day he could get into yeah the the the shop zone is much bigger there's like a big shed that's like you know 20 30 feet tall with like yeah it's basically a hanger actually this is something that I guess I'm giving you for free it looks like this place was thrown up fairly recently and fairly quickly so it's not as like high tech as it could be but you can see like you know mechanics have dragged in equipment and like hooked up and stuff like that so it's like a little bit of a but there's like cables all over the place there's like steam pipes that are very haphazardly welded to things there's like tubes of coolant for like flushing and like replacing lubricant and stuff yeah yeah maybe I can give him a little like a lubricant change yeah totally so do I need a role to kind of do uh let him uh upgrade himself or I'm pretend to be a mechanic but I'm not a mechanic yeah I was gonna say I guess he's kind of directing you like with your sort of spiritual uh link he's you're being directed to do something like that yeah I was gonna say I guess he's kind of directed on how to make these changes okay great and it's like elemental mastery like I could be like you're looking for something like this and then like form him a hand yeah or something like this and then form like a claw or different things like what are you looking for how do we build this for you yeah that's really cool so yeah 2d6 plus constitution I believe great I got six six oh can I aid from a distance billy can aid from a distance yes yes I don't know or what how well it's basically just like I think we've discussed it as people the people that are in close proximity to billy are a little bit luckier right because just billy's nature rubs off on them so 2d6 plus it kind of makes sense I'm calling on the primal spirits of like fire and earth to try make him an iron mechanical hand yeah so billy's like just in the other room and is like oh something's happening yeah it's like I got like a little like almost like static radio kind of thing uh-huh so that makes it a plus one great I got seven so seven choose one the effect I desire comes to pass avoid paying nature's price retain control I'm gonna choose the effect I desire comes to pass hell yeah so what do we think uh not retaining losing control and um paying nature's price looks like in this situation because you're like up on the scaffold and m4 is sort of directing you to help and you know you're looking around making sure there are no other mechanics looking and then you know iron flows up into his hand and then you're like oh my god I got seven hands like the hammer gets removed and the thing flows into like more organic looking metal fingers I wonder if that affects other things so all the half forms like how the imps the imps yeah so it could be a situation like that but and behind happening because he's not retaining spiritual or elemental control yeah these things are building themselves into this mechanical pile monster like the iron itself is like I also want form uh-huh yeah it's so cool it's so cool that is cool I think this is like a camera thing where like ving is helping m4 with this like organic metal hand and it's sort of like flowing into the pistons and creating this uh his body just looks different than the other max now like it's kind of flowing all through him and you know the thing on his back flows through to a little thing that opens up on his chest and he reaches down and shoves some coal in there and you can hear him go yum um purple stuff delicious I call it purple and then the camera like focuses and zooms behind like nice but there's a scrap metal pile and it's kind of like that liquid metal is flowing up other machinery yeah and we'll take a look at that later like clogging up machines or like rusting around important things yeah and like reaching out to other things and pulling them in barrel on the other side of the pile like just barely moves yeah yeah drunk I won't do that I'm gonna go up soon what's going on in here oh hey well that one looks fucked up thank you I'm not one to judge but it looks like you did a bad job pretty sloppy bud I don't think you have an eye for art I like my work to reflect me so I made him more in the image of those who walk around him wow so you say that your trade also informs your art your soul is seen in the machines you work on yeah you sound just like tristan you dirty bastard you cassandra why no I know why I'm away all the time I'm emotionally I'm just not there I hear you I'm physically physically I'm not there either do you think that maybe you were emotionally unavailable and so you made yourself physically unavailable he's crying immediately he's bawling oh my god you're right what am I doing what am I doing and he takes his helmet off and he throws it on the ground it might be too late for you and sandra but it's not too late for you and somebody else thank you kind stranger thank you I have to get home to her and let her know what I've learned I'm not gonna ruin her relationship with tristan I want that on the books I did have the idea of maybe coming to her door with a bunch of cards to say I love you even though he's my best friend I'm sorry but that seems fucked up I don't think I can do that but what I can do is desert my post and I will he's saying this so loud I'm deserting my post for love that is so beautiful and he takes off his cape he unclasps it takes him a while he throws it on the ground love is more powerful than war I'm out of here see you later losers is anyone else like inspired by this yeah it seems like a couple people are like whoa he's really into this love and he throws his leg over a motorcycle and kickstarts it it's a mech it's a different mech it's a little mech with wheels see you later losers and remember desert your posts at the first opportunity for love and he roars off and all the guys in this in this bagel for love and they're cheering don't you forget about me and he slams into the closed gate he's he's crashing he falls over he's dragged away meanwhile a decepticon has been building itself in the background we're gonna cut back into the medical tent real quick uh tuck and billy oh we're not in the medical tent anymore no yeah we we've been uh patched up pretty well yeah we all meet in the cafeteria yeah yeah we got it we I've got 40 uh suckers in my mouth great can you hear you're like I take them out as one they're all like molten together perfect round cylinder yeah I have a bunch also but they're like stuck now ah they're stuck in your mouth yeah I made it too big we were having a competition you're forcing your jaw open too wide relax billy's it's just stuck in your mouth and we're like yeah you gotta just wait for it to melt crying because I I know I'm gonna lose it was it was definitely bigger and you hear a steam whistle and it seems like it's the end of some shift a bunch of people come tromping out of the mines out of the refinery buildings and they're like oh my god they're all going to the mess hall there's like a big mess hall that's where you all meet up yeah we walk we walk in and we see ving and we kind of beeline for the same table yeah totally yeah and so you've all got a tray full of food from the from the line it's uh it's a thin but somewhat hearty soup yeah uh some hard bread and um milk oh oh shit I take billy's milk and I'm like no no oh my god billy no My grip has never been stronger.

I have like toddler grip. So strong. Unbreakable. It's the kind of thing where it's like, if I pull too hard, it will break the glass and cut his hands. Also, your arm is bleeding more because you're pumping so much blood into your grip. Billy, you'll get drunk if you do this. I know. Just like that guy. And you saw what happened to him. Yeah, you guys saw Gregor. Yeah, he picked love. Gregor got dragged into the medical tent as you were leaving. He crashed into the front gate.

Will it make you happy? If I take this away from you? It won't make me happy, but it'll make me feel like you're not going to be drunk. So it'll make you happy you can have it. Okay. Good job, Billy. Good. And you guys, yeah, you're sitting at this table. There's a bunch of people, workers covered in soot. Like, it stinks like chemicals in here. I don't know. Yeah.

I let you guys know about when I was in my not dream, I made myself look out at the world and I think I maybe felt that there was some kind of demon something happening. Here? Yeah. Sorry, it's so vague. Sean didn't give me that much information to go on. I actually gave you a lot of information if you think about it. Because he's a piece of shit. If you think about it, I gave you a ton of information. I didn't hear any information, really. Yeah. Fine. Connect the dots.

He said there was just like a general presence of like demonic energy here. Could it be from the calm or the other one, calm? Oh. Or. Could it be? Maybe it's like covering all this land. Yeah. Maybe it is. Maybe it's something that they're mining. Like the coal? Maybe. And coal. Mm-hmm. Is in the word calm. Exactly. We've done this before. He's right. Holy shit. He's right. So if we blow this place up, we'll get rid of the bad feeling. Possibly. Should we try and figure out what it is first?

Yeah, probably. Okay. Okay. What did Billy find out? Oh, I tell them that like the Black Hammer Twins ultimate plan is to basically replace arcane magic with technology, like human run technology. I think they just want to control how everything runs now. But it sounds scary, you know? Democratizing power. But not really in a way. Because he brought up how the princeps used to be run, which was very opposite of democracy, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.. Like their steam power technology, which is what the Gibbous Man wants, right? I think so. Yeah, because you guys know, and you remember for sure from all those many seasons ago, that your goal, not your goal, but what you learned is that the lack of the stabilizing force of like Thaumic energy is what's causing the planes to smash together, which is what the Gibbous Man wants. Yeah.

So that's got to be how he's using the Black Hammer Twins. He's going to try and use them to take over the principalities and destroy all, like all vaults, all magical artifacts. Yeah, because anything left over magical, they can now do with their machines. But look what it's doing to their land here. It's so barren and sad. Look at the people, and they're all like gaunt, coughing, hacking, spitting. Totally. Hunched over the tables. This is what everyone's going to be like.

The soup is surprisingly delicious. It's really good. I pushed my soup over to Billy because I took his milk. Thanks. I tell them about my time in the mech garage. So he can feed himself now. He can feed himself. There's a lot more changes. Wait till you see him. Yeah. And you didn't have to pay nature's price? Not this time. That's crazy. I didn't notice. He like looks at his arms. Okay. That's so weird. Maybe you're just getting really good at it. I did graze my knuckle on his back.

I think that's what it was. That's it. See that little thing right there? You lost control. Oh, no, sorry. It's on this knuckle. There you go. That's you losing control right there. That's what it was. That looks really good. It stings really bad. Price. Oh, you nature. You got me. You got me, nature. You got me. Oh, man. I thought you got me this time. We'll get you next time, nature. Give me some more of that milk. Is he getting drunk off the milk? Maybe. Okay. Before we blow this place up.

Yeah. Should we try to find out what the demonic influence here is? Yes. Yes. Yeah. If it's something they're pulling out of their minds, we should maybe go into the minds. Ving links over to the person sitting next to him, hunched over. Hey, who's in charge here? You mean the foreman? Where's the foreman? Foreman's in his office. It's lunchtime, break time. Huh. All right. Should we go there? Yeah, let's go to this foreman's office. Sure.

It's like, you know, an office above the mess or something. Oh, yeah. At a factory when they have to. Yeah. Yeah. The thing up there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Surveying the mess hall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Make sure they don't unionize. Yeah. He's standing at the window going, don't unionize. Yeah. There's a bunch of guys with crossbows. And at any time a conversation sounds like it's a union thing, they like fire it out. If they start putting acronyms together.

Three or more people talking is a potential union. Take them out. So, yeah, the guy that says the foreman's in his office gestures above and you see a little like high above the mess hall. A little office window. Foreman masterly up there. All right. We have to go have a conversation with him. All right. Get up those stairs. Okay. Yeah. You. Out of my way, crossbow guy. I got to talk to the boss. Nobody gets to talk to the boss. You got to talk to me if you want to talk to the boss. Why?

Because I'm the guy you talk to before you talk to the boss. Also, who are you? This is a member of the royal family. This little kid is a black hammer. Can't you see his royal hair? The orange of the black hammer clan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm one of their cousins twice removed. You better watch who you stop on the stairs, mister. Do you want to really talk to me like that?

I'm going to tell Colm that you talk to me like that and you're going to get your head chopped off. You can see. He's going to chop off your head so fast. You can see he's like not totally sure that he's wrong. I want to convince him somehow. Yeah. Yeah. I want to charm him for a short while. Do you have any of those? I have one fairy child left. Okay. You wouldn't have to roll for this. You just spend your last hold. Sure. Okay. Yeah. I do that. And the crossbow guy looks down at you.

I draw my little jelly knife. I'm like, look, one of the royal scepters, one of the royal blades. And his royal blade has been drawn. And his eyes widen. He goes, I'm so sorry, your eminence. I'm so sorry. I didn't recognize you. Tell the foreman his eminence is here. Right away. Right away. And I expect the most utmost respect, the best treatment. Right away. My liege. My liege. And he drops down to a knee and he crosses his hand over. His chest. His chest.

And then Tuck and Ving instinctively take a half a step back to pretend that we're security guards. And then we also do the hand to your chest thing. Right away, my liege. And he runs up the stairs. Black hammers. And he waves you up the stairs. And Billy puffs out his chest and walks up the stairs. Yeah. We walk slowly behind him. Like his entourage slash secret service. And you get to the top of the stairs and he bows as you walk by. And I say, thank you. Of course. Goodbye.

Protect the stairs from your king's liege. Very well. Click. And he's pointing at somebody at the bottom of the stairs. Yeah. Kill anybody who tries to get up here. We believe. And then Tuck leans in. He says, we believe that there's going to be an assassination attempt on the princeps' second cousin towards removed. I will defend him with my life. Be sure you do. And he's pointing over the railing. He goes, Terry, get the fuck away from the stairs. But also calm down, dude. Yeah, like be chill.

He's vibrating. There's like something about the charm that Billy uses in his winter form that's amped this guy up. He's like vibrating with tension. Safety on? Jesus. If there's like a demonic influence happening here and your spirit stuff is like going in there, it's probably like destabilizing. Like two magnets? Vibrations. Vibrations that are lining up. Yeah. That's a good point. And you are in the foreman's office. It's a pretty standard office that you would imagine in a place like this.

There's a desk and it's, you know. I like to think it's like kind of dungeon-y feeling. Yeah. It's like a torch. Oh, yeah. Venetian blinds. He goes and like closes the Venetian. Yeah. The foreman turns around. Classic dungeon look. Venetian blinds. Venetian blinds. Classic Venetian dungeon. Yeah. And the foreman turns around. He's got suspenders on. Yeah. He's got a little mustache. Yes, he does. He's got a clipboard. He's like going through papers and you flip his blinds and he turns around.

What is the meaning of this? Who are you? I close the door and I like, I drop Venetians and then we close everything. Where's Frampton? He was supposed to stop anyone from coming up these stairs. He led us through. For I am the, am I, am I continuing this? I am the cousin. Yeah. Twice removed of Colm and Callum Blackhammer. And I require your respect. You're the cousin of Colm and Callum Blackhammer? Yes. Well, I'm the last sovereign of Kynos. Nice to meet you, last sovereign.

When Turk hears that, he like for a half second goes to kneel down and then realizes that it's No. He turns back over and he's like, okay. I was being sarcastic. Now you have about 40 seconds to explain what you're doing here before I call my guards to give you what for. My guards, please. Explain. Explain. No, no, you're lead. You explain. Sir, you wanted to come up here and talk to him. And I'm just using my good name to get us up here. My good name and hairdo. And hair color.

And Turk goes forward and he says, I will talk to you. And he goes, Masterly, that is your name. Yes. Sir Lee Masterly. Sir Lee Masterly. The Black Hammer sent us to warn you of an incursion that is being planned on this facility by members of the Riverways Militia. Members of our great force turned to the Riverways Force. There are moles within the ranks of the miners. Beautiful moles. Silky fur. Sir. Sharp digging claws. Dashing chins. Strong musky wafts. Only the muskiest wafts. Okay.

So you're trying to tell them that there is danger. Yes. And what? We believe that they're compromising the mine. We have to go inspect it. Yeah. Okay. Roll two to six. I like this plan. Eleven. Okay. Ooh. And he shuffles the papers in his hand and he throws them down on the desk. I knew it. I knew it was only a matter of time. This facility is far too valuable. And speaking of time, it is of the essence. We must act quickly. You think this happens soon? I think it's imminent. This very night.

Very well. And he writes something down, puts a note on his desk, and then turns and grabs a sword out of an umbrella holder. Oh, whoa. And he straps it. He puts it on. I'll come with you. Oh, fuck. Sir. Fuck, sir. Sir, we need you to remain here with your employees. Nonsense. I didn't get made foreman of this facility for my cowardice. I got made it because my father's rich. And because of that, I have only the finest martial training available in black glass. Sir. I can relate.

For my father, too, is rich. But you are needed here. Billy. What? It might be good to bring him with us so he can, like, explain what the fuck's happening. Yeah, we can totally take this guy. Okay. Actually, sir, please come with us. I would be delighted as one of the top graduates of my class at the Grefg's Mushlin Academy of the Arts and martial skill. It's just Grefg. No, it's not me, Grefg's Mushlin. It's not Grefg's Mushlin. But he has taken on an air. Yeah. Sir Lee Masterly.

Sir Lee Masterly. Perhaps we came from the same. I don't know. Or you just were taught by him and you did the thing where you just imitated your teacher. He was so cool, even though now he's probably 80 or 90 years old at least. Because now he's 80. Because he's 90 years old. Let me show you the way. Come with me. He sidesteps down the stairs. He does a little box step on his way down. A grapevine. He, like, jumps back up. He does the friend stare thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Framed him. Hold my calls. The columns, he's like spinning around dancing in the rain. Enjoy your dinner, boys. Might be the last one you had in a while, Dabs. He dabs? I don't know what dancing is. He dabs and then he moonwalks out of the mess. Yeah, he gritties. And he walks you through the rest of the refinery. He's like, alright, let's go to the mines. We'll follow you.

It's the perfect timing because they're between shifts right now, so we've got the mines to ourselves. Totally abandoned. Just you and three members of the royal family. Trusted family members. Onwards. And he leads you up the hill to the mouth of a mine shaft. Do you know which arm of the mine they're going for? Can I use demonize again to try and like locate the source of like the demonic influence? Yep. Please, fuck god, I just give me the fucking thing. Okay, cool, nine.

Okay, so one question. Aid. How? Describe how you would aid in this. You used what? Sorry? Demonize. So I kind of use the like coin and like the… The like void in his head to feel what things are drawn to it. Yeah. It's how he can detect like what is demonically possessed. Is there any spiritual connection to the demonic realm? They're pretty different. Different, yeah. Although there might be a… I could see that being helpful here. Like you're removing spiritual interference. I like that.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you're using your like, your world talker thing to like… To quiet all the spirits in the area. Holy shit! Awesome. Box guys. Wow. Plus bond. Wow. Thirteen. Yeah, so that makes it a ten plus, which means you get three questions, or three hold off trap expert. Can I see that? Oh yeah. Is there a trap here and if so, what activates it? I guess that means is there demonic influence here and if so, where is it and what is it? Yeah.

So you realize that kind of fuzzy general feeling that you felt while you were kind of in your void place. You feel it coming out of the cave. Oh. Yeah. Like there is a wash of some sort of demonic influence, some kind of iconic presence. Flowing. What does the demon do when activated? Mm-hmm. Like what will happen to us when we go in there? Oh, nothing would happen to you when you go in there. You know, that you would be safe from the influence.

It's weird because this feels like very unlike any of the sort of iconic or demonic beings that you've experienced thus far. I'll hold on to the third hold. Sure, yeah. For the time being, knowing that it's in this cave and it's safe for us to go in. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I tell Master there, I was like, this is the one. Excellent. Right this way, chaps. And he walks up and he pulls a lantern off the, off a sconce stuck out of the rock. Cool.

And he turns around and and calls over to the mouth of the cave, M4. Yeah, and thump, thump, thumping up the side of the hill. And you can see like flowing up his arms almost like, like, uh, like very finely wrought plates of armor is M4. Like he's covered in these flowing iron. It's like Art Nouveau almost. Yeah, it's like spiraling and there's… Kind of muscular. Yeah.

He's got two working hands and he's got like a little chute under his neck, like under his headpiece that he's physically like pressing closed. Ah. And you can hear him in his head going, mmm, I'm stuffed. Just delicious. Oh. And he kind of like pats the… He hits his chest and he goes hoot, hoot. That's sitting strangely. What do you require of me? Wait here, please. Very well. Watch our backs. Thump, thump. And like turns around and crosses his arms over his chest.

And Master Lee looks up at M4 and is like, wow, that's some machine you've got there. What is that, a Mark VI? An M4, modified. Wow. Custom job. You betcha. He's beautiful. Spins a wrench and puts it in a holster. Anyways, telly-ho, boys. Into this mine we go. And he kind of messes with the magical crystal inside. And then Tuck goes, you're the bravest guy with a rich dad I've ever met. Thank you. I've felt invincible. My entire life. You can tell.

You can tell that you have faced no struggle whatsoever. And he draws his sword and points into the darkness and goes, Sally Force, truly your life has been an unbroken boulevard of green light. Matthew McConaughey. And we cut inside and you're kind of passing through this darkened tunnel lit by the lanterns stabbed along the wall and the one in Master Lee's hand. And he's going, and see, that's why I find that whenever I have troubles, money kind of smooths the way.

All I started with was a dream, an ambition, and 40 million dollars. Oh yes, the way that all dreams are. 40 million gold pieces from my parents' fortune. And here I am. I've lost 90% of it, but I've gained a sense of superiority. It is always nice to know your father will be there to catch you. Until he dies and I inherit the rest. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. And you are nearing what feels like the bottom tuck. This feeling is growing. This presence is growing.

Billy and Ving, I think, Billy, you kind of feel weird down here, but not too strange. Ving, you feel like something is wrong down here. And as we… We've been walking down, Tuck's vision has been like clouding almost. Yeah. The fire of the torch and stuff, like it keeps like blinking out. So you're just like in pitch blackness once in every few steps. It's like he's being forced into the void place. Yeah. But there's like almost an overlay on his vision. Uh-huh. Yep. Yeah. Weird.

Would Ving clock that once in a while? Just kind of be like keeping an eye on him? I think it looks like Tuck is getting sicker and sicker as he goes down here. Yeah. Yeah. That's the feeling that Ving's having too. Yeah. Yeah, Ving, you're feeling very similarly. And Billy, you're kind of noticing Tuck and Ving are sort of staggering almost. And you reach the base of the mine and the current working deposit.

And you're standing in front of it and Masterly's like, alright, what do you think they're after? Can I… Do I have to use a fairy child for making a fairy ring? No, you don't. You just do it with dexterity. Can I do that? You could. Can I try to do that? You'd be doing it with Masterly here. Is there a way I could like on the down low make a fairy ring? That would be a defy danger, I'd say. Yeah, I'll try that. So you would defy danger, I think, with…

Well, how's Billy trying to hide it from Masterly? Like, is it like subtle movements? Yeah, it's like Billy's kind of like almost like kicking a stone around while everyone else looks for things. Cute. That seems like dexterity. Come on. Seven. So seven to nine, which means you need to maintain the ring. Yeah, so I just I'm kicking this rock around. Sorry, seven to nine is there is a threat. It's a partial success on the defy danger. Now you have to roll the ring.

So something notices that you're doing this. Yeah, yeah. That's probably what Billy was feeling. It was like whatever it is is like is sensing something. And now it knows what I am. The feeling of being watched. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So now I'm rolling fairy ring. Yes, now you're rolling 2d6 plus dexterity for the fairy ring. Nine. Okay, so you form the ring. So that means that you have to maintain the ring yourself. So you kick this stone and you're sort of just walking around the three people.

Are you getting masterly in the ring as well? I don't care. So you're forming a ring that tucking finger in for sure. I'm mostly focused on masterly die standing so close together. So Billy, it's like awkward, like part of me and like between us me separating him. Yeah. So he's kind of moving in and out of the ring. I think as part of the seven to nine, he doesn't realize what you're doing. So he's like walking back and forth over it turns around. He's like, so what's the deal? What do you need?

I guess maybe this is when I asked my last question. What else is hidden here? You duck, you are looking at this coal this like deposit. It's like, you know, deep, deep black coal kind of like flaky like coals got this weird thing where it's kind of like chunks that are all pressed together and when you like flakes apart when you when you mine it out. He's like, yeah, this is the deposit. They've been digging into this thing for months now. We'll have to take a closer look.

It's powering fully a quarter of the max in the far fields military. Yeah, it's something they said that they said that it was a good compromise. They were compromising the deposit somehow. Does it look weird to you? Nope. Looks pretty much the same as it's always looked. This this one is supposedly according to the inspectors that have come through of particular value for its unique properties. What are those?

And you're like walking forward and you're kind of groping at the coal trying to get a look at it and you realize it's really like shiny and inside of this coal. There are flakes of obsidian and above at the mouth of the cave you hear screams and that's where we're going to end it for this week. I'm your game master Sean O'Hara joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdul Aziz. So long everybody playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Take care.

Playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai. Goodbye everyone. Thank you to Aaron Reid for our intro and outro music. You can find Aaron's original music at aaronreid.bandcamp.com and Aaron's special Soft Bug Ego Jazz on Vimeo and Bandcamp. So good. So good. Incredible. So funny. One of the funniest people probably alive. Directed by Abdul. Directed by Abdul and edited by Abdul. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful job. You can find us on Patreon.

Dot com slash Spout Lore or Spout Lore dot com slash money please and get access to a whole bunch of stuff like the up-to-date mall Bratz feed playtests for our post Spout Lore campaign up all night including a recent one where we play bump in the dark by Jex Thomas and a whole bunch of other cool shit. So check that out. I don't have to tell you. You can find it yourself. Oh, we're also going to be we're starting to release video versions of these episodes on YouTube on our Patreon on Patreon.

We now have full video versions of Spout Lore. You've been asking for it. We're doing it. How is it? Really good. Really fun. You like you're always great on your camera. Oh, yeah. Really good on camera. You're maybe the best of us on camera. What does that mean? You just look great. You look great bone structure. You move cool. Yeah. You have interesting expressions are fun. Have like this cool news. You have this absolute ease about you that is the rest of us.

You don't have what you just look cool. Like your whole stance and way of being is so cool. And then we're we're like eggs. Yeah, you look like you're supposed to be on camera. That is so cool. And the rest of us don't guys. This can help us all. I hear what you're saying. And we put clips of Paul public feed. I will also say Jess, your reactions to everything. So good. Yeah, but it's like you also like react to stuff the way it's supposed to be reacted to.

That's the best thing about any kind of media consumption or engagement with Jessica. She reacts exactly like saying it's the best. It's there was like a thing where Sean did a very small reveal. And then you were just like, oh, it was so funny because it was like the camera just cut to you for that. There's a woman. There's a woman. I realized this semi-recently. It's so fun. We were watching Jeopardy. Yeah.

Jessica and I were watching a lot of pop culture Jeopardy, the like weird Jeopardy that Colin Jost does. And every time there's a daily double, Jessica goes. Like the people that made Jeopardy would be crying watching Jessica. Like she gets it. We did it. She understands. We fucking did it. We're moving the nation. So if you want that, and why wouldn't you, join us at the very fine chef level and up. You get full video versions of every episode of Spout Lore.

And probably all the other stuff too. For now, Spout Lore. Spout Lore to start. Let's just guaranteed Spout Lore, maybe some other stuff too. Yeah. Yeah. The Spout Lore episodes will come out a week after the regular episodes. So if you like that, check us out at patreon.com slash Spout Lore or Spout Lore.com slash money, please. And finally, thankfully, thank you. And mostly all of you for listening. Jesus. Get this band a chicken sandwich. Goodbye. Holy fuck. Wow.

I fully had an aneurysm on mic just now. Rate and review. Rate and review. That was great. 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 gladly Spout Lore. .

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 to Spout Lore!

I'm Spout Lore, and I'm a fan of Spout Lore. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello everybody! Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Hello there. And playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Hello. When last we left our heroes, they were speaking with M4, the warmack that Ving brought to sentience using a flask of Hibernian spirit water.

M4, after a brief, uh, who am I, what am I, what's being alive conversation, agreed to come with the party and the Riverways Harriers in their attempts to destroy a coal refinery in the clutches of the Firefields Principality. The plan was made that the three and M4, using their various disguises, would enter the refinery under false pretenses, while the Harriers went up and around the hillside in which the coal mine is buried to sort of sneak in the back way and prepare for an assault.

They entered the coal refinery. Ving and M4 went to sort of the mech motor pool. Billy and Tuck went to the medical tent, uh, and met doc, met Mr. Steven Doctor, um, a medic in the employ of the Firefields Principality. And Tuck, in his fugue, perfectly controlled, tactical unconsciousness, used his move Demonize to look out into the void and sense the demonic presence somewhere in the refinery. Or perhaps under the refinery. Billy had a conversation with Mr.

Doctor and discovered that the general plan of the Firefields Principality and the Blackhammer Twins is to more or less take over as much of the Principalities as they can and bring technological innovation and industry to the masses, bringing about a new golden age free of superstition and the remnants of wizardry. At the motor pool, Ving and M4 went to the refinery. Ving and M4 went to the refinery.

Ving and M4 went through sort of a, uh, upgrade process as Ving attempted to help M4 make some key modifications to his physical form using his spiritual essence and control over the elements. He sort of melded iron into M4's body and allowed him to make his own modifications, giving himself two hands and, uh, allowing himself to feed through the front of his chest. There were some prices that were paid at that time off camera. Metal moving about the workshop.

Gathering bits and pieces here and there. Then, meeting in the mess hall during the shift changeover, the party decided to go talk to the foreman, Sir Lee Masterly Thank you to, uh, listener and Discord member Ben for that name. And asked to investigate the mine on behalf of, they said, the Blackhammer Twins and the Royal Family. Lee Masterly agreed to allow you to inspect the mine as long as he could come with. So, inspect you did. He took you to the mouth of the mine.

M4 in his newly modified, beautiful Art Nouveau flowing metal armor form stood watch at the entrance of the cave and you descended deep into the bowels of the mine, finding at the base a coal deposit seemingly infiltrated, laced with fragments of darkest obsidian. And just as, uh, Tuck and Ving were about to succumb to some sort of overpowering spiritual sensory iconic influence, screams were heard. And, uh, Lee Masterly, who was a little bit more experienced,!

That is where we find ourselves now. In a fairy ring. In a fairy ring constructed by Fat Billy. Lee Masterly turns around, sword in his hand, and goes, My God, what's that? I don't know. Screams. Maybe you should go see what it is. I think you mean we. Yes, yes, of course. We. I'll bring up the rear. You go ahead. Okay. Okay. Oh, I see. Rich cowardice. I gotcha. Yes, I gotcha. Okay. And we sprint up the- Right. Your dad was rich. Yes. Who's that? Who's that? Oh, yes.

So the poors have to go in front. Yeah. I'm more of a delegation kind of guy. Get behind the poories. Use your poor, poor flesh to defend me. I'm kind of the guy who's like, makes the deal, the backroom guy. Yeah, so Tuck hears the screams and he runs back up to the top. Yep. We all run up to the top. Yeah. Great. And you run to the top, the mouth of the cave, M4 is there. And he looks down and goes, Ah, good, you're safe. Look. And down the hill into the refinery, there is pandemonium.

People are running around. It's hard to tell what's going on. But seems like chaos has broken loose in the refinery. What do you do? Discern realities. Okay. 2D6 plus wisdom. I got 15. Holy shit. These bones, no. That roll is so high. 15 is so high. 15 is too high. What do your alphys see? Yeah. You get three questions. In the long distance, a woman is walking down the street. And she's like, I'm not going to die. I'm going to die. And she's like, I'm not going to die.

And she's like, I'm not going to die. And she's like, I'm not going to die. And a woman comes out of the bath. Oh. Is it Alison? And he sees Alison. Ving sees Alison halfway around the world. A pin falls. Her shoulder becomes undraped. Who's really in control here? So at first it looks like there's some sort of like regular, like, you know, evacuation emergency, like maybe a fire or a gas leak or something. Yeah. Because you see people running around and officers or leaders trying to keep order.

But then you see coming out of the Mac Bay where Bing was earlier, very strange, like almost arachnid like conglomerations of iron and scrap metal and different materials like crawling very quickly out of the mechanic bay, tearing people apart. So they look like Decepticons. Kind of. Yeah, it's more like metal is flowed up them and is like coming off of them almost like cordyceps mushrooms. Oh, shit. Like. Like tendrils of it are crawling up. Rusty. Yeah. Rumps are growing off of them.

So it's like infectious now? Yeah. And they're tearing their way out of the mechanics bay. And I turn to M4 and I go, M4, you got to get out of here. I cannot leave you. You are too small. We'll be safe. This thing infects machines. We can't risk you. They can't infect me. No one tells me what to do. That's right. You're metal as fuck. And Tuck takes a glass bottle out of his backpack. And he whips it into one of the tubes and it smashes open. It starts playing like one of the pipes. Yeah.

One of the pipes on M4's back. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what does it start playing? Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. But like. He starts storming down the hill. It's like that opening. And then it's like you hear the like speed metal drums come in. Uh huh. It's like a. Come on. It's like a power metal version. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And he starts charging down the hill. Yeah. Oh, and they have sort of like the nouveau touches about them.

Like a little bit of an ask. Yeah. That like. He's like looking at. M4. Looks back at M4 and is like, hmm. Nature's price is being paid. Yeah. Looks at his knuckle in his skin. Oh, yeah. I see. Okay. Yeah. That actually makes way more sense. Yeah. And Tuck's like, man, where could these things have gone? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. It's probably because you don't have dreams anymore. Like it might be Tuck's fault. Is that what you're saying?

I feel so bad for gaslighting the two of you. And then Tuck's like, I did see that vision of Allison that turned into a spider. Yeah. It was my fault, guys. I did this. No, you don't have to take the blame for Tuck. He's like, I did this. I did this. It's because I was greedy and took too many shots. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's because I was greedy and took too many suckers. We did.

We took so many. It's all my fault. There's just these monsters scuttling around the yard trying to attack people. What should I be on the lookout for. Yeah. So what you should be on the lookout for. I guess that depends on what your goal is. Are you just trying to escape now or are you still planning on destroying the Refinery. Do we just burn it all down? Yeah. Now that we know that this is like a mine full of obsidian, is this a bigger threat? Is it more than just destroying the refinery?

And do we have to somehow like foul this entire mountain? I think we should foul it because I think that, yeah, they're getting coal. But I think the main thing, I bet they're secretly mining that obsidian. Yeah. Or they don't know what they're doing. They're using the coal and he's having a greater effect by them using coal that's laced with this obsidian. Yeah. The thing that I've been thinking is that the obsidian in the ground is like, it's basically the body of Christ. Yeah.

It's the Eucharist of the Darkman. Yeah. It's basically the Gibbous Man's Eucharist, right? Yeah. Okay. Gibbous Man. The Darkman. Yeah. I thought you meant to do that on purpose. I thought it was on purpose too. Oh, you know, the Darkman. The Darkman. Oh. Okay. So it's like basically the body of the Gibbous Man, right? Yes. Some folklore would suggest that, yes. Yeah. So, like, I mean, that's what the thief and the maid basically implied.

Like, Lillian shattered the sky and pieces of him fell to earth. Yes. The reign of night. So the reign of night. So cool. So these are like shards that came from the sky. Long ago. Yes. Didn't like form in the earth. Yes. Whoa. So like, okay. I like some, some, some folklores call it the dark pieces of the dark side of the moon. The back side of the moon. Oh, so cool. Before, as it shattered, the blackness on the other side that no one ever sees fell to earth. Yeah. Cool. That's sick.

That's very cool. Yeah. Back that ass up, moon. Back that dark ass up. Ooh, I like that dark meat, moon. The moon's like, what the fuck? Yeah. What are you talking about? Lillian's like, what? What the fuck? That's my dad, man. That's my dad that you're talking about. Yeah. So it would appear that this is a piece of obsidian. Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? Cause your ass is. I think you were going somewhere with the. Right. So like, what are they doing with it is the question.

I think they're just burning it. I don't know. Maybe it's as simple as they're burning it through the max and going up going up the way into him back to his own basic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like a way for him to almost like reconstitute himself. That's a good point. Like the dark wizard getting little bits of himself coming back. Yeah. Every little deed. He's basically free basing his own essence. Yes. That's good.

It's sort of like, if you think about it, like he taught them how to like create a mess. That's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. How to like create mechs. And then was like, here's the coal that you're going to need to run. Unfortunately, they run on this. Yeah. You got to burn this kind of coal specifically. That's laced with obsidian. So then it's a way for him to like build his power back up. It's adding black to the dark.

Yes, that's true. This guy is blackened out. Oh yeah. Cause like in the fire fields, when you look up, you just see like black clouds. It's just his body up there. And you're obscuring the stars, which to me has all the knowledge. Yeah. The druid knowledge. It's what he did with the druids. Yeah. Trick them into hiding themselves away. He's trying to do it all over the land. So sneaky. He's fucking doing it again.

And if he spreads industry across the principalities, then that would black out the sky for everyone. He's the Sbargis. We have to Captain Planet this guy. He's in the industrial revolution. Yeah. Oh yeah. He's like our Jeff Bezos. Oh, we better kill him fast. We're going to slice his throat open. Before he has $1 trillion. Yeah. We have to stop him from becoming a trillionaire and ascending. I think he is a trillionaire. Jeff Bezos? No, there's no trillionaires yet. There's no trillionaires?

It's a race to the trillions. They're racing for it though. Oh man. Do you think I'm still in the running? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Let me check your statement real quick. We're all trying to get there. Yeah. A hundred bucks. I'm way behind. I've never made, see, make that face. It's so funny. Yeah. Guys, I'm way off. It kind of looks like Puppet Pop. It was a great face. That was really good.

I like that we're all at this stage of our friendship where just making a funny face we haven't seen before is the height of comedy. Remember Triangle Face? Yeah, Triangle Face is great. I barely remember Triangle Face. I've seen Triangle Face. Have I? Mm-hmm. You've seen it. Oh yeah. I don't know why it's so upsetting, but it is. I love you, Sean. I don't think we're supposed to eat that many teeth. Triangle Face. What it does to my eyes. You look like a puppet. You look like a marionette.

It's just so much. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle face. Rectangle smile. You look like a puppet that's hanging on the wall at a truck stop. How do you do that? If it's a tape, perfectly. Horrible. It's awful. Oh, Jessica's truck. Oh, that's pretty good. You're good there. Yes. I don't think I can do it. The top flip is the hardest part. You've got it. It's so hard. Yes.

I've never seen anyone get it immediately. Wow. Look at you. Jess, so proud. Okay. Okay. So. He basically has control of the Blackhammer twins, and he's telling them to mine them. Mine this ore and burn it in the max. Mine this coal that's spiked with obsidian, which burn it in the max. Which would send it up into the air. Yeah, right. Putting it into the sky. Putting it back into part of his body, like the Dark Lord gathering pieces of his self. That is a very interesting theory.

And parts of it was being breathed in and consumed by the army. And it's physically part inside these war machines. Right. Yeah. And covering all their weaponry and their whole army is coated. Yeah. The convoy we were in was basically a convoy to protect this coal. Yeah. Yeah. And we saw the people in the mess hall who were sad, gaunt, and angry. Yeah. Oh, it's not the soup. It's not the soup. It's not the soup. The obsidian. It's the only thing keeping them alive. Oh my gosh.

And that can explain, because Ving, you noticed that there was something strange about how the max were constructed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It might have been the construction. It might have been the spirits and the materials reacting to the gibbous man's infected coal. It might have been… Actually, can I Spout Lore on this?

Because I think it might have been the gibbous man that gave the firefields designs, kind of spurred the firefields towards this more mechanized nature. Hold on. Hold on. So when you say spouting lore, where would Tuck be getting this information from? The music bottle. This is a music. He wrote an album. Yeah. There's ancient drawings on the cave walls that we're in. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. It was in their manual, their employee manual. No. That we were reading while we were eating dinner. Yeah.

Yeah. Tuck, he hears the icon of servitude talking to him. Okay. Sure. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Okay. He would know that. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. 2D6 plus intelligence, I guess. Yeah. Here we go. So then I rolled a seven. I'm going to use my druidic lore to aid him. Yeah. 2D6 plus bond. Wow. One and a five. Okey doke. So Tuck spends so long thinking about this that he gets shot with an arrow. He's just like, it shoots him. Random guy. He gets shot by an arrow. Just like the lunch guys. Drunk guy.

Yeah. Drunk guy throws an ax at him. Ow. Fuck. Oh, what the fuck? No. So I think at the top of this hill, you're all standing here and a few of the rust monsters that are standing there are just standing there. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. To the surface. You said there's many mines?

There's a bunch of mouths, but you would assume having seen what's at the base that it's all going to the same deposit. A hydra of lava. I love that. That's cool. And it flows up all the other entries into these caves. Fill all the caves and then solidify it. Yeah, just turn it into slag. Great. Call of Nature is 2d6 plus wisdom? Plus con. Plus con. Okay. I want to use eager beaver, so I get plus one. Great. I got a nine. Oh, I aid. Okay, how are you aiding being in this? We defend him.

Yeah, we defend him. Oh, yeah. I guess you form a ring in front of him, a half ring as these things come up the hill. Yeah, so we'll fight these monsters and you do your shit. And it's like the ground shaking and cracking open. Steam coming out behind you. Billy, like, stepping… The aid is just Billy stepping forward and being like, don't worry, thing. We've got this. And then Tuck turns to Vig, and he's like, yeah, I'll take care of it. Thank you. Just doing my best over here. 2d6 plus bond.

Six. Oh, fuck, I'll help. I'm sorry. Okay, you can aid the aid. I'll aid the aid. Come on. Yes, Billy, you're gonna go into bad guy mode and ruin these guys. Yeah, Billy can feel himself going into bad guy mode. I rolled an eight. Great. So eight makes that a seven, makes that a ten. Yes! Plus! Great. Wonderful. So I get three requests. So yeah, this is a call upon… When you call upon the aid of a spirit, choose an element at hand. Lava. And roll plus con.

Seven to nine, you create a physical form of the spirit to inhabit and gain one request. Ten plus, you gain two requests. While you have hold, the spirit will attempt to aid you to the best of its ability. So he's creating a physical form for this, like, lava spirit. Cool. Which is a hydra snake. And he's got his hands down on the ground. And then, like I said, it's bubbling. There's puddles, and they start… Oh, yeah. Mud bubbling up from below. Earth crack opened. Steam. Bubbling lava.

Fire flam. It's like pyrotechnics during a rock show. Yeah, totally. They start firing off. Deep from the mouths of the caves, you can see this little glowing light from down, deep down in the shaft. Oh, cool. Like the ball rock. Yeah. If there was, like, a camera that, like, panned down, it'd be like, you'd see, like, the heads of snakes, like, slithering out from the earth. Yeah. Just like Beyblades.

The thing I was imagining was, like, seeing, like, a tunnel, and then, like, one wall of the tunnel starting to glow red, and the snake, like, burning through it, and then through the other wall and disappearing into the stone. The hissing, burning snake. Yeah. Steam and shooting. Bursting through. We see each little cave of obsidian. Yeah. Well, once you roll those 2d6 plus request, plus three. Okay. Let's see if this succeeds. Holy shit. Boy, does it. 13. 13. Fuck yes! Fuck yes!

Yeah, so from the mouth of the cave, there's, like, bubbling and smoking, and this, like, weird roar is oxygen is pushed out of the caves. You can feel heat washing up from the tunnel. There's, like, heat waves boiling your vision, and, uh, the mouth in front of you at least is sealed as molten stone flows up from the base of the cave. Surly's, uh, running away. He's like, no! My father's investments, no! He's going to kill me! We have to save my value!

Please, poor people, throw yourself into the flames! Extinguish them now! You cowards! Poor bodies to put the fire in! My coal! My valuable coal! This guy is basically Craig DeRock. My equity! He's on his knees in front of one of the mouths of the cave. And then he goes, This accounts for five percent of my family's wealth! Five percent! Which is a trillion dollars. That's pretty good. They have a lot.

But you can, uh, you can feel that at least most of the entry, like, the, this, it will be difficult for anyone to get to this deposit. Yeah. Uh, for quite a long time. Cool. It is not impossible, I will say. You could keep getting the spirit to work on this to make sure it is never again seen by human eyes. Oh yeah, like churn it? Churn it, yeah. I want that. I want it to like, so it's like a solid snake of lava coming up deep from the thing. It splits into a hydra into all these caves. Yeah.

Oh! Comes out and on the other side, Horus Boris, Holus Bolus? Ouroboros? Ouroboros? Oh, Ouroboros. On the other end, collects again into a solid snake. Ah. Churns the mountain side. Cool. Yeah. We cut back up to the Harriers and it's like, is that a lava snake eating its own ass? You guys think it's getting hot up here? What the fuck? Is it getting closer or just bigger? Yeah, okay, well, so 2d6 plus 3 for this. I forgot they were up there. I got 10. I don't know. What the fuck happened? 10.

Yeah. I'm realizing I might have made this move too powerful. It's so powerful. It's too powerful. We'll find a way to fire it. You overpowered literally everyone's moves except for mine. Well, that's because you- You could kill or survive anything. Yeah, yeah, okay. I feel like you fucked up all of our moves. I did, I really did. You guys are unbelievably powerful. We can find a way of fixing this. Yeah, we'll see. I'm sure, I'm sure it is more balanced than I'm imagining. Yes. I like it.

And it is cool. And I like that it's lighting up the battlefield. Yeah. Yeah, I like that this thing like, you know, you hear it like rumbling in the cave and then like this massive glowing snake head like emerges from a cave mouth and then dives back into the hillside. Cool. It is- There's like an ancient firefield's legend of a lava snake too. It's like he's awoken it. Yeah. Meanwhile, Billy and Tuck, these rust monsters are attacking very- We're about to do something. Wait, not as cool. Yeah.

It's really uncool. They're coming up the hill. This is the reverse of that mech fight from a few episodes ago. Oh no, oh no. Redemption! Oh the die! Have seen me in my woe. So there's three of them and they look like a yard sale has a score to settle. There's like just a pile of shit rushing up this hill at you. What do you do? Oh, I grab a shovel. Oh yeah, I do. I'm a bad guy now. Yeah. As I was in inspired. I was inspired by Tuck. Excellent. Yeah. So a bad guy now as we all remember for sure.

Yeah, I call upon my winter form to fight in a flurry. Mm-hmm. Roll plus wisdom. Zero to six, I get one hold, but I'm forced into my winter form until next sunrise. Mm-hmm. Seven to nine is two hold and a ten plus is three hold. Great. Sick. Yeah. And you are in your winter form. I am, so I I don't know, I just- We'll figure something out. I'll push it to two days. Oh. Yeah. What if you- what if it doubles the debility? Because you know how you take- Oh. You take a debility now for winter?

I like that. Yeah. Maybe it doubles the debility. Interesting. That makes sense. Yeah, like in my winter form, my debility is like I don't have any charisma. So maybe your charisma goes- You could take a debility. Yeah. Yeah. To minus one. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Terrible. Alright, two to six plus wiz. Seven. Seven. Holy shit. Yes! Yes! Yes! Perfect. Two holds. Okay. Two hold. Not bad. And you could feel the winter take a deeper hold of you. Yeah, I feel powerful.

As these foes rush towards your family. Oh, and it's like interacting with the heat of like the magma snake that's coming out. Also, Billy's like steaming. Yeah. Oh, so cool. Steamy boy. I like that. He's looking like a little pierogi. Yeah, and one of these monsters right in front of you, it's rushing up the hill. It's kind of like almost a centipede-like configuration of scrap and flowing iron. Iron that is unnaturally flowing. It is not hot, but it moves like liquid.

Wait, sorry, they're molten still, kind of? No, they're not molten. What? The iron itself is moving like it's organic. Creepy. Okay. Yeah. I want to, there's like a shovel by the opening of this cave, so I grab that and I want to like jam it into like any moving parts. Yeah, perfect. I guess there's three holds that I can choose from, so it's I can either terrify an enemy, deal damage to an enemy within reach, or I can freeze someone or something in place.

So I think I'll deal damage with this shovel. And your damage is two d6s. Yes, because of my winter form. Right, in the winter form. Yes, that's great. I have made, yeah, you're right, I've made you all too powerful. I've made you all way too powerful. You are so powerful. Roll a 12! Three. Okay. I need 12 if you pump together. So one and a two. So unfortunately, Billy, this horrible centipede thing is rushing towards you and you are like, oh, fuck you monster.

And you like jam it forward and it just fully clangs off of this thing. The metal like almost flows into the hit. It takes the shovel into its It's stronger now! It grabs the shovel head and like snaps it off of the handle and integrates it into its body. Well now I have a shovel blade. Ah. You do technically have one more hold there. Right, I'll try to deal damage to another one that's coming up. Okay, yeah, to a different one, yeah. This one looks like a shopping cart.

I need more help with these. A mining cart? That's fine. Oh, it's like a broken down mine cart. With like spiderwebs legs? Yeah, totally. Oh, creepy. Oh yeah, like in the Wild Wild West. Yeah, I'm gonna try to chop its legs off. Okay, yeah, go for its little spidery legs. Yeah. That's two sixes. I got twelve. Holy shit! Now you get twelve. Yeah. Hold on, let me look at math for a second. Yeah. Oh, this one's toast. Yes! So how did, what does Billy do to this thing?

Um, yeah, I take the shovel, which is now a blade since the bit's been taken off. Oh yeah, it like sharpened the remaining part of the shovel. It's so sharp that when I slice it's like, it leaves a bunch of like, you know, like stars when you're like, Yeah, sparks. Yeah, sparks. Stars. This is great. Yeah. Yeah, and it's just, the legs are shorn off. Shorn off. And now it's on its like little back with its leg nubs going, ahhh. Yeah.

And the pieces kind of like unconstitute and roll back down the hillside. Uh, Tuck, there's the one that Billy just made stronger and sharper with a broken shovel head. Yeah. I'm running behind Billy like a parent that's like running behind his kid on a pump track. Uh huh. And he's like, alright, you're good, you're good. He sees Billy grab a shovel next to a giant sword. And then sees Billy jam the shovel into the thing. Uh huh. It takes it.

And then he sees him whip around and then slice through another one. And he was like, whoa! Good job, buddy! And then gets slammed in the face by the one that took the shovel. Yeah, you're like pushed back a few feet by the weight of this metal centipede. Shit! And it's, you can see the shovel head that it's formed into this like biting mouth. Whoa! Chomping in your face. Yeah. Clank, clank, clank. A pickaxe, like scorpion tail. Yeah.

It forms, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, out of the legs of the other one. Oh, sick! Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank. Yeah, make it more deadly, guys. Slamming the ground on either side of your head. Whoa! Am I allowed to do this? Yes. It's great. It's super cool. This kind of sets me up for Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.

When you prepare yourself to endure some hardship without fighting back and it's, like, he gets hit by this thing because he was too impressed by Billy's bad guy moves. Yeah. The roll plus con on a hit, you can either take half damage or you can completely ignore one other I'll effect. On a ten plus, you also defeat, expose, or frustrate your oppressor with your stubbornness. Uh-huh.

So it hits me and I kind of like let it take me to the ground and, like, do sort of a grappling move where I try and, like, shred it while it's on top of me. Okay. So you're letting it hit you. Yes. Whoa. Holy shit. Is that… Ouch. You got a 12 too. I rolled a three. I rolled a one and a two. And then my con is three, so that's six. Eight. Someone help me. Oh, I'll aid. Yeah, Billy, how are you aiding? I see the sword finally. Oh my god, there's a fucking sword. Oh, yeah. Look at this thing.

Cool. And I pick it up and, ooh, it's molten. But wait, do you touch it with your winter form? Oh. Oh. It cools the handle to a touch. It cools the handle to a touch. Yeah, cool. But the blade stays red. Yeah. Sick. That's happening. That's what's happening. That's what's happening. Two to six plus bond. Yeah. So plus bond, 12. Yeah. Fuck yeah. So you grab this sword and, like, swing at this thing while it's on the contact? Yeah, I hit its stupid tail. Hell yeah. Yeah.

And it, whunk, shores it right off. Yeah. It makes that screeching, groaning metal noise. Mm-hmm. It throws its balance off, too. Which makes your thing a seven. Yeah. Seven to nine for… Makes my thing a seven, so I only take half damage. Yep. So you're rolling a d8. So that's six. So it gets divided to a three. Yeah. Which is no damage for my armor. Except this ignores armor. Oh, no! Which is, which feels strange. Because it, like, is biting into you and you can feel your flesh rusting. Oh.

Oh, gross. Whoa, gross! Yeah. It's got the effect. Mm-hmm. The cordyceps. Oh, the cordyceps. What's that show called? Last of Us. Yeah, that's what's happening right now. But it's not, it's not giving me a disease, is it? Well, your flesh is rusting a little bit, but so what? So what? Get over it. Okay, so Tuck's pissed and he just punches through the middle of this thing. Yeah, there you go. Nine. Yeah, great. Can I eight again? Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. Sure.

Yeah, you've got your glowing sword. Whoa. Twelve. Jesus Christ. I also punch with the sword. So this glowing blade punches through the chest of this thing, like, two inches from Tuck's face. What? Yeah. Are you okay? Yeah. Oh my god, it tried to stab me! Oh my god, Billy, watch out! These things have swords they can grow. Yeah. They have molten swords that they can just stab out of the… It looks like it killed itself by doing that. Oh my god. That's so scary.

It's like the sting of a bee, the last sting. Go ahead and roll your damage. That's a ten plus for hack and slash. Oh, fuck yes. Oh, that's a four, but can I put myself in danger to roll another d10? Is it d10 or d6? I think it's d6. Are you rolling your damage? Yeah, my damage was a four. Yeah, so you roll a four and then you can roll another d6 by taking additional damage. Yeah, I'll do that. Nice. Two. Great. Totally useless fucking thing. So I take additional damage. Four.

So I took more damage than I gave. So you can feel the rust spreading across the bite on your neck. Oh. You're just like, oh, fuck! It's taking more damage in this fight than I have in the last, like, half season. Yeah. Because the first thing that you did was willingly take damage despite the fact it hadn't really attacked you. You were like, I would like to take damage, please. Yeah, it was a good move.

And then Tug looks at you, Billy, as he gets up and he's like, ugh, I'm really pulling a Ving in this fight. What? Doing something cool? Rolling snakes, like, in a cave of fire. Don't worry, Tug, I'll protect you. I grab another molten sword. Great, yeah. Swing it really cool. Fucking sick. And I land in a Chun-Li pose. Yeah, cool. Swords out glowing, steaming. Leg up. Yeah, leg up. We'll check in on Ving for a sec. Tug gets hit with an arrow. Oh, why? Why do people keep doing this?

Oh, right in my rust. Guys, did you see how I'm rusting? Ew. But yeah, Ving, this I haven't had a tennis shot in years. That's what's happening. I just am getting tense. Oh my god, look, Tug. I'm locking up. I don't want to go back. You're turning into Tin Man. I don't know, I take it back. Yeah, Ving, you've sealed this deposit for generations deep below the earth. You can feel through your spiritual connection this hillside slash the small mountain that it's a part of is having a hard time.

The glowing molten snake is just fucking carving tunnels through it. Yeah, and it's like going up and over the tracks, destroying some of their infrastructure, jumping up, twisting and then turning back into the ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Goes up, does a 360, kickflip, dives back into the mountain, comes back out. Jesus Christ air snake. Christ air, yeah. Jesus Christ air. It's a Christ air. Jesus Christ air. Yeah, so what do you do now? I mean, I guess I still have control of this snake.

You sure do. And this thing's hungry for destruction. Great. Is there a clear path down through these monsters? No. There's two people. There's two, at least two people. There's M4 and then there's like groups of workers. Like there's lots of people down here. And this thing's pretty big, I think, right? The snake? It's quite big. Yeah. It's quite big. So I can make one smaller stake. I leave the majority of the Lovets to the snake. Yeah, yeah. I've destroyed all the things. Yeah.

I have one small lava snake that I want to send down and help tuck. Yeah. I would say it will be a request for it to change its form for you. Okay. So you'd have to roll for this. So this would be 2d6 plus request. Wow. So I lost one. And it fails. I didn't forget. It fails and you lose a request. So it refuses. It's just like, yeah. It's so hungry, it refuses to change its form. That's pretty cool, actually. Yeah. And the fire fields, it's like, there's so much lava here. Yeah.

And I think, like, the influence of the Gibbous Man is probably, like, it has a weird effect on spirits. Also, he's molten the obsidian into its core. Yeah, you can see there's, like, bubbling obsidian kind of in this thing's scales, the molten lava scales. And you do, Ving, this was something that you're sort of just realizing, is the iconic and the spiritual, like, the iconic plane and the spirit world are distinct.

Places their energy is distinct, and some scholars think antithetical to one another. But it seems like the obsidian and this iconic influence is corrupting or infecting the spiritual nature of the coal and the elements around it, which should be impossible. It seems to be what's also happening with, like, these, like, rust monsters, too. Yeah. Because that's nature's price, it's a spiritual thing, but it looks, they, this is not normal for spirits. Yeah, they're not acting within their nature.

No, yeah. It's almost like the spirits themselves, and they're vessels, like, are possessed by icons, which should not be possible. And that is terrifying to you. That makes sense why, um, like, they're rusting. Because it's like, it's killing the the minerals in, like, the iron can't survive this, I guess. It is an impurity. Yeah. It's, like, naturally corruptive. Yeah. I want to stop the snake. It's done its job. I need to end it.

It's like, and I'm refusing this request, and I feel like I have no control while I'm ahead. Yeah. I've learned in the past to let it go. I want to try to, as a request. To dismiss it, yeah. To dismiss it. Totally. Yeah, it, like, it comes up out of the earth and, like, rears its head, and it kind of, like, shakes its body in this really slow way, and molten stone and obsidian are, like, sloughing off of it. Dripping. As it looks down. Geysering. Yeah. Okay.

2d6 plus request to dismiss this thing. Eight. Right. So it succeeds, and it looks down at you, and you can see like, these massive glowing eyes, and it connects with you. And it knows the wisdom in this. It knows the wisdom in sending it back, and it accepts. And it falls down all over Ving. Oh, yeah, and he's just wreathed in lava. Yeah. Molten stone. Because you're impervious to fire, right? Yeah.

I like the idea that, like, it hits you when you kind of, like, stand up and there's this cape of molten lava flowing off of you. Cool. Can I throw some at some of these creatures? You could use elemental mastery for that, for sure. Oh, I want to use nature's fury when I utilize my command of elements to combat your enemies in my damn hand, which does ten. So I just want to, like, throw a spear of lava that will solidify in the air. That's really cool. Cool.

We've let- have we always- remind me, have I made him roll elemental mastery for combat? No. If it's an element that he describes as using- yeah, right. If it's in the environment. Yeah, and you're covered in lava, so yeah. You've also, like, allowed him to have an infinite bandolier of elements, basically. No, I have not allowed. It's just you guys keep saying he does have one. What are you doing? Shut up. You're the one that made it fucking scorpion, dude. You made a fucking scorpion.

I look like a stupid idiot out there. I had to be saved by a little boy. A little fucking boy. A little stupid little stupid boy. I was the one who looked like you out there. The fattest boy I've ever seen. That just saved me. And Billy's just watching this, like- From a lot of fucking lawn chair, dude, because you gave it a scorpion tail. Billy's just got his arms straight by his side watching you say this, like, uh. They are fighting. They are fighting. D10. Uh, yeah.

No, you gotta roll- so this will be hack and slash. We're kind of past the honeymoon phase. Oh, for sure. Oh yeah, what's the opposite of honeymoon? I guess it would be volley, because you're like striking from a distance, right? So it's 2d6 plus dexterity for volley. But it's a d10? Oh, that's for the damage. It would be a d10 for the damage, yeah. Seven. Okay, seven to nine. Go ahead and roll your damage. Ten. That's a ten. Holy shit! Uh, so- Fuck! Ten. Yeah, you torched this thing.

So you still take damage from it. Uh, so go ahead and roll a d8. Six. Six damage. Ignores armor too. I hear ya. And, uh, so the other one- we- oh wait, we've described two. There's the centipede, there's the spider shopping cart. Yeah. What's the third one look like? The lawn chair. A bunch of lawn chairs. You know when, like, when your uncle can't get- figure out how to throw his lawn chairs away, so he just piles them up? I'm gonna repair those someday. It's fine. Sure you are.

Uh, yeah, and you, uh, that thing's like scuttling up the hill. It like crawls over Tuck and the centipede one. To get to you. So disrespectful. Come on, man! Tuck's stuck under the centipede one cause it's so heavy. And the lawn chair monster's butthole's right on your face. Yeah. Like, like smears it down your face. Yeah, it smears this oil rust sheet across my face. Oily, rusty latex. And Tuck's just scared to move cause he's still got like that point of that sword that goes- Yeah.

Uh, but it gets over Tuck and the centipede and comes careening towards you as you like form this javelin out of the lava on your body. Hurl it through. It explodes. Shatters into pieces, but those pieces fly forwards with the momentum. And kind of like jam into your body. Oh. And you can feel the rust start creeping across your flesh. And any metal- you look down and you're like, oh fuck! Cause like this is not a thing that should happen to people. Your flesh shouldn't rust.

And any metal pieces on your armor start to flake away as well. Ugh. Oof. But it is destroyed. And now the last one is on top of Tuck. M4 looks down. He's like, do you need help with that? And Tuck, full of toxic masculinity goes, nah, I'm good. Okay. I'm going to go see if anyone else needs help then. Boom. Boom. I love that Tuck has like been emasculated by us. He's so mad about it. Tuck has been emasculated by a broken mini-fridge. Like he's freaking out at a living appliance. Yeah.

No, no, I'm fine. I'm good. I'm good. I got this. Just let me die. Don't look over here anymore. I got this guy right where I want him. Ow, ow, ow. Yeah, and M4 stomps away to go see if he can clear out- cause there are a couple other rust monsters down there. You drew the attention of a good group of them for some reason. For some reason. He's the obvious threat. And Tuck, yeah, you've got this thing. It's snapping at you. Your chest is rusting over. Billy killed it, didn't he?

No, Billy killed the other one. I killed the cart. Oh, shit. Yeah. And then you tried to kill it, but you did like two damage or something like that. Fuck. Yeah. Okay, so it's still alive. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Tuck didn't realize that when he told M4 to fuck off. Shit. Come back! M4? M4! Cause it was still two, I guess cause it was reconstituting after like the other centipede crawled over him. Yeah. And then it just like started snapping at him again. Ah, fuck! Ah! Yeah, just one more hit. Okay.

Here we go. This is gonna redeem everything that's happened so far. Uh-huh, let's see it. I wish I had a move that did that. What? What? I was just thinking about Black Spire's like his like… Sunstone blast? Oh, the Sunstone blast? His little Yeah. I wish… Is that the sound he makes? Yeah, the little flashbulbs that goes like So cute! Yeah. Like this. Oh man, where is he? Yeah. Can we cut to Black Sp- no. Can I commune with him right now and ask him to- I don't know why you would.

This is the- Why would you make yourself less aware? Blast March, show me how to do that. As you're like fucking arteries being chewed on by a metal monster you're like, just a sec, I gotta take this. Tuck is like, a simple hit will not regain my toxic masculinity. Uh-huh. I need to do something so cool. So he tries to commune with Black Spire with the purpose of, feel free to veto this, getting Black Spire to do the Sunstone activation cause that transferred to his like, things in his chest.

What happened when you did that last time? When I was dreaming, he was showing me how he could do like, Sunstone breath. Yeah. It was like these like, flashbulbs of incredibly intense Sunstone light and then when I woke up, the coins were glowing with like, Sunstone light. Uh-huh. I do like this. I wanna commune with him. It's pretty cool. And you said, It's kinda cool. You said that there was a corruption in the spirits that was an iconic corruption. So you're like, it's already allowed. Yeah.

No, that's not the part that's not allowed. You already allowed it, Sean. So Tuck punches himself in the face to fall asleep. Wait, hold on a second. Hold on a second. Sean. Uh-huh. I don't have any balls anymore. My husband-wife took them away from me and my son sliced my dick off too. That was not our intent. No, what I was gonna say was that your girl let me do that. No, what I was gonna say, no, the part that I think is ridiculous is the making yourself unconscious.

You've already set up the fact that this void connection happens when you're awake too. Why would you make yourself brain damaged in the middle of a fight? Oh yeah, just stay awake. Just don't do that part. In order to do this. Okay, I'll stay awake. It's still barely makes sense. But Tuck, he does the thing where he takes a breath. And it all goes slow-mo. Yeah. This thing snapping at his face. He like looks over at Ving. He's got this like beautiful like symphony of lava around him. Uh-huh.

He looks over at Billy. He's got like six more grape suckers in his hand. Hey, work. Get those from… I'm not telling you. That's too much sugar in one day. Tuck's having a hard time. It's almost bedtime. That's too much. This is gonna give you bad dreams. Tuck's just like, wow, this slow-mo thing is taking a long time. It's usually not this long. Uh, yeah, so, it's slowing down and this is the connection with Black Spire attempting to take form.

Yeah, and it's like the camera like zooms in on his face and he like closes his eyes and attempts to connect through the void with Black Spire. Yeah, okay, so this is gonna be a 2d6 plus wisdom. Uh-huh. And then we'll see what the dice say. I need a dice. I dropped all of mine. No. No. We couldn't even I couldn't even… Tuck Abdul tried to find the die and realized it was one of the little ones and got so wrong. I fell into the tiny crooks in my closed fingers and couldn't be grabbed.

You just get like stuck in there? Ew, no! Here, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it. He's good, he's good, he's set. Here we go. 2d6 plus wisdom. Okay, okay, okay. This is cool. Black Spire. Oh, thank god! Oh, no. That's so funny. Oh, man. Wow. Wait. So cool. The die are directing this episode. Snake eyes. Fuck, how the fuck did that fucking happen? Did you sleep with the die's wife? Fuck! Fuck! So what does happen? I can't fucking believe that happened. I'm actually sorry.

But it's really funny. Yeah. But I'm also sorry. I hate this feeling. I'm so sorry. It's so funny. It's so funny. It's the worst role you've ever done. It's the worst. I know what I'll do. And it was so cool. It's so cool. Don't worry, I know what's gonna happen. I'm about to be murdered. Okay, what if we just wipe Sean's memory? What if we stop the recording and beat the shit out of Sean? Okay, so go ahead and roll two six plus wisdom. You get a plus five.

So you try, you're like, okay, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do a thing I've never done before. I'm gonna commune while awake with my dragon bro halfway across the world and summon some sort of Iron Man chest beam. Yeah. Basically, that's what he's doing. We all know this is gonna work. One, two, three. Oh no. I'm just getting stabbed. But there's a huge, like you're holding this thing, like you are like, wait no, I'm still in a fight and you have to like hold it back.

But I don't think that the failure is necessarily straight damage. I think you hear a rending crash from below. What? And you like turn towards the yard and you see like smashing through the side of the mech bay is a rust covered warmac. It is like got these tendrils of rust sort of in an Art Nouveau style crawling up its body and almost like reaching into the air and it tears itself out of the bay. There is another threat on the field.

Oh, and when it tears itself out, there's like a howl comes out of the pipes. Its pipes are like It's like so in pain. Yeah. You said that the pipes have the faces of animals on them. Sometimes, yeah. These ones kind of look like all tendrils of rusty spider legs coming off. It's just all gross. Yeah. Look, it looks like it's got like a fringe of like crawling spider legs on its back. There's like smoke pouring out of them. Yeah. Yeah. It took took Fuck. Billy, what do you do?

Billy, I got dibs on the big one. Dibs. You just gotta get this little one off me and then I'll be A-OK. Oh, no. I will defend. I'll use defend. Yeah, defend. Defend totally works. Yeah, I roll plus constitution. 2d6 plus con. To protect Tuck from this thing that is just slowly murdering him in front of you. Nice. Twelve. Oh, fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. Wow. Holy shit. This is fucking crazy. I just pass these ones to you. So on a defend, I believe you get a play anymore.

I don't want to play this game anymore. Billy does is he commutes with Black Sparrow. Okay. He like touch tone dials the chest. He just opens Tuck's mouth and starts yelling into it. Black Sparrow. Yeah, so I think you get three hold with defend on a 10 plus. Oh, shit. OK. I'll deal damage to the attacker equal to my level. So you're level five right now? Yes. Yeah, so you can spend that hold and deal five damage. Great. Well, are you still using your like burning sword?

I am and I'm going to try to cut its head off. Yeah, totally. What's in its side of it? You can try and rip it up through it. Oh, yeah. That's what I do. Oh, you don't even have to roll. You just deal your damage. You spend the hold. You grab the sword. Yank it up. Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. And it splits up the top and now it's kind of like got two halves that are waving back and forth. Oh, like T-1000. Yeah, it looks like it's barely staying together.

It's like trying to the two halves are like grasping at each other trying to pull it back together. And it's like little spider legs that are trying to like reach each other again. You see them like once in a while they'll like blink and then yank and it gets a little bit closer, but it's holding it's having trouble. Can I redirect an attack from Tuck to myself? Absolutely. Yes! I can do it! Tuck, believe in me! I do believe in you. What are you doing down there? This is my fault.

Can you get up and get your head in the game? He's taking damage for you. Fuck you! And it like peels itself off of Tuck and you can see like it's little legs are like pulling out of Tuck's flesh. And then it like rears back lazily and flops towards you. Yeah, and I'm being like, hey, come here and suck my D! Whoa! Brilliant! I wonder where he got that from. I bet you can't beat me up. I bet you can't get me, you stupid little worm. Great. Yeah, it's gonna try and attack you for sure now.

And I'm swinging the hot sword around. It's cooling off. You're basically doing a what are you waiting for? Yeah, I've seen Tuck do it enough and he's like, I'm gonna make Tuck feel really cool. If I do Tuck's moves successfully, that'll make him feel better about himself. You try to get this thing to attack you and you get your wish. It is attacking you. How are you defending yourself? Yeah, I'm defending myself with a sword chopping away at it.

To be clear, this is defy danger because it is attacking you. Okay. Defy danger dexterity. Okay. Five. Five. Shit. So this thing's gonna bite you. Okay. You're taking a d8 of damage. Okay. One. Okay. Yes. It's barely nicks me. Yeah, and it slices you with like a jagged piece of metal. Yeah. And you can feel like the little cuts start to like harden and rust on your, and your flesh is like flaking away. Ew. Ew. What? But it is now wide open for an attack.

For my last hold, can I give a plus one to that ally? Yeah, totally. Which ally? Ving. To Ving, yeah. Yeah, I assume. Yeah, it's distracted. I assume. It's distracted trying to attack Billy. So what do you do? Tuck's like, yeah, I didn't want that plus one anyway. I see what Ving's up to. You called, you called the other one. You want the other one. Tuck's still under it. Uh, Ving, this fight has been some might say embarrassing, but now's your opportunity to kind of end the current threat.

Uh, this half split in half centipede monster made of metal is trying to attack Billy. What do you do? I just walk up and tear it in half. Whoa. Cool. Cool. The rest of the way. Yep. I didn't know that. That was an option. That's so cool. It's awesome. Hack and slash. 2d6 plus strength. I got nine. Nine. Could Tuck aid me? It would be funny if Tuck was just like kicking at it from the ground. Yeah. Ving's like pulling it apart.

And Tuck's underneath it, so as Ving's trying to rip it apart, Tuck comes in from the other side and touches his hands. Great. That's, yeah, ten. Ten, there you go. So strong. Yeah, roll your damage. Careless Whisper plays while we do it. Yeah. Your eyes meet. Um, which is a d6. Three. And enough's not quite. Fuck. Are you kidding me? It's still alive? Not quite. Not quite. But your eyes meet. You're like pulling it apart. It's, it's, it's armor has been like rent apart basically.

You're now just the juicy Tuck. Organic iron parts. Come on. Uh, yeah, Tuck uses um, he uses his scrap of ass to disengage and go right after the big one. Oh my god. You don't have to disengage from this thing. It is attacking Billy. I'm fine. I have 17 hit points. I'm here. We're here. Tuck. Tuck now. You guys got this, right? Yeah, Tuck does that. He's like, good teamwork, Ving. As he's like pulling it apart, he sees the big rusty thing through the bug. He's like, oh yeah.

And Tuck goes running down there all set. Oh, oh, what are you doing? What are you doing? Thanks for your help, Ving. Make sure Billy's okay. I got that. Great. Yeah, you run down the hill. M4 is down there. He had a full ego death during the last 30 seconds. Tuck, you run down to the yard. You see M4 is dealing with like a group, was dealing with a group of other rust monsters that were harassing people.

Like he just, you come down and you see him stomp on one, just crush it into pieces, pick another one up, hurl it into a building. It crashes through the brick wall. And Tuck goes, teamwork makes the dream work. And he turns around and he gives you a thumbs up. Oh, his new thumb. Yeah. And you see the rust covered Mac stomping out of the cave. I'm running right for it. Great. And Tuck, it all goes slow motion. Okay. And Tuck closes his eyes. Okay.

And he tries to connect with the box fire one more time. You can do it birdies. He's sprinting. Yeah, he's going slow motion while he's running full tilt. Full tilt. Has this ever happened? A thing that might not be possible. There's no way to know. I don't think we've done this. He's gotta believe. And Tuck's like, this is the only way to make everyone think I'm cool again. I bet you all the Harriers saw that embarrassing fucking thing. They totally did. Yeah. So he's gonna try to do it again.

Okay. I love your face right now. 2d6 plus wisdom I guess. He's gonna try to do it again. Alright, roll it. 2d6 plus wisdom. You know what? What? I think we're gonna bring your new move into play. I think your abject failure the first time around tells Tuck that this might not be possible. Oh, breaking the law. So maybe you need to spend to take a debility to make this possible. Yes.

So, kind of based on his kind of ability to sort of just muscle through the rules of the world, we created this move called breaking the law where I can force an impossible thing to happen like when I force the little magic crystal battery out of the fanny pack, but I have to take a debility to even attempt it. Yes. To be clear, it's not to make an impossible thing happen, it's to make it possible. Momentarily while I make a roll. Yes.

So I will take an ability to consti- I have so many constitution moves. Charisma. I'll take a debility to charisma. Oh, interesting. Because if I fail at this, I'll look like such an absolute like, cuck. You're just gonna cuck yourself in front of all these people. Coma-dome. Fuck. Fuck. In my mind- Oh no. Coma-dome. In my mind when I said cuck, I was like I'm gonna cut that out, I don't like that word. And then you said that and I was like, well that's too funny. Gotta keep that in.

You have to leave it in now. Okay, so I have a- now I have a minus one. To charisma, and I will roll. You're basically like really focusing on bending the possible laws of reality. Yeah. Yeah. The camera turns to a shot where like as soon as he closes his eyes, you see like the fabric of reality start to like twist. As he like reaches out to like Black Spire to like kind of make a connection between the two of them. Cool. In this like very inideal circumstance. He wants your lucky dice.

Give me your dice. Give me. Achoo! Achoo! As the reality is twisting, I like that we see that crystal battery like boom. Oh! Pop into your void. Oh cool! That's where it went? It went into like the void in my head. I don't know, yeah. That's cool. That's interesting. Yeah, that's so cool. Or maybe it's just- Like it's just drifting around? Yeah. Yeah. And there's like- there's also like a little fragmentary like floating dust mote of ward stone.

Oh, from when he cracked the- From when he cracked the box. Yeah. Cause that's the other kind of impossible thing that he's done in the past. Yeah. Okay. Tuck. 2d6 plus wisdom. 2d6 plus wisdom. Please, please, please. He's sprinting full tilt. It's so slow, Mo. He's- He's giving it- He's sprinting full tilt. It's so slow. Where are you going? Why do you look like that? What are you doing? He's like, please. Please. Let this work. Please. You'll be intolerable if this doesn't work.

And M4's like, metal as fuck. And then yeah, Tuck's running full tilt, closing his eyes, reaching out to his best friend, Black Spire. Wow. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm telling you, you're overrolling the die. Oh, man. Tell my guys. I need this to work. No, it's slightly better than last time. It is. It's slightly better than last time. I got a 4. You got a 4. I rolled 3 on the die. It's plus 1. Okay. Is it salvageable? I don't know.

Wait, do you roll with anything? Do I take a plus 1 for anything? No. Do we use our discerned realities from before? We would have had to use them. From a thousand years ago? We would have had to use them a long time ago. Tuck's slow-mo suddenly comes back to regular speed as you just get backhanded across the yard by the rust mac. So sad. But you do see Heartbreaking. Anybody watching for just a moment would see a gentle flash of light from Tuck's chest. Whoa! As you slam into the ground.

Tuck skids for like 40 yards. Just on gravel. There's like chunks of stone coming out of the But your legs are up behind you like that. I'm full scorpion. I forgot I gotta look at the damage How much damage do you take? Oh no. Oh no. It's so many. What is this? It's a roll of d8. That's one of the bad ones. And then you roll another. No. 6. Plus 5. No! Okay so 11 damage. Minus your armor. Minus 3 so that's 8 damage so I have 11 hit points left. Oh no.

I literally have in the last few minutes lost 15 hit points. Oh my god. That's a lot of hit points. Okie dokie. Billy and Ving. We're stunned. What is he doing? This is hard to watch. You guys are still fighting that other one. Oh yeah Billy this stand up heat thing is still trying to bite you. Oh fuck. So annoying. I'm trying to rip it open. Yeah and I just shove the sword deeper into it like trying to carve down it. I'm like limboing with almost stabbing Ving.

Great yeah this is hack and slash 2d6 plus strength. Yeah. What is going on? These are cursed dice. Wow. Holy shit. Two. I failed. It's another snake guys. Fuck. Yeah fuck. It bites you. You're getting stabbed and like raked by this thing's legs. Oh my gosh. So roll a d8. 4. 4 damage. It's just leaving like trails of like blood and rust down the front of your body. Oh Billy. And you were also already pretty fucked. Up I believe. Yeah I reopened all my stitches. Oh no.

And Steven Doctor is not good at giving stitches so they were already falling out. Yeah. Ving. Yeah. You're like holding onto this thing but it's like parts of it are moving towards Billy that are like independent of what you're holding onto. That's so gross. But you've got it held. What do you do? When Billy reefs a knife up through is it still a hot knife? I think it's pretty hot. Yeah. So it's maybe melting the metal a little bit still. Yeah a little bit yeah.

Okay one of you use that liquid metal to use nature's fury. I'm gonna utilize the element of iron to spread weakness back onto him. Yeah use the molten metal against it. And making it gummy so I can rip it in half. Sweet. Hack and slash 2d6 plus strength. Okay I got 9. 9 yep. That is enough. So go ahead and roll your d10 damage. But you will be taking damage from this. Great. 10. 10. Roll a d8. 7. Oh! Whoa! I have one hit point. No! What? Yeah. What? I have one hit point now. Holy fuck.

Okay so you uh you basically like grip this the top half of this thing and like in you realize that you gotta get a good hold on it. But in holding it you're like digging the metal into your own hands. And it's because it's as it's like the it's feeling the heat. Yeah. It turns from Billy and just like launches its legs backwards. Oh! Yeah it just completely flips around. Yeah.

Yeah like you know when you're like holding the worm and the worm is like it feels like facing a different way all of a sudden. Yeah. Like it just flexes towards you. And digs into your body. Do the legs like go through? Yeah I think they're like. That's a lot of damage. 7 damage. Yeah like your legs or something. And the rust like it goes through like your feet like into the earth.

But you do like get this thing right where it feels like the the like leverage point on it is and you just rend it in two. And the clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk. Oh shit. It falls apart as you rip it in two. Jesus Christ. Ahhh! Oh my gosh. Yeah. And you are fucked up. Can I help? Can I help? Have a poultice. You guys would have to basically run away. Like to apply a poultice in the way that would help you would have to get out of here. Can I use escape route? Yeah. Yeah you can use escape route.

Am I able to bring Ving with me? I think no in the past escape route has just been for Billy yeah. Can I make a fairy circle? Yeah. But you would be taking yourself out of the fight. If Ving takes one more hit he's fucked. He's dead. Yeah. I'll make a fairy ring. I like that he's like off the ground by like four inches with all this metal throwing his body into all different spots. It's just like What is happening to me? 2d6 plus dexterity. Fuck! Ahhh! Four. Okay. Okay. So fairy ring.

What is a failure with fairy ring? I mean this ground is like alive with spirit right now. Oh and with like demonic influence. It's just it's poor poison. Yeah. And like the fairies don't want to take root here at all. Yeah and Billy can't he can't like summon it I guess. Mm-hmm. Fuck. So you just yeah you can't so what is the six what is the failure? What's the hard move here? Oh I think it's you feel the earth beneath you after being carved out. Oh shit.

By the lava spirit like you feel like fuck and then oh maybe the there's a rock slide. Oh from the cliff above? Yeah. Oh yeah. Maybe like we feel the ground shift but nothing moves but then we still hear it like it rolls. And there's like a small rock like it rolls down the hill past our heads. Like in Jurassic Park with the cup going boom.

Yeah totally it's like it feels like nothing's happening for a second but you see the rock tumble down from the top and you look up and you see just a wall of stone rolling towards you. How do you protect yourselves from the rock slide? Wait do you still have that thing where you can shift into the fairy world? Yeah. Shadow shadow wait no cause I Do you still have the one where you can take people with you? I would have to use a fairy child and I don't have any left.

Oh you don't have any fairy child anyways. Cause Shadow Dance I think you needed fairy child as well. How long have we been fighting? We could no. It's night. It's night. I can try elemental mastering from this as like a last ditch effort. Oh like cover yourself in like a dome or something? I let me think of something sorry. Yeah no this is a tough situation. So there's M4s in play but he can't get there in time?

Yeah cause you guys are basically like still up near the mine mouth and M4s down in the yard. And you're down there closer to him. Yeah and I'm maybe fuck passed out I don't know. No you're not passed out but you're basically doing the like Okay. I think trying like to just try to elemental master. A bloodied hand and stop and create a wall of a protective dome. A dome of the stones that are all around. They might just I think that might be the only thing you could do. Yeah. It is risky.

Very risky. I mean the elements are already kind of out of control. Yeah. Ving reaches out with a bloodied destroyed hand and I'm gonna try an elemental mastery from this pierced ground and stop these rocks. Gather some rocks around me. And Billy is here with me. Okay 2d6 plus constitution. 7 plus 3 is 10. Holy shit. Okay. Two of these. Yeah. The effect I desire comes to pass and I avoid paying nature's price. Yes. So you do not retain control. Of the avalanche.

Which I guess you don't really want to. No. You're just trying to get it past you. So you reach your hand out as this wall of stone is coursing towards you. Threatening to crush you, Billy, Tuck, everyone. And like a hand, a boulder out of the boulders like a boulder hand. Yeah. In front of my hand. Yeah. Stopping when things are bouncing off. Yeah. Flying over top. Oh like a hand forms in front of you? A hand. Oh cool yeah. Like it comes out of Out of the boulders. Sick.

It comes out of the mirror of my hand. And you're shielded by this yeah this wall this torrenting wave of stone. It does launch down into the yard. I think M4 takes a good smash from it cause he's trying to come up the hill to help you. Right. Oh are we in like an iron giant scenario where M4 sees the rocks coming and sees Tuck like getting up? Oh yeah. And then just steps in front of Tuck and takes the hit? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Yeah that's totally what would happen. Yep. So there is Okay.

He goes I'm metal as fuck. Oh yeah. You soft as mad. Me metal as fuck. And so I think what we see is the rocks coming down. Ving holds up the hand of stone and grabs Billy and pulls him in. And like the stones flow around you. Shoot around you off down into the yard. And this wave of stone destroys buildings like it's just crushing the refinery. Like a smoke stack. Boom into the yard. Buried under the stone. You hear Master Lee in the distance go My investment!

And uh just before the wave hits where Tuck would be M4 like spins his head around like his head is spinning back and forth. It looks like he's doing calculations. Yeah. Whoa. It focuses. One of the lenses focuses. Yeah. And M4 having made some calculation turns to the side and steps in front of Tuck and disappears under the wall. Of stone. And that's where we're gonna end it for this week. I'm your Game Master Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz.

So are. Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers. Take care. Playing Fappily the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai. Bye everyone. Thank you to Aaron Reid for our intro and outro music. You can check out Aaron's original music at aaronreid.bandcamp.com where you can also find his special Soft Bug Ego Jazz. Yeah. Yeah. So good. We'll include a link to it in the description. Yeah. Link in the description. Check it out. Great. Aaron's probably one of the funniest people alive.

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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

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 to Spout Lore!

I'm your Game Master Sean O'Hara Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdulaziz Hello everybody! Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers Good afternoon And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jusketai Hello! When last we left our heroes, they emerged from the mine deep in the firefields Under the ownership of Sir Lee Master Lee Right? That guy?

Yeah That's so funny I don't know what happened to him Surprisingly not Sir Lee His investments were destroyed He ran away, we heard him in the distance He was so excited when the last of the distillation columns came out Another 2%! No! My investments! This accounts for 5% of my family's wealth! My dad's gonna be so mad at me!

Once he realizes that the money's not coming in, which will take several years Emerging from the mouth of this tunnel, hearing screams The party saw pandemonium unfolding below The price that nature exacted after Ving helped M4 make his modifications Was creating a sort of living parasitic iron that flowed over scrap in the mechanics bay And brought itself to life Rampaging through the facility and attempting to just cause carnage for reasons unknown The party We did figure out why You did figure out why later on in the episode The party realized the adulterated, infected, laced coal at the base of this mine Mixed together as it was with obsidian May have been causing some sort of spiritual, demonic infection And the smoke from the burning of the coal that the firefield's military has been basing almost their entire industry off of Is maybe helping reconstitute or repair The gibbous man's connection to the material plane and the iconic realm at the same time And disperses him all over it Exactly And gets into the lungs of the people And soaks into the environment It's sort of like a rehashing of his strategy with the druids we said Where he's like covering the night sky Making it black Very strong theory This brought them to the decision that no one could ever get their hands on this coal And Ving summoned forth a snake spirit Composed of living molten rock To seal the mines forever Which it did And then released it as the spiritual infection began to take hold of the snake itself Freeing it from its corporeal form and sending it back to the spirit world Meanwhile, Billy and Tuck attempted to protect Ving from the horrible iron rust monsters as they charged up the hill Yeah And what followed was a pretty tough fight It was really bad Pretty difficult A lot of bad things happened there Yeah, I know A lot of bad things happened I failed every roll Yeah Brutal A lot of stuff happened Billy killed one of the creatures at least by himself Fully on his own Yeah, totally alone Yep Tuck had a harder time taking wound after wound His flesh being covered in this strange rust that caused his flesh itself to rust The fight got worse as a In a lot of ways You tried to put it in a better way, thank you for that I tried to think of a different way to say it, but it got worse Tuck attempted a couple times to use his sort of waking connection to the void inside his mind To commune with Black Spire Working on a theory that he kind of put together himself Yeah, put together himself while he was like in the middle of being attacked Yeah, yeah, yeah And also like so insecure about how bad the fight had been going already His idea was kind of based He wanted to create some sort of Iron Man style chest beam Using the coin fragments in his body And Black Spire's growing Sunstone Sunstone connection Yeah It didn't unfortunately work all that well at all Um, uninfected Wormack smashed its way out of the mechanics bay Which M4 went to go deal with And Tuck went to go try one more time to connect to Black Spire To try and redeem myself Oh yeah, I forgot He tried to redeem himself He got backhanded across the yard Yeah, oh I got hit by that I got hit so hard Basically passed out Yeah Uh, meanwhile Ving was brought down to one hit point Billy tried to build a fairy ring around Ving Failed Failed hard Failed super hard Got snake eyes There were so many snake eyes There was a lot of snake eyes Yeah And then uh, that failure led to a rock slide As the carved out lava tunnels from the snake spirit caused the hillside above you to collapse Mm-hmm Sending a torrent of crushing stone down on everyone and the refinery yard Ving was able to at the last second use elemental mastery to save Billy and himself It was clutch Everything you did was so fucking cool There was some cool stuff There was some cool things It was pretty sweet Wasn't that why you wanted to do the sunstone kind of thing in the first place?

Cause you saw Ving looking so cool while he's like fighting and doing cool stuff And you're like I also have to look cool Ving looked so cool Tuck was on his back for most of the fight Yeah Billy had to save him multiple times Uh huh He was so emasculated And at one point one of the centipedes crawled over him to get to someone who it perceived as a bigger threat Very hard to handle Very damaging to touch And then my son had to come here and he saved me more Stabbed a bunch of times, yeah The rock slide, due to the elemental mastery choices that remained before us Uh huh Threatened to destroy everything It did destroy the refinery and the buildings around it But it also coursed down towards a defenseless, helpless, vulnerable Tacoma dome M4 did some calculations, realized that he couldn't get to Ving and Billy So he chose to save Tuck And he said before he did that he said He pulled the iron giant thing The iron giant thing, yeah yeah Which is so sad because I am metal as fuck Yeah And then he dove over me And then disappeared under the stone Oh man, so it's like that's the saddest moment in that movie And I would like to say that is where we find our heroes now But where do we find our heroes now?

Is this immediately after or is it some time past? I don't know, I feel like we still have to resolve what's happening in this scene Yeah we come in on like a silent scene Just the winds Death, destruction, the sun is coming up What are the river ways people call it, the Harriers?

The Harriers, yeah I think there's maybe some We see like Harriers picking their way through the yard Yeah in the far distance Yeah like people in grass cloaks like coming down from the hill And walking towards the sort of shattered stone field I kind of want to go beneath like the rubble Okay yeah If that's cool I like that it shows the scene and then it like fades under Yeah Like the camera strips across all of the Harriers trying to like find us And then goes into the ground Yeah And I think it's like, I think the scene, I think it's like Tuck, eyes closed And then like And I look up and I see like M4's head Yeah And it's like And it's like his chest and his arms are kind of holding up a wall of stone around you Over top of me And I'm like M4?

It's totally still Oh no And I smack his face Bong, bong, bong Can I hear anything inside of him? Roll a discern realities Okay 2d6 plus wisdom Oh, eight Okay so you get one question What Harrier is useful or valuable to me? I think you hear, you would, you know what these Macs sound like It's like a lot of chugging and like pistons But all you can hear is like a quiet ticking Seems like deep inside there's like a Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick Okay Can I open his chest?

Oh you can try How are you opening it? Are you just ripping it open? Or are you trying to like engage and open it?

You said he moved the opening to like his insides Yeah he's got like a chute on the front basically So I want to open that Oh yeah if you're just trying to open it you can just reach up and pull it open You don't have to like Okay Roll or force it or anything like that I want to open it up and find out what's ticking It's kind of hard to tell I think if you do want to get inside you're gonna have to destroy some of his body basically Cause this chute wasn't designed to get to whatever is making that sound Right cause the chute is more for like consuming Cool It's like a fuel chute And you also do see your bear experience with Macs Like you see that this flowing like living iron has flowed through a lot of his insides and moved stuff around Fuck So it even it looks very strange in here And like as Tuck is doing this he's like trying to find anything inside like a switch Yeah He's like trying to turn him back on Oh yeah this is that's beyond your ken I have two ideas I can try and use TLC to talk to him Hmm Maybe Potentially I can get them to like create a spirit connection with him If he's aware like if his spiritual essence is still Is still there Or I could try and get the demon of servitude to make a connection with him But I don't trust it That's probably smart Yeah And it's also like everything that went wrong was because this place is basically salted by like the iconic realm Mmhmm Yeah I wanna use TLC then to try and get a boon from them Yeah To try and make a connection with him to like boot him back up basically Okay so that is that is an interesting thing to try in here Cause the thing that TLC requires is that like Yeah Yeah The thing that TLC requires to sort of wake is destruction Yeah Which how how do you see yourself doing this under a rock slide Uh so Tuck just to give you a sense of what the so like M4 is over Tuck Yeah Tuck is like moving very little Mmhmm Cause every time he shifts like rocks fall Yeah Mmhmm And he doesn't wanna like trigger anything to like fill the space that he's in Mmhmm And his axe is on his back so he's still kinda pinned a little bit Mmhmm Um what can I sacrifice what do I have Yeah let's while Tuck ponders this let's cut up to Ving and Billy Yeah How have you been under this rock pile Billy is conscious and he's I think rifling through Ving's pockets for poultices Mmhmm Ving is not conscious Ah Okay Okay so Billy is thinking okay this is what Ving does he chews for a while And then Billy starts gently applying all this chewed poultices Okay so Billy is thinking okay this is what Ving does he chews for a while And then Billy starts gently applying all this chewed poultices Mmhmm Ving's injuries He accidentally ate two of them He ate two of them They are molasses based Yeah Uh huh He wasn't thinking clearly and he went oh no it's just so good you know It's like a nip job Yeah Oh my god it's fucking delicious When you eat a little caramel you just gulp it down so fast Uh huh Yeah Yeah you can definitely apply at least one Once enough Yeah Okay I've done one So that's seven hit points I believe Yeah Yeah Which brings you up to eight which isn't a ton but I'd say yeah I'd say that's a good number Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah But I'd say yeah the night is enough for especially someone as not exactly skilled in healing as Billy to apply like seven points worth of healing Uh so that's what Billy's doing Cool Ving is trying to wake him up Does Ving wake up Ving Yeah he wakes up slowly Mm Billy Oh I'm glad you're okay Where are we I think we're safe but we're under the ground Oh what's in my body oh my god is that a lawn chair I think so I didn't want to try to get it out yet Is that a Zeller's cart Yes Oh my god He looks at his chest and notices Paul puts oh you actually did a really good job buddy Thank you I chewed it the way you chew it Thank you Billy You notice that there are more missing than Billy ate I ate two You got a little something right there Yeah fair enough I know I was having fun too We really got to come up with some way of masticating that isn't putting in our mouth because this stuff's delicious Thank you very much Billy have you seen Tuck have you heard anything from him Have you heard anything from out there Can Billy listen Oh my god someone's up there Oh my god it's biller time One of the it cuts to above and one of the guys are like does anyone else want a beer I only have two more Yeah you can roll discern realities if you're trying to hear what's going on Okay Plus whiz Six Eight I'm here Okay Yeah you're listening to 2d6 plus bond Seven Okay Two Two Two Two Two Two Two Two Two Two Two Two Two Two Oh Oh a a a!

A a lower than that. Lower, you hear a very quiet ticking. Something's there. And shifting. And like grunting. Yeah. Shit. Tuck's okay. He's alive. You hear someone fart really loud. Oh my god. Thank god he's alive. Who did that? Oh, that's for sure Tuck. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to… I mean, pretty weak. I can move the rocks. I can just start moving the rocks too. Yeah, you could just physically be moving rocks. And I think you could…

I think this is the kind of thing where if you did it slow and careful, it will just take time. We're climbing our way out. We'll cut back to Tuck. Under the stone. Yeah. So Tuck's kind of like shimmied TLC over top of him. And he's like basically in a coffin right now. And he keeps kind of yelling at M4 to try and wake him up. It has not had an effect. Yeah.

You're not sure why you could potentially roll like a Spout Lore or a discern realities to learn more about the situation or try and glean more about what might be happening. But if you're yelling, you're starting to hear shifting above. Okay. Not directly above you, but you're hearing people talking. I'm kind of most concerned with M4 because Tuck feels really guilty about sacrificing himself. Yeah. So he has 12 music bottles.

So he's going to take TLC and in the very small amount of space he has, use it to crush all of them in his backpack against the front of M4. So it's like a sacrifice of TLC for the blood gods. TLC has to destroy stuff to make that connection. Yeah. They're like glowing. So there's this purple light. I like pile all of the music bottles inside of M4's chest cavity and I just smash like the whole thing with the axe. It's so loud. It's so loud. It's like if you played the Frost CDs all at once.

Yeah. But like really like cranked it. No headphones. All big shenny tunes. 1 to 14. All at once. Brown pop noise. Yeah. And they like explode. Yeah. 2d6 plus wisdom. 8. So 7 to 9. They take of your flesh as well. Glass breaking. There's like shards slashing into you. Yeah. It like fully explodes. Yeah. The sound is like wrecking your eardrums. Right. Yeah. So a d10. 5. So 2 damage but it's loud. Yep. My ears are bleeding. Yeah. But you still get the boon. So you connect the crystals glowing.

Yeah. And you're like, oh, man, what the fuck's going on? What song is that? Dude, what? That sucks. I know. It was all the metal music all at once. You know what? I don't want to say it. I don't think I like metal anymore. No. I think I heard all of it at once and I'm tired of it now. So what do you need? Oh, you need to. Oh, whoa. Look at this big boy. And you can see they like walk along the blade of the axe. They're little fairy bodies and they're like pressing. Their ears against his chest.

I like push the axe up further just so that they can kind of like get in there. Like I make it make contact with M4's body. Yeah. And yeah, they're little fairy forms. You see walk up the blade and they hop onto M4. Oh, shit. Is this Ving's work? He's a fucking robot. And he's like as they crawl down inside. Oh, this guy's metal as fuck. This is fucking sick, bro. This dude's fucked up, man. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's bad in here, dude. How bad? Can we? Is it possible to get him going?

I don't know. But wait, hold on. And they took. OK, we found something. Is it ticking? It's ticking. Is it going to explode? It's a bomb. No, no, no, Terry. Calm down. It's not a bomb. We've seen a share of bombs in our time. Like what Tuck has asked me by that launcher. Fuck you, dude. Tuck has fucked you. And you hear like high fiving deep inside. Tuck punches a bunch of rocks. Rocks fall down. And then it falls in.

Do you know that shot from Aladdin where like Jasmine's the sand is filling up? Oh, yeah. It's like kind of that where he's like now only his like lips are above a bunch of dirt that's all shimming. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Oh, my God. I take it back. I take it back. I take it back. Oh, my God. I got a bunch of dirt in my mouth. Oh, my God. This dirt's the gibbous man's body. I can't get it out of my mouth. It tastes so bad. So dusty. So burnt. It tastes like the gibbous man.

This is what my enemy tastes like. Know your enemy's taste. Is that like Sun Tzu says? Sun Tzu said taste your enemy. Taste your enemy. Taste your friends. Taste your enemies closer. There we go. Okay. Yeah, I know. He's pretty fucked up. I don't think this thing's getting started again, but hold on.

And you hear a bunch of like creaking and like snapping and like grinding metal on metal and then popping out of the top of the chute is Larry, Terry, and Chad and between them they're carrying like it's kind of the size of like a ham, but it's made out of gears and pistons and then there's the flowing organic iron surrounding it and it's ticking loudly. What is it? What the fuck does that… That mean? It's the only thing that was in there. This…

It's the only thing that was even close to like working. Can you describe it one more time? The way I'm thinking about it is like it almost looks like a stylized pineapple. Okay. Like it's like a metal kind of you know? Okay. Yeah. Okay, like a coconut. Like a heart, but with the veins poking out of the top. Yeah, but then like the tips are kind of like flared almost like, yeah. Like a metal heart. It looks like a metal heart. Okay, so Tuck takes that. Yeah. And he shifts over.

He like flips over and holds it like underneath him to protect it. And then he like slams his back up against the like M4's chest. And he starts like pushing. Oh my god, leg day. Basically do a leg burst. Yeah, totally. Alright. Try and get him and whatever this fucking thing is out. 2d6 plus strength? Okay. God damn it, I'm rolling with shit. Ten. Yeah. That was great. Wait, what? I was like, that was good. That was an old switcheroo. Oh my god, I'm rolling like dog shit. I succeed flawlessly.

Last session, it was all ones. It was all ones. I got that too that one time. So, Billy and Ving, you've extricated yourself from this like dome of rock. And as you push yourself out, it like collapses underneath you. Yeah, you're breathing fresh air. You see… I'm bleeding from so many spots. It's bad. You're both bloody and scraped and covered in dust. Yeah, pulling dust and dirt out of my mouth. Yeah. But I'm scanning the field for any weird rubble. Yeah.

I mean, I like the idea because there was so much noise. Yeah, so… That there was a bunch of people trying to rescue Tark out of it and then all of a sudden just like… They go flying. You scare a rescue dog. Exactly, yeah. You're scanning the field and you see the Harriers have like made their way over to where they heard this huge explosion. And you hear, River and Reed. And then Pan is like picking his way down the rock towards you and like, what hap… And you hear…

The rocks further down in the field are thrown aside. A massive metal back emerges and getting kind of tossed to the side, Tuck emerges, covered in blood and dust. Tuck! Ving wraps his arms around Tuck. You got a huge hug. Oh my god. It's okay, there, there, there. Get it out, get it out. Did that look cool? Did that look okay? That looked so cool. That was rock as fuck. Okay, cool. Ving goes over to M4.

Yeah, he's kind of like flopped over onto his back and his lenses are just staring up at the sky. I reach out with my spirit tongue to try and hear something. You feel a spiritual presence that you felt when you like first made M4 the way that you felt. You feel a spiritual presence that you felt when you like first made M4 the way that you felt. You feel a spiritual presence that you felt when you like first made M4 the way that you felt.

That's the way that he ended up being with the spirit water, but not from the husk of his body, but from something being held in Tuck's arms. He has his hand on his chest and he's like reaching out and then he like turns and looks over at Tuck. I'm really sorry, Ving. This thing was the only thing that was still working inside him. And I give the metal heart to Ving. And he takes it and he holds it. I think I might have accidentally killed M4.

And he closes his eyes and he feels that feeling that he was feeling across. And then he looks at Tuck and says, you didn't kill him. It's not your fault. I don't know what to do with this right now, guys. Can we put it in one of the other mechs that's still like in here? I think the ones that were like everything was destroyed in the rock slide. Like you would have to pull a mech out of the rubble and try and fix it up, which is far beyond what you're capable of. You could roll a Spout Lore.

Can I use a druidic lore? An argument can be made for that. This is spiritual stuff. Nine. Oh. Can I aid? Sure. Yeah. 2d6 plus one. I asked TLC to like tell them the things that they know about what they found. Because Tuck doesn't know anything. 13. The dice giveth and the dice taketh away. 13. So on a 10 plus with druidic lore. On a hit to GM, we'll ask you a question about the subject. Whatever you say is true. Okay. So. M.

M4 like this mechanism probably exists in all max and is sort of like a central processor, but you altered M4 pretty significantly with the spirit water and then with the living iron. Do you think that there's a precedent for like what is being know about permanent bodies that have been made for spiritual essences? Clearly this thing is still working. What do you think that means in a spiritual sense? Well, the axe is basically a permanent body for TLC. Yeah.

Which is a collection of spiritual bodies. Yeah. I think that's the important thing to remember that Ving is learning that being somebody who can talk to the elements, he's talking to the constituent parts of the elements, right? Like he's breaking down the elements, getting even more lost in the weeds of all things. Does Ving think that M4 may still exist in this thing? Yes, he does. Yeah. It feels like it. It feels like him. I can, when I hold it, I can hear the song in my head. Yeah.

And I think that you would connect the dot that if you were to get this heart into another form of some kind that M4 is not gone. M4 is just currently in a different form. Yeah. Also, we only have one more Hibernia water use. So I could do this again, but it would be the last of my Hibernia water. Anyways, don't need to do it right now. And there's no other mechs around here. No, this place is toast. So mission accomplished. Yeah. You did it. You destroyed the refinery.

Congratulations, everybody. That's what Pan says. Pan's like, wow. We're so, so sad standing around the body of M4. He cracks another beer. Way to go, everybody. Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned. Am I able to roll fairy child? Absolutely. Yeah. Billy is staring at the body of M4 feeling very sad about many other bodies he's seen in the past. And the light of the sun is shining. Nine. Okay. So you get three fairy child hold. Well, can I just really quickly roll what the bones know?

Yeah, absolutely. A four. Great. So you can replace one of your die with a four. So Pan's sort of like, I have to say, this was a resounding success. This refinery is offline completely. If you are interested, we could really use some people like you. Where are you going? You know, we honestly, we thought that this was going to be a bit of a longer operation. So we need to link up with command before we can get our next assignment. So what do you think? I think we go with the Harriers.

Yeah, I don't really know what to do right now. And we're all like blasted. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You guys need time to recuperate before you do anything. Yeah. It's really hard to leave M4 here. Yeah. In this place in this battlefield. We have what matters of him. Yeah. You're kind of, you're bringing M4 with you. It's sad to leave that body behind, but yeah, at least he persists. His sacrifice noble, the cost great. Hope, etc. There's a little poem that pan just freestyled for you.

It's like, I know times are tough, but I sort of an amateur poet. If you want to read my stuff later, I'd love to get some opinions, but we should head out. Yeah. So is there anything you want to do before you leave? Try and pick through the rubble or gain and get any information. Was there anything here? No. I feel like we learned what we had to and now we have to think about this. Yeah. Tuck just scratches metal as fuck. Until like M4's chest. Before we leave. Very nice.

I want to pile a bunch of stones on him. Yeah. Finish burying him. Yeah. So he's not exposed. I don't want him to rust anymore. Very beautiful. So yeah, we see this. The scene as you're walking away is like a cairn of stones and then the one like gap left is a piece of metal that says metal as fuck. Yeah. As you walk through the gate and a couple hours later, I think you're just backtracking. It's fairly safe. On the way back, you return to the Harrier's temporary bivouac.

Camp at the old logging settlement. And there's the vibe of everyone starting to pack up, but someone starts making food. People are resting, recuperating and Pan comes and sits on a log next to you and is like, so 24 seven with the pan flute. I'm sorry. Fucking get a different hobby. Really language. Sorry. We know you're in your winter form, but you cannot talk. Like that. Sorry. It's just such a headache. Such a headache from all those rocks.

Oh, does Billy have the opportunity to shift seasons? No, he's forced into this right other night. And that's partially also why he's so mad. Oh, he's locked into the winter. It's like he's like tensed up like and pan like holds up his hands like, oh, sorry. Sorry. And puts the flute like in an inside pocket on his vest. Do you have a medic here? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Crandall come on over here and someone comes and starts applying bandages and salves to you.

And in a while you, you all heal seven points if you so choose. Seven more? Yeah. Awesome. Great. Thank you. Crandall, what have you, while this guy's working on me, I just go, what have you heard of what's going on in the war? Uh, just like in general? Yeah. Like how are the high spear forces doing holding off the firefields forces? It's, uh, it's not going so good from what I hear, but I know, you know, we've been out in the field for a while, so we haven't gotten any new information.

But when we, uh, got the army deployed, most recently it was going pretty bad. Have they pushed into the city at all? No, no. Thank God. But, uh, they just were outgunned. We really are. I mean, they've got guns. Yeah. They've got literal guns. Yeah. Actual guns. You guys are all fucking spears and reed capes, dude. Yeah, the riverways are not a wealthy principality, but what we lack in money and arms we more than make up for in a willingness to die for what we believe in.

I was hoping you were gonna say grit. Something cool over that. Something good, not just your willingness to die. Maybe you're too willing to die. Everyone in the riverways wants to die. And the swords of their oppressors. Then he grabs his bag and walks away. I was just making sure that Perel and Morris were still okay. Oh, yeah. Totally. No, if they get to the city, then something, everything has gone bad terribly. Um, so yeah, I guess this is Sean now asking what next?

So we have done one thing, which is like destroy their ability to field mechs in this area. Yeah. And destroy their ability to produce this coal. And we also took away one of the gibbous man's ways to like get his body back. I feel like the next big steps is now that we know about the obsidian in the mines, like to shut down the other coal mines to stop like any more of that from being released into the air. Totally. Yeah.

We might need to tell like whoever's like coordinating the riverways resistance so that they can also do that. Turn their forces towards the factories. I feel like either it would be up to us to like go to the Blackhammer twins and like, I'll kill them or force them to shut it down. That was our original plan is to go find them and kill them. So like we snuck into the army so we could get access to them. We ended up there. We destroyed that. Let's get back on our mission of finding them.

How do we find them? We talked to high command. To the firefield high command? Or? No, I was thinking, I mean we were with the riverways resistance. Yeah. Who's, yeah. Probably have information, spies and stuff. Yeah. Go with the Harriers to wherever they're going to get information. They must have a way of transferring information from different sites. Thinking, yeah. And different fronts. Oh, it's a bunch of archers, right? Yeah. What if they attach their messages to arrows?

And they shoot them across distances to different camps. Oh, yeah. That's cool. Oh, and there's different routes that they shoot them. So then you walk along the route and you find an arrow. Yeah. It's going to be like a kilometer at the most. Yeah. But that'd be cool. So we're thinking that's what they would do instead of like going to meet somebody. They would go to these places where the arrows would be with information. Oh, I like that because there's people spread out throughout that track.

Yeah. The other messenger archers would find them and be like, oh, and they'd like shoot it along. Like the torches of Gondor. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really cool. That's cool. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Yeah. I like that a lot. So we think like you are basically explaining this to Pan what you want to do next. Yeah. And then getting him to send a message of where you would be able to find the Black Hammers potentially. There must be a way that we can just have an idea of an area where they are. Yeah.

I don't really feel like the Black Hammer twins are like hiding. They're out and about. Yeah. One's on the war front. The other one's running the country. Cool. Okay. Then who's going to be rolling this discern realities? Who knows how to write? I do. I pretended to be a librarian for a while. Holy sh… Okie dokie. Oh my God. He puts on his glasses like sage. He just flicks his head and his glasses were hiding in his hair and they come down on his nose. Little half-moon glasses.

I got two sixes. Yeah, I got 12. Pretty amazing. So you get three questions off the list. Is it plus anything? Just in case. Wisdom. I got 15. Oh my God. You read and write so well. Huge roll. Oh my God. So you're like, you sit down with, uh, Pan goes and gets, I think they call it something like the Bowstring Express or something like that. Oh, sick. To share information between camps. Because it's just like on the deer track that they kind of like run on, right? Exactly, yeah.

But it can cross like huge areas of land because there's scouts posted all over the place. And there's special arrows. And then like little wings maybe pop up the side. Yeah. Cute. They have like little springs. And you sit down with one of their archers, their designated messenger, and they teach you the, with your 15, they teach you like the shorthand that they use to transmit as much information as possible. Maybe the shorthand is like derived from druidic runes.

So like Ving picks it up so fast. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. There's a very like Ogham ancient language kind of pictograph. Style to it. I love that. And they send off the message. And you're all able to relax and get some food in you. Can I get rid of the stability? No, no, no, no. That takes days. Okay, I guess I'm going to keep this. What a bummer. Yeah. Can I get three more hit points from somewhere? Like eat a good stew? I was going to look up a move. One sec. That's what Billy does.

He, you know when kids make like mud pies. Yeah. Or whatever. Make mud soup. Yeah, mud soup. He gets to that. But with like regular food. Make soup? Yeah. But in a tree trunk. In a gross way. In a stump. Yeah, he's grabbing sticks and stirring it up like, nope, I think we need a bit more of this. He grabs like some gravel off the ground. He's like, yum, yum, yum. Come on everybody, grab a bowl. Slop is ready. Yeah, we're like, grab a bowl. Yeah. So we go and, is it, it's real food, right?

Yeah, isn't it? It is. Tuck says that to Billy. This is real food, right, Billy? Yeah. Okay. I just, sometimes you'd feel it feed us dirt. What? No, I made chicken gumbo. Okay. Thank you. And Tuck goes up to the stump and he laid all the soup. He's like, gumbo into a bowl. Oh. Yeah. It's actually delicious. Uh, you, do we want this? This could be the manage provisions move for sure. Yes. Okay. So Billy's rolling 2d6 plus wisdom to make his tree stump stew. 11. 11. Two sixes. No, 13. 13.

Good lord. We're rolling so well. This is insane. We're rolling so well. It's from the lights. Yeah. Charge it up. Yeah. So you choose one from the list below. I know exactly which one you're going to pick, so I'm just going to say it. The party consumes the expected amount of food. It is prepared excellently. Describe it and everyone who licks their lips takes plus one forward.

Yeah, it looks like a bunch of like red mud and stones and sticks, but it's actually chicken gumbo with, you know, well sauteed onions and garlic and peppers. The good old mirepoix. And there's andouille sausage in there. Oh my god, saffron. Saffron, you know. When Billy says mirepoix, Vig and Tuck look at each other like, where did he learn that? I heard mirrors say it. I don't know what it means. Oh yeah, he thought it was his name. Yeah. Uh, and rice. Oh, you're still thinking of saffron.

Okay, yeah. Delicious. Sounds great. Oh yeah. Mmm. Thank you, everyone. Yum. Awesome. Why did you do it like that? Just the smallest possible amount of tongue emerging. Because now we're on camera. I know, I know what everyone's see. Uh, okay, so everybody rests and recuperates. If you get a few hours at least of uninterrupted sleep, you can heal up to half your total hit points. Yeah, I'm gonna do that. Okay, so we're saying that you're sticking around for a couple hours at least.

We're waiting for the message to come back. Yeah, totally. And it would take a while because they're shooting arrows back and forth. Uh, but one day, it does arrive. I wanna grab it. Out of the air. Yeah, because Billy's actually, I'm fully healed up, so Billy doesn't sleep. He's like, I'll stand guard. Oh, you hear the arrow arriving. Yeah. And you're trying to catch it. Yeah, and I'm running into the field. 2d6 plus dexterity. Fun. Five. You get fully shot by this arrow. Yeah.

I'm really embarrassed, though. I'm really embarrassed. Um, so I'm like… It hits you, like, in the thigh. Like, wonk. No, right in the butt. Oh, right in the butt. You overshoot it, and you're facing away as it shoots you in the butt. Don't panic, Billy. It's okay. It's just the butt. We don't really need that. We can get it out. That's why I pull it out. Okay, yeah, I roll a d6. Holy fucking shit. That was a six. Six damage. Billy's all healed up. He'll stay up all night. Billy!

He's too confident. Um, yeah, so there's a lot of blood coming out of him, but he can't see it, because it's his butt. Yeah. So Billy walks into camp with an arrow. Trying to keep a secret, like, trying not to limp, and he's like, I got the message. I found it in a stump in the field. I found it. I was going for a walk, and I came upon it. So I brought it to you guys. You hold up the arrow, and it's covered in your blood. 100%. Yeah. It's not blood, though.

I know you're going to think this is blood, but it's not. It's not. It hit a cherry tree. Billy, did you get hit with the arrow? No. It's okay. I didn't get, nothing happened to me. Just gotta put a band-aid on it. Don't worry about it. Show me your buns. Bleeding so much. No, that's my private area. Billy, you can't have two buttholes. Your pants are so wet. I peed myself. You peed blood, Billy? That's worse. What's worse? I got bit by a snake. That's worse, Billy. That's worse.

That means you have venom in you. No, I sucked it out. You sucked it out? Of your own butt. Yep. I'm going to go to Crandall for unrelated reasons. Okay. And then we hear Billy go, Crandall, tell me about your kids. You gotta help me. I got an arrow in my butt. That's all the way I did. Oh my god, I'm bleeding so much. Give me a fairy oath that you're not going to tell anybody. You can barely handle one butthole. Great. A fairy curse you if you tell anybody, Crandall.

Tell anybody else to slit your throat. And you have this note. It's got three discern reality questions worth of information on it. It's densely packed with druidic runes. Okay. What here is valuable to us? So what here is valuable to you? You are specifically looking for the locations of the Blackhammer. Twins. Exactly where they are. You don't have an exact, well, I mean, one of them is fairly exact.

Callum Blackhammer has returned to Blackglass City because there is some sort of diplomatic event going on. And he was required to return to deal with it personally. Like a ceremony kind of thing? It's some kind of diplomatic event. That specifically is like we don't know exactly what it is, but there is something political happening. I don't like that. Okay. And then Colm Blackhammer is, I think he would be like directly on the front. Yeah.

He is directly on the front trying to push into Highspear, the province itself. I also thought that he might have heard about the factory getting hit. And so he's going to other factories to disperse, to fortify their factories. That is interesting. It might be too soon for that information to have gotten to anybody. Okay. So like, I think currently, I think the Firefields is unaware that their factory has been destroyed. Oh, that's interesting.

Sir Lee Masterly is probably, we cut to Sir Lee Masterly running, jogging, covered in sweat, like Oh, daddy, daddy. I fucked it up, oh daddy. He pans down and he's on the shoulders of someone else running. Go, go, Jeffrey, go! But he's all sweaty from you. I'm sweaty from moving my arms back and forth. His legs are kicking out. Yeah. Run smoother, Jeffrey. Jeffrey, my scrotum. Jeffrey! My name's Scott. Jeffrey, lean your your neck. Back forward. My scrotum keeps smashing into it.

I'm thinking that Scott is fed up and he throws Sir Lee off. Just walk, man. Fucking sick of this. My older brother, Jared's gonna make so much fun of me at the Christmas party this year. And we cut back. You got two more questions. What should I be on the lookout for? So, the note says that the resistance on the border of Highspear, though the Firefields has pushed in a little bit, the resistance was stronger than they anticipated.

So, the Firefields is requiring, like, reinforcement at a rate higher than they expected. So, they're, like, waiting on more people. So, they can't actively be assaulting. And do you think less than usual are showing up? Yeah. They're kind of getting desperate for manpower. Right. The people that they draw on now are gonna be less likely to fight for them. Yeah. And once they find out that they're gonna have a lot fewer Macs soon, that's gonna hurt them for sure. Man, we've kind of fucked up.

This war for the Firefields so far. So fun. And we're in a very advantageous position having this knowledge that they're not aware of yet. And we're pretty deep behind enemy lines right now, which is also dangerous, but sick as fuck. One more question. What here is not what it appears to be? So, the note says that different crews of Harriers have been specifically trying to capture officers and logistics people to figure out what their supply line is looking like.

And they discovered different shipments and things in, like, ledgers that initially seemed like semi-mundane logistics reports, but they've connected through interrogation and information that the Firefields is preparing to field a secret project. Does it say where? They, it's very, there's like a lot of underlining and, like, exclamation and, like, frowny faces that they're like, we wish we knew more. They're just like, so much wasted space. So many frowny faces.

The shorthand uses a lot of emojis. Uh-huh. But it's sort of like, that's the scuttlebutt in the Riverways and Highspear, like, intelligence community right now, is everyone's really worried about this secret project. They don't know what it is, and they don't know when it's going to appear. But if it was going to appear anywhere, you would guess it would be the front, if it was, like, some big, like, gotcha. Right.

Do they have a term that they use to refer to the secret project, or they call it the secret project? Oh, um, it would be reflective of the twins, for sure, the Blackhammer twins. It would Anvil? Project Anvil? Oh, yeah. That's not bad. So, yeah, they are referencing something called Project Anvil, a secret project by the Firefields military that they know frighteningly little about. Just that it's apparently going to be fielded soon, and likely near the front, is what they think.

The bare information they were able to get is, like, this is going to get us high spear, is what everyone in the Firefields believes. A couple of the people they've interrogated, when they ask them about the project, have, like, killed themselves. Like, rather than give them information. Yeah, they do, like, this cyanide capsule thing, or just, like, grab a knife and fucking… Yeah. I'd like to have, like, a ball of ferrous. Or what is that? Magnesium nitrate?

What's the thing that burns so white hot? Thermite? Thermite. That they have some sort of, like, metallic compound? A necklace? That they can smash and then just, like, burns them? Oh, it emulates them? It takes out anybody that's in the room? For the Firefields, that's sort of how they would go. That's brutal. Yeah. Where it's like, I'm going to take myself out, and hopefully two or three people around me. Yeah. Okay. I think those are the two paths that are before you.

Blacklass City, and whatever Callum's doing, or Colm and Project Anvil on the front. Or, actually, the third path is, like you were saying, going around and continuing this sort of, like, partisan work of going behind their lines and destroying their facilities. Yeah. Tuck wants to go to Colm, but Abdul wants to go to Callum. That's how I feel, too. I want to go to Callum, because I know he's in, like… Do they live in, like, an old palace?

They live in, like, the Princeps Palace in Blacklass City. Because I feel like something about, like, the Gibbous Man might be at Blacklass. Yeah. We still haven't gotten to the bottom of, like, the Gibbous Man's plans here. We've uncovered layers of it. I think this is a great idea, because we've encountered Colm on the front, but we've on the field, defeated him, fucked up this factory, devastated the troops on the ground.

Now let's get behind the lines and see what the rest of the force is looking at and try and get more connection to them. Yeah. And to be the shit-dick GM and dangle this in front of you, you didn't really defeat Colm Blackhammer. You got away from Colm Blackhammer. Yes. We fucked him up pretty bad. By defeating him. You specifically used the move that is you throwing sand in someone's eyes and running away. He's really scared of us now. Really cool guy. Fucked him up.

He was laughing so hard to cry. He was laughing so hard he was crying. He was laughing to cover up the fear and the crying that he's gonna do later. We'll never forget our cowardice again. No. Tug says no. He grabs Vig's wrist really hard. He's gonna remember the back of my head for the rest of his life. He was so scared of us, we had to run away from him, because he was so cringe at how fucking scared he was. We didn't want to look that cringe.

Who's gonna beat up a guy who's looking that cringe? I know. Not us. They're in a circle talking to each other. The areas are just like, what the fuck is wrong with these people? Billy's been stitched up. He's sitting on an ice pack. Yeah. That's embarrassing. He, no wonder he ran away laughing. He was laughing because he was like, I've never been so embarrassed in my life. You better be laughing. What a fucking cringe. Yeah, he looked like shit in that battle.

He's wearing armor because he's like afraid of us. Yeah. We are not wearing anything because we're not afraid of any of them. One man cringe festival. Pan's kind of standing there like, What do you have to say about it? Yeah, nothing. Agree with us. Okay. Why are you in such a foul mood? Oh, I'm not in a foul mood. It just seemed like you were all working through some things together. And I didn't want to interrupt. And he like slowly pulls the pan flute out of his vest. What do you got? No.

So as am I, Sean, to understand that this is you guys are parting ways. So the thing to consider now is you are quite far away from Black Glass. How would you be getting there? And then Tuck holds up the keys to the… I was just gonna say. Yeah. The keys to the what? The back door of Heather and Yard. Great. Yeah. We just need to find a door. One of the tent flaps. Is that enough? Billy smashes the key against the tent flap. It's not working. Come on. I'll hold it shut.

Shove it through this little gap. Tuck's doing it. Is it doing anything? It's not working. Come on, Billy. Hold it tighter. I'm doing it. Can we build a door? Can I discern realities for a door nearby? Can I discern a door? I mean, yeah, you're absolutely honestly… We're in the middle of a fucking bog. No, you're in the middle of an old logging camp. Oh. Yeah. So maybe there is a door here. There's a door here. It's embarrassing you didn't think there was a door nearby.

And I lean in close to Billy and say, shut the fuck up, Billy. Oh, language. That was cringe. Everybody's getting so tense with each other. I love it. We're all in so much pain. Yeah, yeah. We're all recovering so much. You've been fighting for days, basically. And all we've had is soup. Mud soup. Mud soup. Yeah. Soup. Shut the fuck up, Billy, or I'll take away that pillow you're sitting on. Just tuck. You want this pillow, don't you? Yeah. For your soft little butt and your soft muscles.

Shut up. My muscles are hard. They're such small muscles. They're not even that big. Billy, they're so big. No. And tuck does this. Oh, look at all that soft, like my pillow I pinch. When you pinch the love handles. Oh, yeah. Little tough. Can you flex these massive biceps? I can see pitches to your love handles. Fuck. And then tuck. Tuck giggles. Because it's… Oh, and Vingan's in there. Stop it. There's a door. You don't even have to roll. He's like, oh, there's a door. Tuck smashes the door.

Fuck. Fuck your door. Right off the hinges. Roll for door. Whoa, that's cringe. Embarrassing that you had a tantrum at a door. Yeah, tuck pokes Billy in the butt. Hey. Hey. That's… That's… That's for me. Let it heal. All right. 2D6 was wisdom because tuck destroyed the door that you found. Oh, damn it. So what you recall is that the keys require a lock. Do I have to roll for destroying the door? No. Wait. I roll. Come on. Why are you rolling? I guess I succeeded.

Did you just want experience? I want experience, yeah. You gotta stop doing that, man. This is a dried out, rotten door. Yeah, it just obliterated under the barest touch. Incredible. Yeah, so discern realities if you want to find more in this logging camp. You haven't done any digging around in here. Okay. Yeah, we'll look around. Mm-hmm. Plus wisdom. Ten. All right. Three questions. What here is useful or valuable to me? A door. Yes! There's like a… It looks like basically it was a shed.

And it's one of the… The door is barely hanging onto the hinges. Mm-hmm. And it looks quite aged. You're not sure if it is a… A camp that was abandoned because like the logging was no good, which would be weird because there's trees everywhere. Or if people left during the war. Well, we will know soon what happened here recently. Ah. Oh. So you look around. So smug. I know. Well, we will know soon. I'm sorry. Soon. I guess we're going to know in just a moment. I'm sorry. Perhaps we'll learn.

I'm such an ass. No, it is. I agree. Yes. I'm an evil queen today. Perhaps we will learn of your downfall. Momentarily. And Billy… Sir Gringlewald. Sir Gringlewald. Sir Gringus. Bringeth it here. Bring the box of pain. This is the Gom-Jabbar. Put your hand in here. It's going to hurt. Ooh, look out. Gom-Jabbar. That was my favorite scene. That was my favorite scene in Dune. When he goes, ooh. Ooh. Ooh, look out. Ooh, that's spicy. Look out, Timothy. Going to hell. They use the actor's name.

So, Billy, you're like looking around the logging camp. You're like, oh, a door. Cool. But you're just like, dude, dude. You're like, oh, I found the door. Okay. And you start wandering around. And you're looking at like the trees and the logs. And for the most part, it's a grim but seemingly fairly healthy forest. But having been where you just were and like, you know, the smog in the sky from the coal, the coal smoke that the firefields has been burning. You get a very similar vibe.

Like this place is just sick. Oh, the trees stopped growing. And like the door that Tuck tried to punch and like just completely pulped under his fist. Yeah. There's like a degrading effect to this place. Yeah. I'm touching the trees and like the bark is coming off so easily. Yeah. It's separate from the phloem. Yeah. The inner layer. Yeah. Everything here just feels I'll. What here is not what it appears to be. Ah. What here? What here is not what it appears to be.

What would be an exciting thing to find in this logging camp? Obsidian. I just had an, I had an image of like Billy scrabbling around and like pushing away like moss and stuff. Revealing like a giant eye. Oh. Like in the stone. Like revealing black obsidian. And then like there's like a huge version. Like a carved eye. Of like the eye that's on the obsidian coins. That's pretty cool. It's a door. Oh. Yeah. Like a door into the earth. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah.

Billy, you're scrabbling around in the moss, which is like coming away in like dry flaky clumps. Yeah. It's so dry. It's easy. Jeez. Guys, look. And we come over. Yeah. There's, it's almost like a. Like a hatch almost. It's so cold. Yeah. Hmm. I try and reach out to this door and talk to it. Oh, you try to talk to the obsidian. Well, I just want to hear what it's saying or feel if it has a voice. Have you talked to obsidian before? No, never.

Well, I mean, if the obsidian is the gibbous man's body. And the coins are his eyes. I think it's literally just like, I see you. Whoa. I come out. It's him. I cover the, I cover it again with the moss. We have to leave now. We have to leave. We got to go right now. Use the key. Should I try and smash this thing before I go? Yes. Use TLC. Like he pulls out TLC and he does like the, like across his body, like whipping. It. And he wants to use for the blood God again. Yep.

To smash whatever the fuck this is open. Like it's like, like as he like spins the ax. Yeah. Yeah. After he hears him go, I see you. And he's like, not for long, bitch. Son of a bitch. Why can't I look cool ever? Six. Wait, do I have a plus one from the certain realities? So seven. Yeah. So seven. So seven to nine. I get what I want, but I take damage or something. Yes, you do. It takes of your flesh. So that's going to be your, your damage for sure.

As there's just like a, the obsidian like explodes up out of the ground. Yeah. Slices into your flesh. Weird. Yeah. It is weird. It comes up and out too. And you're standing there in front of the shattered stone as it falls away. And before you was like a hole yawning into the earth and carved into the stone steps leading down. Fuck. This is so tempting. What's down there? Guys, the fire fields are his place. We can't do this. Can I quickly do a trap expert on it or no?

I mean, trap expert is Billy like assessing a dangerous situation. So you could totally do it. Okay. Yeah. Do it. I'm just so curious. Like, why would this be here? Okay. I'm going to try it. Nine. Nine. So I believe you get one hold. Oh, actually I'm going to use my plus one forward. Oh, yes. Okay. So we go. Yeah. So is there a trap here? Yes. What activates it? Entering the portal. Oh, portal. Well, portal in the general sense. So what does it do when activated?

And portal in almost a literal sense. You're not Billy. You can feel as someone who was made for the walking of ways, the crossing of barriers. You aren't sure that if you went down these steps when you came out, you would be in the same place. Okay. Okay. And what else is hidden? Here. Hmm. You see carved into the stone of the tunnel leading down very angular animalistic designs that set off like a deep fear in you. Ooh. What?

What was the name of that church that took away your shape shifting ability? Oh, yeah. Church of the Black Flame. Yeah. I think it was the Church of the Black Flame. Yeah. Things. Hair on his arm stands on end. 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. Yes, like a tunnel going down. Like little alcoves with candles and stuff in them.

I can use demon eyes to try and get more information. Because it's trap expert, but for demon stuff. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Seven. So you get one question. Can I see the list? So is there an icon here? And if so, what icon is it? So the Church of the Black Flame, we've kind of suggested, was like a druidic sect that was corrupted by the Gibbous Man. And has like an affinity with the iconic realm and demons. Right.

Because they had the tattoos that they used as anchors to trap spirits within their bodies. Yeah. I like that it was like pulverized and in some sort of solution obsidian. Oh, yeah. Because it was like black tattoos. Yeah, it was black ink. Yeah, it was spirit ink and like blood that they used to make their tattoos. So there's an iconic presence. There's an iconic presence that you feel at the base of this tunnel. And it's the icon. You feel that it is reminiscent of judgment. Okay.

I tell these guys that. There's a demon down there. It's a demon of judgment. I don't want to go down there. I don't know if you guys do to investigate. I don't think I need to know what's down there. Yeah, Tuck takes a step back. He's like, feels like a bad place. I'm so curious. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

This thing that is, you know it's a trap. You know, the gibbous man literally talked to us and said, I see. What could we gain from going down there? You don't know. The odds of it being something that is like directly and extremely relevant to your quest and situation is not high. You just stumbled upon this thing. But there could be interesting or revelatory information down there, but there could also be extreme danger. There could be extreme danger. Lore stuff.

We could use in the end game against him. Because one thing that we did ask Morrison Perel to like keep an eye out for is like if there's anything that they know that would like kill the gibbous man. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What if I did a shadow dance and went down there? Like Billy's little fairy bit self went down there. Mm-hmm. It would have less purchase on you for sure. Yeah. You would also be slightly less aware of your surroundings. Mm-hmm.

But like if I'm less aware of it, it'd probably be less aware of me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As far as we know, the fairy is distinct and safe from the iconic realm. Billy. Yeah. If you feel like you can go down there safely, then we trust you to do it. But how many hit points do you have? I have 15. Just keep that in mind. Okay. Yeah. Wait, hold on. Did you just ask Billy how many hit points he has? Sometimes he forgets. Keep in mind that you just got shot in the ass. Okay. With an arrow.

No, we didn't. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. I'm not going to do anything to my ass. My ass will be up here with you guys. Yeah, I'm going to roll shadow dance to go in. Okay. Okay. And I know they can't come with me. Yeah. 2d6 plus. Wisdom. Wisdom. So a seven, which means I get one hold. You guys are like, I don't know if we should go down there. I don't think we should.

And then Billy just falls over. Okay. Yeah. He went down there. He went down there, didn't he? Okay. That's him going down there. Okay. Okay. Well, Doug picks up Billy. He's like, is there anything you could do to monitor him while he's down there? Here, spit on him. Yeah. Can I eye the tiger him? You can eye the tiger, his physical body, but not his spirit. Why not? Spit on his body. See if that helps. It's like, Billy. Billy. I just hear woo.

But we see Billy like stepping down the path, like into the tunnel very steeply. This sort of like half light of the ferry. When you're this far. From like the deep wells of the like transgression points into that realm. But you see carved in the wall in this twilight, the animal pictograms. But there's like a almost like a life in a movement to them as they're like writhing and braying and fighting on the walls. Oh, yeah. There there's so much discomfort here. Can I Spout Lore? Yeah, totally.

Yeah. 2d6 plus intelligence. Six. Okay. Oh, yeah. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. This might be limiting our exploration of the whole. Billy, do you have fair share? I do, but I have to spend a hold to use shadow dance. Yeah. So you'd be spending. You'd have one left for the day. I'd have one left. I'll have one left. Okay. You're looking at these symbols and sort of like in the way that they are animals and scenes of predation and hunger and the transfer of power from predator to prey. Yeah.

And prey to predator. You're reading in it an ancient language. The information is flowing from these images to you in a way that the thinking peoples, the speaking races have conveyed information in, you know, grunts and songs for thousands of years. And you think of this old, the church of the black flame that you have experienced before the dark guard. You see the symbols and the beliefs of all of these groups woven into the image of the dark guard.

You see the symbols and the beliefs of all of these groups woven into the wall under a single belief. And these animal images crawl along the wall on both sides of the tunnel to a bend in the stone at the base around the symbol of an eye. All of these groups, you believe the dark guard, the church of the black flame are in fact the same group. They are the eye and that they have, of course, for all time, worship the sky and the gibbous man in that way. When you reach the bottom of the stairs.

I think I want to ask the table what Billy finds. Like I thought that maybe that like you were showing like the animal carvings or whatever. So I thought it was sort of like this is what the land used to be or something. And then they took us all away. Like they consumed us all. And the people who were here took our bodies into their bodies, like into their skin. Yeah. I think that makes sense that like if this was one of the original places, yeah, the people that didn't have.

Power that wanted it and like found ways to give it to themselves. But in like this destructive way. Ooh, that is a good idea. I have an idea to build on that. Okay. So like if this was the first place where the original practices of the Magi were like perpetrated, we're like the first of the spirits that like walk this land were like chained and bound to people's bodies. There's like maybe like in the first peoples that settled here. In the fire fields.

Like maybe there's been like a consistent tradition potentially within the Royal family of like this practice where it's like passed down from monarch to monarch, prince up to Prince. I think that is a good idea. I think that's what it is. Yeah. The blood of all the spirits that they've consumed is manifest, like represented in the fire. Yeah. Blood red hair. Yeah. Like it's a. It's a mark of their. Like. Their blood letting. Yeah. They're containing the blood of the spirit walkers.

Like it's the blood of shape shifters and druids that could do it. That was the activating element in the, in the ink. Yeah. What they were using. It's almost like a thing where it's like you go down and you see the story of it and you see like the first deal that like the first of the monarchs of the fire fields made. And the succession thereof. I was thinking like on the other side.

All the animals are feeding into the eye and then men and power and buildings and weapons are coming out on the other side of the eye. Yeah. And I don't think that there's anything like physically really like Billy feels like, I mean, you can't see properly, but it feels like it ends here. Like there's a blockage.

And you feel like, uh, as you're like descending this tunnel and learning this story, you feel that like the iconic, like presence kind of pushing on the outside of the ferry and on the outside of yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And found unworthy to enter. Right, yeah. And then I'm being, it's like I'm being pushed back. I'm tripping back up the stairs. That's so cool.

The demon of judgment is the door to this place. I guess so, yeah. You feel like basically in a mechanical sense, you feel that fairy child hold be spent against your will. Yeah. And you are ejected from this place. Yeah. Bailey. Holy shit. What did you see? So much, you guys. Language. Sorry. No, I mean, sorry. I tell them what I saw. I think under the armor, we would find these tattoos. Like Colm and Callum are like members of the Magi? I think so. Okay.

That's something where we should let Farrah know. Yes. Right now. Yeah. Reach out to Black Spire. Should I do that now or should we? You can do that. We should go somewhere safe. We should go somewhere safe. We gotta get the fuck out of here. Yeah. I feel like he saw too much. Yeah. He knows we're here. We hear like in the distance. Like crashing through the trees? Crashing. We hear like a mech running. Yeah. Yeah. Holy shit. Don't, don't, don't. Yeah. Like bashing trees out of the way.

Get the key, get the key. We gotta go. We gotta go. Grabbing the key, jamming it in the hole. Yeah. You don't have to roll for this, thankfully. You get it. You can put a key in a hole. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the door opens. Tuck takes Ving's key that he's been holding because Ving keeps losing it. And he jams it in the keyhole and like. Hey, we have the same key chain. Opens it. Yeah. Tuck goes, yeah, totally. And he whips the door off like the, that still works, right?

Yes, you can now get in, but now you can't close the door. I'm gonna smash it back in. Stop breaking metaphysics. Get in the door, get in the door. And as you, you, you step through the hallway into like the back area of Hither and Yon. Yeah. Before the door closes, I just want to look out and see the mech coming around the corner and Ving just kind of feels like this like guilt and like a longing for this type of thing.

And he feels for this, this creature that is singing the song of woe that he can't help. And you see the Harriers scattering. Yeah. As this mech comes crashing through the trees. The Harriers like spreading out and starting to draw bows and arrows and then plinking off the armor of this mech as it comes exploding into the camp. Quickly, I want to, I want to use a Bill of the Wisps and the new move Who Goes There. Oh, yeah. I want to try to lure away the mech from the Riverways people. Oh, smart.

Billy has a new move for listeners called Who Goes There. Can you read that? Yeah. So it's basically like a Bill of the Wisps except with a little wisp I can roll plus wisdom to lure, trick, or distract an opponent. On a seven to nine, I can distract one person. On a 10 plus, more people for longer. If I fail, it confuses the people on my side. 2d6 plus wisdom. Eee! Come on, come on, come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Book six, I will use my last fairy child to change it to a seven to nine.

Okay, so describe this and how Billy gets the Harriers to take advantage of this. It's like a gleaming arrow that I shoot out almost. Mm, cool. And the mech sees it as it like goes basically the opposite direction of the Riverways people. Yeah. And yeah, so this, the mech skids to a halt as the arrow whips back the way that it came and it turns and starts trundling back into the woods. Its head turns before its body turns. Yeah. Yeah.

And Pan looks to you like entering the shed and the door closed. And that's where we're going to end it for this week. I've been your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdulaziz. So long. Playing Ving, the half-elf druid, Paul Oppers. Take care. Playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Goodbye, everyone. This show wouldn't be possible without our Patreon supporters all around the world.

If you would like to support the show, join us at patreon.com slash spoutlore or spoutlore.com slash money, please. And you'll get access to a bunch of cool stuff like the up-to-date Mall Brats feed, playtests for our post-spoutlore campaign up all night, full video episodes starting now. That's pretty sick. They look great. We all look amazing. Looks pretty good. Yeah, yeah. You all finally get to see how hot we are. Yeah. Boy, oh boy. Do I ever have the biggest lip fillers in there?

Such a problem. I got so thick and glossy. I got most of the bones from my shins removed and put into my cheeks. So I've got the sharpest cheekbones in the biz, baby. So sharp, they're piercing my skin. I got muscles bigger than tubs. Jess is actually nine feet tall. And nine feet wide. 450 pounds. You won't believe it. My chin is in a cut phase, finally. All four of us. Great. Hey, Canadian. Bacon. Bacon. Oh. Canadian bacon. Bacon. Triple food. Yeah. Oink, oink, audience.

Who's a little piggy who you could absolutely jack off to? Are we snackable finally? Okay, all right. Get on Patreon and fap to your hearts. I'm putting an end to this now. Putting an end to this. Thanks to Aaron Reid for our intro and outro music. If you want more of Aaron's music, check it out at aaronreid.bandcamp.com and thankfully, thank you, finally, and most of all, to all of you for listening. We'll see you next time. Ooh. Oh, God. Did you just come? He saw a reflection of himself. Ooh.

Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. And so ends the tale of Adventures 3 who tried their best they can.

The The There's a woman and lost they be for times of rest and 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 spell here Sean and Jared check this out and look at my lips whoa let me see whoa you're looking all of them beautiful lips yeah look at all of it wow that top lip is like a model's lip yeah how much do you think you would have to get paid to go clean shaven yeah I would never do it not even for one million dollars did you just watch Austin Powers no I was just trying to think of a big amount of money I was like a million is a big you said that like Dr.

Evil one million million dollars do you guys remember do you guys remember Austin Powers it's so good what did you do for two hundred thousand dollars two hundy thousand it would grow right back oh my god I guess I guess I'd do it for two hundred thousand dollars you heard that patrons time to get to yeah we're gonna start a Kickstarter oh yeah we'll shave our beards see Abdul's face yeah we'll all shave our beards yeah for money there you go haha haha haha haha

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 to Spout Lore!

I'm your game master Sean O'Hara, joining me as always playing Tacoma Dome the Barbarian Abdul Aziz Hello everybody Playing Ving the Half-Elf Druid Paul Oppers Hello everyone And playing Fat Billy the Halfling Thief Jessica Tai Hello When last we left our heroes, they were recovering from a devastating landslide Caused by… Hey!

Question mark, question mark I don't know who did it, I think it was all of us Yeah, nature Yeah And the price that one must pay Ugh There's a ton of work to be done There's a ton of work to be done trying to explain to me. Tuck was buried beneath layers of stone, held aloft by the shattered body of M4, the Wormack that the party had become such close friends with.

With the help of Larry, Terry, and Chad, Tuck recovered the mechanical heart of M4, hopefully containing his essence, as it ticks on still, mixed in with the organic flowing iron that Bing saturated M4 with earlier in the day. Following this, with the help of the Harriers, Tuck was able to escape himself from the landslide, and the party left the shattered facility behind. Mission complete? Oh, yeah. I feel like we did a great job. Oh, yeah. You can't use that refinery anymore. Yeah.

What refinery? Where was it? We destroyed the refinery and the vein of coal and obsidian underneath. Yes. It's unmindable in the future. Yeah. And returning to the camp deep in the woods with the Harriers, the party received some medical treatment, medical attention, and sent a message down the bowstring line that the Harriers use to covertly communicate with one another, archers sending messages back and forth.

They discovered that Callum Blackhammer, their next supposed target, is currently in the city of Blackglass, right in the capital, doing his thing, while Colm Blackhammer, location currently unknown, seems to be working on preparing something called Project Anvil. So cool. Some sort of… Sick name. …secret weapon that the Riverways Alliance has discovered and is currently terrified of.

The party was preparing to make their next move return to Hither and Yon with the information and attempt to get closer to Callum as Billy found, buried beneath some moss, a portal of black obsidian carved with a great eye. The gibbous man, using his influence to spy on the party through the obsidian, drew the ire of one Tacoma, the dome. Mm-hmm. And like somebody who gets startled on the porch, punched him in the face immediately, turned in fear, smashed it. Yeah.

Smashed the portal that flinders. Yeah. It's stand your ground law. I'm protected by stand your ground law. Revealing a yawning chasm into the earth, steps leading down to some sort of ancient altar, Billy in his fairy form, for protective reasons, decided to descend as Tuck and his demonic sense discovered in this tunnel. …in this tunnel. …in this tunnel. …in this tunnel. An icon of judgment.

So Billy descended, finding carved murals in the sides of the tunnel, not unlike the dark guard churches that we have discovered in the past. So cool. Realizing, through the connecting of dots and the feeling that he gained from the carvings, that the Magi, the dark guard, the Church of the Black Flame, all fit under the umbrella of the Eye, a cult committed to the worship of the gibbous man in the night sky. And based on the name, the Eye, likely the spider.

Wait, is the Eye connected to the spider? Yeah. Or the spider's eyes. Yeah. Because the eyes walk like men. Mm-hmm. Whoa. Scary as hell. Our show's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. It's actually neat. It's pretty cool that like eight years ago, we talked about a coin with an eye carved in it and then that eventually connected to like an ancient spider god. Yeah. I like that. It's pretty sick.

Billy was rebuffed from, from the entrance of the tunnel by the demon of judgment, or the icon of judgment rather, who deemed Billy unworthy, but not before he received a vision and the information that the Black Hammer twins may be part of a family descended from ancient Macaulayn Magi, the first to use the blood of spirit walkers and wizards to chain powers to their own mortal forms. What this means, we know not.

As Billy was returned to his body, the party heard, a great crashing in the trees. A Wormack, feral in its countenance and frantic in its movement, came bursting into the glade, ready to do harm to them and their allies. In a last minute maneuver, Billy sent his bill of the wisp into the trees, distracting the Mac and causing it to run away from their allies as they themselves dove through the door of an outhouse into hither and yon. Oh, thank God.

Slamming the door behind them, that is where we find our heroes. Now. Ugh. Ugh. That was so scary. Oh my God. Oh God, it smells like shit in here. Mirrors comes out of a bathroom next to her. Yeah, you hear the like toilet flushing sound and he's wiping his hands off. Sorry about that. I was just cleaning out the privy. God. I was pumping it out. Was that you? Who dropped that? Nothing. Nothing to worry about. What's going on? You, are you okay? Uh, yeah. No. For a moment.

Smash cut to all of you sitting at a table. Mirrors is like ladling out soup into a bowl for each of you. Wow. So that's basically what it is. This far into the show, that's how I'm going to handle you coming back to a character that doesn't know anything. So that's, yeah, that's basically what happened. Whoa. Yeah. Did you like how I described it? It was, honestly, it was really cool the way you described it. Were the act outs too much? Yeah. Like, Billy and Vang are, are, In leotards? Yeah.

Oh God. And all their props, like, I don't know. I'm dressed like a big cloud. Yeah, you're dressed like a cloud. Billy has like a bucket on his head with like metal, like on his arm, like forks on his hands. Yeah. I've got all the pots and pans like piled on me, like the, the like metal, uh, mech snake bug thing. Oh yeah. We put the corrupted Wormack costume on Francis. Aw. Aw. When you say the corrupted Wormack costume, what do you mean? You don't have one of those.

It's a chair and a brown blanket. There you go. Perfect. Yeah, beautiful. And yeah, so Francis like shakes his body and the blanket falls off of him. He taped a bunch of knives to him too. Make him really scary. And he is because now there's like a thousand pound pig covered in knives walking around the room. Ah, fuck. Sorry, old boy. Too far into my role, you see. Chuck's wearing a cloud that is a black cloud. It's a frowny face on it.

You know, now that I think about it, I don't understand what the clouds symbolize. Because the gibbous man is making pollution. Yes. And I'm the clouds before he got to the- He's the good cloud. Oh, okay. I see. Wait, should we start again? No, no, no, no, no. One, two, two, two, two, two, three, four. The music starts and you guys start dancing. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wow. Okay. So the gibbous man is using the coal to spread his influence. Looks like.

It's to spread his influence and it's also to like re-substantiate himself, to gain more power for whatever's coming. Huh. And what has he said what's coming? The anvil is something. Have you heard it tell from any of you that are travelers of- No, we haven't had any soldiers come by. Some secret weapon maybe. I haven't heard anything, but you guys can always check the mail slots. Mail slots? Yeah. Where are those? We have mail slots? Yeah. All of the room keys have associated mail cubbies.

People leave messages, so you can always go check. I'm going to go check. We've never checked it, so it's full of junk mail. Full of junk mail and flyers. Yeah, there's like pizza coupons. There's a lot of emails from like debt collectors and ducks. There's a lot of letters with threats written angrily. Yeah. There's a lot of like promises from a Panusian prince and things. That's true. It's a letter that says, hello, sir.

I have reached out to you because my father, the king of Panusia, has died. Oh, no. You see Ving flash back to Ving like putting money in the envelope and licking it, sending it off. I would like to you control a hundred million gold coin, but require bank information to transfer. Please send bank information, Kenosian bank or Sunstone directly to me. Guys, how much money do we have? So what in all this is useful or valuable to me? Yeah. Okay. Two to six plus wisdom to discern realities. Eleven.

Yeah. You see a little rolled up piece of looks like scrap paper that looks newer and not as covered in cobwebs as the rest of it. And you pull it out and it's covered in writing. From who? Well, you are illiterate. So there's actually no way for you to know. Oh, yeah. I pass it over to one of you guys. So you hand it off to whoever's closest. Mears. Mears takes it. He goes, oh, it's from Perel. They must have come by when I was asleep, I guess. Anyway, cut back to that. Oh, yeah.

Mears is like in an armchair in front of the fire, fully like head back and the arms and legs splayed. Like. The door bashes open. With two men riling and searching. They're using it as a fuck closet. They're grabbing each other so much. The shop. They look at Mears' paws. Okay. And they go back to it. It's okay. He's sleeping. You're so fucking smart. No, you're smart. They just boom, boom, boom, boom, like up the stairs to their room. Then later we see Perel.

Perel come down with like his robe, like around his waist and clutched across his chest. Typical like after sex outfit. Yeah. On the way to pineapple juice. Yeah. And sliding a piece of paper into the mail slot and then taking a slug off a jug of pineapple juice and storming back up the stairs. Go Perel. Ding, ding. Round three. Good for them. And the letter says, hello, this is your friend Perel. I have returned from the high spear tower. Work goes well. It is a masterpiece.

No mind except for my own. And also that of my lover, Morris Swag. And also my other lover, Aquaria, would be able to uncover such mysteries. All right. Skip to the next paragraph. And because of our three combined minds. Scrolling, scrolling. Keep scrolling. We scroll through the letter. The scroll. Yeah. Once in a lifetime. Nay. In all lifetimes. Right. Yeah. We scroll. Yeah. We're scrolling. Okay. Scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. Anyways.

This is like when you get a letter from like your 65 year old aunt. Yeah. There's a lot of dot, dot, dot that don't need to be there, but make you feel like there's tension in the writing. And there's no exclamation points like millennials put in all email communications because they don't want anybody to be mad at us. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a bunch of periods. And we're like, what the fuck is Perel so mad? What did we do to him?

My email signature at work has a thanks exclamation point in it automatically because I know that's what I'm going to do. So what do we think he has told you here? I think the long and the short of it is anyway, understand basic infrastructure of the high spear. Now turning it to our use will take longer. Turns out the wizard that made this thing. Was insane. Wow. Understand basic infrastructure, but layout is arcane. Capital A. That's great. We'll return in fortnight to rest.

If you need anything, leave a message. Love Perel. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. We can also because you guys scrolled through a lot of the information. If you have more questions, we can pull it back to them. Yeah. Because we're trying to get information on. Yeah. If they knew about the anvil. Yeah. There's anything about the anvil. What? Here's not what it appears to be. You scroll back because there was some stuff that he did kind of slip in.

His writing style is very confusing because he'll like go kind of thought by thought. So he was talking a lot about how smart him, Aquaria and Morris are. And then every once in a while would be like, oh, yeah, by the way, I remembered this. Yeah. Oh, someone creeping around outside the high spear. Morris grabbed them. High spear intelligence talked about something. Something. Something. The anvil. Okay. Why didn't he highlight this? This is one useful thing. Couldn't get much out of them.

Turns out they don't really know a lot about it, except for it is some kind of machine. Okay. Maybe like a mega Mac. Ooh. Ooh. Like a big Mac. Yeah. Like one of those Pacific Rim Kaiju things. Yeah. Like a Jaeger. Yeah. Yeah. Like eight stories tall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Max add up to a big one. Like Voltron. Oh my God. They're Voltron. Oh no. They're doing that. Voltron right now.

That'd be so sick. Sick. Is what Tuck says. Maybe we shouldn't stop them. I kind of want to see this. I want to see it happen at least once. Right? Like a big set piece. I mean, we have all this money for production. We have to have a big set piece. I've actually been dipping into it. I'm going to do that for a Panujan Prince. Sorry. Sorry. He needs it. His dad died. And this isn't something that Perel would add, but more context that I would be adding for you.

So if it is a machine that would suggest that if you wanted more information, the Firefields has like a huge logistical pipeline. So you could get more information if you hit other facilities potentially or kidnap somebody that is related to like the engineering core. I like that the scroll has like a residue on it. And we see that it is like black coal, almost like obsidian. So it's like, oh, it's really heavy. Things are really popping off there. Yeah. There's like smog all over the place.

Oh, yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe he says that. Yeah. That is. Yeah. Another part of the letter. And it's sky. Yeah. You see fingerprints, black fingerprints, smog everywhere. Feels bad to breathe outside. Staying inside. That is the thing is like we were getting into a lot of fights when we were in the Firefields Principality. I think it might have been part of the effect of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Staying inside. Morris getting on nerves. Yeah. Yeah. Morris sucks.

Yeah. Tuck is like, hmm, that's probably why I did so bad in that fight. Right, guys? Yeah. Well, actually, Tuck does know that he is resistant to demonic influence. But maybe there's a way that. Ving says. Yeah. Could be one. It might make him feel better. Yeah. Maybe my resistance to demonic stuff is going away. Yeah, it could be. Oh, yeah. It's making you weak. It's making you weak. Oh. So it's not really your fault. Oh. You know? Oh, I feel so weak. I feel so weak.

Maybe it was that demonic influence that abandoned me in the fight. Yeah. I don't think it was me. I think it was the effect of the smoke. Yeah. He was possessed by the demon of running away. If we just fought inside next time, he'd probably be really strong and buff and brave. Yeah. Unlike last time. Mm-hmm. I think you have one more question. What is about to happen? Ah. What is about to happen? How would Perel say this? I mean, it's the smog thing.

Because he doesn't know what you know about the smog right now. Mm-hmm. But you would assume that anywhere on the front, this is going to be worse. Right. Like, it wasn't for some reason as bad where you were, except in the refinery where it was clearly affecting the snake. It was affecting Tuck. It was affecting lots of stuff. It's affecting the workers. They might be using it. Yeah. That's why he's so weak. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Right? Which, I wonder if this is a dot that you would connect. If you have experienced the smog and what you know about what the Gibbous Man might be doing with it, this might connect you to the idea that the anvil might have something to do with the smog. Yeah. Oh. Like, they're using it like a mustard gas on a big scale. Yeah. Like, it's almost like a biological weapon. Whoa. Chemical warfare. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Especially if it's spreading too high spear.

Like, it might be something to do with them wanting to spread it. Yeah. As far as they can. So, Perel has made it clear that you can leave a little message here for him if you want. Okay. And, um, did Oman come back? Um, Oman is yes. But, no, but like, when was the last time we saw Oman? Yeah. When was the last time? We did get a message back and then we, we wrote, did we write a message? You. Because the last communication I sent was through Black Spire. Yeah. Remember? To her. Yeah. To Farah.

Was when I was in his head and I coached him through writing. Uh-huh. War is coming. Bad. Frowny face. Right. Yeah. Let Black Spire go or else or something like that. Or else. Or else. Vote bad. I guess the big question that I, the reason I'm asking is, is there anything that you are hoping to get from Farah or anything that you want to tell Farah? I want to know about Black Spire. I want to know what the library is up to. Uh-huh. Those are the things.

Then I think we, this, we're at the cubbies. Yes. We're at the mail cubbies. Yeah. This is the place for it. Yeah. You look up in one of the cubbies and kind of. Peeking out of, uh, like squeak, squeak, squeak out of one of the little cubbies is a little bookworm. And I like, we brought it up earlier that one of the cubbies is like a little mini hither and yon. It's like done up like it's his own little apartment. There's like a little like, um, like wool mattress and like a scrap of fabric.

Like a, that's like a blanket. Yeah. And like definitely, uh, mirrors has made little miniature furniture for. Yes. There's like a little miniature mirrors. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's like a little miniature mirrors at the, behind the bar. There's a little chair and then like a little tea light. Yeah. That's the fireplace that he's sitting in front of. Francis. Yeah. I like this. Molded of clay. Yeah. And then also like the food and drink.

It's like a thimble of water, a tiny piece of cheese. He's got a little stink bug in there that is his pet. Yeah. So cute. That's so cute. And, uh, yeah, he squeaks out and kind of nods his little worm head and, uh, starts crawling down towards one of you. I put my finger at. Yeah. Squeak, squeak, squeak. And his wings unfold from his body. They have a black dust on them. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Little guy. In the little, in the crevasses of his wings. Can I read his wings? Yeah.

It's just an update from Farah basically. Cause last time you told her about the whole gibbous man thing. Yeah. And she gave you back some information on that. The first thing that she says is black spire is gone. Yes. Fuck yes. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. In the little like shorthand. So Tuck kind of needs some help from Vang a little bit to read it. Cause it's in like the library. Cause he thinks he's dead. Yeah. Oh no. Oh no. My dog died.

No, no, no, no. He's gone. He left. I hope you understand the blow that this has dealt. Pathomazoological research. I'm like don't care. Yes. The blow this has dealt from blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is what we read. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. No one was hurt. Repairs are underway. Oh, shit! Minimal casualties. Repairs are underway. Casualties within acceptable parameters. Wow. She's more of a librarian than ever.

Right, you can read this because you trained as a librarian while we were there. I do shorthand. Yeah. War is coming? Please return with more information. Research underway into Mother Never Was. Eyewitness reports difficult to obtain. Folkloric sources primary. What would she want to know? I mean, she's really upset that Black Spire is gone for sure. If war is coming, we must prepare. Please return at earliest convenience. Return message at earliest convenience.

We read it, please return at earliest convenience. And you guys are like, oh. Back to McCall then? I'll pack my stuff. Season 7, anyone? The podcast will never end. We'll just start right back from the beginning of Season 7. We'll keep looping. Mirrors is like, if you do need to go back to McCall. She doesn't want us there. And Black Spire's on his way. We can't go back now. What does that mean? Where is he on his way? Wait, so how is he going to get to you if he doesn't know where you are?

Catch the guitar bass. Oh, okay. That's made out of his scale. I assume he can track this. And also you have a connection with him. So what do you think is going to happen when you guys start popping around and hithering yawn with him trying to find you? Also, how's he supposed to get over here? A dragon can fit on a boat, Sean. So do you think he's going to buy passage on a boat? He's a dragon. They're going to run away from him. He'll find a way. He'll figure it out.

He'll figure it out, right? I just think maybe, you know what? I'm going to make some plans. I'm going to think about this a little bit. Thank you. I have a sneaking suspicion that you guys haven't thought very much about it. Obviously, he's going to get help from Cerulean Depths. She's going to ferry him over across the Sea of Graves, drop him off nearest to us. He's going to tune into Tuck's mind and he will follow us. It'll be no problem. He's totally well suited to traveling.

He's a nice guy, very brave and big. No one will bother him. And then when he finds us here at Hither and Yon, he'll just come through the door where he will fit. And then we'll be together again. The end. And then we, after Billy explains this, we cut to Blackspire like roaring on the edge of the ocean being like, Ah! It's so big! Help! I don't see them. He's just, he's sitting his front legs are in front of him. His back legs are sticking straight out. Cause he's sitting on his butt.

He's just like, Oh man, this ocean's fucking huge! It's freezing! He like tries to go and he's like, That's the dog thing where he goes in a little bit and then the waves come out and he's like, And his tail's like swishing like, he's so agitated. He's like, Walking back and forth like, He's doing the cat thing where he's going back and forth across the fucking ocean. Hmm. How do we reach out to Cerulean? Well, I think someone has a Mother of Pearl scale. I do. Oh!

I'd like to use it in this vision. You're gonna have to roll for this for sure. What would it be? Okay, so in the past we've used Communion of Whispers to use this like spiritual connection with the scale to connect with Cerulean Depths. Uh, yeah, okay. I'll commune with the Whispers of the scale to try and get her to go to the edge of the sea near the library. Great. Yeah, go ahead and roll that. I think it's 2d6 plus wisdom. 2d6 plus wisdom? Um, I got 9.

Ooh, I will help with my connection to Black Spire. Okay. I am down with the connection being your connection to Black Spire allowing you to aid Bing. I would like to know how you are aiding Bing. The guitar pick. But like, what does it look like in how you're aiding? It's on the scale. I have the scale. Yeah, you have the scale and then you feel my arms come in from around you. I've had the time of my life. That's not the right song at all.

I miss my big black white dog and I never felt this way before. That's a different Patrick Swayze. It's the truth and I owe it all to you and plus bond is 8. So that 8 makes it a 10, which means I lift Bing in the air. So we fully bypassed ghost and went right to dirty dancing. You push me up so fast that Whippy Goldberg's ghost can't stay in my body. You've poltergeist to me from Whippy.

And as you are Bing, it's perfect as you're lifted into the air in the common room of hither and yon, you kind of bop into a chandelier a little bit. A crystal chandelier? A crystal chandelier. Which amplifies my connection. Yes.

And this sort of like, as Tuck is lifting you up, your arms are straight out holding the scale with the Black Spire's guitar pick in it and your vision begins to cloud as you feel this like, your body is straight out and long and sinuous and sub-aquatic as you course through the waters of the Sea of Graves. Blue extends all around you. You are exhilarated in the enjoyment of your beautiful serpentine draconic form. Swimming alongside is the matriarch of the orcas. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

A grandmother. Yes. Yeah. Grandmother orca swims beside you. I'm the matriarch of the orcas. Yes. She is vaping. How's it going, babe? She has to go up to surface to blow out her smoke. She's vaping through the blow. Yes. Which is a series of drawings I started, so I wanted to say it on mic. Yeah. That's great. And Cerulean Depths is like, I'm just so glad that you came with me for this swim. You know, I've been feeling really stressed out about all the cracks I've been finding in the pillars.

It's been really messing with the abalone, and I just haven't been able to feed like I used to. Yeah, I know what that's like, honey. The fish are getting freaked out as well. One sec. Whew. Back down. You don't have to stick to this voice if it's so annoying. I think it's really funny. I'm the patriarch of the orcas. Eee. Click, click, click. Slapping her sides. One sec. Let me just call my nephew. You. Oh, really? Yeah, what is it, Grandma? They sing so beautifully. But they talk like shit.

They talk like shit. And, uh, you feel yourself in this body feel a presence of yourself in this body. Hmm. As Cerulean Death stops and goes, Spirit Walker? Siri? Wow. It's been years. It's been a long time. Was that you I felt a moon ago seeing through mine eyes? It was. Wow. What brings you to my… Hey, Depth Snow. I'm checking in on our friend Black Spire, a fellow dragon on the shores of the library's east shores. A fellow dragon, you say?

It has been many moons since I have spied one of my kind. Hmm. Not so… Illustrious as your kind, but a dragon hidden for an age. As it has ever been. That poor whelp. I will reach out to him if I can. I'm- wait, sorry. What was that? Bing? Huh? Bing, you're breaking up. Ah. You break- B- B- B- Sp- And then, the connection is abruptly severed. Huh. Abruptly? Mm-hmm. Hmm. What was that? I don't know. Did you feel anything? Well, you're- Chuck's just like- Yeah, Chuck's- Chuck's quivering.

Chuck's quivering, and he like, looks up, and Bing's got a boner from talking to Siri. Hey, I was- Ugh! And I'm like, He keeps- Dumps him onto the ground. He keeps batting me in the- I landed on my dorsal fin! Um… Do you hope- I hope that your message got through. I don't know if it did. The seven- Wait, that was a ten plus. That was a ten, I forgot. Yeah. While I was doing it. Yeah. Let's reel it back a little bit. So he lifts Bing back up? Back up.

Yeah, you can feel- You can- You hear like, Da-do. Da-do-do-do-do. Wait, this- This Skype one? This Skype sound? You're like, Oh, wait, somebody's calling me. Quick, lift me back up. The Skype- Why? Why the Skype one? It starts with an S, who cares? Sorry about that, Bing. Yeah, the bubbles? I was driving through a valley for a little bit. What were you trying to say? I need you to reach out to Black Spire. Oh. The dragon. Black Spire. Can you give him a lift back here?

Is there any way you can facilitate this? The Sea of Graves is a dangerous place currently. Yeah? The pillars, they crack under the weight of ages. Something's wrong. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The! Oh. Oh. Oh. We will be shut down by the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. But I will find this dragon and you wish me to bring him to you. If you can.

If you can find a boat big enough, that would be great. Send me an image of this dragon using the power of your mind. But I borrow from Tux to give to. What does Black Spire look like in your mind? It's the image of him on the shore, like pawing back and forth. He's now like, how white is he now? Like 50-50? I think he's kind of like a tuxedo cat looking. Like he's got black, but he's got like white stripes. And maybe like his front paws are kind of like white now. Maybe his chest is white.

Yeah, he's got like a little. Oh, he's got a white like long diamond on his chest. Yeah. With like black ringing it. Yeah. White like band around the top of his head. Yeah. He's on the shore, like one of the beaches outside of Wickport, like pawing back and forth. Drawing so much attention. I want to be clear. He's a dragon. Oh, yeah. These things are not common. There's a crowd probably. There's a crowd. There's like city. There's like city officials that are like, this is a problem.

There's newscasters. They're pushing. They're like. Talking into a glass bottle. They're like the animal control guy who's like with a net. Like, no, no. They're pushing. Go, go. And Black Sparrow's doing his little. Pow. Pow. Pow. He's trying to get them away from him by doing the. Yeah. Sudstone paps. Why does he keep doing this? I like the idea that there is a newscaster talking into a glass jug. There's no camera or anything. They're just describing it all. I'm here on the.

There seems to be some sort of giant reptilian, maybe some sort of cute cat. And he is on the shore causing a disturbance reported at 1159 AM. He seems to be a dog sometimes and a cat sometimes depending on what's cuter. And there's a guy with like a giant jug that looks like one of the water cooler jugs. He's holding it like a camera, like a news camera. Catching all the ambient sound. There's a rubber tube over the top that goes into the guy's hand and he's talking into a funnel.

And he's like, holy shit, the technology in this world is so weird. There's a bunch of like on plan air artists set up like just like painting the scene. Oh yeah. Oh man, there's going to be so many beautiful postcards of this scene later on. Yeah. So wait, how did Tuck get this image of Black Spire on the shore? Oh, do I have to try and connect with him? Well, I thought, I mean, he was aiding me. I was aiding him. Oh, I see. He had me lifted up. Yes. And then Ving had his arms out.

And then he just reached down and touched the side of his head. Yes. Yeah. And that connection using the like void inside of Tuck's head. Yeah. As like a focusing beam. Yeah. Connects with Black Spire. And you get this first person image of him sitting on the, you see him looking at the ocean boats kind of sailing by. Yeah. Going. Ah, so fucking big, man. And then he looks over and there's a crowd of people and he's like, get the fuck out of here. I like that they start taking photos at first.

He's like, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh. He goes into the drum like one of your friends from here. Oh, hey. Does that like what he did with the librarians? Yes. Yeah. Get my delts. Get my delts. Oh, look at this. Yeah. Yeah. But he has, all of his like, fuck, the ocean's so big, comes out to everyone else's like sad puppy whining. Yeah. Oh, and Cerulean hears that and she's like. Oh, what a young hatchling needs my help. As an elder dragon, I will. Hey, this young pup. Oh.

She can't go in shallow enough, so she has to send the orcas in. Yeah. She's like, granny, you got to come with me and we have to save a baby. She's like, whatever, babe. You know I'm up for anything. There's no fumigating my place for another 72 hours. I can go till two o'clock then have a poem. I'm getting a poem. I'm getting a poem at two o'clock. We see the orca. For the first time, she's got kelp all over her head.

Huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, Kelp. Kelp. Wavy kelp. Yeah. Oh, you know, like when animals are like old in the ocean and they're like plants start to stick to them. She's got kelp growing out of her head. Rosie's giving me a poem at 2 p.m. Giving me a poem. Give me a kelp poem at 2 p.m. Let's go save this kid.

She pops the cigarette in her lips and it just hangs there. Nice. Nice. And then the shot shifts back to the, sorry, she's smoking one of those subterranean, like, volcanic vent worms. Yeah. That's her cigarette holder. Yeah. She's got one of those vent worms. And then the shot shifts back to, like, the newscaster and the crowd on the beach. And then you see, like, 18 dorsal fins pick out of the water. And then it turns into jaws. And the guy's like, get out of the water! Get out the shore!

Get out of the water! And then you see all the boats, like, try to do, like, a quick U-turn, but so slow. And just getting, like, annihilated by orcas. Orcas hate boats. We know this. Oh, yeah. There's an orca, like, jumps out of the water and, like, elbow slams a boat. And the last scene that we see before the connection is severed by the tumultuous nature of the Sea of Graves is Black Spire sitting on the back of three orcas with his paws in the air, like, wakeboarding on these orcas. Yeah.

And he's carried off into the sea. It is. He doesn't have anything that's, like, hair. He's got no hair. Well, he's got the plates on his back. Oh, and they're all, like, clacking. Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. And it seems like Black Spire is on his way. Cool. Now, we must recall the Sea of Graves is large. Yes. I allowed you the hilarious narrative freedom to say that they find him right away. It would have taken a long time otherwise. Okay.

He is on his way. Yeah. Sure. And. We'll remind you guys that we spent easily 40 minutes on that scene. Easily 40 minutes. Sounds like more. It was worth it. And it was fun. It was fun. And as we all know, at the same time, two evil twins are trying to take over the High Spirit Principality. And that's where we're going to leave it today. But if you want to send any messages back to Farah, the bookworm, are we saying, is this Oman? I think Oman has been in your hair this whole time.

Yeah, but we can. Bring Oman out with him and his buddy. Yeah. Yeah. Write an extra long message to Farah. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you want to send back to Farah? What do you guys think? We got to tell her about the scary door we went into. Right. And the royal family. Royal family. Yeah. The mechs. The pollution. She knows about some of the pollution, but they don't know about the full. And the refinery. Project Anvil. Project Anvil. Question mark. Question mark. Yeah.

I should only put one, but I wasted a space on two. The High Spirit stuff. So you're just going to give her a rundown on everything that you've done since you've talked. Which, as a reminder for the listeners, is Morris and Perel are trying to hack the High Spirit to try and rebuff the Gibbous Man's influence. There was the thought. Morris had a thought that he could potentially use the High Spirit to reach other wizards that were trapped. Right. In their bubble universes. Right. Yeah. And that.

So I will tell her that. That the Magi and the Dark Guard and the Church of the Black Flame. Are all the same organization. Yep. And they're all working for the Gibbous Man. Mm-hmm. The smog is a way for him to resubstantiate himself. Mm-hmm. And it's building in the High Spirit. Yes. It's spreading across the fire fields and it's making its way into High Spirit. And it, yeah, seems to have some sort of destructive effect on the people that have contact with it. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, oh, anything else? Tuck ran away from a fight. Yeah. Tuck ate shit in a fight. He betrayed us. Yeah. Tuck looked away from a fight. Tuck looked away from a fight. Tuck looked away from a fight. And for a second, he looks back and it's there. And it's like, what the fuck? You're gonna tell her that? We have to tell her everything. We don't know what's important and what's not important. It could be the smog. Yeah. It could be. Add that. I should have. So condescending. Add that. Add.

And then Tuck goes, and now we're gonna go kill Cal and Black Hammer. Love, Tuck. Bing. And the bookworms, Oman. Is that a handprint for Billy? Yeah. Oman and. And we need another name for this. Other guy. We need another Arabic name. Yusuf? Yeah. Oman and Yusuf. They nod. One of their little legs comes up and they give a salute. And then they unwrap their wings. Could it be his antennae comes down and gives a salute from his antennae? Oh, yeah. His little antennae salutes.

Oh, it would be so sick if the back of the mail slots had the same property as the back door of. Yes. Everything about this is miniature. Yeah. I like that. Because we were getting messages from all over the world. Basically, everywhere we've lived, there was like a utility bill from Cash's apartment. There was like a bunch of shit. Yeah. You have a like a coupon sheet from that falafel place on Abu Dib Road across from Cash's. Yeah. There's a coupon from Vong. Oh, yeah.

Some junk mail from Vong's. I'm writing for After Midnight now. Yeah. By the way, I'm really successful. But yeah, I think these mail slots work where it's like once you take up residence, it will like basically like. Grab correspondence for you. From anywhere you've ever lived. Whoa. Like any mail that's like lost essentially comes here. I like that. That's very interesting because the bookworm slot seems to suggest that this place was built with bookworms in mind. Oh, cool.

Which is interesting because like there's basically a little hatch that they can go out of and bookworms only exist in the Margani Library. Oh. So that's very interesting. It's a place that many people have come to stay over. Maybe a librarian stayed here one time. And was like, I'm going to build this little thing. Oh, I like that. I love that. That's when they wrote the quiet time sign from 10 p.m. To 8 a.m. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was wondering why that was in Macaulay. Yeah. That makes sense.

Wait. So can the worms just go right out the back into the library? Yeah. It's like a little flap. Yeah. No, but what I'm saying is like they don't even have to fly there. There's no travel time. No. That's amazing. They just squeak, squeak, squeak. Yeah. And then pop right out. Squeak, squeak. Yeah. It's like a tube in a factory. Squeak, squeak. It's like an old tube in a factory. Oh, yeah. It's like a whoop, whoop. Yeah. Man, I fucking love those things. Madden tube. Yeah.

So your message has been sent to Farah. She has been brought up to date on everything that you have done since you talked to her last, including getting a dragon to break out of the library. Yeah. That was one of the things. We sent someone for Black Spire. No apology. We did not send for an apology. Which is another dragon. She would love to have known that. Yeah. Yeah. And not just another dragon, but like an eight, like centuries old, massive. Elder sea dragon. All right.

You guys have finally finished checking your email. Tuck at a certain point. Just like did a select all delete. If it's important, they'll send another one. Just email us again. Damn it. Oh, that had all his banking information. That wasn't done. Oh, no. The king of Benuja. His fortune. I guess now what is your next step? We can play through the night. Like we can have scenes and you guys can fill stuff in or ask mirrors questions or talk to Francis or whatever, or we can just cut forward.

I do want to know about Project Anvil. Yeah. It's I think this would be just because of the secret nature. Getting straight info on this is going to be tough. Yeah. But you might be able to glean some information with a discern realities. And discern realities. Eight total. So you get one question. Okay. Off the list. Yeah. And you're all sitting around resting. You know, you're like sitting in armchairs and mirrors has made some tea. Mm hmm. And you're just chatting and sleeping.

And the door opens. The Heather and Jan's front door. And you look and there's like a middle aged older lady. She. What does she look like? A little. Like a minor. Yeah. She looks like she's like sooty. She's kind of ropey. I like that she has a tattered version of a Harrier's cloak on. Like somebody gave it to her to help her keep her safe. Right. On the run. Yeah. Living, surviving in the cloak. Yeah. And there's like a hole in the back with dry blood. Like it was somebody that died. Mm hmm.

Oh. One of the Harriers had died. And she. So then in that case, if she's running away from something, the door opens like bangs open and then slam shut. Yeah. And there's this woman like pressing her back against the door. It's okay. And all of the shutters like slam closed. Yeah. And then slam open again. And then we're in a completely different location. Yeah. All right. So I guess you guys were sitting around. Yeah. And then the shutters all closed. Yeah.

And this woman burst through the door, slammed it, and then the shutters opened again. Uh huh. And she's just looking. Get all of you. You're safe. I walked into a shed. Shed? Shed. If you need to use the lavatory, it's upstairs on the left. It's freshly cleaned. And she just kind of like slowly walks through the room. My name's Ving. Okay. Are you hungry? Yes. All right. And then she walks up the stairs to where you said the lavatory was. Shit is shit so bad.

And then she comes back down like 15 minutes later. Yeah. We order her like a big meal from Mears. And she comes back down the stairs. I'm just going to say how I imagined her. So she's pale. I think she has like shortish blonde curly-ish hair, but she's older. So it's going like gray. Uh huh. Kind of gaunt face. And like her nose is like long and kind of like pointed. Uh huh. Dark rings around her eyes. Yeah. Very dark rings around her eyes. And she's cleaned up. She's not as sooty anymore.

It looks like her hair is wet. Yeah. Like she might've just done the whole deal. And as she's coming down the stairs, you hear, Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Kiss me up beneath the Premier Key Trail. And it's a middle-aged woman just walking down the stairs in a hither and yon bathrobe. Yeah. So this is some sort of hotel. Kind of. It's a place that shows up when you need it. Ving slides a bowl her way. Yeah. And we cut for it.

And Mears is pouring soup in her bowl. And she goes, wow, that's a lot of things that's happened to all of you. Thank you for filling me in on the nature of this place. That's okay. Were the lights too much? No, I actually liked the moving spotlight. It helped frame the action in a very interesting way. Okay, because we spent a lot of money on those lights. They look expensive. Chuck is holding Big Up in the air. You can put me down, Big Guy. You can put me down. I liked the song.

Thank you very much. I worked really hard on it. I tried to do all the harmonies. Could you hear them all? Could you hear the harmonies? I've never heard one little boy do three-part harmony before. He does them like this. By putting his fists up to his head. Through his own hands. Where are you coming from? Oh, you know, just around. I was just on a stroll. No, you weren't. You came in here pretty fast. You're wearing a cloak of a herring. And she looks up at Bing when he says that.

Did you kill him? No, but he died. He died saving me. Did you come from one of the mines? I did. There was an attack on a refinery. What happened? I don't know the three of you. I can't just give up all my information. But you did get a question off the list. What happened here recently? All right. Yeah, fair enough. All right. Only because you haven't given me up yet. I work in a mine, coal mine. So about four days ago, there was an attack on a refinery. And… A vein was destroyed.

And the rest of the mines have basically gone on lockdown. And there was some source of… Some people attacked one of these harriers. And it didn't go so well for them. I tried to make my way out. One of them tried to help. Got cut down. I ran into a shed. Just looking for a place to hide. Safe place. And I ended up here. And she, like, is digging into the… Well, the soup. If you found your way here, you must have needed it. So you're welcome. Welcome to be here. She nods. What's your name?

Euphigenia. Effie. Effie. Nice to meet you. Good to meet you. I'm Tuck. I'm Ving. Billy. Mears. That's Francis. And Mears comes and pours, like, a steaming cup of coffee. She asks for something stiffer. And, uh… Glug, glug, glug. Pours some other smoking liquid into it. What were you working on at the mine? I was just digging out coal. Was there any big project going on over there? There's been word of it. Not at the refinery. But after the invasion started, we started digging deeper.

Into veins that we hadn't worked on yet. And, uh… They are working on something. I mean, you could charm this lady. Like, you could use… I don't have any fairy child. It's been a few days. You can roll fairy child. How bad is it? A six. Okay. Have we said we can't aid with fairy child rolls? No, we… You guys have explicitly aided before. Okay. You just need to tell me how. Um… I stole a bunch of suckers from… From a dead guy. What do you… Hold on.

What do you mean you stole a bunch of suckers from a dead guy? The Stephen Doctor was dead in the field as we were leaving. No. And he had a bunch of… He died? He looked dead, Billy. He just looked and appeared and smelled dead. He's such a good guy. I like that. This is actually making you… You said? Yeah. Okay. It was… I found Stephen Doctor's… Coat. His lab coat. His lab coat. Okay. And it was… Covered in blood at the battlefield. Oh! But it might not have been his. But it was…

The pockets were stuffed with these. And I like that Ving initially said that he was going to aid and came up with, like, a bowl of fruit and some granola. And then Tuck was like, I found all these lollipops. I found all these lollipops in a dead guy's… Holy shit. Okay. I got ten. So we're just giving up on sugar then? We're just giving up on sugar. Cool. Thank you. You're… You leave for weekends sometimes and I'm… What am I supposed to do? Tell him no? Alone? Okay.

I would love for you to have some boundaries on the weekends I get to go. Also, Billy is still in summer form? Wait, no. You were in your winter form. Ooh. Yeah. Okay. Can I try to change my season? Yeah. So I think you just roll a D4. Oh. And then whatever comes up is your season. Two? Oh, I get summer. Summer. Summer. Yeah. Back to summer form. Summer. Summer. Baby. Which means your wisdom goes to zero. Yeah. My wisdom goes to zero. But you're so charming. I'm so charming.

Which is very helpful. This is perfect. Great. You've got three fairy hold. Uh-huh. And yeah. You can definitely charm this lady if you want. Yeah. I do want to. Okay. And how does summer change charming again? What does the summer thing say? Just says you may charm a small group or an individual for longer. Okay. Yeah. So you can, instead of charm an individual for a short time, you can charm one person for a long time. A whole night. You can charm a bunch of people. Yeah. Totally.

The whole night. Great. And she like, you can see her like, Billy, you start putting the fairy juice out there and you see her like, you know, roll her shoulders and sort of loosen up a little bit. So like, what did you really get up to over there? What did you really see? We heard of some project called Project Anvil that might actually be hurting a lot of people. Yeah. What have you heard from the quarry side?

I mean, you know, miners talk that, you know, in the chow line or in the cafeteria, we're all chatting. And the mechanics, I've heard that they've been pulling people off the line, taking them to some secret facility to work on some big, big machine. A lot of coal that we would send to the front lines or to the other MAC divisions has been diverted to this facility. That's probably why they were so devastated when that one refinery shut down. Exactly.

Whatever sort of fuel they need for this, there isn't as much of it as they hoped. And they need it all to power whatever this project is. They've been sending out more scouting parties as well, reconnoitering the firefields and the High Spear Principality for other veins of this. Oh, they're trying to find more mines. This coal that they've been getting us to dig out. I hate this stuff. Gets in your lungs. Can I Spout Lore about its effect on people? Yeah, totally.

And I'm going to use Fount of Knowledge because nobody else knows about this. So it gives me a plus one. Uh, seven. Okay. So seven to nine. Interesting, but not useful. You with your like demonic sense can feel even just like rolling off of her. There's like a faint, faint, faint, iconic vibe basically, which feels very similar to what you were feeling in the refinery and what you've been feeling at a low level. You realize the entire time you've been in the firefields.

It's not like a straight up possession, but you can feel that she has like an iconic influence like hanging off of her basically. Okay. I use demonized to figure out what it is. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Okay. That's a high rule. You get three questions off the list. Is there a demon here? And if so, what demon is it? So the thing is, is like I said, it's not a straight up possession. It's more like the echo of the iconic realm. So there is not specifically a demon here.

It's more like you can feel that she has been in contact. With something. Interesting. So Tuck, as, as he kind of like gleans, like this, like connection to the iconic realm and he remembers growing up in McCall and like all the like torch of McCall stuff, like the church of the flame, he reaches behind the bar and like fishes out a vial of saffron and he's like, let me make you like a thing that helps. It's like kind of like a cleansing juice.

It's this, I dated a girl that was really into juice cleanses. Things into this? Yeah. Uh huh. This will actually really help. You know where the bathroom is, right? Up on the left? Okay, good. And he puts like saffron in like a thing. He like squeezes some limes in it. He's sort of just making a Manhattan, but he's putting a shitload of saffron in it. Yeah, totally. Yeah. He's doing the shaking. He sees a flip in it. He tries to do one of the flips behind his back. Smashes a bottle. Smashes.

And he was just like, oh no, please stop. All right. Let's try it again. No, you're not licensed for that. All right. Here we go. Can I try and do a flip? A cool flip? You do not have to roll to do a cool flip and fuck it up. You really don't. Let's try. All right. But I do. I pour her this drink. Yeah. Yeah. She starts drinking it and you feel that like lingering influence dissipate. And she notices it probably too. Yeah. She like brightens up a little bit.

And Billy, you can feel that your charm is like taking a bit of a firmer hold. And she's just like, oh. Whoa. I should have been cleansing this whole time. Right? I know. I never bought the whole juice cleanse thing, but you know, delicious. Her Instagram handle is Katie Juice. And if you use her affiliate codes, then she gets a little bit of a kickback and she gives that to me. So it's incredible. I'll take a look. Yeah. They're working on something big.

And if the people that they're bringing off the line are any indication, it's mobile. Okay. And if I had to guess. It might be. And she like hunches down. We hunched down too. This is information that none of you would have gleaned on your own. I think it might be some kind of extra Big Mac. Does it build itself out of littler mess? That I don't know. Anyway, I'm pretty beat. You might understand. I can talk more in the morning, but I really think I need to take a load off. Go rest.

And she heads upstairs. Effie. Yes? Yes. It's good to meet you. It's good to meet all of you as well. Thank you for giving an old bird like me somewhere to hide. And she heads up the stairs. And Mirs is like, big robot? I mean, yeah, that's kind of what it sounded like already. But like, how big? I don't know. I guess we'll see. Those things are pretty scary already, right? Like you guys have had bad experiences with regular sized ones. Yeah.

Regular sized ones are, in my mind, like three people tall. Yeah. So a big one is like the size of like the high spirit, maybe. What? Like a thousand feet tall? Yeah. Yeah. Big? Yeah. I don't know. Maybe. How big? I mean, it doesn't really matter. We don't know. That no one else in the principality says anything like the Firefields has. If they have something like that, High Spirit City is toast. Right. Yeah. Then we better get there fast. Yeah.

You guys still going to go to Callum and try and take it down from the, because I mean, he's the brains behind it, right? Yeah, that's true. If they lose, if you cut off the head of the snake, then another head grows. There's a second head. So we cut off one head of the snake and then we, and then that, that one's gone. And then we go after the second head. Which is the tail. Yeah. No, wait. So you cut off the head of a snake. Yes. And then you cut, and then its tail becomes its head.

That's right. Yeah. You have to cut off the other one. And then maybe Project Anvil is like another head that pops up, but that's the final, that's the boss head. That's the last head. That's the final head. To cut off. You have to suck the venom out of the tail of the snake. I think you're right. That has something to do with it. Yeah. That's why snakes can't be poisoned by their own venom, because they're always sucking their own tail. Yeah.

I actually, I heard if you cut a snake in half, it actually just grows into two snakes. Yeah, there's that too. Okay. So the way we cut it matters. That's what I'm getting from this. Yes. And in that vein, do we still feel like the right move is to go after Callum? It's hard to say yes, because of all the, what if we can have an influence over this giant machine? I mean, I will. Okay. So I will say that I think that Callum could, like, I think both are good paths. Mm-hmm.

Considering our experiences with Lee Masterly, clearly there are wealthy members of industry that are involved in this logistical chain, which could be what Callum is doing in the capital, dealing with sort of like the logistical, political, like economic side of it. Yeah. And taking that out would be a huge blow to it, or physically going and trying to find a big robot and destroying it also. I just don't know if we're strong enough. Yeah.

That's if strength isn't the thing, and Ving has in his hand the ticking heart of M4. Oh. What if a softer approach? Oh my gosh. And if we can turn the tides of this giant mech somehow, I mean, right? I did it before with the smaller one, and then we use that against Callum. You still have one use of Hibernia water, right? I believe I do. What if F you would help us? Get in? Sneak in? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the potential other plan is leave the snake hole. And go find Project Anvil. Mm-hmm.

And put M4's heart in it, and try and turn this new Mega Mac against the- M5. Against the snake itself. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Go and find a big rock, and then squish the snake with it. We don't have to worry about which head we're cutting off. Yeah. If we just mash the entire snake into the ground. Guys, this snake metaphor is freaking me out. Actually, I know a lot of snakes. They're not that bad. Snakes are pretty cool. Snakes are pretty cool. I'm sorry. I'll take something else.

Statistically, we're the least racist species out there. I've been a snake before. I would like to stop thinking about me getting my own head cut off. Wow, that's a good plan. Yeah. I didn't even think about that. I didn't think about that either. Okay. So you go and tell Effie about this? Uh-huh. Yeah, we burst into her room. Should we let her sleep? The thing is saying, just as you guys are kicking the door open. And she shoots up out of her bed like, whoa! It's just us. We had an idea.

And we cut back downstairs to the bar. We're like, what? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? Isn't that the only way to free everyone? Cut off the head of the snake before it can strike. Hmm. I mean- Oh, I get it! I get the snake thing now. Okay. I can certainly tell you that the last thing they would be expecting as for you to appear in- Beside their facility, I suppose. But they are locked down.

The mine I was working at, the refinery, was serious. There were guards everywhere. Checking people going in, checking people coming out. Do you think you can help us? If what you say is true, and they are trying to bring down the Firefields Principality and the Highspear, then yes. The last time we ran into Com, he almost destroyed us. We need to get prepared. If you guys need, like, weapons or something, you can always check the Lost and Found. There's a Lost and Found?

And Mir's, like, nods his head. Come on, I'll show you. And he opens a door just off the storeroom that you've never opened before. It's neon lights. Fluorescent lights in the ceiling. Kink, kink, kink, kink, kink, kink, kink, kink, kink. Rows and rows of guns. Of weapons. Billy does the thing from The Matrix where he's like, I need guns. Lots of guns. Lots of guns. And I guess that's where we're going to end it for this week. I'm your Game Master, Sean O'Hara.

Joining me as always, Tacoma Dome of the Barbarians. Dwayne Abdul-Aziz. So long, everybody. Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers. Take care. And Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Bye, everyone. Thank you for joining us. This show wouldn't be possible without the support of all of our wonderful patrons.

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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 without a resolution Return next week to hear some more Whilst you commute or do your chores And for you I'd gladly spout more

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 to Spoutland!

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

When last we left our heroes, they'd return to hither and yon Their home away from home That interdimensional, always moving pub slash inn Some time of recuperation began as the party just got to some mail Just checked out their mail Looking for some information and received a correspondence from their dear friend Perel the Wizard Who updated them on the status of Morris and Perel's project at the Highspear Tower For those of you that might not remember, they are investigating the Highspear Tower above the city of Highspear In an attempt to see if its magical infrastructure can be used to the advantage of the party To resist the influence of the Gibbous Man and potentially make contact with wizards not currently on this plane What did we learn from Perel?

That they have now figured out how the Highspear works, which they're happy with But if they're actually able to do anything with it, is up in the air Because its construction is arcane and confusing And the wizard that constructed it did so with their own plans in mind and their own plans only He's fucking crazy, is what you said Yeah, he is insane What else did we learn?

That the Highspear Tower is a magical structure And that the Highspear Tower is a magical structure And that the smog from the infected coal is making its way to Highspear City And floating out over the Highspear itself And we saw a little bookworm condo in one of the mail cubbies Pretty good Inhabited by the bookworms Oman and Yusuf Who delivered a message to Farah Sounds like a sitcom about a gay couple Oman and Yusuf Somebody went to school Farah delivered the message that Blackspire is gone After your last contact, he in fact broke out of the library And has been making his way to the shore of the Sea of Graves You sent a message back with all of the things that have happened to you And Ving then connected via his abalone Mother of Pearl dragon scale with Cerulean Depths Sending her and Grandmother Orca The old timer whale that she hangs out with To go pick up Blackspire Who is now surfing his way across the Sea of Graves What a stupid thing I let you guys do So dumb You've been trying to keep him off of this continent for like five years I've been trying to make the logistics make sense in my head And at this point, whatever And now he's parasailing Yeah Yeah, so instead of a boat, he's on three orcas So much more sense Why we did- we could have done this years ago You guys fought me on this so hard You fought me on it And I've been- I've been worn down is what it is So hard and so luck Honestly though, it's worth it Cause now that means Blackspire will be back Yeah Then as the party was relaxing after a harrowing adventure Bursting through the door came Euphigenia An older woman and a miner Working at a coal mine Slash refinery somewhere else in the firefields Who was fleeing a fight after the harriers attacked the refinery that she was mining at Yeah And she has taken refuge in Hither and Yon Sharing some information with you about Project Anvil Which she believes to be based on individuals that she knows have been taken to a secret facility To be some sort of super-sized Big Mac Yeah, so huge Super-sized Big Mac Super-sized Big Mac Uh, that is her- at least her theory Uh, that is her- at least her theory Okay And then the party made a plan Do we go and see Callum Blackhammer in the capital of Blackglass And try and take out the brains of the operation Or try and track down Colm Who is supposedly involved with Project Anvil And take out the firefields super weapon Yeah, and then Paul had a great idea Which was to use the ticking heart of M3 as sort of a spirit bomb And maybe we can effect this giant mech and somehow get it to come alive And maybe we can effect this giant mech and somehow get it to come alive In the same way we did M3 M4 M4 M4 Yeah M4 Or even- M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 M4 I mean, I got you.

Okay. All right. We're all on the same page. And in preparation for this secret mission, which seems to be the plan to go and confront Project Anvil right away, the party decided that they needed some equipment, some stuff to prepare themselves for this fight. Yeah. And Mears took them to the Lost and Found, which is where we find our heroes now. A room, maybe in Hither and Yon style, slightly bigger than it should be. Yeah. Absolutely chock-a-block full of shit. Can we hear about the shit?

Well, we're going to make some rolls for the shit, probably. I like that it ends up being a lot of weapons. It's a lot of weapons and a lot of coffee table books in there. Yeah. A lot of hoodies. That's perfect. Because what this table does is it rolls a 161D, like it rolls on 161 options. Yeah. And each option is its own table with however many options. Okay. But a lot of them are books. Fuck. Books and trinkets. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It's the last thing we need. There's weapons.

There's minor magic items. There's unique weapons. There's lots of things that it could be. Oh, unique weapons. So I think I want to give each of you one thing. You know what I mean? You're going to get one shot at finding something, basically. I'm very small, so can I have two things? You know what? Don't say yes. Yeah. What the frick? I'm medium sized. Can I have four things? You know what? Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Sean. Can I have two things? No. That's too much. Too many things.

I think we can all agree. No, it's not. You said so. How about we each get two? You get two and you choose one. No, no, no. No, no. We get two. We get three and we choose two. This isn't a negotiation. Jess, we have to respect the GM. Unfortunately. But I'm married to it. But you guys have armor and stuff. I have nothing. What do you mean? What's your armor? Plus what? Nothing. I mean, Billy can have a suit of armor. Yes.

The thing is, is that Billy, as a slippery little guy, should not wear anything too heavy. Or loud. You can basically get one armor point worth of armor without affecting your ability to move. I find some bubble wrap. What? The loudest thing of all. And Mears is like, that's not actually part of the room. I'm packing up some of this stuff in here to send it to people that forgot it. It looks really comfortable. You came out, somebody shoot me. Watch it bounce off. It's so bouncy.

It's like, Ving does like one hand with a spear up. No, no, no. So how it works is like leather slash chain mail is one armor. But anything higher than that, then you get the clumsy tag. Oh, I don't want clumsy. Yeah. So you're going to want like something light. I'll do leather. Yeah. Little leather daddy. Describe your leather armor. So I go rooting through some baskets and I find like a fun, like striped leather from a zebra. Oh, where would a zebra be from in our world?

Probably the Western continent, right? Yeah. Western. More hot weather over there. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Cool. Maybe. Oh, maybe it's where the horse tribes are from. Yeah. Horse tribe. Yeah. That's sick. I like that a lot. That's really cool. I could get something stupid. That's rad, dude. Yeah, that's awesome. You're right. I just, cause I was like unsure. I don't know anything about the horse tribes. I don't know what I was imagining.

I guess I was imagining kind of Mongolia, but maybe it's more of like a, like an African styled. I think it's like African Arab is what I was imagining. Yeah. Yeah. Like Moroccan. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like the Bedouins and stuff like that. Yeah. Cool. Pedro Pascal is like standing at the top of a, a sand dude. He like pulls a Bedouin sash up from behind. Yeah, off the space. John sends an eagle, a falcon off the sand dude. Oh my goodness. Okay.

So Billy gets a suit of leather zebra armor from the horse tribes. Of course, none of you know that. We as the viewers now know that. I also thought it'd be funny if like Billy could fit in like the gimp mask that he was wearing. Oh my God. Yeah. Which is just like the. He puts his arms through the eye holes in his head through the mouth. Can I delete what I said? No, no. I love you. Oh, I want the gimp mask. Billy finds the zebra armor and it's like, puts it on and it bespeaks ages of history.

And then Chuck's like, Billy, do you want the gimp mask? Oh my. Oh yeah. I want that. I want that. I want that one instead. I want that one. That's great. That'd be great for when you have to get out to shit or piss. That's true. I don't want this stupid other one anymore. Get out of here. Throws it in a pile. Cool. All right. Then we'll go to tuck. Fuck. What do I need? The thing I've been thinking about is saffron based on like what happened with euphigenia. Yeah.

Like giving her that saffron drink. Yes. Alleviate. The demonic influence. Or the iconic influence that you felt hanging off of her, which you assumed to be from exposure to the smog. Yeah. Yeah. So I think maybe he's looking for like a light guard thing or like something to defend against demons or some kind of like sunstone. Yeah. Cause what, what's the, what was the lyrics of the tolling again? Cause it was instructions for how to defend yourself against demons.

I think that's what was like, always like always walk the wooden roads. Yeah. The darkness shrinks from tellers gift. Oh, what's that? Is that saffron? Hallows gift. Oh, I know that's just candles. Okay. Yeah. Candles. Hallows gift. Well, I don't think we ever established what that was. No, that's kind of cool. You wrote this song, right? I know. Pretty cool. It's really cool. I think it's light. I think it's candles. Like it's just the darkness shrinks from the light. Okay. Oh, tell us gift.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. A candle. A candle is tallows gift and the light that it produces pushes back darkness. Yes. Wow. You wrote this song. It's really beautiful. When you wrote it, what were you thinking that I kind of just randomly chose words. This is what happens every time Abdul just comes up with words for something. I have to spend so long trying to make it canonical. Canonically makes sense. That's perfect.

Oh, maybe there was like a, cause we said the tallow gate was important. Maybe there's a specific type of candle that came through the tallow gate where like the wick is like saffron dipped in saffron. Like it's like hemp and rope. It's like the candles themselves are thought to repel. Like demons. Demons. Yeah. That makes sense. Like saffron oil. Yeah. Saffron incense wrapped in a tallow. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Maybe you find like a little tuck finds like a little bundle of candles.

It's the way. Yeah. Oh, the wick. And then the wicks come from Wickport and. Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause there was a, there was a Chandler's row where they made candles. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So yeah, maybe you find like a little, you know, like how they sell candles when it's like two long candles on the one wick that you like snip in the middle. A little nunchuck. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, like four candles basically like tied together with twine that you recognize as being McCollin. Cool. I take those. Yeah.

I think people used to put the candles in their windows to keep demons out. Totally. Yeah. Which was probably like introduced slowly through like superstition, but because it actually worked. It just sustained. Yeah. And they're just like, Oh, you know, you light a candle in your window. It keeps demons away, but it actually does keep demons away. Love it. Pretty sick. Pretty cool. Bing. Also going to be cool. What does he need? Like saffron. Of course we found we need sunstone is the other one.

Things to fight the demons. Ooh, some sort of, um, I mean, we're going to somewhere where we need to be able to not breathe the air. Some sort of purifying mask for us. I think that's kind of cool. I think that is cool. Yeah. Like if you found like a sheet that was like kind of infused with saffron that you could put over your mouth, like that Bedouin version, a Pedro Pascal. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

I think the thing that would make the most sense to me out of that is finding like a pouch of saffron that you could then put to use rather than like specialized equipment, you know? Yeah. But I think you could definitely find a bunch of saffron. Yeah. I could just find a bunch of saffron. Who would have left a bunch of saffron? Mirrors. He just accidentally left it in this room. I'm in his like pantry. Yeah. And he's like, Bing, the lost and founds over here. That's those are my spices. Those.

Yeah, I'll definitely take all these. No, no, no. You're out of saffron. Perfect. You gotta give him like 40 uses of saffron. How many uses? 40 uses. Oh, yeah. This is a well-stocked pub, Sean. Five. One, two, three, four, five. Yeah. Five uses of saffron. Cool. Which I will allow like, you know, if you wanted to make like, oh, this is like a breathing thing. Yeah. You could make one with a use. It might be destroyed and you might have to make, like, another one, but you know. Cool. Thank you.

It's in like a little crystal box. Yeah. It's just in a little crystal container. Yeah. Yeah. With Guy Fieri's face on it. Proprietary saffron. Guy Fieri, who's like now like 80 years old. Yeah. Cool. All right. Now you all get a roll off the table if you want. Do it. For weird little things that you find. Let's do it. Let's see what happens.

So, Billy, you find leaning up against a wall, like its head on the ground, and then like, the handle leaning against the wall, a heavy, like, pickaxe made of like a reddish metal. And it seems like there are designs of dragons carved in the head, along with like runes. Can I lift it? It's very heavy for you. Yeah. I start crying. Is this my only chance? Is this the only thing I get? He's batting his eyes at us. Okay. I'll get, I'll see something.

And if I, if you, if it, you like it more, I'll trade you for it. Okay. Billy, this is a teachable moment. Sometimes you don't win. That might be yours. You're right. Sometimes I don't win. Start crying. You don't have to roll. Remember, we're just rolling on the table. You roll for me. You find, there's like a rolled up, it looks like a rolled up piece of turf. Billy, I found turf. Do you want it? Oh, I mean, only if you don't want it.

But you, you, you'd pick it up, and it like, unfurls, and it's about the size of like a small, like rug that'd be at the front of a door. And it's made a very plush living moss. Oh, do you want this? Yeah. Okay. Here you go. Do you want to see what I get instead? No, I want this. The moss mat? The moss. The moss is stupid. At least I can lift it. The table's just bringing stuff up. Okay. I'm going to roll again. Yeah. For Ving.

There's a small, on a shelf, there's a small, like tiny, like maybe like this, how long would you say this is? Six inches. Like seven inches. That's like eight inches. Really? This looks like nine and a half to me. About a five to six inch long, very delicately made loot. Like to scale, like a strung loot. Ving picks it up and slowly looks at Billy with his eyebrows up. Oh, it's even smaller. It's a little toy loot.

And there's little painted, hand painted images of fairies and food, and sort of like cavorting creatures. Is it a Billy sized fairy loot? I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. Billy. This is terrible, but I will take it. I'll trade. I gladly give onto you. Can I have the mat? Yeah. I kind of want to roll three more times. Okay. Because I like this stuff on here, but you only get one thing. Okay. You can't have them all. I just, like I thought we were getting weapon.

You can, well, when you say you want a weapon, what do you mean? Like you just want a sword or a knife or something? I was hoping like poison darts. But I mean, you can get anything. If you don't say what you want, you don't have a chance of getting it. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. You can get poison. You can get poison darts. That's just equipment. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want poison darts to be the thing that you get? Yeah. But I also have to have armor. Yeah. Yeah. You have armor. Yeah.

You can, if you're just looking for straight up equipment. Yeah. That's what I was looking for. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You can have darts. Maybe they're just darts from the hither and yon. Yeah. Do you mean like a blow gun or like throwing darts? Yeah. Like a, like a, like a little piece of wood and it goes. Fun. Yeah. For your poisons. Yeah. Do you have poison? It's a thing. I thought the darts would already be poisoned. You can have, I have, um, harp snake venom. You can have that. Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's a paralytic. That's pretty sick. Yeah. That is sick. Oh yeah. If you have like a bunch of paralytic darts, that would be fucking rad. So useful too. It says one paralytic. Oh. So you might need more. I might need to find more. Oh yeah. Did I say it was just one dose of paralytic venom? I did write one paralytic. Cause doses are usually like three. Do you want my harp snake scales? Sure. Trades. Trades. Yeah. Poisons are usually three uses. So you have three. All right.

So Billy has a gimp mask that he's stuck his legs and arms through and some poison darts with snake venom. That's beautiful. He looks like Neo from the matrix. Just like all decked out of venom. Yeah. So is there anything else that Tuck is looking for? Uh, I got the pickaxe. Yeah. It's a big, big, heavy pickaxe made out of some sort of red material and it has, it's got like dragons and runic writing etched in it. Do you want to roll a couple more times for me? Cause to see what else there is.

Yeah. Yeah. I like random stuff. I'll root, I'll root around. Tuck is like, I really appreciate the pickaxe. I'm just going to root around it a little bit more. Please do. I'm going to also root around. Okay. So you find a glass vial kind of tucked away in a shelf and you're like, what the fuck is that? And there are two perfectly preserved, but detached human ears. I don't like that. That's creepy. That's all I want. So we're going to take that. Okay. I'm going to roll. Ooh.

You find a bone handled dagger with a keen blade to a razor's edge. Wow. Cool. The blade is very, very, very sharp. In fact, you look at it and you cut yourself. And the handle is made of some sort of a yellowed, but polished bone. Cool. One more. No, I'm going to take the bone handled knife. Hell yeah. Uh, Ving. Yes, please. You want something else? Oh, heck yeah. None of this stuff. Is it fancy? Yeah. All right. Let's see what this one is. Uh, leather working tools made of ivory. Yeah.

A nice little, like rolled up. I can repair Billy's armor. And you can use that to make like smog masks. Yeah. Get math. Yeah. And for, yeah. Cause the mechanics wear get masks and we might have to pretend to be mechanics. Yeah. You would recognize these as being of the design that is common in the frozen North. Oh really? And it looks like there's like specific kind of all hole punches that are used primarily for like the hard, hard hides of seals, walruses and whales. Cool. Cool. All right.

Billy, do you take the little tiny loot? No. Okay. You didn't. I left it behind. It's in there. You know, it's in there. I like these blow darts more. Okay. All right. Are you guys done rifling around and other people's stuff? Yeah, man. Yeah. It was awesome. Thank you. If anyone comes back for any of these things specifically, you guys are going to have to give them back to me. Deal. Bye. Oh man. All right. So now is the plan to just hit the road? Yeah. Hit the door. Yeah. We're all armored up.

I have this little short knife. I've got my normal clothes on. Saffron candles. I'm in my gift mask. I got a bunch of leaves and some tools. And Euphigenia comes down the stairs. She's wearing her minor outfit that she was wearing when she, when she came in. She's coming with you. That's the plan. Yeah, I think so. All right. So what now? Now we have to try and get the bar to go to where they're working on the anvil. She shakes her head. Okay. Are you okay with this? I am afraid for sure.

But if what you say is true about what they're planning, I have to help. I can't sit by. Watch this happen. Stay close. You stay close. Then someone's going to have to try the door. Okay. What is the role? I believe we've done a defy danger charisma. Okay. To like try and convince the bar. I've got zero Riz. I've got three. Two Riz. Oh shit. I think I have a debility to charisma. He's got a debility to Riz. Why? I took a debility when I tried to, uh, do break in the law. Oh, right.

I clear that from, from, cause we've been in here. How many sleeps does it take to clear? Uh, it's three days of uninterrupted rest. Being in hither and yon for one day gives you three days worth of rest. Right? Yeah. So have you healed your hit points? Yes. Then you would cause it's one or the other. Can I switch that out and get rid of the debility? Uh, sure. Yeah. Okay. I can also just roll with the debility. It's fine. It's all good. Get rid of the debility.

But in the future, we will need to specify that you are, taking the time uninterrupted to heal from it. Okay. So two D six plus charisma. And what are you putting out into the air? As you try and convince hither and yon to take you where you want to go. It tuck feels really guilty for putting himself in a position where M four had to sacrifice himself to save him. So it's just this, like this need he has to like get M four's heart into another Mac.

And he's like, M four is the most metal as fuck Mac out there. And he deserves to be in the most metal as fuck metal body. Then exactly. And that's what the anvil is. All right. Yeah. Two D six plus charisma. Okay, here we go. Fuck. I got eight. Okay. So seven to nine. Not bad. So yeah, partial success, which means you're not going to get exactly where you want to go, but it's going to be close. Where do we think it takes you? Okay. So we wanted to be right beside the big project anvil.

It takes us like inside the fact, like something that's way too close. Yeah. Oh, maybe like the vengeance against, as Cole and black hammer kicks in. Oh, like you're just thinking about beating up Cole. Yeah. Cause Cole is there, right? Cause he's overseeing the project, but it's like, I'm trying to think about M four, like running through a field of wheat. Come on. Yeah. It's going on. Yeah. And then Callum, I see Callum black hammer laughing at me and going, your son had to save you.

You sucked in that fight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Such a bad job. Your image. He stabs M four. No. With like an ice blade. Like he did Billy. I'll kill you. Callum. I'll kill you for killing my friend. He's tuck his day. All of a sudden. Yeah, totally. Oh God. We're not going to the factory. No. And he's got his eyes closed. Yeah. Don't you dare my friend. I'm four. Did you fall asleep? I punch me when he touches me.

So yeah, that does sound like it would be more like a, like a failure putting you immediately in danger. So we're not doing that specifically. No, but then he like he, he, but then talk kind of like, uh, what do you call it? Like he pulls himself together a little bit. Yeah, totally. Cause he punched bang. Yeah. Which helped me, which helped me really some of my, my pent up aggression, my aggression. And then I, I see, as soon as I punch Vig, I see M four again, running through a field of weeds.

It works. Oh no, this works. Yeah. Oh shit. Yeah. Yeah. And then I see him kissing another robot. Whoa. A lot of sparks flying. Uh, if we're not getting exactly what we want and we're not objectively failing, tuck opens the door. What does he see? He opens the door and he sees like a table with a map on it in a war council room, like a bunch of generals. And then he hears like a voice that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

And moving, moving in front of the cracked open door is the hulking shape of coal black hammer. Yeah. So you hear like his arm and like the pistons hissing steam pouring out. Yeah. It's like a massive amount of danger, but a very advantageous position in terms of like collecting information. I risk high reward. Yeah, totally. Can I discern realities? Like how many people are in, like how many people are in this room? I, okay. I don't think it's a ton.

I think it's like Coleman, maybe three others though. At least based on the voices you can hear. Cause of course you're listening through like a crack in the door and there is a bunch of like, I really, yeah. What do you mean? It's not on time. We're putting a lot of our effort and a lot of our livelihood on the line for you. Black hammer. Yes. My, my cold deposits are quite valuable. And the fact that they've been co-opted by the Royal family is absolutely on set. Unacceptable.

My name's not Lee masterly senior. My, I'm not Lee masterly. Senior. My dumbest son is missing. And now my refineries were being attacked by Briggins. If this will, it's a discern reality. So we can get some more specific information. Oh, Oh, Oh my, those are two ones. Naked plus wisdom. It's two. It's a two. You get a point of experience bill. Oh fuck. No. He's wearing a fairy child. I only have two. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it.

I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I need them. I mean, this could mean a hard move though. If you literally are peeking through the door of an extremely dangerous man's office. What should I do? I talked to you. No, Jess, I can't give him. I can't accept the responsibility of making you use. I'm just so scared of the same thing happening last time where I use all my fairy child so quickly.

And then we almost died. But you use them in such a stupid way last time. This is a good reason. He's so stupid. So stupid. Yeah, because I'm just looking around. How am I going to fuck it up? Apparently I did. Your tummy grazed the door and opened it even further. You open the door. My zipper got caught. Jess, I think you got to do it. If he finds us, he's going to kill it. You don't have to do it. Yes, you do. We'll do it, I guess. So I turned a failed roll into a seven to nine.

So now we get one question. Right. Jessica's so pissed that she had to use her hold for this. Okay. So you do it. You do it. You do it. You do it. You do it. You do it. You do it. Okay. So you get one question off the list and you have one remaining fairy hold. Jess is so mad. Oh, we all take terms of being mad. Oh, so everyone else is allowed to be mad, but not me. No, you're allowed to be mad. We're just acknowledging that it's happening.

Brian's going to be so pissed off that a lot of these shots are just going to be of a piece of paper. All right. This one question better answer everything I need to know. What here is useful or valuable to me? Yes. Good question. So I'm going to go with this one. I'm going to go with this one. Okay. So you're going to go with one. That's the one. Jess, you're so mad at me. That's a good question. I can't wait for this to absolutely come back to bite you in the ass. So fucking mad at me.

I had a whole plan and everything, but it's okay. That you were going to use your fairy gels for? No, something else. Something else. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Would it still work if we got caught? Yep. Well, then don't do it. No, it's fine. Don't do it. No, it's fine. Don't do it. It's going to be a turn. No, I totally had a plan. No, no, it's okay. It's like the late morning. I can get through a day. You can get through a day? You got one fair shot? Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.

I can get through it. Absolutely. I'll be fine. It probably won't even come up. It probably won't. Yeah, depending how long we're in here for. Yeah. It's just shocking that you failed a die roll. That rarely happens. That's such good dice. Snake eyes. Crazy dice. That's a good dice. That's a good dice. That's a good dice. That's a good dice. That's a good dice. That's a good dice. That's a good dice. I did touch them earlier That's okay That's not your fault No You didn't touch my die Do you?

I touched all of them No You know what It's because I ate a donut earlier And it cursed me What?

A donut wouldn't do that Yeah it did A donut wouldn't do that to you Did it So yeah there's a bunch of As all these guys Start arguing with each other And uh Colm slams a fist on the table They all jump We all jump We all jump Cause we're fucking We're actually terrified We're all whiskey scared We're all whispering to each other And Tuck's whispering I'm not scared of this guy at all Why am I looking at a bunch of pee Go down your leg You're crushing my hand I'm holding things in my hand I'm not scared I'm pissing on the ground We're all trembling My teeth are tearing Shut up And he says Our plans Are close to fruition Project Anvil Is almost complete And once it does This war will end We'll be over The machine will descend On Highspear City And bring it to its knees And from there Kinos No one will stand in our way Once this weapon is in the field It is all of your responsibilities To ensure that this happens Need I remind you That this war Is in your best interests And need I remind you I am your princeps Whoa fuck Sorry I scared Scared me Jessica That was awesome That was fucking crazy Don't you dare say that again Keep going Keep going Fucking Yes I can Stay in it If I demanded That you surrender Your homes And your families You will do so If I want your life I will have it And uh Billy you see on the wall You're a little boy You don't necessarily understand But you do see the diagrams of You know like the Vitruvian man Like arms out Legs out It is a very powerfully built Mac And it looks like the exhaust Is in the middle of the wall And it's like It's like the pipes That they usually have Like the kind of bagpipes They have on their back It has Like more of them They kind of like Fan out from its back And like up out of its torso Like it would be burning A colossal amount of coal Whoa Whoa Maybe he says that To like masterly He's like Masterly You ensure That your miners Get every single ounce of coal Out of the ground Because if this Incursion Fails Because of your Inability To maintain security Of a simple mine I will take it out of your hide Personally And he bows Masterly like Like bows like Yes Princeps Now go Go!

And they all They all like trip over themselves And leave the room Literally everyone at the table Jumped Finally cabinet Gets up Has legs And runs at the room With us in it And uh They all leave the room And the door slams behind Do I take a Point of spiritual damage About how fucking scary No you don't have to Cause that's actually Sean can you take An inspiration point For how good that was Don't worry I bet I bet Mears was also like Peering through the room Like whoa What the fuck That guy sounds mad He's eating popcorn Wow No it is enough to know That you guys are afraid Uh that is spiritual Sustenance enough for me Yeah Uh and they all leave the room And they're sort of like a Creak Clunk As the door is closed Like it is a metal door In a metal frame And then you hear Masterly Crying at the other side Do you think he's mad at me?

He sounded mad at me He said My privilege is such a burden People don't know how hard it is To be so rich So we're getting out of here Get me caviar But now Colm is in this room by himself And he's looking at the At the maps and diagrams in front of him And you're only seeing like this From a sliver That's facing the door in the wall On like the far side of the room Yeah what do you do? I'm sorry Is Colm still in there?

Colm is in the room by himself This seems to be like his Quarters or something So he's like You can still hear his The engine in his armor Like As he's like Just in here Rewinding Reviewing documents Hmm And you Oh You see In the corner of the room His sword Leaning up against the wall Long Black blade This seems like a good opportunity To get more information Yeah So What is the information That we want to extract here? Is it information about the sword? Is it information about Colm?

Is it information about the war? I'd say Colm or the sword Colm or the sword? Yeah Yeah Can we see any tattoos on him? Maybe some rhyme or reason to that Oh yeah I think that you would have to look real close At least as he is Because he is encased in his armor Like up to his neck Billy Do you think your paralytic would work on him?

Yeah I was already reaching for it Interesting We can take him out of that suit And look at his naked body Really study it We have to see the tattoos he has on his body To understand What powers he has basically Right yeah Yeah Uh huh Okay so hold up the blow dart To my Mouth Yeah do it Billy You can do this Okay so this is volley I guess Yeah 2d6 plus dexterity Which I have Please please Yeah Please please I know I'll get 12 You got this Billy Because I believe in myself And I'm a great fighter You're a great fighter Billy And I have a great set of lungs here Yeah you do Nice Okay 8 plus 2 is 10 Yes Nice Okay Alright okay I get him in the fucking back of the neck Right in the exposed part Right where it like It attaches to his brain Goes straight into the brain The brain is like Right into his brain stem Right into his brain stem Right into his fucking brain And it takes him immediately Jesus He's down So okay So you lean out Uh huh And The dart hits him in the neck Yeah You can see like His eyes The muscles around his eyes Start like twitching And he is not still He still stands And then you realize His armor is keeping him standing Oh Ugh And he's not moving right now But he's just like Like he's shaking in the armor And the armor is shaking Yeah You have a good amount of time I think we know that this Venom lasts for a while But what I think What do we want to do here?

This venom lasts A dramatically appropriate amount of time You know what I mean? Like he is fighting against it right now Okay So what do you do?

Move fast Okay We get in there Yeah we get in there We get the sword Oh Throw the sword into Into hithering on Yes Yeah I get the sword Yeah You were filled with an absolute Uncontrollable bloodlust When you touched the sword Tuck grabs the sword He's the only one who hasn't touched it You are filled with an absolutely Uncontrollable bloodlust But I have weaponized dissociation Then you better fucking roll those dice Let me roll a 1d4 You are like an open Demon shaped hole Oh right I'm extra susceptible baby Remember?

Yeah You just grabbed it out of my hands I'll do that Yeah When you are subject to mind control Or magic that influences your feelings You may take a 1d4 damage And ignore the feelings That's so powerful Hahaha That's too powerful You wrote this my friend Too You take 2 damage Does it ignore armor? It absolutely ignores armor Yeah Worth it Tuck picks it up Walks it back into hithering on He's like Hey mirrors Is there somewhere Like safe I can put this?

The lost and found The lost and found I guess? Yeah Tuck Please do Overhand whips Into the lost and found Yeah And you hear a bunch of crashing As it smashes into a shelf full of stuff And then Tuck goes Don't let anybody in there That thing's dangerous Okay I think that is That is a good amount of Like time is ticking Yeah You've eliminated the sword Which is insane Yeah God this is I let you guys Have too much control over this Just now Can we take him out of the armor?

Can we try and get him out of there? Yeah I want to try and get that So you're gonna have to roll Discern reality Steve And figure out how this works Can you destroy the engine That's powering it?

Cause that Without that It won't be able to like He won't be able to use it If it's steam I can turn it to ice Yeah Oh Could freeze it Yeah In place And keep him here locked in this Like tying him in place Yeah you could definitely try that Do it Sounds like elemental mastery to me I think it is Yeah I'll use elemental mastery 2d6 plus constitution Oh Holy shit Two sixes I got 13 Oh Fuck yeah 13 Okay So two out of the three So I get to choose The effect I desire Comes to pass And I retain control Okay So You can just freeze the water In Like freeze his engine Yeah Put my hand on his back And Yeah And the end Yeah The engine goes like And he is locked in place Okay Tuck wants to walk up And try and like He basically He puts his hand In front of like Colm's neck He makes eye contact with him And he is just like Bug eyed Enraged Not moving or speaking But you can see He wants to kill you Remember me?

Yeah Yeah Tuck goes Uh Yeah Look I told you We would be back Running away was a trick You fucking idiot Shit Sean's staring at me So crazy Like his eyes are bugging out And he's breathing really hard Can I try and Is it okay if I Yeah Okay Defy danger strength I'll destroy the armor And I'm gonna just I have one hand in front of his Like in his chest And one hand like In his chest Behind his neck And try and like Just rip it In half Yeah Defy danger strength For sure Fuck you Colm You piece of shit Hurt my son Fucking stab him With a knife That he brought to the battle His knife How dare you At least stab him With your own knife You fuck Oh Fuck I got a nine I will assist So what Nine's good That's a good roll Tuck's pulling And he's just like Oh no Oh no Oh no So you feel Ving's hands Go over your hands Yeah Time Hand Time Of my life We're singing Two different songs So slowly I got a Six plus one is seven Okay So that makes it a ten I pictured that Ving like Like pumps up the Cold on it To make it brittle Oh brittle Yeah Nice That's sick So it's just this Black metal armor The ice is like Creeping through the plates And like making the The iron brittle As you Fucking Shuck this dude Like an iricorn Just Punk Punk Punk Shatter the Breastplate And it reveals The body of Colm Blackhammer And the grievous wounds That he is covered in Oh shit Shit The wound that That Ving dealt him Like through the neck With his own sword Is still there Open He's covered in like Gashes And cuts That are not Healing They're not healing?

Ew And his body You're now looking at Could not support The weight of the armor That it wears It couldn't even swing The sword that he wields What the fuck?

So he's like This like shriveled He looks like Captain America Pre-serum Not quite He's like Ham sandwich Darth Vader Kind of He looks like Like he was a previously Very fit man Who has Uh Relied on his car For too long Kind of Or like Like gone too hard In battle And been Like too reckless And been struck down But kept alive somehow Like he should have been Killed a hundred times over But he's still alive And Through Those cuts and gashes You see A series of tattoos That seem very familiar I want to Discern realities Alright 2d6 plus wisdom Uh oh Oh no I'm gonna replace my My Use what the bones know To replace my Two with a five And then Plus my wisdom Yep Yay Is ten Holy shit Nice That saved the day Good save Cause if If that was a Failure Colm was gonna come too Like he was gonna Shake this venom off Wow Uh so you get three questions Off discern realities What here is valuable To us In terms of like What kind of tattoos Yeah Like what the deal With his tattoos are Yeah So you're looking at these And they seem very similar I mean they are Similar to the The tradition of like Magi tattooing Like the chaining Uh tattoos But the iconography And the symbols Used in the tattoos Seem like these are To allow him To interface With!

The iconic realm Instead of the Spiritual realm Whoa Holy shit What? Interface how?

Ask that next Who is really In control here In terms of The iconic influence Um So you would assume Just using the information That you have And like having Touched the sword before That it's to Interact More effectively With whatever icon Is in Inside the sword And looking at the Tattoos And sort of like The colors And constellations Because we've talked about How the constellations Reflect the icons Right yeah So Ving uses Night moves To read the tattoos Yeah he basically Uses night moves And the constellation That you see That you decode In the flesh Of Colm Blackhammer Is the icon of slaughter Whoa Huh And you would assume That that is the icon That is contained In his sword Is that the only One that's in there?

I do like the idea That there's maybe like Two or three icons That are kind of like It could be something That's one or two That's one or two That's one or two That's one or two That's one or two It's wildly opposed To slaughter Discipline?

Yeah discipline and slaughter Oh Because he's the head Of the army Yeah Honor It could be something That was old Like honor Oh Oh Yeah like it was When he was younger It was the icon of honor That he like Was He willingly That was like He took on the icon of honor Yeah Willingly Because he had like Ideals that he was Trying to uphold So he was a different Person before But then through the like Influence of the Gibbousman Gibbousman He introduced the icon of slaughter to sort of like corrupt calm over time maybe not just the gibbous man but also callum like because they're twin rulers right and callum is the little finger yeah so it could be like they were two brothers that balanced each other out in terms of like shrewdness and honor and I think maybe theorizing yeah this is all allegedly allegedly allegedly their clan they had this like connection to the iconic realm that the gibbous man gifted them and they saw themselves as like chosen not knowing that it was a corruptive thing yeah and every ruler chooses an icon that they connect with and because these were like two brothers they each chose their own and one was honor and the other one was shrewdness and then the shrewdness was used to manipulate callum into like manipulating calm into turning into like this disgusting war machine that's cool I like that and I like the idea that like for this family it's been a secret practice because the icons are not worshipped yeah the principalities at all yeah but it's like a secret practice amongst this family yeah yeah so I like that so the tattoos that you see on his body reflect the icons of honor discipline and slaughter and slaughter is the most recent tattoo and seems to be the one that has affected him the most and lust I could only see the top of this uh down here it's like a tramp stamp but uh so basically you were able to split because his armor is very strong you were able to split like the front of it off so these are the tattoos you can see like across his like chest and shoulders but his arms are still locked in the arms and um his legs are still in the armor billy with your kind of danger sense you can tell you can see like in his micro movements and his muscles this paralytic is going to wear off pretty soon I want to lock the door okay yeah so you run over there is a key like in the lock yeah and just which door the one to hither and yonder no the one to uh that led out of the room okay I lock that and you're able to pull the key out of the door too so you now have the key I take it oh I know wait sorry can I backtrack yeah of course yeah okay billy does lock the door to hither and yawn and then I also grab the key from like the boardroom and we lock coleman there like the room that we're in right now yeah like I want us to leave it and then we lock coleman in there and then we lock coleman in there and then we lock coleman in there and then we lock coleman in there and then we lock coleman in there and then we should get out totally yeah we're leaving to hither and yawn or to the hallway to the hallway yeah I think this works I take whatever papers look like plans to this like this huge project yeah you hop up and like rip a thing off the wall and then you like gather some stuff off off the table and then tuck goes billy I'll remember the map and he looks at it really hard thing just walks over and quietly rolls the map for two seconds his nose starts to bleed come on come on I was hoping to destroy the rest of the suit somehow we could destroy the suit first leave the shell of the man uh-huh I think yeah if you you you would guess that if you were to like destroy destroy the engine then the armor would be useless it's it is fully powered by this engine on his back oh and you virginia is standing in the doorway of hither and yawn my god she's just staring wide-eyed at all this stuff that's going on and she like watches you all kind of standing around being like do we lock him in or do we lock him in or do we lock him in or do we lock him in and then we lock him in and then we lock him in and then we lock him in and then we lock him in and and then we lock him in and then we lock him in and then we lock him in and then we lock him in and then we lock him in and then we lock him in and then we lock him in and then and interesting.

Tuck gets scared and a little hard for you, Fajita. It's an older woman. She seems tough, of course. Effie. Effie. I'm composing a poem in my head for her right now. He turns away and he's like, oh my god, dear diary. I've met a new woman who's a little bit older than me and seems kind of mean. She's perfect. I'm under her spell. And yeah, if you go out the door and lock it behind you. Yep. We shove the door of the Hither and Yon closed. And then, yeah, get out there.

On the way out, Ving wants to put a hand on Colm's shoulder and just say, you could do better than this. And he's just staring straight ahead. Spit running down his face, shaking. And yeah, you close the door on the other side, you lock it. It's got one of those wheel latches as well. Oh, cool. Like one of those old style vines. Yeah, exactly. And you step out into the hallway, which is metal, and the walls are metal, and the roof is metal, and there's like pipes running all over the place.

And we start whistling casually. Can we act casual? You can definitely try to act casual. Effie, do you know where we are? How we get out of here? She's holding a hand up to the wall. She's like, I've never been here before, but she feels and kind of listens. What underground? Deep underground. Underground? We grabbed the map, didn't we? Yeah. Let's see if any of the papers that you grabbed, Billy. Yeah. Start rifling through. There is like a fire. It maps out the fire exits to the facility.

So you do find a little layout. Oh, we took the practice binder. Yeah, so it seems like this is a, um, you know, there's like four levels. There's a lift that takes you up to the surface, and down to each level, and then it's got a layout of all the different rooms. Should we go up to the surface and try and get a lay of the land where we are? Yes. Is there anything down here? Should we discern reality and try and find some costumes?

Something that will at least let us blend in somewhat or anything? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, you can discern realities about the map. Six. Okay. I'll help. You do. Yeah. Two to six plus bond. How's Billy helping? Trying to read. Shit. Five. So as you're standing here looking at the map, you hear, hey, hey, here we look up. And there's like two people in like armor with weapons. It goes, thank God you're here. We just heard that three creeps snuck into the facility, and he starts walking up to them.

And then as soon as he gets close enough, he's gonna try and like punch them. Okay. Yeah. Two to six plus charisma for Defy Danger. Here we go. Yeah, that's twelve. Oh, awesome. Okay. Yeah. And he's like, oh my God, thank God you're here. Thank the black flame. And now I want to punch them as hard as I can. Okay. This sounds like it might be a scrap of ass maybe. Oh, yeah, because it's being a piece of shit. You're trying to like get away, right? Right.

On a ten plus with a hack and slash, I can forego damage to get away. So basically, yeah, that's what I'm doing. Sick. Please give me a ten plus, God. Oh, no. It's the wrong number. You called on the wrong God. We're gonna have to do this. I have an ass. Why would you ask God? I rolled a three. I have a plus three. That's six. Oh, I'll eight. Yeah. Okay. How are you? He comes up behind them and knocks their head together. I got eleven. Okay. So that makes it a seven. That's a seven.

So I do, I can't at least deal damage. Ving swoons. Distracts them. Okay. Yeah. So you're just dealing your damage here. Ten. Whoa. Yes. Five each. So describe you are gonna take one out. The other one is not out, but it's close. Yeah. So tuck, tuck, tuck. He like he runs forward with his hands up. He's like, oh my God, thank God you guys are here. Boom. Boom. Just one, two. One of the guys just slams into the wall to the left and is knocked out cold.

And the other like sees that happen and then throws his hands up and you hit him in the like forearms and smash him into the wall. But he's not quite out yet. And Tuck goes, please, I need your help. Get a roll of duty six to try to try and what? To try and convince him. No, absolutely not. No way. Not a chance in hell. There's a plant in the hallway that Ving throws at the guy. Yeah, but yeah. Okay. There you go. So that's a hack and slash. I got five. Okay. Go ahead and roll D8. I guess.

Holy shit. What's your armor? Two. So this guy draws like a like a metal club from his waist after Tuck slams him into the wall and brings it up out of the ring that it's like hanging from his belt on. And just clips Ving in the jaw. Fuck. Like blood out of his mouth. Billy, this is a scrap now. Yes. Your dad's in a fight. I'm gonna defend. Okay. Yeah. Sick. 2d6 plus. Who are you defending? Ving because he just got fucking clobbered. Yeah, I'm fine. Yeah. 2d6 plus constitution.

Oh, no, you're Invisalign. Eleven. Eleven? Eleven. Holy shit. Okay. Fuck yes. I kick him hard in the nuts. Well, it's defend. So you gotta look at the moves. What a defensive wall. What a move that is. I defensively destroy his testicles. I stand in defense of a person, item, or location. Yeah. I rolled eleven. Yeah. So, oh, right. So I choose. Yeah, you can use you have hold now that you can spend. I have three hold. Yeah. I'd like to have the attacks effect or damage to Ving.

How do you distract him so he you take half the damage? I kick him in the nuts. I defend him in the ball. Yeah. Is that allowed? That's absolutely allowed. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I stop. Stomp his nuts. So he Stomp. No, okay. Kick him in the nuts. So he swings at Ving and as his club is coming up you kick him in the nuts. Yeah. And he goes Oh! And then he kind of like grazes Ving and then he like just whaps down at you and you take three damage. I take three damage? Bitch. Oh, man.

Just to be totally honest, I think I should have taken damage there because I rolled a seven on a hack and slash. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Go ahead and roll a d8. Okay. That one. A diamond one. Diamond. Double diamond, yeah. Four. Yeah, so he Oh, but I have armor now. Yep, so you take one less. Yeah. The guy that got knocked out got knocked out but the dude, like, he hits Ving and then whacks Billy and is like sees you and is like, wait a second, I was supposed to hit you too.

And then just stabs forward and kind of jabs you in the forehead. Fuck! But yeah, he's still up and Euphigenia's like kind of running around on the outside, not sure what to do. Um, I have like two more holds. Do I use them all at once or do you? You can use them whenever you want in the fight. I would like to deal damage to the attacker equal to my level. Yeah, so you deal five damage. You just straight up deal five damage. Perfect. Sweet, I kick him in the nuts again. Fuck! And the other one.

Tuck and Vig are like, oh! Fuck! God, Billy. I mean, good work. So that is just enough to take him out, actually. Yeah. Passes out from getting kicked in the nuts twice. You hit him in the nuts twice. And he goes, oh! No! The fact that we reset for most men. Twice. Sorry. He just kind of slinks down the wall like, holding his nuts. And then he just goes, stop! I'm done! I don't want to fight anymore! Don't defend me anymore, please!

And then Tuck grabs him and he goes, tell us away to the anvil or else I'm gonna let my son kick you in the nuts again! I'm like, stretching my quads. He's got one foot in his hand and he's stretching it out. Yeah, I'm getting myself a good quad stretch, like, getting ready. You're doing the rookie of the year thing. Yeah. Oh, man. Oh, no. You're gonna have to parlay with this guy. Okay. God, you failed me once. Please don't fail me again. Or else I will forsake the Islamic religion. Thirteen.

A law was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whenever we bring a law into the equation, it always works out. It's like he shows up for us. Great. Maybe I should be celebrating Ramadan right now. Yeah, Jess, I got you so many hijabs for Ramadan. So many. I'm so cold right now. It is freezing in here. Think of how warm you'd be in a hijab. I'd be so warm. And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, please, not my nuts, again. I can't take it anymore. Made my way for trying for a third.

We'd be lucky to get to two and a half now. Okay, great. And he's like, all right, you're on the second level right now. Of where? Of the facility. Where's the anvil kept? And he holds up a shaking finger. His other hand gripping his shattered nuts. It's here. And there's a huge square on the map at the far end that says anvil. Are we on the right floor? It seems like every floor is the floor for Project Anvil. It's a big project. It's huge.

So it just opens up to one of those things where it's like balconies or walkways everywhere. And it's like steam. Oh, okay. We walk up and we open the door. Can we get any more information, do you think, from this guy? Something useful about the weak points? Oh, yeah. Did you have any more things to ask? It was just a parlay. You get whatever you want from this person. Well, not whatever you want. I think he's given you the information he's willing to give.

How loyal are you to the Black Hammer twins? I would die for the Black Hammer twins. Fuck you. Tuck kisses him on the mouth. What the fuck? How about now? Well, I mean, oh, wow. Tuck is married. I'm married. I'm a married man. I shan't be tempted by hot flesh anymore. I heard you and your wife are looking for a third. Be gone. What a great joke. That is a great joke. It's like a perfect joke. That was really neat. Be gone from me. Leave me in my devastated nards to be. Leave me, please.

You saw nothing here today. Okay, let's go. Let's go fucking find the anvil. Run. And you're running. Running through the tunnels. And Tuck, as we're running, goes. What are you doing with your dice? You're shaking them already. He's running. He's going, you Virginia, it was really cool how you spat on Colm's face. That was sick. Thank you. Yeah, I don't like him at all. I think the Black Hammer twins have the worst thing that ever happened to the fighter fields. We have so much in common.

And then he goes, this is so us. Guys, did you also like how I put my hand on his shoulder? And then Bing touches the side of his head. He's like, I think he's waking up. I marked the animal. Oh, shit. Good job. That's so cool. Okay, that's so sick. Guys, guys, I did a thing. And you see through his eyes, the eyes of Colm Blackhammer. And he's like, yeah, he's now like forcing the arms of his armor up. You can hear like the junk junk junk junk. Like he's trying to get it to turn over. Oh shit.

And he reaches down to like his side. And rips a cord. He's pulling the choke like a kid trying to start a lawnmower. It's just not working. It's just not going. Ah, fuck. I flooded it. I think so. I think what it is is he pulls that cord and the engine doesn't start and he reaches over and there's like a lever and he like cracks the lever down and the armor kind of like settles onto his body. And then he's very slowly moving towards the door. Okay.

But he's got this like shattered armor on his chest. He's so slow now. And you can see like Ving the way he's moving his body. He doesn't have that like explosive power that he did when you faced him before. And he reaches towards the door, pulls on the thing and it's locked and he starts fucking reefing on it. And then we hear a crazy scream like animal rage kind of like locked up paralyzed. He unlocks his vocal cords. Yeah. And he's like, I'm going to take a shot of that.

And you see him stop and look to the corner where his sword should be. Yes. And then look to the door where you came in. No, I locked it. I was just trying to freak you out. I got freaked out there. My armpits hurt. I got freaked out there. No, I locked it. I was like, Jessica, you should divorce Shawn if he makes this happen. If he takes mirrors away from me again, I'm divorcing. No, don't put this on the table. Don't put that on the table, please. I have to, no. Narratively, I have to.

I have to do it. I love you. I love you. Yeah, so he starts reefing on the door, and you pop back into your body. It would be kind of cool if he went for the door, like, for the hither and yonder door, though, and it's, like, shaking, and Mears is like, oh, shit. Oh, that would be, that would look really cool. And Mears, like, tries to get the bard. Bard will leave? Yeah. Oh, because it didn't leave? It didn't leave. That'd be wild. The door's locked, but maybe because the sword is there.

Oh, no. He can't leave. The camera sees this. Not the players, not us, but he tries the door handle, and on the other side, Mears is at the bar, and he looks up, and the handle's shaking. Oh. And then, boom, the door shakes in the jam. Whoa. And he puts his hands on the bar, and he's like, come on, go, go, go, and the shutters won't close. Boom. No. And then we cut back to you guys. Whoa. Did I kill Mears? Oh, my God. Jessica. Don't let this happen. That basically means that you divorced Sean.

You didn't put the sword in Hither and Yon. But you did have the idea to do this. I didn't want. He's not going to die. Don't cry, Jess. Don't cry. He's not going to die. Remember, this isn't that kind of show. We're not just slaughtering people for no reason. I don't know. It just is a really cool visual. Jess, he's not going to die. Okay. Okay. He's fine. We just got him back. Sean, do you pinky promise me that Colm's not going to get in there? I can't pinky promise anything. Jess. Oh.

Oh, man. Did you say pizza? She said, please. I don't know. It's more exciting. It's more exciting. I promise you it'll be fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll just be exciting. Okay. So you are running. Okay. Well, actually, Ving, you see him turn towards the door to Hither and Yon. Yes. Yes. And you see that he tries the door and it doesn't open, which I will say that that would feel to Ving as that meaning that Hither and Yon is still on the other side. Yeah. So you might now have a choice.

Do you continue on to Project Danville? Do you go back? Do you split up? Should we split up? I think that I have eyes on his eyes. If he gets in, I could probably see, and then we'll go back if it gets worse. Yeah. Okay. How do we feel? And Mears is a buff boy now. Yeah. He knows how to fight. Oh, yeah. He's a big, burly. He's a big, burly innkeeper. I feel like maybe even the audience remembers Mears as being skinny little 14-year-old boy. He's 18 or 19 now. He's got big, broad shoulders.

He's got a little bit of a belly. Yeah. He's got big blonde hair and a ponytail and a big, cool metal arm. Yeah. I understand. You're right. It's cool. It is cool. It's cool. He'll be safe. It's cool. It's cool. It's cool. And also the fact that the door stays locked means that the Hither and Yon is also protected. Yeah. Even though it can't leave, it's locked itself. Hither and Yon does not admit anyone with ignoble intentions or I'll intent. All right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

So you keep hustling down the tunnels? Yeah. I think you're going to start encountering people. So what is your plan for when you find individuals that work here? We punch. I don't know. Yeah. I'm going to roll fight with honor. Okay. Yeah. Do you need a break? You're so distressed. I am very distressed, but that's okay. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. I think it's the cake we had for pre-dinner. We did have some cake at the mall. You guys had a fucking cake while I was at the gym?

Yeah. Before we went for dinner. I'd go to the gym too, okay? I can eat some fucking cake once in a while. Sean, don't say that. The lunch place we wanted to go to, it was closed until 3.30. We had to go get cake and things. We had to kill time. There was nothing we could do to stop ourselves. What could we do before eating? That would have been better than eating cake or the gym. I see. We couldn't have went to the gym. We went outside. I see what happened. We went outside. It was windy.

It was cold. We didn't want to be in it, so we wandered. To cake. To cake. To cake. Sean said the word cookie. We went towards where that was. Pretty great. It was tasty. It was good. I enjoyed my cake. Okay. So you're rolling fight with honor. Yeah. Okay. To just give yourself some points. To have some, I'm ready. Okay. So you're rolling fight with honor. Yeah. Okay. To just give yourself some points. To have some, I'm ready. Okay. Yeah. My senses are heightened. Oh. 10. Great. There you go.

Whoa. So that's what? Three? Three chi. Three chi. So you're like, preparing yourself for battle. I have to put that image of Colm knocking on the door out of my mind. Yeah. And yeah, you got to just like trust in hither and yon. Yeah. Trust in mirrors. And as you're like hustling down, you're following the map. You have like the map in front of you. You're kind of like holding, pulling it down, taking a turn. Yeah. You know what?

I feel like as you're running down, you're like, oh, I'm going to get a little bit of fun. Yeah. I'm going to get a little bit of fun. There's a guy coming up to me. There's a guy coming up to me.

Wanted with like keep watch we took down the refinery and we fucked up the mac and they know what we look like somebody comes out of the bathroom while we're running we just stopped and trying to act casual but like right in front of the poster we're like reading the posters and we're like there's someone like wheat pasting one of the posters onto the wall of a tunnel and they turn and see you and they're like what the fuck boom so yeah you're encountering a little group of of uh guards and and workers here what do you do uh can I use I'm a bad guy now oh yes I'm gonna go straight into that yeah that is explicitly combat so that wouldn't be yeah okay so I would roll plus wisdom wisdom to call upon my winter form your wisdom is currently plus zero because of your summer form I need help I can give it to you I'm um rolling up for a fight with honor I'm like yeah gearing up billy and talking up let's do this side of the tiger yeah cool I like these guys image that like billy's running down the hallway at these guys like tapping into the winter form as it's like icing around him and bing is like kind of zipping around like knocking guys out of the way as billy moves in and eating more ice yeah oh six okay this does take all three of us yeah yeah go ahead roll it yeah yep that's uh nine okay so that makes that a seven which makes that a seven yes which means you're all gonna maybe take some damage sure this is exactly like the image I've always had in my head for the fight scene that plays to annie up yeah oh yeah right so I just really wanted to pull it up to imagine this is like you guys are running down the hallway billy's icing stuff up and he's like tapping into the winter form you're running down bing's knocking people out yeah billy's coming down the middle all iced up and then tuck bursts onto the scene to help there's a couple of doors open and more pile in and he steps forward kicks the door off of its hinges into a group of guys puts them in a different room and closes the door yeah yeah so billy I'm about I'm a bad guy now yeah I terrifying enemy okay so you're running down the hallway uh tapping into the the ancient warrior spirit that lurks within your winter form of my old like like winter face oh yeah like the the tree guy it's like a frozen tree or something like that yeah so gross and like skeletal yeah and tuck like kicks a door off its hinges into a crowd of people yeah bing's slipping and sliding around like freezes his feet in place in front of this giant billy the guy that billy stares down initially freaks out and runs like trips over himself sprinting down the hallway over dmx as he sprints buster rhymes is there uh but they're all like there's a bit of a lashing out from some of them so you know what you're all gonna roll a d8 eight damn seven fuck six holy shit we just took so much damage so reduced by your amount of armor I'm gonna block a blow for me or someone else and take half the damage okay so yeah holy shit these guys are well trained yeah they're giving and they're giving as hard as they're getting but uh the absolute terrifying countenance of billy in his winter form is enough combined with the obliterating damage of tuck hitting people with a door and bing using his skilled martial prowess while no one is defeated they are run off oh all of them are gone yeah they all left yeah this was enough that you terrified the people before you there weren't that many there was like four or five maybe okay uh but they have scattered into the facility if you want to chase these guys down I don't think we have a lot of time we gotta go I think we just start wanting to get to the anvil yeah find our way there yep and uh following the map and kind of running with some of the people that you were fighting what are you doing what the fuck I keep on by keep on by I keep on by keep on by he keeps kicking his foot into his other foot I surrender I surrender yeah tuck keeps giving one of them a flat tire you guys are just bullying people down the hallway and uh one of them goes through a door and they open into a cavernous hangar what level did the guy say you were on two the second level so you come through this door and you're facing like a massive chest basically a huge bosom powerful you come out onto a catwalk maybe five feet deep that rings a room and uh you see this like huge torso and towering above you like 25 feet above where you are you see a huge dome shaped bell shaped head like you did on the smaller max but with like like a spidery amount of lenses covering this thing's head of all different things and you're like oh my god you're like oh my god you're like oh my god you're like oh my god you're like oh my god you're different sizes the shoulders extend where you are to like huge piston biceps as big around as a house holy shit and this thing is like you lean over the railing and look up and look down this thing has got to be almost 150 feet tall yeah we think it's the building that holds the mech until we realize it's the mech yeah totally yeah we have that like moment where like our perspective readjusts in our heads and then we're like holy shit this is a mech somewhere around a a shoulders a bird flies yeah totally oh my god yeah it looks so small yeah I'm a huge bird okay yeah so that's what you see you lean over this railing this thing is 150 feet tall you can see the four other levels kind of above and below you so we're right at the heart height yeah kind of yeah you are yeah I want to discern reality to see if there's any access to the chest uh yeah 2d6 plus uh wisdom uh you got 11 okay so you get three questions uh what here is useful or valuable to us uh not from the side that you're on but like on the opposite side you see a gantry that like extends into a catwalk that accesses the engine and boiler in like the back section of the mac is it like a crank thing that extends it yeah it looks like it's got like a chain like okay so that would be your best bet at accessing unless you want to like take a flying leap onto the front part of it what's your alignment again billy pretty chaotic I call him danger arms out like swan eyes closed can't lose can I do it you catch me fate wait let me have one more question oh sure yes uh what should I be on the lookout for uh more guards probably this is the heart of the facility there are people fucking everywhere yeah um are they really fucking everywhere there are people fucking everywhere there are people all over the place um being hard of the facility there are guards there are mechanics and technicians there are laborers and you've probably only got a little bit of time before the alarm is fully raised what here's not what it appears to be very good question you see the fan of like uh pipes that you saw in the diagram which whatever this is burning it feels like this thing might be a dual purpose just looking at the sheer amount of pipes in their placement some of it is being arced in places that don't make any sense mechanically yes um I think that was picturing that some of it goes up and some of it goes down like he can use yeah he can spray it with his hand there's smokestacks in the oh yes so you see pipes running down like the arm section oh like it could direct the smog that's the biological weapon part of it it's not just a giant mac it is designed to be a giant weapon and it's not just a giant machine it's designed to spread the smog specifically it runs on so much of the coal takes so much to drive it that it puts it as as an output and then can channel it as well and that's part of the weapon okay so you've probably got I'd say 15 more seconds before somebody notices you what do you do a jump onto it I run down this so-called gantry you'd you'd have to get all the way to the other side to the gantry or you could leap from where you are a leap from where I Oh boy.

Okay, so you're probably about 100 feet off the ground right now. Is there any chains near me that I could swing around? Oh yeah, probably. I bet you could find a thing to swing yourself over on. How far away do we think it is? Probably not super far. I think it's probably 20 feet. 20 feet from the walkway to the front of the Mac? You could do it, Billy. I've seen this in Crash Bandicoot so many times. Oh, totally. Okay, so 2d6 plus dexterity, I guess, to grab a chain and swing yourself over?

Yes. Does anyone want to come with me? I will come with you, but I'll let you do it first. Because I feel like you… Were you offering to carry me? There's lots of chain to grab. Yeah, I will come with you. Okay, cool. Yes. Ten. Yes. Okay, cool. So Billy swings over, you grab a chain and… Fuck yes. Yeah, and you grab onto a little handhold. And you swing in such a way that currently no one has noticed you do this yet. So you have… Yeah, I look like a fly, honestly. Exactly.

No one can see me, I'm so small. Yeah, and the armor plates are so big you could slip in between some of them. And I'm wearing the gimp suit so I blend into the darkness. Yeah, totally. Tuck and Ving. And you have a genia who's like, what should I do? Is there any way that you could cut power to the alarm system so that the alarm can't sound? Okay, I can try. Thanks. Virginia, you're welcome. You're a really special lady. And then Tuck jumps. He can't bear to wait to see her reaction. Oh my god.

All right. I throw the chain back your way. Yeah. Here we go. Slap. Do we think this is dexterity? I'm trying to clear the whole thing in one go. So no chain. Just straight. Jumping right past the chain. You push the chain back and it hits me in the face as I just jump as hard as I can. 2d6 plus strength. Here we go. Because dexterity I have… I have negative what? Great. Great. Oh. Yes! 11! Wow. Nice. So the only downside to this, you absolutely like grasshopper. Your powerful quads. Yeah.

Send you sailing the 20 feet. Yeah. And you slam into the front of the Mac. Who can say where the wall is? And people start looking over your way. Ving, what do you do? I'm going to try and run around and jump for the boiler. Ooh. So you would have to be… You'd be running past people to go over there. I'm going to deal a damage to a foe within reach and then leap over the… Across the physical obstacle. So I want to like run and then deflect off a guy's face onto… Sure. Yeah. Looks so cool.

Go ahead and roll your damage. Two. Great. So you run over to a guy who is starting to turn and being like, Hey, who are you? He does like a surprising amount of turns and twists like a gymnastic. So sick. And on the way by, he just slapped. He just like upside down, slaps him in the face as hard as I can. And then jumps off of him onto the Mac. I'm using my hand off his face. Yeah. Yeah. And you land on the big Mac. Yeah. It's like Crouching Tiger hitting dragon levels of like defying gravity.

And now you're all on top of the Mac and people are starting to lean over and point and shout to each other. You see Euphigenia running towards like a terminal with a bunch of pipes and cables coming off of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Get it. Oh, to like, to pull an alarm. Okay. And she like grabs them, but she's kind of like struggling with this person over top of the alarm thing.

So she's held it off for now, but she's not going to have long. Do I not have a weapon? Can I just throw my spear at the guy who she's struggling with? Yeah, you probably could. Your spear would be all the way over there. You also have your bandolier that does have some stuff in it, but it's not unlimited. Okay. Ving is like, hey, Billy, watch this. Oh, yeah. And I grabbed one of the bandoliers. And I wouldn't one. And I crush it in my hand and then open it up.

And it's like this whittled Arbutus, like hard, hardwood. Whoa. Cool. Put it in my hands. Blow dart it through my hands. Great. So you can use nature's fury and volley. This is just a ranged attack, but you'll deal a D10 instead of a D6 because you're using your elemental bandolier. Great. Love it. There we go. Okay. The roll volley 2D6 plus dexterity. I got 12. Yeah. So you just deal your damage. It's a D10. 10. Holy shit. You killed this guy. You straight up. Oh, shit.

If you want his life, you can have it. I notice it's the guy that Billy kicked the balls and I hit him right in the nuts. With the dart? Yeah. Whoa. I send it as fast as I can. And he goes, oh, no. That's so stupid. And he falls to the ground. And Euphigenia points at Ving and gives him a thumbs up. And then Tuck goes, good job. You totally ended that guy's line. He's not. You're never going to have more kids. You will not. Ended the line with the two kids. Those two kids don't count.

They must be duds. He wanted another one. That's the only reason to want more kids. My third. And Euphigenia hefts her pickaxe and smashes the console in front of her. Sick. And she really hopes that that dealt with the alarm. But there's no way to know. Okay. Okay. What are you guys doing on the Mac here? I'm climbing. Towards the boiler. We got to get inside of it. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. Get under the plates. Yep. Okay. Do you want to go to the boiler and we can get under the plates?

Love it. Okay. So Ving clambers up the other side and you're standing in front of the boiler. It is colossal. It's just like chamber after chamber after chamber. Boilers, tubes, the little things that are like spoons that spin around. You know? Oh, yeah. The little wheel of spoons that spins for some reason. Yeah. To indicate pressure or something. That's what it is. Yeah. Dials, gauges. There's pipes everywhere. What do you do? Is there a way to open it?

Can I discern realities to see if there's a little… Mm-hmm. Oh, ouch. Plus wisdom is seven. One question. What here is useful or valuable to me? There's like a wheel that you squeak to the side and it unlocks a hatch that swings up from a boiler chamber. Okay. I open it up and I pour in the hibernia water. Okay. This is your last hibernia water. Yep. And yeah, glug, glug, glug. The hibernian water hits the boiler. And mingles with the water that's already in there.

That seems to be like suffused with sort of the inky, sooty, coal influence. Can I put some saffron in there too? I'm just making a whole concoction. I throw one of my saffron uses in there. Yep. Get rid of that saffron use. Nice. And you dump a little pinch of saffron in there just to dabble, do you? You know that. And it drops into the water. And you can see like dish soap and pepper, like that old experiment they used to do. Oh, yeah. With pepper water and the dish soap makes it go whoop.

Like retreat from the soap. The soot does that from where the saffron touches. Billy and Tuck, you're on the front. I would like to figure out like where there's like a gap, I guess, that we can get into. This is discern realities probably. Go for it. Eight. Oh, yeah. You get one question off the list. What here is useful or valuable to me? So the massive front like chest armor plates are hiding what appear to be just like a mass of pistons. And you've dug around in a couple max now.

And Tuck, you had some experience. With M4, like extracting the heart at all. Yeah. It's almost like sheets of muscle. The amount of pistons that are in here. There's like strata of pistons that go down into its chest. And you're squeezing yourself through. It's hard to get in because the sheer density of machinery that's in here. But you, Billy, you work your way in and Tuck, you like pull the heart out of your bag. Yep. And holding it up, you can almost see where it would fit.

And it's quite deep in the machine. Billy, here, take M4's heart. Can you get it to the heart of the machine? Yeah, I could do it. I don't know what it looks like, but TLC do. And I shove the axe in because they're the ones that took it out. They might be able to help you. Yeah. Right. You shove the axe through the gap. I'll drag it with me. Yeah. Yeah. Very carefully through this delicate machinery. Yeah. So I zip my gimp outfit and tuck the heart in and zip it up.

And then I'm dragging the axe with me. You baby with a diaper dragging a teddy bear. Come on, guys. We're going to go find the heart. And you hear a door slam open. Behind you. I look and shambling through the door in the shattered remains of his armor. Thing looks up. Calm. Blackhammer has returned. And in his hand, his sword. Oh, fuck. No. Yeah. I don't like that. I don't like that at all. That's so. Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. What have you done, Jessica? I fucked up. That's what I did.

That's so funny. I'm your game master, Sean O'Hara. Joining me as always, Tacoma Dome, the Barbarian, Abdulaziz. So long. Ving, the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Loppers. Take care. Fat Billy, the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. Bye. Thank you so much to all of our supporters around the world. If you'd like to support the show and become a patron, you can join us at patreon.com slash speltlore or speltlore.com slash money, please. Get access to a bunch of cool shit.

Merch, the up-to-date Mall Brats feed, streams, our up all night system playtests are up on there too, which have been super fun. And video episodes, full video episodes, which you could be watching right now. If you were a patron at the Very Fine Chef level or higher, you're going to love them. I can't stop thinking about how I look now that we record. All the time I'm thinking about how I look. You're going to love watching my face, not be sure what I'm doing.

Thank you so much to Aaron Reed for our intro and outro music. Thank you finally, and most of all, to all of you for listening. We'll see you next time. And so ends the… Tale of Adventures 3, 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 more.!

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 to Spelt Lord!

I'm your Game Master, Sean O'Hara Joining me as always, Tacoma Dome the Barbarian, Abdul Aziz Hello everybody! Ving the Half-Elf Druid, Paul Oppers Hey, how's it going? And Fat Billy the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai Hello!

When last we left our heroes, they were gearing up for an infiltration of the Project Anvil facility, wherever that may be Using the information of their new friend, Euphigenia, they infiltrated, attempted to subtly infiltrate the Project Anvil facility in some manner, maybe getting dropped off like outside the gates and sneaking in, or like in an off corridor and creeping about Instead, they ended up directly in the War Council of Colm Blackhammer, one of the two princeps of the Firefields Principality Whoopsies Deep in conversation with a number of noble members of Firefields gentry, discussing logistics and timelines, and the continuing demand for their allegiance to the Blackhammer Twins and their plans, the party lay in wait for him to be left alone with his thoughts Billy almost gave us away immediately, because his belly bumped the door Almost opened it too far And then Jess angrily had to burn a fairy child to keep him There's so few left!

I think you only have one! I only have one! That's the way to do it! Oh man… Watch your tum tums! And you know what? Billy made up for it, just moments later, leaning around the door with a blow dart, coated in Harpsnake Venom, paralyzing Colm Blackhammer Not such a stupid gift anymore, huh?

Yeah, you're all welcome everyone, ungrateful I cannot believe how quickly the tables turned on me and my plans By just Billy going like Colm stood there, paralyzed, as the party rifled through his shit Including a bunch of war plans and maps that they did not have the time or inclination to go through Really paralyzed more people Yeah This is a good lesson we're all learning Yeah It is a pretty good move Yeah, maybe we should visit some markets or whatever, wherever they sell this stuff Yeah Yeah, if you could find someone that sold Harpsnake Venom, that'd be great, but it's probably fairly uncommon Unless you go to the Highspear Mall and Dwat's still alive Oh…

Oh yeah Me and you later, still together Still together? Harpsnakes, blow your voice Listen for the music of the Harpsnakes Is it legal to sell Harpsnakes in this mall?

I win Whink I wouldn't know anything about that, I'm just a humble regular snake-thailtment Wink But if you come to the Jazz Festival happening later today, maybe someone there might know something For our listeners that don't, haven't heard Mall Brats, this means nothing to them But go listen to Mall Brats, you're gonna love it I'm just imagining Dwat lifting up a bunch of regular snakes to reveal a Harpsnake underneath Come here close, children Look at what I got here A different snake I love Dwat You can't flush it down the toilet though, everybody does that and it really fucks up the surrounding area And that's why we…

You have to snake your snake out That's why we have giant Harpsnakes in the firefields Yup!

They are not indigenous to this area That's true It is from a character who we introduced in the Big Market episode of Mall Brats He was in two episodes He's in one Three episodes Three, right All three of which he was fucking someone in a tent that we built Excuse you, he was making love Yeah, that's true After he was paralyzed, Colm Blackhammer then had his armor Uh The engine was destroyed Followed by Tuck peeling Colm out of his armor like a banana Ripping the front off, destroying it, opening up the chest completely Revealing underneath his armor, Medjay-style tattoos Having been used to, in his youth, chain a number of icons to his being Including the icons of honor and discipline, ones he took on as a young man Followed by, much more recently, the icon of slaughter Oh yeah, and that tattoo is so rough Yeah And like scarring and just like an ugly ugly rotten tattoo Oh totally, yeah Oh and I was thinking about this, the one that we talked about the Medjay having like the mandala The anchor The anchor one For this one it is an eye He has an eye tattoo in the middle of his chest Sick!

We totally didn't notice that Yeah, nobody noticed that before because somebody hadn't thought about it Man, that was a very exciting drive home for you Yeah It was more me going, oh you fucking idiot, damn it, you son of a bitch Get out of my way That's most of what the post session thoughts for me are Like, I could have done this, that would have been so cool Um, they took his sword, tossed it into Hither and Yon Which was still connected to the closet And closed the door, locking Colm in his, uh, in his, in his room Uh, they then tried to sneak through the facility finding their way to Project Anvil itself Discovering that every level of the subterranean facility had access to the project Before being accosted by a number of guards A fight scene broke out They started charging their way through the facility Uh, they arrived at Project Anvil discovering The reason that it is accessible from every level is because it is on every level It's about a 120 foot tall war mech Sick A thought that I had that I didn't bring up was that there's parts of this like legs and arms Maybe we talked a little bit like Voltron But where other mechs come in and can come on this So it can also act as a carrier of other mechs Oh, that it can like drop war mechs into the future?

Yeah Oh, poofs them out Yeah, poofs them out Blum blum blum, get em boys Yeah, their, it, it's legs go very wide, it squats all the way down Lays them like an egg And it has to do this with its face Eughhh Aaaaaah Ohhhhh And then the guy on the hairier side is just like What the It looks like, uh, it's taking a big shit It's poopin' It's poopin' boys! It's poopin' boys! E-Ella Key, it's poopin' out there! Get ready, it's poopin'!

Uh Looks like it's really trying to bear down and bite it off It just grabs onto like the top of a hill Grrrr We could get the newspaper Grrrr Pretty cool how quickly we undermine that scary thing Hey, you know what? I'm alr- I'm always ready for that I had a really cool bike ride home after last session How many more poop jokes could I get in there?

Those weren't my poop jokes by the way That was a duel, that was a duel I did quickly jump on board Yeah, you got it I got on deck if you will Yeah Yeah Uh, Euphigenia went to go disable the alarms, hopefully to stop, um, an incredible amount of security and soldiers from showing up While Ving ran around to the back of the ship To try and get across on a gantry platform there Billy and Tuck decided to just fucking go for it Did a big ol' jump right across the gap, latching onto the front Uh, Tuck gave Billy the mechanical heart of M4 which he then wheedled his way inside And the axe And the axe with Larry, Terry, and Chad to help do some, uh, magical mechanic work inside And as things were just starting to look like maybe progress was being made Who should arrive?

Who should arrive? But Colm Blackhammer In his shattered armor The gaping wounds from his previous battles So fucking gross And in his hand, his obsidian sword Nooo And that is where we find our heroes now Colm Blackhammer, eyes ablaze Fury in his eyes that are ablaze He's got a sword in his hand He's standing there staring at you, Tuck What do you do?

Tuck jumps And you see Colm brings his sword in front of him and he goes like Like grits his teeth and he's ready to fight When I see him bring the sword in front of him, I'm like, shit!

And then he, you said that there was like chains hanging, that's how Billy got across Yeah So Crash Bandicoot style, I'm gonna try and grab the chain And then like, uh, you know that thing where it's like, I swing on it and then pull up to give myself more air so I'm not on the same trajectory And then I'm gonna try and come down on top of him like, WWE style elbow on his head Yeah Cool Yeah All of that seems like something, like the leap across seems like it would be well within Tuck's capabilities So I won't make you roll for that Okay But you will be rolling hack and slash Yes So 2d6 plus strength, oh actually no, he is ready to go You are defenseless, not defenseless but you have no weapons No weapons So you will have to roll a defy danger to even get in close to him Okay, that makes sense So how are you getting around it?

I'm just trying to, I'm yanking as hard as I can, I'm yanking on it bro What do you mean yanking? On the chain Okay so that's He's yanking his chain Gotcha, so you're trying to say that that's a strength instead of a dexterity basically? Are you like whipping the chain around or something?

No, Tuck's trying to like get over it He's trying to like get over it So he's just like grabs the chain and goes like Yeah Yeah, like an athletics thing, yeah I'll call it strength, 2d6 plus strength Okay, here we go Big strength boy Okay, so 13 13 Yes!

You uh, yeah you yank on this chain as you leap across and throw yourself above at an angle that Colm was not expecting Yeah, kind of above and behind And he looks up, yeah alright And then I wanted people to elbow the fuck out of the back of his head Hack and slash Here we go 2d6 plus strength Fuck yes! Oh no! So that's a 4 on the die and then I got a 7 Okay so you're gonna deal your damage and he's gonna deal his damage Okay Ugh Tuck, fuck, what? 1! Fuck my damage is 1! Your damage is 1?

Yeah Okay, yeah So you like, he I think even in his slowed state he moves faster than you expect him to You roll his damage real quick so it's 2d10 and then you'll take the higher Oh my fuck We're all gonna die aren't we? Fuck! So yeah that's a 10 is the highest That's 10, yeah for sure that's 10 highest one Shit dude And I believe we discussed that last time that his sword bypasses your armor Yes, but yes We did save that Sean So yeah that's 6, he's at 6 Can I try You're at 6 hit points?

Yep Can I try and weaponize dissociation to resist that aspect of the sword? Oh no Yes you can Okay That is a very interesting idea Okay please be only one So that's 4, I took 4 hit I took 4 damage to save 3 so I actually take 11 Oh no! That should count, that's crazy No that 100% counts Yeah I made a bad move He's making choices and he's facing the consequences of them Fuck!

That shouldn't count, I do like that But so you do, you feel, okay so how this happens is you come down with this people's elbow Yeah And he moves again quicker than you expect and you slam your elbow into his like seemingly very lean shoulder Uh huh It just like stabs you through like the torso Okay Good god And this damage that you tried to do like you thought you hit him pretty hard Yeah And he stumbles in his heavy armor, grabs, like pulls you in close with the sword Uh huh Says, is this wise?

And then Tuck goes, I'm not wise And then he kicks his feet back against the wall behind him, tries to take both of them over the edge of the gantry Oh yeah Six damage This, uh, I want you to understand the consequences potentially of what you're doing here Yeah you're dying here I know Yeah I know I understand that? I only have five hit points Do you understand the stakes?

I know We just started the episode I know Moments ago Uh Billy, you see that you are inside the, you're crawling inside M4 This has been like the last 15 seconds Yeah This has not been a long amount of time No I know but TLC has been whispering to me the, like where to go Yeah Basically Man this thing's fucking huge, this is way bigger than the last one There's so many places this thing could go Uh, uh, yeah okay so this kinda looks like a Okay so this kinda looks like how it was connected the other time, uh pull out that little thing again Okay And he sho- you pull out like the mechanical heart of M4 that's like dripping with this spiritual metal creating like weird Art Nouveau kind of spirals on it Do these little tubes have to hook up to something?

I don't know last time it's- we pulled it out and it just kinda like detached, almost by itself Yeah I guess I'll discern reality Yeah so 2d6 plus wisdom Okay seven Oh seven, beautiful Yeah Okay so you get one question off the list Sigh I guess what here is useful or valuable to me?

Hmm So you're deep inside holding this big mechanical heart that's like almost as big as your torso And um, you see that the, the spirit iron that Ving summoned back at the refinery is almost still flowing in its solid state And it looks like it's like reaching out to different components Ooh Cool Okay I wanna let it guide me Yeah Yeah Ooh Yeah So you're getting a plus one from the discern reality series Nice Ooh Five Five?

Nooo Okay holy shit You do have a fairy child I do but I need this stuff Okay you know what I'll use it, yeah turn a failed roll into a seven to nine, I need it So it is like uh the metal is flowing off this heart reaching out and it like the weight of it shifts suddenly as it feels like it grabs out quickly Yeah And you can drop it Yeah Into this like huge complex nest of metal Does it like latch on almost and like kinda weave around?

Yeah it grabs onto some components and holds itself in place just before its lost in the machinery Okay Ooh you can hear the ticking in the heart Uh huh And it kind of goes metal as fuck Haha yeah Save us M4 and I wanna run off with the axe Okay great and you start hustling back outside Uh Ving you hear a Okay, great. And you start hustling back outside. Ving, you hear Tuck scream, I'm not wise. I look at, I see him with sword coming through body. Yeah.

I want to get down there as fast as I can and defend. Yeah, so it'll be a defy danger of some kind to get there. Okay, I'm going to defy danger to get down to the game plank so I can try and defend. I like how you used the GM camera cut to keep me from absolutely killing myself. We just swear. Other people are doing stuff in this situation. You have time to think. Yeah. Okay, so defy danger is what? It is whatever stat that you are using that describes the action you're taking.

I was thinking backwards swan dive from the boiler where I am. Yeah. Sounds like dexterity. Yeah. So I got seven. Seven. I'm going to swing down trying to grab the chains and get down to the level. Yeah, on a seven to nine. And I think you can grab the chain, but you kind of like misjudge the angle and you hear some doors slam upstairs. Yeah. And here people go down there and then as crossbow bolts start to shoot down towards you. He does a very cool elaborate jump. Amazing. Almost slow motion.

Wow. Lance superhero landing. Looks up. Crossbows. Pepper is back. Ah. Roll a D6. Damn it. Three. You take three damage as a bunch of bolts clatter off the ground, but one hits you in the cap. My armor is two, so I take one. He only takes one. Yep. Nice. We're in a high risk situation here. We're in the middle of an enemy army. Against this like injured king. Connected to several demonic forces. A broken suit. An entire line of magi. Unimpressive. Yeah. Descended from.

Turns out the suit doesn't make the man. Yeah. Good. Ving. So you wanted to roll defend. So we'll let you do that. Okay. That's two D6. Yeah. Plus constitution. I believe. Oh, a four and con is seven. It's three. So seven. Okay. So seven. So you get one hold off the defend list that you can use in this situation. Maybe I'll like to open the attacker to an ally. Giving that ally plus one moving forward. Yeah. I like that. Yep. For this situation. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So you're there. You land next to him and you distract Coleman some way. Yeah. I pulled up crossbow out of my back and I stab into his foot. Oh, yeah. Nice. Yeah. And he just yells into the air. Yeah. First Ving goes, I'm not wise too. Absolutely. Mangled grammar. Yeah. Tuck Ving is here. Okay. He is distracted. Cole momentarily with a crossbow bolt in the foot. What do you do? Can I do that?

Can I try and like do one of those like karate moves where you disarm someone holding a sword? Cause I want to kind of just like step back from him. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That feels like a defy danger strength. Okay. Yeah. Cool. I'm going to do that. Here we go. All right. Snake eyes. Oh no. Okay. Okay. So what happens here? Sounds like a trip to the spirit realm. Sounds like we got to save. Back to season three. Three? Time to save. Tuck from hell. Uh, what, but what do we think?

This failure is here. It doesn't have to be damage. We know that it's not always straight up damage. Yeah. Maybe like something in the sword like stops you. Yeah. Like, like, I don't know. The demonic part of it like overcomes your will. Right. To actually hurt Cole. Yeah. Interacts with your chest fragments. Oh. Oh. Huh? The demon of servitude. Yes. Oh, fuck. It like commands you like stop and you freeze up or something. I don't know. That's cool. That's cool. You turn from that to a defensive.

Oh, you don't. Ending Cole? No. No. That's what I was going to say. Wouldn't that be so sick? That's so fucking sick. That'd be so cool if he, if you were like ready to fight. It would make sense. And then Ving sees Tuck like pull the sword out of his, out of his fucking chest and then like wield it against Ving. No, dude. That's pretty sick. Fuck. Sorry, man. That's really cool. You're out. No. Jess, you fucking betrayed me. This is a betrayal. You betrayed us. You betrayed us.

So you feel calm. Like he's got the sword by its hilt. He's holding you fast. Yeah. This in your eyes, scrawny man. Yeah. Has got you pinned. I go, I'm not wise. Yeah. And then you try and rip the sword out of his grip. Yeah. And you feel the light that you feel like you have been experiencing from the white coins in your chest. Seems like it dims and you hear in your head that voice that you've been ignoring punch back. Through the void that you've put up between it. Uh huh.

And it says just like, no, no, this is your role now. And you hear in your eyes go white. Oh, Tuck's eyes go white. Yeah. Oh yeah. The pupils disappear. And Ving sees the coins like fill with black. Oh, the coins start to turn black again. Yeah. Or just in the middle. So they almost look like a bunch of little eyes in his chest. Oh. Which is so weird and very Gibbous Manny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. All the pupils look at you. Yeah. They kind of focus in on you. Yeah. Yeah.

Now hold on here. And Ving, you see Tuck make eye contact with Colm and Colm releases the handle of the sword. I stand up. And says to Tuck, kill him. Whoa. And Tuck pulls the sword. Tuck, you're watching this happen as well. Uh huh. You see yourself pull the sword out of your gut, blood slicking this, this night black blade. He like grins. He grins. Savagely. And there's like blood in his teeth. Yeah. Real quick. I'm going to roll a fight with honor.

Oh, my husband pulls a knife out of his chest to stab me with it. I knew this would happen. Hold on, honey. Let me just. Hold on, honey. Honey. Oh, let's talk about this, honey. Put the keys down. It's an absolute domestic. We can work this out. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want to go do that. Think about the children. Think about the Billy. Look at Billy. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead and roll a fight with honor. Fight with husband. Oh, nice. Okay. I got nine plus. I got 12. Okay.

Great. Great. So that's three. Three chi. Three chi. So yeah, I would like to use one chi to use weaponized association to figure out his next move. See. Okay. So I'm imagining you guys are like squaring up. Yes. Yeah. This is like the side to side like street fighter. A thing blows across the bottom of the screen. Yeah. There's a chicken in a crate behind us. Yeah. So you're using weaponized association to see what his next move is. His next move will be. Yeah.

Which means that you get to tell me what his next move is. I mean, I think it's just tuck run. It's charge, right? Knife smash. Yeah. Oh, and this is not a knife. Keep in mind. Sword. This is a big old sword. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes sense that Tuck's next move would just be reckless charge. Oh, yeah. And I can't push you off. Yeah. Because you have no hit points. I can't kill you. And from Tuck's perspective, he's in the void now. Yeah.

And he could hear that one line from the tolling like echoing around him. Which is in dark of night. I have been lost. Yeah. And he hears it in the voices of all the children of McCall, which is a bad song. Because he's like, that's a song for the ones that are taken. I was taken. Yeah. Far away choir. Yeah. You know what? Let's cut back to Billy for a sec. Because Billy, you like wheedle your way out of the machinery. Yeah. And you see Tuck with the sword in his hand charging thing. Yeah.

And while I'm weaving out, I'm trying to do it quickly because I sense bad stuff is happening. I can tell demonic forces are nearby. It's like I feel like the darkness swallowing up. But I also hear the clicking go into place around me as I roll. Yeah. And I hear the fluid weaving through all these little tubes. Yeah. The seven to nine that you rolled is just that you don't know how long it's going to take. Yeah. Yeah. I know he's. I know. Yeah. Yeah. I was waking up. It's under. It's under.

Underway. There's a discordance of the sound of the machinery that starts to turn to a harmony. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. As M4 starts to take over. Sounds like an orchestra tuning. Yeah. Yeah. From mechanic to melodic. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I would. I grip TLC firmly in my hands and I would like to roll. I'm a bad guy now. Oh. Yeah. Sick. Cool. So I'll call upon my winter form to fight in a fury. Yeah. Guess what? Wisdom. Wisdom. Oh, no. Still get it. A four. No, I don't get it. Oh, no.

Oh, wait. Actually, I do. Yeah. I get one hold, but I'm forced into my winter form until the next sunrise. Oh, okay. So that's fine. So you feel the change undertake you and you are now in your winter form. I am. Which changes all your bonuses and shit. Yeah. I think your wisdom returns to normal, but your charisma is at zero. Yeah. When I deal damage, I deal an additional D. Yes. Okay. Great. Are you going for tuck or are you going for comb? Comb. Comb. Yeah.

But I want to make it look like a comb. It'll look like I'm going for tuck. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Okay, cool. Also, this is, I know the answer's no, but can she use the TLC move? Absolutely not. What the fuck? No, that's not how that works at all. No way. Like when Captain America grabs the hammer? Yeah. Yeah, that'd be cool. Okay. I mean, I'm a bad guy now while wielding TLC is basically the cat picking up Mjolnir situation. So sick. Okay. It was really cool. Let's do it. Let's get 12, you guys.

Okay, wait. Hold on. You are on the chest. And there is a big gap. And then they are on the walkway. Like how you go. Remember how you jumped across to get here? So you can roll a defy danger. Probably dexterity to leap across and like you did to get here. Yeah. So 2d6 plus dexterity. Okay. Plus dexterity. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Pretty good. I'm good. Yeah. Not a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Billy like just fucking powers across TLC. I think you've done it before with you.

You swing it and then like carries you. I use the inertia of the axe to carry me. Excellent. Yeah. Um, and then I want to, yeah. Charge at calm. Yeah. I want it like, yeah. I want it to look like I'm going for tuck, but I'm going for calm. Yeah. I'm a bad guy now has happened. So you're rolling your damage here. Hell yeah. Yeah. Oh, 10 damage. Okay. So you hit him pretty hard. He's got a big old chest. I get him in there. Open it for you. Just hack him right in the guts. Yeah. Fuck yeah.

So you land on the, on the walkway. And with the momentum kind of like spin like a top for a second and then walk that like meaty thunk is it slams right into his gut. Yeah. And he backs away like steps back. Thunk thunk in the armored legs that are still attached with this like gushing wound from his gut. And he like holds his hand up, looks at the blood and looks down at his tattoos says like tougher beings have tried to kill me and failed. And he like gestures to the wounds on his body.

And his gut is like pouring blood. And then you see like a wound on his chest begin to bleed. And like his arm wounds begin to bleed as you feel this like iconic demonic presence start pouring off of him as all the wounds on his body begin to bleed at once. Yeah. And you feel tuck even from deep inside the void. You feel that the demon of slaughter taking the like forefront in Colm's body. Okay. He steps out of the armor and like the leg armor thunks.

He steps to the ground and you see this like he straightens up and hunches a bit like an animal. Whoa. Is he naked? He's got like very loose like breech cloth underneath. He's basically nude. He's not wearing, you know, his legs and feet are bare. His chest and arms are bare except for tattoos and blood and old wounds. He's full golem-ing guys. Whoa. He's going full golem. Yeah. The little undies are definitely giving golem vibes. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Are you wearing a diaper? Yeah.

I'm wearing a diaper. Is that because you can't like go to the bathroom very often? Oh, this is so gross. He's basically turning into like a chupacabra. He's just full slaughter right now. Yeah. He wants to kill. And the demon inside him wants to kill as well. Ving, what do you, you had some, you had some moves. Yeah. I'm just going to continue to use my weaponized association to anticipate Tuck's moves to draw him away from the fight, but avoid him. Great. So that'll, we'll say that's one hold.

Okay. As you just like take off down the catwalk. Yeah. And Tuck comes barreling after you. Kind of backwards running and like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're here. Yeah. Yeah. And just brutal, vicious swings coming from Tuck as he's whipping this obsidian blade at you. Yeah. Coming within inches of cleaving you in twain. Yeah. Tuck, inside this void, you hear a chorus of voices. Children, maybe you recognize a lot of the voices from your time on the streets of McCall.

It's the kind of thing where you're in a dream and you know, there's like fucked up, stuff out in your periphery. You're trying not to look at it. And you feel just like you are trying to ignore the horrible things happening in the periphery of your mind. On the periphery of your perception, you feel a terrible battle taking place. Your body is currently not your own and it is trying to slay your closest friend. Okay. What do you do? I'm going to try to break the iconic control over my body.

Mm-hmm. Okay. I could try. I can use breaking the law or I could just do a defy danger wisdom. I think it could be wisdom. I think it could also be charisma. You're trying to reassert your personality. Well, that's better. Are you excited about that? Yes. So you're trying to reassert yourself as a person in your body. Yeah. Here we go. Let's see if this works. That's nine. What do we think?

What if like, because you recognize those voices, it kind of pulls you back a little bit and just that one second of you like, oh, well, hold on looking back. Yeah. It's hard for you to get out of it. Yeah. Totally. Oh, you're being distracted by the voices of the kids that like were lost. Well, that's the thing is the tolling is a song that like it. Everyone who sings it, sings it and feels guilty. It's like kind of like the Catholic guilt when they sing. We could have done more kind of stuff.

Yeah. So it's, it is a thing where he feels guilty leaving them here. Uh-huh. What's a glimpse that Tuck catches from his past? Uh, he can see. He can see a door. Like the place we're in shifts to be the, you remember how Tuck kind of was abducted by a weird iconographer? It's where he got his wrist straps. Yes. All of the like wounds on his, on his arms. Yes. And in reality, it is the first real. What's. Yeah. How are you going to tease this? Sean was freaking out. I'm trying. I got to resist.

I got to resist. I got to resist my urge to hold too much close to the chest. You're flirting. Look at you guys. You guys know what's going on. Tension. No, I just, I do. We're just like, the fuck? Every subsequent word in that line. I was like, he's going to, he's going to say it. Wait, hold on. Hold on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. It was so funny. Cause every word I said, Sean. My eyes were like, why did Sean do this? He went. Every time he said it, I was like.

That's why I stopped. Cause I was like. You're like a something. Is something going to happen? I am revealing something. It's, I am revealing something. Okay. So let's, we'll drop back into that moment. You see a door, a door from Tuck's childhood. So yeah. The story that I told like everyone was that there was like a guy who they would say like left coins out and you could kind of like go and steal them.

Cause he was like pretty forgetful, but like it was actually just traps for street kids and Tuck did that. And then like lost two weeks. How old was Tuck? In this? Uh, he was eight. Oh yeah. Yeah. And like he went back and then the building was empty. It was burned down. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't there anymore. Cause Tuck lies to himself all the time.

So like he forgets what happened actually most of the time, but in the void, like with the kids singing at him, like the, he, like the real memory comes back and he remembers the door and he remembers leaving this place. But he. He had no memories before this. This is the first thing he remembers. Whoa. That is the beginning of Tuck's living memory. Oh no. So everything before that is a lie, including like all the Bruce stuff. I knew the Bruce stuff was fake. Yeah.

Cause that came out on a live stream. Yeah. Yeah. Someone. Someone. No, no one asked it. You asked it. I asked it. But you were like, I promise I'll answer one question truthfully. And so I asked that cause I was like. As the most intimate. Yeah. I was like, I gotta know. Yeah. The Bruce stuff. The reason why it doesn't make sense and why it's so weird. Yeah. And why it's like a story about a used cart salesman who adopted this kid and like lived like a three men and a baby sitcom style life.

And then was killed by a chicken. By a chicken who toppled a bunch of used carts. Yeah. That were on top of each other. It's a story that kid makes up. Yeah. It's like he's like writing a little comic. He's like, whoa, crazy stuff. Crazy stuff. I just learned how to draw a chicken. Yeah. A chicken is going to be in this comic. Yeah. And like Tuck forgets sometimes that he made it up and he believes it sometimes.

But the real thing comes back, which was that Tuck doesn't remember anything before leaving that building. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is like his like dream state like morphs into like the iconographer's workshop that he was leaving. And it's like it's the same again where he's he's got like he's like old style like wrist cuffs on and he's eight again.

And he can see the door and hear the kids and he knows he has to leave. Oh, man. And as you think about walking through that door back to the life that you've built for yourself since that moment, you flash back to the present as the sword that you're holding like clangs into a railing just as Ving is dodged out of the way. And you think, what the fuck am I doing? And Ving, you see Tuck pause for just a second in the swing. The light is the darkness. His pupils return.

Yeah, his eyes roll back down and then back up and emotionless face as a mechanical swing comes for your neck. Billy, you are standing in front of calm black hammer unarmored, covered in blood and wounds of battles past unarmed, unarmed, totally weaponless, except for the powerful demonic forces flowing through his body. And you have TLC. And you see him there standing on top of that. They're like rolling up their sleeves. I think I just fuck this dude up.

I feel bad because Billy wouldn't want to like kill an unarmed person, but his winter form will. Has? Has. Let's, can we get a little memory from Billy? Like this winter form flashing back to a battle of the past. Okay. So it's not like during like some huge battle, but it is part of like this like prolonged war that's been happening. We're in the north, kind of like in the mountains and it's cold. I'm with a small group camping or like we have a camp and Billy had left to get more firewood.

When he came back, the three people he was with are dead. And there are, there's a small group who had come in hungry and they killed everyone to get like the last bit of soup that was over the fire. And Billy loses his mind. And these people are really frail. Everyone's hungry. There's like famine happening, but Billy kills him anyway. Oh my God. Just this towering winter fairy. Yeah. Oh man. And Colm sees this memory with you. And you like in your memory turn and Colm is standing there.

Like, drenched in blood, head to toe. And he looks at you and goes, yes, violence begets violence. Yeah. And I swing again. Go ahead. Hack and slash 2d6 plus strength. Not good. Four. Yeah. That's not good. That's a failure on a hack and slash. That means that he is dealing his damage to you. Oh no. So 2d10 and you take the highest. Fuck dude. Well, those are the two that dealt me the 10 damage. Maybe they'll deal me small damage. They might. Maybe. Three. What? That's so funny. Three.

Is that the highest? Yeah. Cause there's one. It's a one and a three. That's hilarious. Oh my God. That's so fucking funny. Jess, your luck is fucking crazy. So good. The moon is with me. Power of the moon. Yeah. The moon is inside you. Absolutely blending up your guts. She wants to come out so bad and there's nothing, nowhere for her to go. And she's just like, I gotta get out. Just getting shredded in there. Yeah. Kind of one of the best explanations of the female menstrual cycle.

She's just like, whoa, I got nowhere to go. I'm going to snake my way through all the other stuff in here. And hold on to you really tight. I'm sorry, listeners. You don't need to hear this shit. No. They should hear this. They should. It's important for people to know. Men. Listen. Listen to women sometimes. Ask about their sex. That's a cycle once. A lot of people think that the best thing that you can be, if you can't be a man, be a woman. And if you can't be a woman, be a male ally.

That's the most important thing that you can be, is a male ally of, a man ally of women. And if a single one of you agrees with us in any way right now, you can go fuck yourself and stop listening to the five gats. Yeah, this is not the show for you. I was going to say, I think the best thing you could be is a dog, a domesticated dog. A domesticated dog. A domesticated dog. And you live with a dink couple. What's a dink couple? Like dual income, no kids. Oh, nice. They're buying you raw food.

Love the fuck out of you. They're putting you on Instagram. You get pop cups every day. Sorry. No. I rolled three damage. What does he do to me? Three damage. So he's this like bloodied naked, basically naked form. His hair, like there's seems like he has cuts on his scalp that are like pasting his red hair to his flesh with blood. And he unarmed and unarmored just lashes out at you with hands and teeth. He jumps on you. Fingernails that he didn't have before. Start growing.

Like it's like his flesh is receding from the tips of his hands. Oh God, that's disgusting. Raw bone. And he just lunges at you and starts tearing at your flesh. But you have a big old axe and you are, despite your small, innocent self, an experienced warrior. Am I wearing the gimp mask? You do have one armor, yeah. So I only have to take away two. Two damage. Oh yeah, there it is, my armor. And the mask comes in handy because he goes for your eyes. Yeah, he does.

He goes right for the most vulnerable part that he can see. It's a good thing I'm wearing this incredible gimp mask. Well, to be totally honest, you're wearing the gimp mask as a suit. Oh right. Your arms are everywhere. Eye holes. You do put it on like a shirt. You step into it. And he, if your eyes were open, which they're not, you'd see on his face a joyous grin. And we'll cut back to Ving as Tuck. And this emotionless mechanical state is swinging at you with a cold precision. What do you do?

I want to block a blow meant for me and take half the damage and use that opportunity to jam some saffron into Tuck. Okay. So you're blocking a blow. So you're taking the damage. Half of the damage. Half of the damage. Yeah. In order to- Get in close. And now with that disruption, get some saffron into him to see if it lessens the influence over him. All right. Great. Abdul. Yes. Roll your damage. I'm so sorry. Four. Okay. Four. Okay. Armor of two. Bypassing armor because the sword- Okay. Fuck.

Bypasses armor. Oh, bypasses armor? I take half. Yeah. I take half. So I only take two. Yeah. I think you were just able to like pull yourself back at the last second and like you just get nicked. How do you get the saffron in there? He does have a number of cuts from his fight with Colm. He's also got a big wide open mouth. Yeah. I like that. I know. So got a butt. Yeah. I want that on the table. Okay. Wait. Here we go, everyone. As an original storyteller, I shove it in his pee hole. Oh, no.

No, I don't. He snows it up like a little pony. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Tax on circumcised so you could like put it into his foreskin. Yeah. His foreskin pinch of clothes. Yeah. It's amazing. Like buttering a turkey. And I sew it shut. Holy shit. Really? That was the most foul thing you've ever said. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm squiggling it around. I'm sorry. Like cheeking a mouthful of tobacco. He's wiggling it in there. The opposite of chew.

It is. There is a mucus membrane down there, so you can't get a lot of stuff. I know, but I don't think you can go that far down. That's how I use tobacco. Yeah. Pack it in my foreskin. So Ving slows down time. Yeah. It's real close. I'm just going to jump over and smear it across his chest where there's a cut and try and flip some in his mouth. I was like, oh, my God. As I head over. Okay, great.

So I think that you blocking that blow, like taking that hit, means that you don't have to roll the defy danger because the danger was getting in close enough. Okay, great. So you smear a handful of saffron. Yeah. Mark off a use of the saffron that you took. Will do. And you just hope and pray that it takes effect. Tuck. Yes. Back in the void. That door. You've got these heavy links around your wrist. This door is so tall and you're so small. Mm-hmm.

You have no idea where you are and you hear familiar voices outside. Are the familiar voices? Who are they? From a time that has not yet passed for this young boy, but they sound like they could be friends. Okay. I got to get to the door. Okay. I'm in this memory. This memory is a trap. It's a brain trap that the demon of servitude. This is what Tuck is saying to himself. He's like reminding himself of who he actually is. He's like, there's a demon. There's a demon in here with me.

It's making a trap out of my memories. And you feel a hand on your shoulder. And Tuck whips around. And if you were to describe what you think a demon of servitude would look like to Tuck, what does it look like? It looks like the iconographer. So it looks like an older man. Yeah. Robe. Robe. Long beard. Beard. Like a hood or a hat of some kind. Yeah. Yeah. Like a dark leathery skin. This was the thing that was like, that sort of. Like confused him a lot. Not unkind. Like seemed nice.

Eyes without malice. Like a softer voice. And the thing that happened, like the way that Tuck got out was the iconographer let him go. Oh. Yeah. Oh no. Released him on the world. Yeah. I don't like that at all. And this kindly man. Just. Bing's trying to read. I'm just going to read the whole line. I was trying to read the redacted move. I'm pretty sure. And my sheet. He put it in there. Put it in the right. Put it in the right. It was red. Oh my God. There's nothing there. It's fully redacted.

I take my secrets seriously. I sent that to the CIA. They redacted it professionally. So this kindly man, the iconographer, demon of servitude. Uh-huh. Like kneels down next to you with his hand on your shoulder. You see this kindly man. Kindly face. You were so lost before you came here. No, I knew where I was. I was with my family. Where did that get you? It got me an anchor. It got me purpose. It gave me a place to stand. And now you're back here with me. I'll get out again.

Just let me kill him. And then you can have purpose again. Uh, and then when he says that, Tuck, and he does feel bad about this because the actual guy was a nice guy. Yeah. Takes the chains around his arms that are linking his like wrists together and like whips the chain like over the guy's head and around his neck and starts choking him. Oh my God. 2d6 plus wisdom. Wisdom? Wisdom? Not charisma? This is not a physical space. Oh, charisma. Right. You're into your, you're re. Yeah.

Asserting yourself as who you are right now. Yes. Yes. Charisma. 2d6 plus charisma. Great. Nice save. I'm not the scared eight year old I was. I'm a fucking. Metal is fuck. Warrior. Uh, 13. Oh, okay. Huge roll. Yes. So, okay. So how does this resolve? Tuck starts choking this kindly old man. Yeah. I think it is rough at first, but it's the kind of thing where like the demon of servitude starts shifting through all of the people who had like control over Tuck in various forms.

Like either like physical control or he worked for them. Allison, like, so like he lusted after them even bit Ving and Billy very briefly to like where it's like the control is like familial duty. And, and then it, uh, it like shifts through all of them and Tuck just steals his mind against like the effect it's trying to have until it settles on what he would interpret as like the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, It's last true form. Yeah. It's true.

On a romantic form. Like the way it emerges in the human mind basically. And what does that look like? You tell me. I had, I had an image. Yeah. So Tuck is in his eight year old form, like choking this man as it filters through these people and his perspective shifts as he rises to his full adult height. Yeah. And it's like, you see like the strength in your arms return. Yeah. Yeah. You've got the chains. Yeah.

And it is now like the demon of servitude, a kneeling form with its head downcast and its hands holding the axe in front of you. Oh, sick. The like mental image of Larry, Terry, and Chad. That's rad. And it's holding this weapon for you. And the place that it is happening is an eternal plane of darkness. And both above and below them is like constellations upon constellations. Oh, I like that. Like every representation of every icon burning cold in a night sky that extends forever. Beautiful.

And Tuck recognizes this as a place he has seen before as the representation of the iconic realm itself. This is the outer dark. Yeah. Oh, sick. Didn't know if we'd ever see it. Yeah. And you pick up the… I… You lift up the… The axe? I lift the… I let go of the chains. I lift the axe and I like flip it in the air and like hold the chains taut as it flips. So it slices through the chains itself. Nice. Yeah. And I imagine you take…

You turn towards the door and you pull the axe back, Larry, Terry, and Chad, and you cleave through the door. Yeah. And as you come back to the present, you stop yourself with the sword an inch from the door. And you take the sword from Ving's neck. Sick. So cool. And you're… Ving, you see Tuck's eyes. He basically caught you on like a bad misstep. Yeah. And he was about to take your head off. Yeah. And the blade stops. Tuck's eyes roll back down. Tuck, don't.

When you say that, he looks you in the face and he goes, I would never. And then he puckers his lips for a second. Damn it. And his eyes go… His eyes go… His eyes go… His eyes go… His eyes go… His eyes go… Ving kisses Tuck on the lips. Just a nice little, how's your father? But as Ving goes for that, Tuck turns and steps away from it. Ving kisses his ear. And then Ving kisses Tuck in the ear hole. So it's really loud for Tuck for a second. Holy misses.

And then he overhand throws the sword like end over end to try and get him to stop. And then he overhand throws the sword like end over end to try and get him to stop.

Itself into combs okay uh like form yeah uh we'll cut well let's cut back to billy for one sec billy you've got calm on top of you he is bloody and grinning what do you do uh I bite back okay fuck yes hack and slash he's right here in biting distance 2d6 plus strength gross oh my god 12 12 yes dirty right uh hack and slash with strength oh with strength okay 10 10 still that is a full hit so that's his your damage and then the d6 from your winter form all right let's go do it do it do it do it do it five five five it's acceptable it's a taller it's enough that like you bite him really bad you feel like like there you feel a chunk come off of him yeah and it's almost yeah and he kind of like he's still smiling as you like take this chunk out of him and he pulls away like he's elating in this slaughter that is being done to him and in that way makes himself wide open for a big old sword uh from down the catwalk okay please please please oh fuck seven seven yes okay seven to nine choose one you have to move to get your shot placing you in danger of the gm's choice you have to take what you can get so you roll your damage and then you roll a d6 and reduce it by that much or you have to take several shots reducing your ammo by one that's not allowed you've only got one thing I I will will move to get my shot I want to fucking end him so you're gonna put yourself in danger uh so go ahead and roll your damage yes is is a d10 and can I roll two d10 and take the highest because I'm using the sword oh that's his thing damage is not determined by the weapons it is determined by the wielder son of a bitch I know it's actually it is a cool ask but it's also something that I really like about Dungeon World because it's something I hate in dnd is like I'm the best fighter in the world I'm level 20 I'm a god my dagger does d6 yeah no you should be much better than that okay okay okay okay okay the fuck is that who am I talking to okay so he tuck was aiming right for his head he wanted it to like cleave it in half basically yeah I wanted to give the demon like basically no flesh to have purchase in yeah because something that I think well I mean is uh billy you you felt this as you bit that chunk out and he enjoyed it basically it was like part of what he's doing uh this doesn't seem like a man that could be killed by traditional means no yeah yeah so I need it to like foul the host to a degree that the infection no longer can continue yeah please for the love of fucking god three eight oh eight oh yes that's pretty big yeah that's pretty big uh I think that uh yeah billy bites him he reels up yeah like uh looking skyward as if accepting the gracious gift of a benevolent god yeah this pain and slaughter and catches a sword going a fucking 150 kilometers an hour where do we think it hits him eight damage he's not killed what do we think because I was aiming for his head but maybe like maybe here yeah I think they're like kind of boom clavicle across the chest and it actually cuts the tattoo in half yeah interesting yeah very interesting so he takes this huge hit and he's like thrown off billy yeah with the force of the throw and he skids a little bit with the momentum and leaves like a streak of blood and gore from where he lands and he's still but that he's still like twitch and get his purchase oh fuck billy smash him I'm sprinting I'm gonna sprint at him ving yeah ving I imagine full-on yeah I'm following I love that he would using his swiftness follows the sword yeah oh yeah totally he's just a couple steps behind yeah jumping across the gap like touching chains light as a feather yeah bolts are coming down whizzing through the air jumping off of arrows we're in a silo so we can like oh yeah run along the wall of the silo hell yeah um and I want to uh land sort of swing around land on the the hilt of the of the sword and then shove it in his back okay yeah to cut fully cut him in half gnarly yeah I mean that's gonna be a defy danger to get there probably right in that way plus dexterity for sure you fucking got this buddy oh wow five five oh no uh oh no I think do you have a plus one forward uh no and I don't think I have I already used my what the bones know from last episode okay so you're definitely gonna take some shots so roll a d6 one oh wow yeah you dodge the worst of those right you you fly through a hail of arrows that are coming down from the top level that's fun at least and you see people like um like a jackie chan movie you see them like moving along the outside going to like stairways trying to like come down to your level right um because there are other people here there's a lot of other people yeah there's a lot of other people fighting a lot yeah she I think effie's been like detained basically oh no she's got like somebody's got like a like a stick like a club kind of around her back and holding her face yeah exactly and you get snagged and as you're coming down colm is able to like drag himself just out of your reach as you land like disarticulated arms that like are crunched backwards he's like not using the like flat of his hand he's using the back and like the back of his hand and he's like like he's like dragging himself yeah an elbow and he's starting to pick himself up uh in a very bad for him yeah he's not having a great time oh fuck this guy and you see he's grabbed the sword and he's starting to pull it out of his own torso like up and out at an angle billy you still hear the ticking the harmonious ticking behind you and you uh if you were to look take give it a take a glance yeah you see the the spiritual iron is like working its way through the mechanisms and it's now moving outside of the interior pieces yep starting to flow across the armor plates won't be long I hack and slash I just go yeah I'm like in feral mode 2d6 plus strength um yep five not good not good at all and uh he finishes with a wet squelch like ripping the sword out of his torso yeah I will say you do notice he is avoiding going further into the cut now okay he is like pulling it up and out instead of through so he doesn't cut the tattoo uh it's hard to say but um he gets the sword out as you're rushing at him and he like kicks you back out of range and comes down with a huge overhand chop and sorry 210 2d10 how much how many points do you have left I have 11 I I have good luck yes I have great yes please oh no 10 and 10 that's 10 and 6 it's a 10 I have one armor so I have two left it bypasses armor it ignores it bypasses armor you have one hit point left oh I didn't expect it to go this badly holy shit he's rolled 10 on us so many times that's wild I'm so fucking stressed now uh you're the one who said he has 20 hit points or whatever 20 dice or whatever this bullshit you guys knew this when you came here remember all the conversations we had about how the last time you guys fought he almost killed you well guess what he's gonna do now he was so easy to fight last time he actually beat the brakes off all of you that was the last time you had only one hit point it was this exact same situation can't believe you guys never think about healing items you never do I mean I have poultices that takes time yeah you guys also do know that healing potions are real store when are you like okay you guys are walking around and there's a super store right there there's a little market you gotta go to a liquor store and get winewood next 100 this is on you don't blame me I would never blame myself I'm a servant to the narrative uh fuck nearly mortal wound to billy okay I mean I'm right there yeah you're right here you're right there close yeah man when's m4 helping us out hey that seven to nine unfortunately meant that this was gonna take a while but you can see that it does appear to be start it's starting to take effect yeah as the harmonious pipes begin to play yeah um I was wondering if I could use a life symphony but that's um captivating those around me in the spiritual bliss and togetherness of the natural world I mean that's a good question I think it's a good question I think it's a good question I think it's a good question I think it's a good question I think it's a good question that is what life symphony symphony we said is basically like eye of the storm but you can stop fights yeah I do want to try it and also seeing billy get slashed I guess you got slashed stabbed really bad like he's bleeding all over the place yeah it's just kind of like a uh uh no moment it's like a parrot moment where you're like no we're done yeah yeah we're done 100 like you see someone's dog like get really close to your kid and bark and you're like we're out of here yeah yeah uh okay I think we said this uses wisdom on a hit the world calms around you so this would be like people are temporarily calmed on a seven to nine it only affects what you touch and only as long as you are touching it so on a 10 plus it would be like you're able to bring this whole fight to a halt momentarily yeah uh but on the seven to nine it would just be like if you could get your hands on calm okay come on duty six plus wisdom this is a key role I feel you gotta do it buddy right now yes nice I got 12 okay so describe this you see billy dealt this blow and colm is like lifted the sword to end billy's life and you bring this situation to a stop yeah he just says wait and everything the arrows slow down oh oh we're doing full matrix yeah like the like you are slowing the world yeah the everything how do we originally say it was like the I think it's more like reaching out to the spirit the spiritual essence of people and calming them because you've tried to stop fights before with eye of the storm so I think even if you said like wait like a few more bolts would like clang off the walkway yeah but no more would come okay I like that for a period of time when when you say wait it like echoes out of everything like every element like also says wait in its own voice and then because I'm it's the move is to captivate the spiritual bliss and togetherness of the natural world around me can I say this goes towards waking up m4 faster sure yeah oh yeah I think it's almost like the influence of uh of the demons in this place was like slowing down yeah the flow of the spiritual metal but now this harmonious nature it flows over m4 not m4 it flows over project anvil now becoming n4 like water just connects all of the armor and armor and armor and armor and armor and armor plates in this spirally art nouveau style that he was and out of out of the pipes that are on m4 you hear this oh sure yeah I like the beginning yeah the beginning is really good so he's got this sword lifted high yeah and I a thing raises his hand up above his head and then uh it doesn't look like you know this doesn't look like a defensive move or an offensive thing and then he quickly brings his hand down and as he does from behind him you see a4 the anvil turned m4 bring a giant hand I want to bring his hand down onto colm oh so sick yes a deep breath harmonious breath escapes the pipes on this massive machine yeah this gigantic metal hand slams down on the catwalk crushing colm blackhammer beneath it uh the sword is like sent skittering across the floor colm's arm and head like his shoulder sticks out from underneath a4's hand but he is defeated what do you do we walk we go up to him I crouch it's over and he looks at the three of you you won't be able to stop him why he's a god can I oh would it make sense to give him a little bit of saffron would that do anything would that quiet the demon enough to get to the man oh like to like as like a bomb for like a dying man his way to like yeah him like I sure to to to to to help him not die as this yeah um I want to take out the saffron and offer it to him and tell him this is your chance to to leave this world as you came into it as a human and I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please like and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one bye bye I offer it to him I don't want to force it on him he closes his eyes and he nods do it and I gather it up a pinch of it and place it in his mouth and you see him like sigh and then the weight of his wounds begin to take hold uh and you see the demonic influence like the the wounds on his body stop bleeding you see a sort of orange saffron luminance clear the infection in his blood and his body breathes a sigh of relief you can see this man is not long for this world we saw your tattoos man honor do something honorable before you go give us something anything that'll help us um you all receive uh images connected as you are through ving's spiritual field that he's put out to sort of calm this situation uh you see what they were promised before they were fully brought into the manipulation of the gibbous man how do we see it uh in images in your head I think because his body is shattered he's not he can't really speak right now he is giving you like through this connection the spiritual thing that ving has used okay he is life symphony the life symphony which has calmed this situation and connected all of you in the the calmness of the spiritual realm yeah the sounds of birds from outside of the silo are filtering down into the middle oh yeah of nature coming into the space yeah calming the area the hum of m4 underneath is like is offering like a bass tone to the whole thing yeah yeah the music of this gigantic machine yeah and you see two brothers coleman callum blackhammer riding on the high spear principality in the city of high spear uh victorious resplendent in their in their finery as they ride through the city gates and then you see their armies marching on to kinos victorious and taking their seat in the old royal capital and leading as the the twin monarchs that they so desperately wanted to be and then you see an image of coleman callum blackhammer as children uh running through the hills outside black glass running through the royal palace young idealistic children looking down from atop their favorite viewpoint at the city of black glass the place they grew up in the city that they love and will one day rule as the princeps of the fire fields um you see them a few years older taking on their first tattoos and clearly like this image is of a secret right small unadorned ancient looking temples where they undergo these rites of passage that have been brought from where their parents came from uh they take on their own icons calm honor later discipline callum shrewdness and their father this towering man forges for them out of his own colossal armor two suits one a a suit of warriors armor the other the chain of a diplomat you see them skipping stones on a lake as young men becoming ready to take their father's place discussing the future that they see for themselves and for their people and for the principality you see them now the princeps young rulers um a with a man in a traveler's cloak with a wide-brimmed hat who offers them aid and counsel.

And you see them trying to embody the icons that they have undertaken, living with honor and with cunning, but over time being twisted and taking these ideals to their extremes, taking on new tattoos. Colm, the icon of slaughter. Callum, the icon of tyranny. And you see what they wanted out of this.

You see them older than you see the man before you, a hoped-for future as they march on the old capital of Kynos and take it for themselves so they can fully protect and control this country that they love, refounding Rion's kingdom of night. And he brings you back to the present. And you can see he's got like a little bit of, like his eyes are a little watery. Is there anything that you can tell us about the Gibbous Man? Anything that'll help us? He's looking at you in the face.

He takes an unsteady breath through his shattered body and says, with his final breath, Save my brother. And you see a memory of Colm from long ago when he was a child visiting the palace of Rion, son of Chimes and Lillian, demigod and founder of the kingdom of Kynos. And he's standing in… The treasury in front of a glass case.

And inside the glass case is a hand held on a plinth, a beam of light shining through, hitting the hand, illuminating a hole in the palm where a blade, the waning knife, pierced through and killed the demigod Rion. And his mother is standing next to him. You see, what does his mother look like? Long, red hair. Yeah. Dark skin. Big fat braid. Yeah. A big braid. A large braid. A large braid. A large braid. A large braid. Big fat braid, baby. Yeah. A braid hanging down over her shoulder. Fatass.

Yeah. Big fat ass. Heavy pit. One thick chick. And she is kneeling next to Colm and saying, That was the only thing that could kill one as powerful as Rion, was his own weapon, the waning knife. A weapon forged for him by his father from his mother's form, drenched in his own blood. He was slain by his closest friend, or so he thought his closest friend. Your brother and you will be powerful. You will lead your people and betrayal will attempt to seek you out. You have to watch over each other.

And in this memory, you feel Colm start to feel fear that there are enemies lurking around every corner and that he must remain vigilant for himself and for his brother. And you feel that fear leak through all of the other memories that he shared with you. And we come back to Colm lying shattered under the hand. Dead.! There's a woman. There's a woman. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ © transcript Emily Beynon