Tag: Season Finale

Hey everybody, your Game Master Sean O'Hara here. Little pre-show announcement. It's the holiday season. The holiday season. And we've got a bunch of Spout Lore Christmas stuff available on our store. We've got wooden, laser-cut, beautifully made Christmas ornaments. And the 2023 Spout Lore Advent Dice Calendar with dice for every day of the holiday season. And if you want to see what else we have available, check us out at spellore.com slash merch. We'll see you next time.

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. Hello, everybody. And playing Fat Billy, the Halfling Thief, Jessica Tai. When last we left our heroes, they had descended beneath the earth, falling into a yawning chasm beneath the heart tree. Once in the cloying darkness of the deep, deep soil, Tuck was overcome with a dark energy.

As the coins in his chest began to react negatively, tunnels stretching before them, the party continued towards what they believed to be sort of the root ball of the heart tree. Billy sensing with his extreme danger sense, crawling hungry things in the soil. They were attacked by creepy crawlies the size of small horses and the size of large bugs. Small horses? How little are these horses that you're talking about? They were. I describe these things as being really big.

Yeah, as really big bugs. Yeah. I actually just didn't know that they were that big. Oh, they're pretty big. They're pretty big. I didn't know that horses could be that small. So small. The party dispatched a couple of the creatures before the remaining retreated into the earth, and they emerged in a chamber full of arcing, twisting roots and horrible soil. Ew, gross soil. Evil. Evil soil. Ew.

Ving attempted to communicate with whatever the presence in the tree was, and was offered whatever he wanted. Ving said that all he wanted was to be free, and the tree offered that to him. Billy also attempted to communicate, saying that all he wanted was to sleep, and the tree offered it to him. And Tuck was unable to communicate with it at all, but said that he wanted chicken. Chicken. Chicken. So nobody realized anything weird was going on. Except for Ving. Ving does. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the big takeaway from that being that Tuck was unaffected by the presence in the tree personally. The coins reacting negatively is still, like, physically upsetting, but seems to be not spiritually upsetting as it is to the other two. Ascending the roots in the heart of the tree, they found at its crest beneath the heart tree itself, lashed to the roots, Dathaniel Bangzumba. Pretty huge. Wow. An arrow in his chest that they immediately, surmised to be tipped with obsidian.

They briefly contemplated what to do next before being accosted by Wendaliari of the ranger core. Yeah. A fight broke out. Billy cut her neck immediately, and she took off into the shadows while Tuck was surprised by the sinister-looking elf Hiddleston. Representative of the Sun Peaks, supposedly.

Ving, creating a spear of metal, took off into the darkness, taking a shot at Wendaliari, and he was able to find Wendaliari on the move, knowing, as the spear connected, that he had struck a fatal blow. Finding Wendaliari on the end of his spear, breathing her last, she choked out, your mother is, before dying. And that is where we find our heroes now. Tuck, you are grappling with this sinister elf, slamming him repeatedly against the roots of the tree. He's got a knife in your back.

Ugh, God, I gotta do something. I gotta do something. That's not cool at this point. I failed so much over the last little bit. So many fails. It's hard because he's wily compared to Tuck. He's much shorter because Tuck is massive, and he's much smaller. So you're just having trouble getting a grip on him. Yeah. Let's cut over to Billy. So I'm still with Ving, right? Yes. You began to approach Wendy, and Ving told you to stop.

And you see him standing next to Wendy, who looks strange, like her body is not moving in the ways you expect. Yeah. I've seen that before. Yeah. And then you start hearing sounds of Tuck fighting. What do you do? I run back to the Tuck. And you hear the like boom, boom of Tuck like slamming. It sounds like he's got it though. Yeah.

I think what he's going to do is he's going to do, because he can't like, he tried a couple of times to like slam the guy backwards and the guy keeps like stopping me. Yeah. So I'm going to try and do a front flip and land on him. Oh yeah. That's cool. Yeah. That's really cool. Okay. Here we go. Is this just a hack and slash? I feel like it starts with a defy danger of some kind. Fuck me. Come on. Dexterity probably. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. That makes sense. Strength. Okay. Seven.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So a seven to nine on a defy danger dexterity. I'll just, I'll figure out what that means. Okay. Now I can slash plus strength. 11. Yes. Okay. So you get to deal your full damage. Well, not your full, you get to roll your damage and then roll an additional D six if you choose to take damage. Yes. Okay. So yeah, go ahead and roll your damage. Okay. Here we go. D 10. D 10 and a D six. That's a three. Fuck me. And a one. Fucking great. So four.

Then you roll a D 10 twice because you chose to take damage and you choose the highest. Right. This guy deals so much damage. What is he fighting with? Just a dagger. Oh my gosh. So three. Okay. And I have three armor. Okay. Great. Oh God. But yeah, describe this. What does this look like? So Tuck is like, he's just, he's trying to like flip backwards to smash the guy underneath him. But the guy's like, he's got a really low center of gravity and he's too strong.

Tuck keeps going like, dude, stop it. I'm trying to do a thing. Like you're playing mortal combat and you're like, let me figure it out. Don't hit me. Stop it. So then yeah, Tuck just gets frustrated and does like a straight front flip. But like the kind of front flip that like, he's just, he's just flat on his back, like goes forward and then tries to land as flat as possible. And the camera like follows Tuck's alignment as he does the flip. So it does like a spin in the air. So cool.

And then you land just wham. Yeah. And you hear the guy like a bunch of air is driven out of his lungs as you land on top of him. But you feel the knife dig deeper into your back and a cold warmth begins to like spread through your body. Oh no. And you're like, oh no. Oh no. He fucking poisoned me. Oh no. Oh my God. Oh God. Tuck is like, either he just pissed all over my back or I'm being poisoned right now. Tell me you pissed bro. Tell me you pissed. Bro, tell me right now that you pissed.

Ving and Billy. Oh wait, Billy, you arrive to like, you turn the corner of this like chunk of root as Tuck lands and like a bunch of dirt like in a shock wave around him. Comes down from the ceiling. Comes down from the ceiling. Comes down from the ceiling. A shock wave of earth shoots up around him. And then he's like, oh, I'm gonna go down the ground as fucking 700 pounds or whatever hits the ground. Like the whole tree up in the garden. Like the tree shakes a little bit. Yeah.

Leaves fall from the tree. One leaf. Yeah. And the gardeners go fucking crazy. Yeah. Cause they're like, this isn't supposed to happen. Yeah. This is great actually for Billy cause it, uh, all the dirt falls from the ceiling and walls and loosens up some of these like viney, like more pliable roots. So he uses it as like a little lasso. Oh. Oh. Oh, interesting. Not a little lasso. He's like, I'm going to get that little like weird elf guy. Yeah.

He's aiming for like the neck so that he gets like more control of the guy. Oh. Yeah. He is basically like temporarily stuck under tuck. Like you can see his head and like an arm. Yeah. I'll go for like the head. I guess. Great. Uh, defy danger dexterity. Sick. Eight. Eight. Okay. You, yeah, you grab a root and like turn it into a little lash like to kind of stick him in place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Take him in place, but trap him. Yeah.

A little bit. Yeah. Could even just do make a whip. Oh. Indiana Jones around the neck. Wrap it around the neck. Yeah. Totally. If I got a 10, I would have done that. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Billy had to take a second and do bunny ears to nod it. He's like, okay, here we go. Over the bush. Around the tree. Around the tree. Over the bush. Wait. Wait. No. It's around the tree. I got to start again. Through the bush. Wait. While Tuck's like being poison. Yeah, and Billy's just like reciting.

Just tucks like over the bush, not through the bush. Just like elbowing the sketch. But hitting the ground around him. Yeah. Billy, you're doing great. I really need you to hurry it up though. Bunny ears, bunny ears, bunny ears. It's a great time to practice. Yeah. Yeah, so I do that. Do I get him around the neck? Oh yeah, you get him around the neck for sure. And you like, you tighten it. And he's like. I'm trying to pull him. Yeah, and as you're pulling, you hear a growl behind you. Whoa.

Who's there? Creeping out from under like a group of roots nearby is Wendy's beaver cat, Shadowpaw. We'll take this opportunity to cut back over to Ving. Wendy, you've closed her eyes. She's breathed her last. I can still hear the fight happening, right? Oh, absolutely. The thing with Tuck is if Tuck is fighting, you can always hear it. I want to lay her down softly on the ground and bolt back to the fight. Yeah. You leave Wendy's. Body there under the tree. Yeah.

You come around the corner to Billy, like backing away from a beaver cat that's emerging from under the roots. Tuck is struggling with this elf who's now got like a root around his neck and is trying to undo it while also fighting Tuck. And Tuck's not doing much that's effective. He's farted into him a couple of times. And take this. And they're in the center of this melee. Your father. Hanging by his wrists. Wow, this is a real scene. Yeah. What do I have? Huh, this is interesting.

Superior technique. Grab an item within your reach. Now it's yours. Can I take her beaver cat as my own? Whoa. I guess it depends on if we consider living things items. Ooh. Everybody make a statement right now. Well, I guess like how far away from conception is it? For the beaver cat. Yeah. Quite far from conception. Yeah. Pretty far. So, no, you could not. You could not. Yeah. I think Ving just runs in. It was like, you will like just screams at the beaver cat in beaver cat. Uh-huh.

You know, basically freeze. Yeah, totally. This ends now. Defy danger or charisma. Okay. Whoa. Two sixes. Twelve. Holy shit, dude. The tone of his voice is like. Yeah. Yeah. You are not moving. And Shadowpaw stops and crouches low a meter away from Billy, like slavering jaws. And Billy's going like. Like, he's like, I don't know how to talk to cats. And there's the like slap slap, like as Shadowpaw is like slapping the ground with his beaver tail, but it's just like back off. Okay.

So Billy's like, okay, don't turn your back on a bear or whatever it is. I'll look it in the eyes. Uh, Tuck. You feel as you're like trying to elbow this guy, your movements and your will are starting to lag a little bit. Oh shit. Oh, the poison? Yeah. You're like, move my arm. And then your arm is like, okay. Oh no. You're like, wait a sec. What do you do? Okay. So Tuck is starting to realize that he's passing out and the guy poisoned him. I guess he knows that Billy's got the guy by the neck.

He knows that Ving just came in. Can you tell me what the orientation? Is like Tuck versus this guy? Like is his head behind my head or where? Yeah. I think his head's probably like, if not right over your shoulder, like coming out next to your shoulder, he's got, he's got an arm that is not conveniently placed to get this root off of his neck. So like his left arm is sticking out like above your left shoulder. Okay, cool. I'm going to take TLC and try and slice his arm off. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

So how are you trying to overcome the rapidly numbing? Effect of this poison? Are you trying to muscle through? No, I just take it. Uh, I use unbound. I'm bent. I'm broken. Oh, I would just say it's probably like a defy danger constitution. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Like Tuck's not trying to fight it. He knows like, okay, I've been poisoned and like it's in me and Ving and Billy are here. So I'm just going to do whatever I can to give them the best possible chance of killing this guy. Okay.

Two to six plus gone. It's 10. Wow. Seven plus. Okay. Yeah. Hell yeah. 10. Yeah. You muscle through. I do a thing where I take TLC and I like throw them in the air. Oh, like straight up ahead of me. I like that. And I'm like a button immediately above me. And I'm like, come on, little guys. You try. Try and aim. I'm bad at aim. Can you take the wheel? All right. So hack and slash now. Yes. Yeah. Two to six plus strength. That is a 12. That's a 12. Wow. So you can just deal.

You can deal your damage. Yes. And I will take more damage. So I can deal even more. So it's half of your shoulder, half in his head and his arm. Yes. You can stab yourself. So seven damage. Seven damage. And then should I do his damage? Yeah. So two to six plus 10, take the highest. Nine. Oh boy. There it is. But I, I only take six damage because I have three armor. Okay. Then I think it is exactly that.

It sounds like you lop this dude's arm off, but also the blade hacks into your own shoulder. Yeah. And then Tuck goes, you coming deep, Terry? Yeah. We see the axe gets thrown in the air and anyone capable of perceiving the fairy sees Terry with like pilot's goggles and a little helmet on. A white scarf? Yeah. Like steering the axe into this guy. But Chad's playing video games. So then it lands half in his. Shoulder. Chad. Guys, we got to pay attention.

But yeah, the elf underneath you really grits his teeth, but you hear the most pained expulsion of air that you've heard thus far. I want to jump up and land on the lashes around his neck and yank him out from under Tuck. Yeah, totally. That was enough damage that he is out of commission. So considering you guys always have the choice whether or not you want to kill people, this guy's not dead. I'm assuming. My intention was to incapacitate him so you guys can interrogate him while I die.

I have this poison. Whoa. Okay, now. Get a lot of good juicy deeds. And as Tuck is like so fucked up, he's like, someone's hit the tree on fire. Someone's hit the tree on fire. It's a prophecy. I have to die under a burning tree. I promise to burn that tree. He's trying to like spin some sticks, rubbing sticks together. Crawling towards a root, making a fire bow. Like, come on. Trying to kill himself. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn.

Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Burn. Billy's run over to Tuck because he's like, oh my God, you look so great and pallid. He starts trying to do CPR on him. Okay. Describe this. Can I? Yeah. What are you attempting to achieve with the CPR? He's not dead. I don't know. I mean, Billy's like the tree could burn down any second. He's like, Tuck's rubbing sticks together. What do you mean the tree could burn? Billy's seen a lot in the last 30 minutes. That's true.

This has been a big day for Billy. Yeah. I don't know. What does CPR look like? I guess. He takes a guy's hand and slaps his Tuck in the face. Yeah, actually. Yeah. There's a disembodied arm. Yeah. So he's got the arm. Billy's blown in Tuck's mouth. Not even like mouth to mouth. Just like. Just like my lolling open mouth. He's like, stay alive, Tuck. And then he's using the arm to like hit against his chest. So gross. This is so disgusting.

As Tuck is like moving and doing stuff, Billy's like running around him. I'm trying to do CPR. You got to stop. Hold still. Hold still. And for like, yeah, Tuck is becoming more and more delirious. And he's like, why does it smell like yogurt? Does fire smell like yogurt? As Ving hauls the guy out from underneath. Yeah. And he's bleeding pretty aggressively. I bandage up as I stop the wound. I stop the wound. Okay.

I think something to consider is you're going to have to force this guy to stay alive. Okay. I take the thing that's around his neck, take it off. And I bind up his arm to stop the bleeding. Totally. I go over to Tuck and give him a poultice. Yeah. Okay. Great. Pull the blade out. Taste what poison it is. Poison for sure. Damn it. You hear Tuck go, dude, dude's on the knife. Okay. That's yours. You've earned this one. So what's the poultice cure? Seven damage or something?

You heal them with seven damage. Yeah. Seven. And expend a use. And that's great because I was at 11 HP. No, that's not very much. I'm back up to 18, so I'm good. Okay. That's good. And this elf is lolling against a root. His arm is gone. His blood feeds the soil underneath this tree. What do you do? I send Beavercat back to its master with the ranger's command. Oh, interesting. Yeah. You hear Shadow. He's like, you killed my master. He was New Jersey accent. You killed my master.

I thought he had a cooler voice. What's cooler than this? That was a choice that you 100% made on your own. I did this myself. Allow me to rob this moment of all narrative weight. You killed my master. And for that, I apologize. Did I? No. You did. You did. It is the ranger way to dying combat. I should kill you. You can try. This blood debt will be paid. And then he starts to like recede into the darkness. Yeah. Cool. Our time will come. But not now. He's still whispering from the dark.

You can hear him as he's walking away. I will come for you. You will know the claws of Shadowpa. We can hear it echoing further and further away. My jaws will close around your throat. And the last thing I taste will be your death. And then you hear him go even further away. Oh, fuck. There's like a dead bug down here or something. Shit. And then he's quiet for a while. And then you hear. Shit. Oh, fuck. Where the fuck do I get out of here. There's a completely other direction. Where's the exit.

And his voice gets louder. He's like, I think I went this way. Hey, walking. He. All of all of the lines from Midnight Cowboy. Yeah. And. You are left alone with this sinister Tom Hiddleston elf and also Nathaniel. What do you do. What do you do? So I'd like to use lightning in a bottle on Tom Hiddleston. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. So what are you trying to do? Like get the info of like, well, who is this dude? And why are they following us? What's going on in general with this whole scheme?

Yeah, totally. Nine. Eight. How? Lightning in a bottle. Oh, I was wondering, this is a weird thing, because Sean said that he is feeding this tree with the blood from his body. And I would use my spirit tongue to talk to the tree. Because it's a tree of knowledge. It's a tree of knowledge. So he has fed the tree his knowledge from his blood. Okay, 2d6 plus bond. Nine. Yeah, that'll do it. Makes it a 10. Yes. Fuck yeah. So how does this knowledge manifest?

I think in his blood, like in the pools of blood around him. Like the blood wells up from the soil underneath. Yeah. Yeah. Because tuck bled a lot too. So there's like a shitload of blood. There's a lot of blood. Yeah. Billy steps back. Yeah. Kind of freaky. So then is it like reflections in the blood or is it like a pensieve of blood? Yeah. Pensieve of blood. Sinks his face into this pool of blood. Yeah, basically like, all right. Okay.

So you're not getting like full, you know, 3D movie basically, but you're getting like flashes from his perspective. Mm-hmm. And the main thing that you get, Ving, you recognize this right away as you're all watching over Billy's shoulder. I'm, Tuck is lying on the, he's very poisoned. Yeah, totally. Yeah. You see this elf in a very fine chamber that you would assume to be in a palace of some sort. You see through the window flashes of the peaks of great trees, sunlight. The sun peaks. Yes.

The sun peaks. Cranes. Oh yeah. Cranes, like beautiful cranes, golden feathered cranes, like fly past the window. Oh yeah. Floating like blimp like gardens that we talked about. Oh. Right. Yeah. Like a floating greenhouse. Yeah. Crystalline greenhouse kind of bobs in the distance. And he is being handed a blade and a coin. Oh. Obsidian black with an eye carved in it. And he's being handed it by a woman that Ving, you immediately recognize. As Solara Van Curen. Whoa.

De facto queen of the great forest and ruler of the sun peaks. Whoa. What else? What else? I got a fucking 10 here. Yeah. I got the power of the knowledge tree. Okay. So you see him meeting with Wendy in the, in the dark of the wood alone, conspiring. You see him watching from the other side of the tree. You see him. You see him. You see him. You see him.

You see him from a distance following quietly as Wendy and her Talon travel through the wood with someone that appears to be Dathaniel, Vang Zumba, the Ranger King. That distanced perspective continues as he watches surreptitiously as Wendy and Nesh. I think it's all of them. I think, I think Taurus is here, Lysander, Nesh, the whole, the whole party and Dathaniel is standing much.

Where he is now beneath the the heart of the wood the true like center of the forest and he like places a hand on the trunk as it like descends down where you see and he seems like grimly determined from where this elf is watching and as he turns to address his talon wendy lets loose an arrow striking him in the chest he approaches as dathaniel like stumbles with this arrow begins to struggle and as he does prepare to fight his talon this elf like reaches out and grasps a nearby root and branches lash down around dathaniel's wrists holding him in place and that's where the vision ends holy shit uh billy pulls his face out of the blood and tuck is coming to and he sees billy like this and he's like no billy you and it took like scoops him up in his hands and he's like billy no you are the best of us I will avenge you he's not he's fine he's fine looking just like he's got schmutz on me so he's spitting on a rag and wiping his face off I'm right here look and then the gardeners in the garden above who have just become slimy and they're like oh my god I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die as tucks like lips start to go numb his tongue is starting to swell in his mouth billy's clapping on uh tucks cheeks like whoa slapping on his cheeks with his hands not I give up stay with us tuck do not walk gently into that dark night and then tuck is saying the same thing back yeah stay with us billy tongue is swelling do not go gentle into that dark night the thing's just like these are both fine and he takes his dad down they're fine uh so yeah your dad is is lashed to this tree like the the roots are around his his wrists and forearms and some you see go up his bicep and like dig into his shoulders are they like in his mouth yeah let's go full like matrix like he's got roots in his mouth and they're traveling down the shaft of the spear into his chest as well yeah he's like encased in roots fucked and they're like as the roots kind of like get closer to him they become more and more thorny like brambley like so the ones that are inside his chest are like the roots and they're like the roots and they're like the roots and side of him are for sure like spiking into his body good lord whoa all right so what do you do uh I would like to commune with the tree and see if I can convince it to let him go okay another thing we have not done at all is tried to talk to the annual yeah that is true I thought so I wanted I was thinking of maybe maybe before talking to the tree I'll check in with his state yeah he is not well yeah is he alive he is alive he is he is drawing rattling breaths it seems like he's been down here for a while it's hard to say exactly how long but he you know you you remember your father being a hail and hearty man tall muscular looks like he's lost a lot of weight like is it so much weight that the man we saw like there's no way they could be the same people that's a very good question do I have to roll for it yeah we could this seems like a discern realities so okay so one question yeah who's really in control here you think billy looking at this man and then thinking about the man that you had met at the very threshold of adenac all waters tower you were unsettled by he's an he's an intimidating figure and something that you realize is that he never came inside the tower he never crossed the river the threshold was that because he didn't want to or because he couldn't whoa the feeling that you felt in the forest you attributed to being in a dangerous place but maybe it was him and based on the timeline and you know you've only been in the forest for a couple weeks yeah there's no way there's no way yeah oh this is the daniel so who was that and the answer is there's only one possible solution a shiver goes up billy colonel dan master of disguise it's like he like remembers like the gold tooth or something we look up and there's a gold tooth and a hand reaches up and pulls the rubber mask off to daniel's face we all and then unison go colonel daniel's face colonel daniel's face colonel daniel's face colonel daniel's face colonel daniel's face colonel daniel's face colonel daniel's face What a wicked way to ruin our show.

Just throw the last few episodes into the can. Yeah, exactly. The last 10 seasons. Yeah, basically. We go back to Mudlark. The last 200 years. You were fucking my mom the whole time? Yeah, Sean, just being like, and it's so clear to you, those conversations that you had with Dan all those years ago, him being like, oh, you're an elf. Why would he know that? He wasn't your dad. He was always trying to get me to play catch with him. If it turns out that I've just been an idiot this whole time.

The only way he could know you were an elf if he was your daddy. Why would he try to get you to eat that gross herb stuff if he didn't know that you were half elf and that you could survive it? Why not? This is our best. Our series long big reveal. He was just trying to take care of me this whole time, but doing a bad job because he's just a shitty dad. AKA, just a dad. Just a dad. Oh my God. I forgive you, shitty dad.

And as you forgive your shitty dad, the roots recede and he stands tall anew and says, thank you, son. Yeah. Let's go fishing. We go fishing. And the series ends with us fishing. Roll credits. And in the distance, you see Tuck dying under a burning tree. And Billy, Billy turning into a tree. Billy tried to build a campfire and boil water. Yeah. Making soup out of his dead daddy. All of the climaxes that we've been driving towards all this time happened in the background. Our Patreon just…

No, no Patreon. Slightly on brand. I get 500 emails at the exact same time. What is wrong with you? Oh yeah, Billy, you're the one that comes to this conclusion. Okay, that's, that's actually Dathaniel. The man up there. Guys, he was the kippest man. Tuck, can you hear me? I love you too, Farrah. Fig, did you hear me? I heard you. So I can try and talk to him. I also have the small metal dwarf. I could send him in. Oh, right. Oh, I haven't used him. That is a very interesting idea. Wow.

To try and get him, to cut him down. Or like, when you say send him in, do you mean like to Dathaniel? Yeah. Like being like, fucking cut him loose and he crawls inside Dathaniel? I want to send him in like nanobots, sort of thing. That's a really smart idea. My command, so I pull out my flat piece of metal. Yeah. Set it down in my hand and summon the dwarf.

So this is a small little few inches long iron rod that you guys found in the Fanny Palace that has the, has the Macaulayne word help engraved on the side. And when you say help and ask it for a command, it turns into a tiny little metal dwarf that completes that command. Right. Yeah. You say help in Macaulayne and he pops up and goes, and like salutes. And I say, release my father.

And he hops down off your hand and starts like, you know, like goes and starts like hacking through roots that are holding him. So maybe while it does this, Ving and I can talk through stuff and try to help Tuck. Yeah. What do we think's happening with Elf Hiddleston here? Oh shit. Right. Yeah. He's, he's unconscious. He's basically unconscious right now. You could just leave him for a while. So he's not like a present threat. No. Okay. He had his arm hacked off.

Can I try to just push through the poisoning so I am like more conscious? Absolutely. Okay. Can I do that with unbound and bent unbroken? Could you read it out for me one more time? 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. So I want to be able to ignore the effect of the poisoning. Yeah. I think that works.

Like I think cause Tuck understands that like, this is really important. And Abdul understands that he wants to keep talking. I don't want to be passed over this whole scene. I think that the result of this would mean that you are not cured of the poison, but you're able to endure it. You're able to endure it. You're able to endure it. You're able to endure it. You're able to endure it. You're able to endure it. You're able to ignore it enough to move around. Continue doing your thing. Yeah.

But it might come back. Yes. If you succeed. Like I'm super fucked up. Oh yeah. So 2d6 plus con. 10. Okay. Wow. So you just haul yourself back up. Yeah. Tuck's in the pizza palace and he had to eat enough of the pizza buffet. Right. Who gave him the fortitude. I was imagining that like the mental, uh, hallucination of him overcoming. This was tuck trying to force his way into the pizza palace. Well, another took like, no, we're closed. We're closed. You can't come in. Yeah.

And I push, I push past it and I'm, I'm like pizza huts always open. I fling the doors open your eyes pop open. What a fucking stupid show. But you are, you are, uh, at least temporarily able to ignore the effects of this poison. As you force yourself to your feet, you see, uh, elf Hiddleston's eyes like flutter open and he sees you getting up and you see in his face. No. And then he passes back out before he passes out. I wave at him with his own arm. Okay.

So you are awake and the helper is, uh, working away. All right, guys, this guy's Nathaniel, the guy we've been talking to. He's the gift this man for sure. Yeah. It seems like it. Yeah. And I, I think Vings aunt has something to do with all this. It sounds like your aunt tasked one arm guy over there and the rest of them and the rest, right? Nathaniel's whole talent to betray him and plant him here in the middle of the forest to corrupt the forest.

So what we know is that Wendy's family were just regular, regular, like lower class basically, uh, and through noble corruption lost their fort, their holdings basically like their livelihood, which basically radicalized her against the nobility. Then we know that this guy, elf Hiddleston was tasked by Solara van Kieran to help the talent betrayed Nathaniel. I feel like he would have been the longterm. What do you call it? Plant. Oh yeah. Like he joined sleeper cell. Yeah. Yeah.

That makes sense. He was like a secret wood wielder. Right. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Or he might've been a gardener that was like recruited by Solara as a key part of this betrayal. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like a key, like whatever he is, he is a, an agent of the enemy at this point. Yeah. And also like elf, um, like elves, their timeline is so much longer than everyone else's. So it makes sense that this has been happening. For like a really long time. Oh yeah. Totally.

Like they've been planning this for a while. And the this that they're planning is putting a corruption at the middle of the tree. For question mark. That is the thing that we don't. To in fact, the forest for their gain or to do the bidding for the gibbous man. Yep. Those are, those are both fair conclusions to come to. Yeah. Yeah.

It seems rooted in the thing that we, we had talked about before where it's like the Vox Populi and the Vox Silvi, like the voice of the Vox, like the voice of the Vox, the forest versus the voice of the people. And like the Elven court wanted more control. So they wanted to suppress the will of the forest. So they would succumb to the will of the gibbous man by the promise of more power. Basically it would be like a. Essentially. Yeah.

I mean, they would be easily tempted by more power and then be, um, manipulated through that. He would be like, yeah, I can help you like get your way against the forest. I can help you like get your way against the forest and its will, but we have to put our will inside of it. And the mechanism for that could be this. Like. That makes sense too. I mean, like the gardeners, when they die, they plant their bodies beneath the tree. So they absorb what they know.

So it would make sense to put, you know, like someone with the obsidian in there. So that would infect the tree. Yeah. If we think about it, like they want to modify the tree and Elven bodies are, they already have the ability to interface with a tree after death. And then the obsidian is hacking. Like. Yeah. It's a virus. Yeah. It's a virus hacking to Daniel's body, allowing them to insert whatever they want into the tree.

And it would make sense if they didn't want to Daniel to die because they need him alive to keep feeding the tree. Yes. Yeah. Very matrixy. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So we, all we have to do is kill the Daniel. Yeah. But, that is a solution. That is a solution. And it solves Gash. Yeah. Well, no, the Gash was because it's the man who is known as the Ranger King. And that's the fucking gibbous man. Well, he's impersonating the man known as the Ranger King. Exactly.

So wait, if we take to thing out of here and we show them to everyone, we're like, this is to Daniel. And then we pull his head off. That's removing the gas. I don't think you know what the word Gash means. I don't think you know what the word Gash means. I don't think you know what the word Gash means. I feel like how it's worded is so important. The man known as the Ranger King and who's been walking around for whoever knows how long as the Ranger King. Like gibbous man. It's the gibbous man.

Yeah. Yeah. Poor boy. Somebody roll a, somebody roll a something. Cause I want, I want to weigh in, but I can't just weigh in. What would be the best thing to roll for when we're like using the info we've already kind of gleaned? It is discern realities, but somebody roll it. Right. I got a seven. So you get one question off the list. Specifically, regarding the Gash was useful or valuable to me. So obviously you can't really know, know anything without speaking to like the oval council. Yeah.

When the Gash was sworn, it seems like there was an imposter pretending to be the Ranger King. So does it apply that that is the person that the Gash was sworn against? Or is it the title of the Ranger King? Jessica was arguing because right now the imposter is the one who is known. As a Ranger King. Yes. And he's been the one, like if Daniel has been down here a long time. Yeah. I don't know how long then the Gibbous man has been up there. So when we swore the Gash, it's for sure that it was.

For sure. Yeah. Cause it's less than two months ago. Yeah. Yeah, totally. The one thing that Billy realizes, you know, in this like bouncing stuff off with thing, the two of you come to the conclusion that the initial plan of a change, the runes to try and dissolve the court, you think about that idea. Now that you're here in this place and you know what you know about the court and the elves, uh, and you think about the cutting with the runes, nature's law on changing.

Oh, you don't think that the changing of the runes was what corrupted like the Elvin court or whatever. It had to have been this demonic influence. That makes so much sense. So that means Nathaniel has been down there for like years. Yeah, totally. So the big, the big takeaway from that at least is that the law of the forest is immutable. It was the demonic influence that corrupted the hearts of the nobles. Oh, and also regular old ambition and greed. Okay.

But like you think now at this point that that would be impossible changing the law of the wood in a way that would affect the court enough that the court would dissolve automatically would not be possible. But if we remove this source, then that will have like a trickle down effect for the people. Yeah.

The one thing you do think, especially seeing like Solara handing out the coins and whatnot, and what you know about demonic influence, the corruption of the wood very likely put dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of elves in a position where they would be easier to be possessed. Oh, so it's hard to say how many demons currently live in the wood. Is Solara a demon then? I think she might be under the influence of one. No way to know. Okay. What if, okay, tuck here, here.

I had a, just had a brain wave. Okay. Or I, as I like to call it a brain wave. Okay. Nod sagely. I couldn't think of a part. I thought you were going to say something like, pizza related. Cause I was trying to get there. Yeah. She has your arms crossed offering a better pun. This is such a good vibe. Fuck. Fuck. It's deluxe. Pre. Brain wave. AKA stuffed crust. Crust. Yeah. The thing that tuck thought though was what if we just smash that piece of obsidian, that's in his chest. What?

Because there is a demon in there. And then what if we try and trap it in one of the coins that I have? And then maybe that would suck all of the demonic influence out of the woods. So the woods at least get better faster. It's an interesting idea. Trying to exercise the tree basically. Yes. So it's drank so much of Nathaniel's corrupted blood. Would we have to feed it something to purify it? Or does it just need time? Oh yeah. Should we spell it Laura to see if we can think of a way to do it?

Yeah. Sure. 2d6 plus intelligence. Okay. Someone else should do it. Not me. You have minus two intelligence? I have minus one. So do I. You have minus one intelligence? Duh. I have zero. Oh my God. I got a seven. Oh perfect. Interesting but not useful. And this is like how to try and draw this influence out of the tree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What if you make it kind of useful? Because it would be out of Nathaniel.

That's an interesting proposition there. This time try to make it useful. Just like kind of useful. And make it useful in an interesting way. You have a deep personal experience with nature and being a tree. Billy goes back into his suit palace about his tree memories and he's like man I sure slurped up a lot of stuff back in the day. So Billy's floating around in a bowl of tea.

Of um italian wedding soup with all the meatballs and a meatball floats by that has like a tree made out of noodles and you're like I know that tree I remember this tree and it is a memory that billy has from his tree days a part of the forest became sick through like polluted groundwater the only thing that healed the forest at that time was when a lightning strike on a warm summer came down and burnt the forest to the ground and the trees that regrew were better for it there is another way potentially another route you could go what's that so burning down the tree huge swing huge uh would work for sure you would absolutely eliminate the source of this corruption in a meaningful way the alternative is remove the poisoned source of the fire which is to daniel's body and then move against the force that it has created so you could be like okay either we burn the for it we burn this tree down and then everybody that's working against it is fucked because their thing is gone yeah or you start the process of the tree healing and you go yeah hunt down solar event and allow the tree to heal itself exactly I have another idea yeah that we can add to this I like that idea but here's here's another idea because I just had what I like to call a brainwave also known as okay so we don't burn the tree down because that's destructive and dangerous and uh there are some other reasons why you're telling me to do this he's like yeah totally yeah we all are thinking individually uh there's some other reasons why uh people might not want to be within the proximity of like a burning tree I mean air pollution's for one yeah so much and just off so many offsets yeah think about our footprint it's bad for your lungs not good it's not good so we're not going to do that so we we take to think about it and we're not going to do that so we're not going to do that because we're not going to be doing a ton of work um um um What if we like, you know, like made it like, like I just really made it big.

You made it like so big inside of the shitty tree. What if you made a good tree? So it shoots like up and like spurts huge out of the tree. Billy, he knows if he agrees to this, it's a very important job. Really big boy job to do this. Uh-huh. I will give up my life for this. Wait, what? No, that's not what I'm asking. Okay. No, you're right. Right. I didn't die last time. It's fine. No, I could do it. I will sacrifice my life for this mission. Billy doesn't really understand. How he did that.

He sees all the blood in the earth and he's like, I know what I must do. No, no, no, Billy, Billy, Billy. I will do this for my family. Is it safe? Can you do it safely? I can do it safe if I have a nap. Cool. Yeah, we could do that. I can do it. This is a great plan. You guys have come up with a really solid plan. Yep. Can you reiterate the plan to us? And maybe say it to us as if we were fucking. Try not to put it in our own words so that we can understand it.

So the plan is to use Elman's cutting of the heart tree and Billy's ability to draw time into a physical material. Sick. And Ving's sunstone and a variety of other materials to grow a new knowledge tree here attempting to fix the heart tree. Okay. So that's what, I mean, the main thing for this plan to consider is that you need the cutting. If you want to do this, you don't have it with you. You don't know where Elman is. You hope that he's safe. Oh shit. But he signaled you when.

When we fell in the garden. When we fell in the hole. I would like to talk to the tree, use thing talker and try to locate Elman. Does that make sense? Uh, yeah. Yep. We can find them really fast. Yes. Because this tree is the size of a city. You also have that like eye of the tiger on, um. What's her face? Malgath. Malgath. Yeah. Great. I'm going to check in with the eye of tiger first and see where she's at. Uh, yeah, she is probably in the garden, like speaking to guards and other gardeners.

Like there's, there are, you see that the garden is, um, not full, but bustling. Like there are people like searching the grounds. I bet they're also like, some are like. Meditating or something like that. Totally. Yeah. There are gardeners that are sitting on the, on the ground trying to commune with the tree in some way. Okay. So I'd like to try and use a world talker and talk to the tree. So like you reach out to the tree. Do you wish to take my deal to be free forever?

Um, you know what I want in this moment? I want to know what you want. You feel. You feel like a thrill. Oh, cool. Yeah. Run through the tree. I want everything. And you feel that like reverberate through the roots and through this cavern. Whoa. Is it the demon of want? You're not far. Consumption? Not far. Hunger? Not far. Greed? Somebody's going to have to roll something. I'm going to roll some realities. I'm going to roll Spout Lore. Yeah. Discern realities. Discern realities. 36 plus wisdom.

Ooh, that's no good. Oh Lord. Great. I got six. Oh, I help. I help. Billy, get over here and touch this tree with me. And touch so many trees. Nine. Nine. Makes it a seven. Perfect. Tech is also touching the trees like I'm helping too. Not doing anything at all. Yeah. Oh no. I want chicken again. Oh, I'm so hungry for chicken. Give me away. Oh, but I have to help you guys. So much. Ah. All right. So what question do you want to have to certain realities? Yeah.

Who's really in control here in terms of the demon? Yeah. Hell yes. Great question. It's interesting because it felt strange walking through the wood and seeing it sick in such a way because that's not how you know demonic influence to work. Demons and icons typically reflect human thought constructs rather than natural desire. So you're like, why is this tree so hungry? Like everything's hungry. Why is this such a big deal? How is hunger a demon?

But the hunger over everything, the hunger at the cost of all confirms to you that this must be the demon of greed. You would assume that this has been like, like, like Abdul said earlier, like a way to hack the tree basically for some reason, the gibbous man wanted to corrupt the entire forest. But couldn't do it in his usual way. So he used the elven connection to the wood. You assume. And for some reason, an arrow instead of a coin to sort of leech that influence into the tree.

I feel like the knowledge trees, because they are like spiritually imbued, like they're part fairy almost like they're harder for like the gibbous man to gain purchase over. Yeah, that's true. They are kind of like we were saying, like, like how druids kind of overlap. Yeah. So I think of like the knowledge trees being the same. It's like the same thing where it's like the really old knowledge. Yeah. Also, like in just the narrative of the moon has no doesn't feed the trees.

The trees live without the moon. Right. I mean, like, yeah, they need the sun. So they are an energy that is somewhat. They don't give a fuck about the night sky. No. Yeah. So it makes a lot of sense that it was like the gibbous man needed the elven people as this like mediating interface. Can we get clear answers from the tree? If I just take the arrow out of. Dathaniel? That's a great question. It would definitely lose its connection to that demon. You think?

I mean, I've been wanting to pull this arrow for a while. Oh, do you want to do it then? I was thinking that. Does it make sense? Yes. The helper like emerges from Dathaniel's mouth. Work done. God, I forgot you were in there. But he's still like, you know, hung by his wrists, by his arms and shoulders. But the internal work, he like nods, gives a thumbs up and starts to move towards the branches. So this is a. You know, this is a. I know that internally he is at least stabilized. Okay. Yeah.

Cool. So he's really just mostly held up by his arms at this point. Yeah. They're like dug into his arms, but not. It's not as bad as like a bunch of thorns in his gut. And I imagine he came out and he was wearing like a little like doctor's outfit. He looked like that Patrick Dempsey character. From Grey's Anatomy. Grey's Anatomy. With that ring that's so silver. Yeah. The like reflective thing they wear on their foreheads. Yeah. And he's just like, oh God. Yeah.

It's definitely what you want to do after surgery. So much blood. Yeah. Wipes like all over. Wipes it. It's like a little metal face. This house is clear. But yeah, the work has taken time, but it is, it is complete. Okay. I'm going to use discern realities to see if I can extract this arrow safely. Yeah, totally. Five plus wisdom. Yeah. Seven. Okay. Nice. One question. What here is valuable, useful to me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Because elven physiology is, however, slightly a little bit different than human. Like their organs aren't necessarily in the exact same spot. Not the exact same size. Yeah, exactly. Wink. No wonder they're so stable on snow. Yeah. Such a low center of gravity. Yeah. That's why you meant three skis. Yeah. Like a tripod. So cold. So cold. Like a skidoo. You can't do it too long or it gets too small, though. It's so cold. Hot cocoa? You looking at this wound and the arrow and feeling around.

At this point, like his clothes are like hanging off of him. He was wearing his ranger gear when he came down here. But he is like so lean now. You are devastated to learn that this arrow most certainly struck him in the heart. No. He is alive. And you. You assume that your father's sheer force of will necessitated violence. He has been kept alive either by himself or through this demonic influence, but. Or by the tree. Or by the tree. Being so connected to the tree. Exactly.

The beating heart of the wood itself may have kept him alive. You do not think all is lost. You think there is something that you could devise as a way to save him. Or someone else might be able to figure out a way. Because he is alive. He is alive right now. I mean, there's plenty of elves up there who. Like, this is Dathaniel. They would help him. Yeah. There is also a fanny pack around your waist containing two of the greatest minds of the magical age. Oh. Oh. We're just. We're just. Right.

Then. Then we'd have to talk to them. We'd have to interrupt them. It is. I mean, am I. Does that. Okay. Does all of this make sense? That makes a lot of sense. The way that I saw this. Dathaniel is a very mentally powerful person. The reason that there's an arrow is because he never would have willingly accepted demonic possession in a million years. They forced it on him. They forced it on him. Into his heart.

Dathaniel's mind is essentially like the spiritual, iconic, and cognitive equivalent of a diamond. Like, it was like, you're not getting anything in there unless you like. Yeah. Shatter it. The only person that could destroy Dathaniel's mind is Dathaniel. And he absolutely was attempting to do that himself over time. And you believe that with a comment like Perel is a transmuter. He's proficient in the transmutation of flesh specifically.

He might be able to help or at least tell you if it's possible to save him. Him and Morris also like built the hyperbaric chamber that Aquaria is in. That's true. That is also very true. She was fatally wounded. And they built that thing to keep her alive. Yeah. Very, very true. So we shouldn't take the arrow out here. We should take him into the fanny pack.

The other thing that you need that we should consider is you have thus far not taken out the fanny pack because you are worried about exposing it. There's a risk. But we, I think that we need to take this risk to try and save your dad. Okay. That makes sense. All right. Can Billy build a fairy circle? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That would be sick. Okay. Let's, Ooh, let's talk about this. Cause this is a move we've spoken about the changeling potentially having.

So this is the first time that Billy's going to attempt to create a circle himself. Okay. Do I have to use something? Maybe I have to use like, I feel like I should use something. I mean, definitely a fairy child hold. Yeah. I'll use a fairy child hold. So I'm, I'm at zero for the rest of the day. Yeah. Probably 2d6 plus charisma. This is sick. This is fucking cool. Oh, with charisma. Yeah. Sweet. I got 13. Oh, wow. Wow. All eight. Let's get it to 20. You guys. Let's get it to 20.

And I'll age his age. Uh, okay. Please describe for me how Billy goes about this process, knowing that he needs to create like a protective place for his friends. Okay. So there are dances that Druids would do to call on different spirits. And fairies like depending on their need and sort of like how he knitted the winter shins. He has to knit the fairy circle. Basically he has to weave the circle and the walls to protect us in. Whoa. Cool. I love that. Yeah. So that's what he does.

Um, like almost like pulling vines from the fairy world. Like you can't see them, but he can see them. Yeah. Um, he'll have to like dance in like the pattern of that weave. So he's dancing around in this circle. Uh huh. Like joyously weaving pieces of the fairy into the material plane. Whoa. Yeah. Cause the mushroom rings kind of do that on their own with their like mycelium networks underneath. Yeah. Oh yeah. You know.

So then when Billy makes a ring, like what is the physical ring that can be seen in the material when he does this? I guess you do see like fungus roots like coming up from the ground. Hmm. Um, like these little white threads start weaving. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a wall.

Built you can see but like energetically there is a wall and yeah like where billy steps and weaves like more white threads like weave together to create the circle cool so are there like little mushrooms or is it just like an almost imperceptible circle the mushrooms uh no there's no mushrooms I like that billy's in this in the fairy realm there's all those little glowing mushrooms popping up yeah you can't see them the fruiting and you can feel in the air like when you close the window on a stormy night yeah it goes like and then there's just stillness around you like there's a new quality to the silence yeah and then um yeah he's like okay I'm done and we we like yeah whoa don't clap insulting no your dance I love your dance we don't we don't think about the dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance we don't we don't think about the dance we don't we don't think about the dance it's kind of embarrassing really it's not something you should see wow well thank you for building the fairy ring billy you're welcome uh did you build it around dathaniel or just like in the chamber good question yeah um I guess like are dathaniel and hiddleston included in this or are you like dragging them into the ring afterwards we're dragging dathaniel and I'm not dragging to think or the hiddleston okay that's right yeah I think we're just gonna call him hiddleston yeah it's easier at this point the helper completes the work of removing the remaining roots from dathaniel allowing him to be slumped slumped into your arms if you so choose yep and you you don't realize until you pass into the fairy ring just the weight of this place that's been weighing on you like you feel a weight has lifted off your shoulders as you enter this safe place uh and you think you're good to open up the fanny pack if you so choose let's take him inside yeah tuck starts building the tent yeah um I I feel like billy needs to stay outside for this though to like keep to maintain it he has to like speak to the like speak to the wall to let dathaniel in okay billy are you coming in I don't know if I can like the roots are sort of like showing up around me billy's feet um I'm worried about if he'll collapse if I'm gone do you want me to stay with you it's pretty scary out here um I I think we're okay I built this pretty well but I do want to stay out here and just make sure like nothing opens up and um I think bing needs you more right now okay billy if you need me you call me okay I will okay the um the cough fart like we practice and then tuck shakes his head he's just like just scream if something bad happens I'm gonna cough fart I'm gonna cough fart and after tuck says that he goes and he like ruffles through elf hiddleston's shit and he like pulls the obsidian coin that he had out yeah he puts it in his bag of coin you finish building the tent you open up the flap tuck you duck inside bing you carry your shockingly frail father oh so late through the doorway yes like you remember this towering man and now he's skin and bones and billy you sit in this chamber alone looking up at like the tattered threads of the vines that held dathaniel vang zumba here for god knows how long and you're a cough and hiddleston's eyes flutter open and they swim in his perception until they lock on you whoa and he says he knows you're here and that's where we're gonna end it for this week whoa I'm your game master Sean O'Hara joining me is always playing tacoma dome the barbarian abdulaziz so long playing ving the half elf druid Paul Oppers take care and playing fat billy the halfling thief jessica tie bye thank you to aaron reed from vancouver sunday service for our intro and outro music if you want to hear all of aaron's original music you can find that at aaron reed.bandcamp.com and all the music produced for the show at soundcloud.com if you want to support the show you can support us at patreon.com slash Spout Lore or Spout Lore.com slash money please and most of all thank you 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 spout you!

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Gather round friends, let me tell you a tale of three heroes noble and bold A brute, a druid, and a thief who is but nine years old You know them by name, you know them by deed, their quests are famously daring So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight Fingers half-elf, he shifts his shape and wields a spear with great might 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 The End Welcome back!

Welcome back to Spout Lore everybody, we're back and we're recording for the second time in a week For the first time in a long time And it feels so nice to see my friends again And with me as always, Abdul Aziz Hi, I play Tuck, the barbarian And my highest stat is strength And my lowest stat is intelligence You want me to read that for you?

Yes Jessica Tive Hey, I play Billy And my highest stat is dexterity And my lowest is also intelligence With zero Paul Oppers I play Ving, the half-elf And my highest stat is tie between strength and wisdom But my lowest stat is intelligence And zero Which I don't really understand how games work Oh wow, you know what?

I would be surprised at this trend But I think everything that's happened in this game thus far makes it not a surprise And joining us, guest player, continuing guest player, Mark Robertson I play Shathane Wick, the grumpy elf ranger And my highest stat is wisdom I got 16 with a plus three And my lowest is constitution with a zero Oh Which I Probably someone will like that Probably someone with a battle injury Yeah Probably a limp we haven't talked about Oh He's been limping this whole time He used to play football But you guys are just too polite to bring it up Yeah Well, I mean, you don't want to bug an old person about how their body's falling apart Think about that, guys And we don't want to talk about football No Nobody wants to talk about football No That's why we don't bring it up Yeah It's Because football is baseball in this world In this world, yeah, it's baseball But instead of a ball, you use a foot Yeah You do?

You take a severed foot And you throw it And then you fucking wind up with a bat and hit it There's no bases, also But there's like certain parts of the world that specialize in making these feet Because they just keep washing up on the shore All right Seriously, edit that out this time Don't leave it in like the Gilligan's Island But leave that Maybe it'll look like an idiot What are you talking about?

Gilligan's Island That Gilligan's Island thing is maybe the funniest moment of the whole podcast It fell so flat Because you look like an idiot I checked my phone I checked my phone I checked my phone to see if the thing had turned off The silence afterwards I was vacuuming and I stopped vacuuming Every electronic device in the world turned off on that Yeah It's a pop culture touchstone, don't worry about it I thought it was weird that you guys made fun of him, so there I'm with you Yeah It was cruel Yeah Okay Recap For last week, we entered the hive of wasp and found Ving attached to the wall, all papered up and unconscious And And through some quick thinking, you all created a sort of distraction in which you decided to set Billy's old grass cloak on fire to try and smoke the wasps out Using Larry, Terry, and Chad as a makeshift flint and steel by just getting them to grind up against each other In a way that they've probably always wanted to, but before their individuality became apparent, they were unable And it worked so well that it went really poorly Yeah And you set the whole thing, the whole hive on fire very, very quickly Yeah Billy created a magical shield Cool Using like every ounce of energy that he had and all three of the magical crystals, well, apparently magical crystals that you've collected throughout your adventures And by that I mean, I believe the first episode Yeah, we got them in the first episode, and when you say collected throughout your adventures, you're kind of implying that I didn't just walk into one room and grab all three There's a ton of magic inside of a woman Smashed a bunch of lamps.

I smashed a bunch of lamps in a mayor's house and then I stole them. Yeah. And then it later turned out that they were magic, which was great. A great coincidence. Yeah. You then used the small sapling given to you by the spirit you, who you named Gary and decided that he was an oak tree at some point. You all, through teamwork and friendship, created an environment through which Gary could thrive. And he burst through the ceiling and is now a gigantic Gary oak tree.

The very first we, I think we decided of his kind. Yeah. And he created a Gary oak forest, which spanned off into the horizon of the dust bowl. And that is where we left you sort of sitting in the massive boughs of this enormous tree, sharing a nice group hug in the boughs of the tree. And Chathain was also there. And Perel grabbed the… The crystals that Billy had used and saw that they have begun to crumble. And that is where we join our heroes now. Did all three crystals crumble?

Billy, you still have like all three of them basically, right? Well, except for the one Perel took. Yeah. They all look like they're sort of losing their luster. Okay. And just slowly cracking and crumbling. And Perel looks very concerned. And he says, well, these are the spiritual representations of the crystals you have in the material plane. So who knows? What this could actually mean. But my guess is that it's not good. Sorry to break up your loving group hug. So I've seen this before. Oh?

This is… You guys need to go home. We all need to go. To tell you the honest truth, I didn't think we were going to find your friend here. I didn't think we were going to find your friend alive. You can't live here for very long. Anything from our world can't stay here for very long. Ving holds his hands up and they're shaking. Pretty hard. Oh. So the fact that he's still here, still alive is amazing. So we need to get out of here as quickly as we can.

Everything's going to fall apart soon, including us. Okay. Okay. How do we… Should we climb down or… Yeah. Yeah? I'm sorry. I'm so like… Billy's tired. No, it's cool. Yeah. We cuddled for like four hours. I feel pretty good. You guys have been up here for just like… Four hours? Yeah. Yeah. We've been… It's hard to breathe in. It's nice. We've been enjoying the view, like watching like the mountains shift in the background and like the forest grow and yeah, it was nice.

We hung out for a long time. And to Perel's credit, he gave us four hours to do one hug. Yeah. Four hours spirit. World time. It seemed respectful. Yeah. Wizards aren't the best at… And I've just been sitting half a branch away just like… Not involved. Any second now. They'll be ready. I'll drop this on them. I'm going to drop this horrible reality on them. You guys are dying. Okay. So what's the plan? Is the plan to like head back to the interface? Yeah. How do we get out of here?

That's the way back out. We have to go through the interface? Yeah. Okay. Hey, Gary. Gary. You feel the whole forest shake like… Oh, he's a big boy now. I think you could give us like a little escalator drop down to the ground. Sorry. Sorry. That's great. We're getting into the app. Yeah. And also, I would like to point out that now escalators exist in our world. Oh, right. Yeah. Billy described it as an escalator. But you feel Gary shake again the branches.

A bunch of boughs come up underneath you and create this sort of staircase to the forest floor. Oh, okay. Wow. I really love… I really love Gary. Let's give him a hug. Yeah. Yeah. Kiss in the tree? Yeah. Yeah. You feel a little leaf caress your cheek. Oh. And Gary spirits you down. No pun intended. Spirits you down to the forest floor and a bunch of like roots and branches come up underneath you and create like a airport style moving walkway. And he just trucks you through his forest now.

Cool. Yeah. Can I study his essence? Can I just do that while we're going? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't see why not. Okay. I feel like studying the essence of a spirit in the spirit world is probably extra easy. Yeah. You're still communing in a respect, but you're in the presence of like pure spirit. My gills drink it in. Yeah.

And this is the first, like this is a tree that did not exist in the world previous. So now you have this like new strong… Gary. Yeah. And I can call on Gary. Call upon the Gary. Yeah. Because he would… It would be him. Yeah. So we can have him come back. Billy. Billy. I'm doing it for you, bud. Thank you. You're welcome. As we're being shuttled out, I want to ask you a thing. Because you said that you didn't think we were going to find Vang. Why did you come?

So I've been here before on my own. Searching for my own things, my own people. That last time I was here was 30 years ago. I thought maybe somehow you two yahoos. The person you were looking for sounded like a person I was looking for. So I thought maybe, maybe somehow we could… You could help me do the thing I could never do before. But who I'm looking for is not your friend. Who are you looking for, Wick? This is something I really want to… I need to talk to your friend, Vang.

About first. All right. I will just trail ahead. Yeah, I'll go. I'll go with Billy. If you guys need privacy. As you're being swept along on these like roots and stuff like that. Yeah. And I'll ask Tuck. Just please make sure that our little fish friend doesn't try to listen. Yeah, I got… Perel is in my beard. Because he's like a little one foot tall. Yeah, he hasn't changed back to like a normal size yet. All right. What are you thinking? I'm thinking… So as I told your friends, I didn't…

I didn't think we were going to find you here alive. I thought I was going to use your friend's desire to track down their partner. As I see now, one of the key members of their team. We're a family. Yeah. Yeah, I see that. I see that. And I was here looking for my family as well. But you shouldn't… You shouldn't be alive. You've been here so long. We should have found just dust. So Billy and Tuck and Perel are up at the front as they're being swept along on these Gary Oak roots.

Gary is sweeping you through the forest and you see the trees start thinning ahead of you. And as you've been going through, trees have been growing and maturing all around you. Oh, cool. Like it's in motion. And there are small animal spirits flitting about and larger ones passing through the trees as life returns to this area of the spirit world. You get to where you're like, all right. Plane's coming up. That's the next step.

And you get to the edge of the wood and you are on the shore of an enormous lake. Where the planes used to be, you now see like… Ving, you can see it through your expertise in the spirit world. Water has moved from where it was in Nourishing Gary in the Dust Bowl and has come to settle in this area of the plains, creating this huge lake. And your way is sort of… As you and Shathane are talking… You find your path blocked by this enormous lake. I'd like to turn into a boat. Huh? I use my…

Boat crafter? Yeah, world talker. Yeah. Pleasure crafter. Nice. Pretty good. Okay. Keep in mind, again, shape changing in the spirit world is very strange. Oh, yeah. I won't be able to turn into boat anymore. Yeah. But I mean, like, also, if you turned into water, you would be drawing the spirit of water towards you as opposed to becoming water. I have an idea. Okay. We have Perel. Yeah. So, yeah, we… Me and Billy get to the edge of the lake and I'm like, fuck me, this fucking world.

And then I take Perel out of my beard. I'm like, you're up. And I just throw him into the lake. You see his chubby little fish body splash into the water. And he goes… For a second, he, like, flaps his arms around. I'm like, no, no. You're a fish. He's like, oh. I know. I was merely acclimatizing myself to my environment. Give me one moment, please. And he embarrassedly kind of flaps towards the shore a little bit closer. And he's like, this might take me a little bit to become…

Walking is one thing, but I'm not actually used to being a fish. This might take a moment. Just, you know, do whatever you want. And he sort of plops down on his little fish butt. And he closes his eyes. And you see his body is shifting and moving. But in the meantime, you have a few minutes to kill while he is figuring out the best way to do this. Are we experiencing symptoms of being in the spirit world for too long now?

Now that you think about it, you realize that none of you have eaten or slept since you've been here. It feels like it's catching up to you. Although these aren't your bodies, it feels like all of a sudden you realize, oh, yeah. I haven't… Ate or slept in three days. Like it's all just slowly catching up. But you can feel that it's going to start crushing you down pretty soon. Unless you do something about it. Well, I just plunge my face in the water and I go… Billy starts drinking from…

He gets down… Does he just get on your hands and knees? Yeah, I mostly… I kind of do just like a front fall into the water. And start swallowing? Yeah. The taste is indescribable. Indescribable? Yum. Does it taste… No. Yum? Gross? Well, you are drinking like a pure spirit of water. Hey, Tuck, you should try this. Oh, yeah. I'm going to do it too. And I also front fall into the water just like Billy did. And then I'm like… You guys should try and drink as little of that water.

Don't drink the spirit water. What are you doing? Billy, get out of there. What? Billy, you can't have that… We ate spirit food like a day ago. You ate food? Food here? Yeah. Who are these rocks? This is… Oh, you haven't met them yet. This is Larry. Hey, what's up? He's the bad boy of the group. You know it. What's up, Larry? This is Terry. And I turn and point at Terry, who's like a little coppery now. Hi. Oh, hey, Terry. Terry, he's a sexy one. What's up? Not much, bud. Nice to meet you.

And this is Chad. And he's the one that Justin Timberlake was. Yeah, that's me. Badass moves, Chad. I'm the one that is eventually going to have a… Solo career that will outshine that of my friends. Whoa. Back to number one, huh? We'll see. Their voices really changed after they got into that fire. Hey, man, you don't always like to be engulfed in flame like that. Also, maybe it's hard to remember character voices from time to time. It's just rocks, ditch, mushrooms. Who knows, man?

You know how it is. Aren't they… Are they fused into like a little triangle shape? Kind of. With like a crystal coming out of the top or something? Yeah, it's sort of like a messy little clump. Also, something to think about. Like, Tuck, you're sitting with your friends and sitting with your rock friends. Something clicks a little bit for you is that Shathain's talking about how things from the material plane can't survive for very long in the spirit world.

And you think, I wonder if that's the other way around, too. Oh, yeah. So I turned to Shathain and Ving and I'm like, wait, can we take these rocks back with us? I don't think those rocks as they are will come with you. I'm sorry. Shathain? You can try, but it's just going to waste away. You're not allowed to bring things back. But I've heard that people have done it. Okay. How have they done it? Yeah, go ahead. Spell or… Would it be me or him? Yeah, we'll say it's Ving. Six.

That's my intelligence. Zero. Wait, I want to help him. Okay. Or no, you should help. I could help. Oh, yeah. I should help. Shathain should help. I've actually tried to tell you. I've actually tried to tell you. I've actually tried to tell you. I've actually tried to tell you. I'm going to take things back now. Right, yeah. We'll see if I can… Yeah, yeah. If I actually have any ideas about what might succeed. You can do it. Nine. Oh! Yes! You did it.

So I guess the first time I tried it, I brought my own pen and paper and made a map, and I got back, and it dissolved. It just vaporized. The second time, I thought, I'm much smarter. I can just make a map when I get there. And so I got there, and I got some bark, and I got a stone, and I carved something out, and I went back, and it dissolved.

Then the one time that something did work, I took a book with me, and I made some ink here, and made a quill, and wrote in the map, and made notes, and took it back, and it survived. It eventually faded. I think I know what happened. I think… What kind of feather did you use for the quill? It was a turkey feather. A turkey feather. I think what happened was when you used that spirit's feather… A feather.

You imbued the object with the spirit of turkey, and you brought back turkey in the object, in your map. It did smell delicious. Yeah. Let's all give thanks for the fact that he was able to do that. Yeah. Yeah. You feel the spirit of turkey wash over you, and you all feel very thankful for the things that you have. Wow. We all hold hands and quietly go… So I think if you can make… If you can take these rocks, and you can fuse them into something… A turkey! A turkey! Oh my God.

I got really excited. Jessica, are you okay? Oh, I just… I've been holding my pee really hard for a while. Oh, no. I can almost let go. You can pee anytime you want. No, because you guys are pissy. I'm good. It's still in there. Yeah. I've peed in the lake so many times. Billy, just pee in the lake, but… Oh, in… Oh, okay. I've been peeing… Look, I've been pissing in this lake. Really? Yeah. I've been pissing my pants in this lake pretty consistently.

Can you squat into the water at least? No. All right. I just lifted up my loincloth. You see the spirit of water moving away from Tuck's legs. I'll pee too. Yeah, and a circle starts forming around Billy as the water recedes. Whoa, this is weird. There's just like a wall of water that's like two feet high around my legs. The water starts to lap at the shore, and you hear… Stop it. Stop, please. I don't swim in your toilet. Don't pee in my body. I'm not your piss monster.

So based on Ving's experience and Shathane's experience with spirits in the spirit world and the material plane, the best way that has been seen in the past is when spirits inhabit an object in the material plane. They have like an anchor point to exist from as opposed to trying to exist in a pure spiritual form. And is it… That's done magically? The anchoring? Do we know the process of the anchoring? Well, it's… Yeah. It's usually like a spiritual experience where they… They… They…

They latch onto a spiritual projection of a material object, which allows them to sort of transfer to that object in the spiritual world. Oh, okay. Can I tell you my idea? Yeah. Is it okay if I do? Yeah. An axe head. Oh. It could be forged. The head of my axe. Whoa. Whoa. Such a cool idea. So if they were to anchor to something like a weapon, they would be able to survive in the material plane. Ving, could you use elemental masts? Sort of thing now.

Maybe can you try and transfer them into the axe? I mean, I can try. Okay. Because they're an element. Try and master them. While this is happening, what is Perel? You see Perel is sort of like ballooning and moving in this like sausage-y shape. Yeah, I'm teaching him how to float. Billy's teaching him how to float? So what's Billy's floating lesson? Hey, Perel, just taking your breath and you spread your fins out and you just have to be confident about it. Push your hips up towards the surface.

So is Billy floating in the water? Yeah, he's just doing the starfish thing. He floats really easily. He's got a lot of body fat. So Perel's laying down in the water next to you and he's like this and he spreads his arms and legs out? Yeah, that's pretty good. I gotta make enough space for everybody. Yeah, so you just keep taking a breath and you grow a little bit and then you just keep doing it. We'll do it together. I don't grow.

So Perel's like and he gets like half again as bigger and then twice as big and then four times as big and he's becoming this huge like inner tube sort of looking thing with a big head. You're looking great. Yeah, so that's happening and Billy and Perel are floating in the water. Yeah, if you see what they're doing from our perspective it looks like a standard kind of lake cottage thing where like a small boy is blowing up an inner tube. A party island.

Yeah, it looks like a party island actually. It's the thing where do you remember blowing up an inner tube and then the wind coming and like blowing it away a little bit? You have to like hold on. So Perel starts lifting up a little bit. Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy. I have to swim under him. I'm doing that a lot. Swimming back and forth. Some beach shenanigans. Alright, and now so Ving, 2d6 plus wisdom I think. Five. Five? Plus your wisdom? Oh, seven. Yeah, man. Come on. Man.

Alright, so Elemental Master. On a seven to nine you choose one from this list. The effect you desire comes to pass. You avoid paying nature's price and you retain control. Oh. Oh, uh oh. Just one, eh? Just a one. I mean, I really want it to happen for us, so I guess the effect you desire comes to pass. Okay. I like to meld them. Mm-hmm.

Okay, so you put Larry, Terry, and Chad on the ground and Tuck, you put your like axe or what you've come to understand as the spiritual projection of your axe on the ground. What are you saying to Larry, Terry, and Chad? It's cool. Just be yourselves. It'll all be over soon. Just look at Tuck. Just look at Tuck. Yeah, and you can feel their gaze on you. Yeah, I kneel down next to Vang, too, and I hold his hand, and I like touch the rocks. I'm like, it'll be okay. Oh, don't touch them.

No, sorry. And then I take my hand off. I'm like, it'll be okay. And you hear them go, okay, man, yeah, no, we're we could do this. Yeah. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't even know we were us, you know? You're our bro. Our bro for life. Yeah. Bros for life. And then I do a fist bump. And you just bump this rock. Yeah. You bump this lump of rocks and crystals and stuff. And they start to heat up like they did in Wasp's Hive.

Like they sort of roll in this kind of liquid form towards the axe, and you see pieces of crystal and copper coming up out of the ground as the other aspects of this spirit are being called to this thing. And they flow over your axe at the head, and you see the sort of hard rock of which one's just the steely kind of rock? Chad. You see Chad's rocky form sort of flowing down the handle of the axe until it's this blending of wood and stone. Awesome. And the coppery one? Copper is Larry.

And you see Larry sort of flowing out over the head of the axe, creating this like burnished copper blade. And you see the crystals move towards the back of the head and create this spike of purple crystal that comes out of the back of the axe. Whoa. So now it's this sort of burnished copper blade with an amethyst spike on the back and this stone blended wood down the handle. Can I touch it now? I guess I say this to Ving, I'm like oh, can I touch it now?

And I'm like a kid on Christmas in that I am doing exactly what I'm doing in real life where my hands are clasped behind my back because I'm afraid I'm going to touch it and I'm bouncing from side to side. I'm like, oh my god. But Ving has to pay nature's price. What do you think that means in this case? I lose my hands in the spirit world. What? Are you serious? No. What? Just for now. Okay. No, I like that. These are your real hands. You're not a spirit here.

Well, maybe I'll get spirit hands for the real world. Whoa, ghost hands. Think of all the cool bar tricks. I was going to say like this could be like another tell sort of thing where like you touch the crystal and the crystal like creeps up your hand. Like do you think that's what's going on? Yeah, it's kind of bad. So, okay. So you're like helping them shift on this axe like you're touching them and helping them move. Digging into the ground to underneath it.

Yeah, and then crystals just start growing up your hand. So what's the end state of this? Horrible looking hands, of course. So both of your hands are just like covered in crystal and metal? Crystal and metal and stone. Yeah. Wow. So now you've got these like crystal-y stone hands and it's going to be difficult for you to use your hands for a while. Sure. Until you figure out what this means. Where's the whack off joke? Oh, yeah. I hope you jerk me off later. Oh my God. What do we think? Okay.

Here's the thing, Mark. Is jerk off jokes are a fucking art and you can't just demand one. Like whenever you want. He makes a great point. First. At first. So that's minus one to Dex. Jerking off. Yeah, that's it's fucked up. Billy, you look over and you see Vang has got his hands in the air and they're now like, what the fuck? Yeah. Pearl, don't look. And Pearl like floats in a circle till he's facing it. He goes, oh, no. What did I say? And then he keeps floating in a circle. He goes, oh, oh.

And then he's facing away from me. All right. That's what I thought. And I'm like, oh, no. It's okay. Vang, your hands. It's okay. And I take his wrists in my hand. I'm like, I'm so sorry. No, this is a gift for your rocks. I appreciate that. I hope this doesn't stay. Yes. I mean, narratively, it would be quite a bit to deal with. To continue to have to deal with these shitty hands that you have. Doves exist in this world. I guess. Yeah.

So is there anything else that we want to take care of on this shoreline? Because Pearl is, he's floating. He's like kind of flipping his flippers on one side to motorboat his way over. And he floats backwards on his back. And he says, I think this form should serve our purpose as well. Oh, cool. Okay. This is really nice in here. Thanks, Pearl. I have sunglasses on, by the way. It's bright at the beach. Jessica keeps winking. She's winking constantly. Billy's sitting underneath.

Like an inflatable palm tree. She's an iPod dog. Yeah. She's got a LaCroix in her hand. She's kicking back. I feel pretty cool. Billy, where did you get board shorts? Who knows? So yeah, this is the situation. You've got your Larry, Terry, and Chad axe. You can pick it up now. Yeah. I pick it up. And I'm like, are you guys in here? Oh, yeah, man. We're so good in here. Yeah, it's pretty sick. I feel so cool. I want to kill somebody now. Oh, no. No, but like in defense. Oh, okay. All right.

We have to have a conversation, I guess. Pearl's like, all aboard. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I hop on. Oh, yeah. I'm getting on that. Yeah. All right. Put ourselves in this wizard's hands one more time. Perfect. Yeah. And Pearl starts flapping his like big foot flippers like this. And it's just like kicking up water. And moving across this lake. Abdul, nothing? Hey, Pearl, I hope you jerk me off later. Yeah. We got to see. We got to stop forcing it. But I think it's like an exorcism.

We just keep forcing it. It'll stop. Yeah. And yeah, you sort of have a few moments of quiet as you are flapping across the spirit lake. Pearl, just so you know, you've never looked stupider than you do right now. And he's flapping. And he's looking straight. He's looking straight up. Because he's on his back. He's like, oh, I'm well aware. Hey, Tuck, be cool. I taught him how to do this. And somehow it's now formed into like a lovely like sort of pleasure cruiser type shape.

Including like formed in seats in the back. This is everything I wanted. And I'm sitting at the back with my arm up on the stern and just my foot up. And I just put my cloak back, put my hood back for the first time. And who knows how long. And just get my hair a little tussle. And let the wind. You're floating on this water. Billy's like the captain of this party boat. And I noticed that Shathane is trying to look cool. And I'm like, hey, everybody, look.

Shathane's trying to look cool on the back of the boat. And everyone turns around and I just look cool. I was hoping that would be more embarrassing for you. That's what you get. Tuck's just like, damn. I believe Ving and Shathane were talking about something. Yeah. And you come back to the back of the boat. There's another, there's a spare seat back there. It's a booth. So I'm a wick. You're a, what are you? A Zumba. A Zumba. That's a, that's a human. That's my mother's name.

That's your mother's name. That's right. How did that happen? Well, I have a human mom. Yeah. Do you have any idea how you survived here this long? You should have been. I think it's just from. From going in and out all the time. From going in and out of here. Yeah. Even shape-shifting back in and out. So I'm always, I'm very close to it. So I just assume that I always have a little bit more of me here anyways. Tell me more about your, your mother. I don't, I don't know a whole lot.

I mean, I lived with her in the frozen north and she wasn't very well liked. We lived outside of town. Um, a lot of weird things happened at home. Uh. What about yourself? What about your dad? What about the elf side? I don't talk to my father. He's dead to me. Dead to you. Yeah. Yeah. Why? What, then what happened? Uh, well, I think he, he killed my mom. That's what happened. I mean, at least I think he did. Do you know why she wasn't liked? I think people were afraid of her. That can happen.

Elves can be like that sometimes. Yeah. My. Uh. My wife, my wife was human. My wife. And I met, we were in the service of the principality. We were, the war started. They needed help. I was a mercenary ranger core. I met her training magic skills, training to be a wizard. It was wonderful. We, um, lived a life of luxury. And, um, then the war changed us, changed her, changed the wizards. They were asked to do terrible things.

Some of them resisted at first, but there was a class of wizard, a group of wizards that, that loved it, that reveled in it and it twisted them. They made them evil. They took control, took control of her. Made her something I didn't recognize, didn't understand. How long were you together? Did you, how would you have any other family? We had a little girl. What was her name? Morag. And, um. That's a terrible name. The, uh. Those are idiots. The I has a little forward leaning. It would.

Accent on it. God damn it. Two G's in Morag. Oh, God. And, and no R. Gag me with this. Yeah, I don't even know. It's written in runes. So, they didn't have an R. Do you have any other kids? I don't know. She, um. She was pregnant. She, we, um. We should have had a little boy. Should have. She disappeared. I don't know if she. Hmm. Things were chaotic. Things were. Wizards disappeared. Wizards vanished. Wizards ran, wizards ran away. Wizards stole universes. Realities made their own. Hmm.

And she left. I think she knew that I. Would try and stop her. Try and stop. Try and save my children from. Where did she go? Do you know? She came here. I know she was here for. For some time at least. I don't know if the children are here. I don't know. If my son was born. What happened to my son? I don't know. But. Did you. Did you feel anybody else here? Did you hear. Tell of any other humans as you when you got here? Did you? I. I haven't run into anyone yet.

Every time I come back I'm only able to stay for a short time. The longest I stayed was thirty years ago. And I was sick for months. I almost fell apart. And Cartman. My friend Cartman who helped us get here. Nurse me back to health. So. When I heard your friends talk about your. Special abilities as a shape shifter I thought maybe. This is another chance for me to get back. And search for her the way I need to. You want my help? I'll help you. If it's that important to you.

I mean, I would want help looking for my mom. I don't know what I'm going to do when I find her, if I find her. But. Well, let me know. I don't know what we can do to help. Shapeshifters are in and out. You're here for a short time. I need to stay for long enough to travel far enough to the reaches of the spirit world, where I think she is, to try and track her down. How do you stay here this long? How did you stay here? I think it's because I left behind Crocodile. I was Crocodile and I died.

I lost touch. So he's back there and I'm stuck here. So you think based on that, based on your experience getting stuck here, that it would be possible to bring Shithane's physical body into the spirit world, which would allow him potentially, based on whatever you were able to accomplish, would allow him to stay here for much, much longer than he has been able to in the past. But it would be a one in one out sort of thing. You would take his place in the material plane.

He would take your place in the spiritual world. And until he could figure out a way out, that would be, Shithane would be here in perpetuity. Whoa, Freaky Friday. Where is that? Perpetuity? It's a hotel. Oh, nice. Yeah, it's very beautiful. And yeah, so that's sort of what you think the situation is as Perel's fishy body flaps across this spirit lake. What are Billy and Tuck up to on Perel's party boat? We're playing beach volleyball. There's a beach volleyball. It's really small though.

I'm playing beach volleyball with Billy. He's the volleyball. Who's catching me? You're catching me, I guess. I'm running back and forth. What's the score? It's 40 to one. Yeah. One time I landed in the lake and I was like, score! Oh, man. And I get like after a certain amount of time, Perel, ends up on the other side of the lake and you are on the edge of Yu's forest. Perel shakes himself back down to a humanoid form.

He just gets up to the edge of the lake and goes like, and he floats around his, and then he makes himself just like man-sized. Oh. Hind legs, torso. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Fishy tail. You suck now. I just figured it would be easier for me to be like in a, in a transportable form. No one would have to carry me. I wouldn't, I'd be able to keep up. He looks kind of good. Really? Yeah. He's got like this cool little mustache. Huh. And he's gross. Are you kidding me? Well, he's still a fish man. Yeah.

He looks like what, like he wears Ed Hardy shirts. Yeah. He, he transformed himself in Ed Hardy shirt. He's kind of like a buff guy. There's a dragon pattern on his shirt. He fucking smells like. LaCroix. Yeah. He looks like one of those white guys on Canada day who goes to the corner store in Chinatown and gets himself one of those like Chinese hats and wears them as if he needs some protection, but he doesn't. Yeah. He just brought his own hat.

And he also brought his own tape that used to tape up his eyes in a weird way. Okay. All right. And then he was like, Oh, there's the line. We found it in record time. Everybody. It's a high five me, Paul. I'm not touching your body. Oh, he's high fiving me. I can't. He's doing the eye thing too. No one's high fiving him as a Chinese person. I'm not okay with it, but he's my friend. So don't attack us. Don't attack us. Jessica's high fiving me so much. No I'm not. Listen to these high fives.

Everybody knows Abdul's high fiving himself. Did you say high flives? Jessica just put on a rice patty hat. No, that was a lie. So Perel comes up to the edge of the lake and he, and he shakes himself. I'm rewinding all of this. No, it's good. It's good. It's good. He's a man now. Yeah. Perel is sort of man size. He's about six, six, one. Uh, and he's just able to like walk around. He made it easy for all of you and you're giving him shit. Can I get into your cargo short pocket? I'm really tired.

Uh, please. Yes, of course. Sweet. So he's got this little like fin pouch on the side of his legs. Like I thought it would be handy. Yeah. I didn't realize what it looked like, but the handiest thing about this form is it's going to be much easier for us to keep an eye on you. Yeah, maybe so. Cool flaps, bud. Yeah. And he starts walking through use forest.

You feel the forest shaking around you, uh, as Gary did, uh, when he was a little sapling and you get the idea that the forest is acting very benevolently towards you in this case. And you find it very easy to walk yourself through. And it's, it's a very short amount of time. Like it's sort of like time bends in your mind. So you remember walking for a long time, but in no time you're at the edge of the forest and you've arrived at the interface as you remember it.

Chunks of land floating ponds and trees and this sort of misty flowy area. You feel a pole of some kind. And you remember feeling this pole when you came in, this is a thinning. This is, why this place exists. This is a great way and a great place for people to make the crossover when they can. And you feel the edges of the material plane pulling at your mind. What do you do? What am I supposed to do? Great question.

That's the thing is you realize that on the way in Cartwin didn't tell you what to do to get out. Fuck. Shathane, do you know? There's levels to the interface. And as you go up through these islands, as we climb back up through the, through the steps that we floated down previously, you get closer back to the real world. So you'll find everything you need when you get up to the top. Wait, you're not, you're not coming with us. No, he's not. Why? Why not? He's going to stay. Why?

When I, when I told you I could help you find your friend, I didn't think that was going to work. I thought we were going to find him dead. I thought we were going to find nothing when we got here. I thought, I'm sorry. I thought that we were going to find someone I was looking for. Who? You can ask me. Bingle, you don't need to know. He's looking for his wife. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's super. You should have said that. Why is it so secretive? Yeah.

Why are you trying to be a secret about your past? It's Vwik's a dick. Yeah. I smoothed my hair back down. Pull my cloak hood back up. You're such a loser sometimes. Emotions are hard. Yeah, here. Stare off into the horizon. I'm like, look, we've all lost people. A rooster killed my dad when I was a kid. Billy's. Who knows where they went down the river. Yeah. In a tree. I may have just lost them at Disneyland. Yeah. Disneyland is, it's just a neighborhood. It's a dump. A garbage dump. Yeah.

Disneyland. Disneyland. Oh, am I mispronouncing it? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Are you, are all three of you orphans? Yeah. There are a lot of orphans in this world. It's fine. It's fine. It's okay. Well, you guys are looking for something as well. I'm looking for something here. So I'm going to stay. The problem is I have to give him my body so he can stay. Dude, you're going to be getting a fat dick and that's how you do a dick joke. Fuck. All right. Wait, do you look like Shathane?

Well, I mean, no, only when I'm sleeping. Sorry, I don't know why that made me laugh so hard. No. That's like a kid, like when their parents get a haircut. Oh, I hate it. No, I hate it. I hate you. I've run away. You're running away? Well, not that far. Oh, just like a couple feet. I don't want to actually run away. There's some pouting. There's some arm crossing and pouting. It's threatening. Really? I can, I can, I can shapeshift into the thing form. I'm ignoring you. All right.

So how are we going to do this? Shapeshifting role would be my guess. Yeah. Aha. Thank goodness. You guys always come through when it's like, when it's an important role, you always come through. Law of averages. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, um, did Tuck just say that? He's strangely good at statistics. It's an actual law for average people. That when they fail all the time, they can just show up at the magistrates and tell them how they fucked up.

And he'll be like, and they'll cut this guy a little slack. Then you're looking at shit thing. You've got a bunch of hold, which we can imagine that in this case you spend. Yeah. Because for this move and, uh, you're looking at shit thing and sort of trying to find that connection there between him and his, and his body and the material plane. And you feel the familiar pull. Of shape shifting, but almost in reverse.

Like as you used to get pulled into the spirit world, you're, you feel yourself slowly being pulled in the material plane. And as you're watching Shathane, you see you're sort of trading features back and forth. Like his face becomes more like your face. Your face becomes more like his ears are like your ears are changing shape because his full elf ears and your half elf ears and your eyes are sort of changing colors. My fat dick to his tiny little needle dick. Yeah.

You can feel your dicks moving. Oh, I'll miss you. Most of all, fat dick. Well, the thing is, is that you're still, you still feel yourself retaining most of your self. Like you're not totally losing your body. You're just changing spiritual forms. But what you do notice is that you see gills start to form on the side of Shathane's neck on either side. And he, he gains the gills that have allowed you to survive in the spirit world for so long.

Then everything sort of goes hazy as you're pulled back through and Billy and tuck. You're standing there with, you see Ving sort of pull away. Like you move, he moves towards Shathane and then up and gone. Yeah. This is like the coursing of a river. Like you feel the current back to the spiritual or the material plane moving around Ving and going up towards like the interface, like up the levels. And what does Ving do? And he just tells him to like, to go with it. Let it take you. Okay.

Go with the flow boys. Billy, Billy, do you want to do this like basketball special style? What's that? Where I throw you. Okay. Thought about it for a second. So like hop up. All right. I'm still pretty grumpy about this, but it's okay. He's gonna, he'll look like a good old Ving classic most of the time. And, and as, as this is happening, Perel in his fish form comes up to you, Billy, and he looks at you and he's just being very direct. He's like, I don't know.

I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't know what I'm going to be on the other side. It might be like it was, it might be different, but I will teach you here. Just take my hand. It's not, this is a spiritual body. My, my spirit and my essence exist in the material plane in the box. Where's the box. The box is with tuck in the material plane. All right. Just think about the box. We'll see. Good luck. I throw him.

Billy just kind of bobs up in the air, follows a tux or Ving spirit up through the sky. And, and I turned to Perel. I'm like, I need you to give me a minute with Chathain. I want to say something to Chathain before I go. Yeah. You can feel it tugging. Yeah. You only got a couple moments. So I grabbed, I grabbed Tuck's arm and I pull him in. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know what you want to tell me, but do you love your friend, Billy? Yeah. More than anything.

Then I point at Perel and I'm like, do not let him learn how to be a wizard. And I look at Perel. And Perel, yeah. Perel doesn't say anything. He just, looks at you. I look back and I'm like, you're a good man, Chathain. And then I let go. And you all start floating up through the interface and you see Perel and Chathain standing at the edge of the pools.

And you see a Russell in a bush in the grass next to Chathain and, and padding out of the brush is tantamile in her spirit form, which is just this perfect, beautiful, glossy, powerful looking beaver cat. And she comes in and sits next to Chathain. And that's the last thing you see is these three in the spirit world. It goes hazy and it goes dark. And then you open your eyes back up and you're sitting in Cartwin's room in the high spirit mall where you were when you came in.

But Cartwin's not here. Candles still burn against the far wall on either side of all three of you is a hooded figure. Leaning up against the wall, the wall and their arm is coming out and resting on the hilt of a sword. Their hand ends in like this little graspy metal hook. And you see like in the shadows of the hood, no face, but you hear, Hey guys, good to see you again. He reaches up, takes the hood down and it's mirrors foul Smith. All right. That's Spout Lore. Everybody.

The end of the spirit world. Adventures. Thank you for joining us. My name is Sean. I have been your game master with me as always. Players of dual Aziz. You guys ever stick your dick in a Dyson air blade. Jessica tie. No, Paul offers tweet us and Mark Robertson. There's no way it hasn't been done. Thank you to Aaron Reed of Vancouver Sunday service for our intro and outro music. Thanks to Mark and MP. Thanks to Wes for all the technical stuff and Abdul for all the editing.

And thank you to you for listening. Have a great night, everybody. And so ends the day. We'll have adventures three who tried the best they can. Dumb and scared and lost. Maybe for times of breast in. And though our journey may be. We will not leave you without. Resolution. Return next week to hear some more. Whilst you commute or do your chores. And for you, I gladly. And we cut back to the spirit world for a moment where Shathane is standing with tantamount.

So Shathane sees tantamount come up and he reaches down and she comes up with one of those big cat hugs where she puts her paws up around the shoulders. They have a nice big hug. And he nestles his face in her neck and he says, okay, let's go find your mom. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Nice. Whoa. Very good. Nice. That's a fucking cliffhanger. What? You fucked a beaver.