SPRING IN HIERON 10: WHO VOUCHES?
Transcriber: Cole
Jack (as Lem): I want something from you cause I’m going up there.
Jack: And I point up to the, one of the moons that we can see. And I say,
Jack (as Lem): I want to put something up there.
Austin (as Emmanuel): You’re go…
Jack (as Lem): Oh. Ok.
Austin (as Emmanuel): You’re going to the moon and you gave me… a little box. And you said, ‘This will let me know that you are safe.’
Jack (as Lem): Well, you’ll be able to go out in the night and look up and think of me up there. And then you’ll be able to say something like…
Austin (as Emmanuel): I’m not giving you anything Lem King, until you bring me you back and you stay here.
[Jack de Quidt’s “Something” begins playing in background]
Austin: So, you’re going up the river, and the river runs right through the mountains, so I think first and foremost, Fero, you are like, as the scout, you’re right, ‘This river didn’t use to be here.’ And so, you’re the person who notices like, that’s new. You also sense a great deal of new life here. How far in is it before Lem realizes what this is? Maybe it could be when Hella crashes the boat. [Ali gasps]
Jack: Oh god.
Austin: And the thing that you impact is familiar to you. It’s this big stone pillar that was part of the orcish stoneworks that you flooded a decade ago.
Jack (as Lem): This was me. I’m sorry. This one’s on me. This…uh...
Keith (as Fero): No, Hella crashed the boat. I saw her do it.
Jack (as Lem): No, no. Well...
Keith (as Fero): I said...this is exactly what I was talking about.
Austin: What you come to… eventually what you see is like, I think maybe, the combination of the mud and the water confuses one of its abilities, and you can kind of see a strange like, root shape. A root-based alligator monster. And it’s gigantic.
Keith: Yeah, you think it will just let us pass though?
Austin: No, it’s super hungry. Uh, and it’s coming to devour your boat.
Jack (as Lem): We’re not abandoning the boat.
Keith (as Fero): Why?
Ali (as Hella): How big is the alligator? Isn’t it just like… can’t we just like…?
Keith (as Fero): Kill it?
Ali (as Hella): Maybe?
Keith (as Fero): Yeah, we could probably kill it.
Ali (as Hella): Uh, you can’t like, talk to it otherwise?
Keith (as Fero): Yeah, sure. Let’s all go.
Ali (as Hella): Well, let’s not be too hasty. What if I try and hide the boat?
Keith (as Fero): [under breath] So fucking useless. [normal voice] Yeah.
Jack (as Lem): I’m sorry?
Keith (as Fero): Huh?
Ali (as Hella): [overlapping the two] And if not, we’ll just walk… we’ll just walk. We’ll just walk.
Austin: You see that it has a long like, um… you follow its root system. Its tail like dips into the water, er into the mud, right? At first you were just like, ‘Ok. There is a root system here. Like, or there is tail here, and it goes underground.’ But then you realize it actually… you see it moving in the distance, and you realize it’s like, connected to something else.
Keith: Can I see what that other creature is? Or is it another one of these?
Austin: Um, it is under… That one is literally under the ground. So, you see like, a little rumbling. It’s not just another illusory crocodile. It’s something else.
[Jack de Quidt’s “Something” plays out to end]
Austin: And so, yeah. Fero, it’s like, ‘Ok. Like, thanks… thanks… thanks, big guy. Thanks, Samol.’ And then you hear this like, [foley] ‘Fwunk’. And you turn and look, and the boat has been tipped over and is being covered by mud. And instantly that grass starts moving closer to them. And so does the gator. Uh, they’ve been noticed because of that sound.
Ali: Can I just like, yell out to Fero, like,
Ali (as Hella): We’re walking! We decided to walk!
Austin: You can. Um, and you can start going-
Ali: Just so that we can like, get-
Keith (as Fero): Oh, great! I’m glad that we decided not to take the boat!
Austin: Um, and you can keep going that way, but suddenly like, as you’re moving… Are you going back towards Fero now?
Ali: Yeah. [laughs]
Jack: Ah, yeah. Fair.
Austin: Alright, Fero. Uh, you see that the crocodile is trying to move in between you and them. Um, and the big turtle emerges from the… or like, you see the grass moving across the river. There’s just grass, as if it’s being… as if it sprouted from the moving river water. This slowly moving swamp water. Uh, and it is unde… you, at that point, you can see that there’s a gigantic turtle under… underneath it. It’s trying to like, pincer them in as they move up towards you basically. And at this point, y’all can all see this stuff, too. Though I guess maybe Fero hasn’t talked about the weird grass turtle yet, but… it’s all happenin’. [Jack laughs]
Ali: Unfortunately.
Austin: What do y’all do?
Ali: I…. I just feel like, I’m just trying to get out of here as soon as I can.
Jack: Yeah, same.
Austin: Are you sprinting? Are you running? Are you…?
Jack: We just break into a...
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: ...just like, start barreling towards Fero.
Ali: Yeah, just figuring out how to run. Like, you know.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Carefully enough that it’s like-
Austin: This… this will… this, at this point-
Keith: Well, Hella knows where all the sinkholes are.
Austin: Totally.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: So, so both of you will take a +1 forward on this. So, Fero and Hella… actually Fero, you can just bounce. You’re on the other side of these things. Uh, Hella take a +1 forward, but I need a Defy Danger dex, and same for you Lem. You do not get that +1 forward. Yeah. Or it can be dex or wisdom, I think. Cause it’s like, you’re looking to see… you’re either looking to see the sinkholes to fall into and not falling into them. And nah, you know what? I think it’s dex cause you’re just trying to outrun these things. That’s the thing.
Ali: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: That’s the thing.
Ali: That is a 13.
Jack: As a heads up, you can track plus and minus 1 forward in the character sheets now.
Austin: Yes.
Jack: Which is incredible.
Austin: It’s really nice.
Jack: Under where it says your class. Uh, so… dex.
Austin: Or Defy Danger is really what you want. Defy Danger dexterity. Yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Um, so Hella. You crushed it.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: You got a 13. Lem…
Ali: I…
Austin: ...got a 6. [Jack laughs]
Keith: Ok. I’ll aid.
Austin: Well let’s slow down. Let’s see what happens.
Ali: Oh.
Keith: Ok.
Austin: Ok, well, tell me how you… Hella is fine. Hella, you know where you’re running. You’re able to get through everything, no big deal. Lem, does… is going to fall into straight up, a sinkhole. Is straight up going to trip and fall into uh, water that like, that turn… like, mud that like, gives way to a pit of mud.
Jack: Amazing.
Austin: Fero, how are you helping?
Keith: [sighs] Um, I’m going to be um… a fulltaur.
Austin: Ok. You have to roll for this.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: And then… and then you’ll have to roll aid and interfere is the thing. It’s two rolls.
Keith: Roll… Two rolls. Ok, that’s fine.
Austin: One to turn into the animal, and then one to turn in… and then one to aid and interfere.
Keith: Ok. Um… alright. Oh boy.
Austin: Oh no.
Ali: Hmmm…
Austin: Fero.
Jack: That’s a 6.
Keith: Hold on. [laughs] We need… Can we get one more aid? [Jack laughs] This is-
Austin: I don’t… How does Hella help you turn into a fulltaur? Or a wholetaur?
Ali: I can… I can help Lem inste… Oh.
Austin: It’s-
Ali: Well, I could just be like, ‘No, no, no, no. I’ll get him.’ Right? Like you don’t have to do this.
Austin: No, that’s not how that works.
Keith: No, no, no. [Ali laughs]
Austin: What? You’ve played this game for years.
Keith: It would have to be… Here’s
Ali: I’m just upset about it.
Keith: Here’s what it… I think… I think that it has to be that I’m… in trying to help, in trying to help, I’m… I’m now getting myself mired in the mud because my little...
Austin: You are. That’s what’s happening here.
Keith: ...my little horse hooves.
Austin: But I mean, you know the thing that happened right now though.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Right?
Keith: Wait, what?
Austin: You got a 6. [Ali gasps]
Keith: Yeah. That’s what I mean.
Austin: Transf-
Keith: No, no, no.
Austin: Ok.
Keith: I mean, Hella is helping me because I’ve got my horse hooves stuck in my thing.
Austin: I see what you’re saying.
Ali: Oh.
Keith: Yeah.
Ali: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Ok.
Austin: I see. So, yeah. Yeah. If you want… if you… you better get this roll, Hella. 2d6+1…
Ali: [whispered] Oh my god.
Austin: ...to keep the wholetaurs existing in the world.
Ali: Wah.
Austin: Cause if that 6 stays, they’re gone.
Keith: Boy. There’s only… there’s only um, two-
Austin: [interrupting] And that’s without the… it’s like, you feel yourself getting stuck in the mud, and I think this is one of the first times that you’re able to feel the exact sensation of feeling them slip out of existence.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: As you begin to feel… I’m gonna just like, describe the thing that happens. As you begin… you’re like, whole creative impulse gets shook for like, a split second because you’re sure footing falls apart. [overlapped] And in that moment...
Keith: Yeah. [overlapping] Cause it literally… I made a bad… I made a bad choice of what animal to be.
Austin: Exactly. And in that-
Keith: I should never have tried to be the horse.
Austin: In that moment, there is a creative fabric. There is a pattern. [laughs] There is a pattern, right? Um, and there is a degree of connectivity between everything that exists in all of Hieron because all of it… all of it comes back to Samol and the Heat and the Dark. And at any… and both of those things, Samol and the Heat and the Dark, are in everything, right? Like, we’ve talked about god in this world as being the sort of, um, monistic god of like, ‘Oh, it’s all made of Samol. Samol is all powerful because Samol is everything. And everything is just various degrees away from Samol and various degrees away from the Heat and the Dark.’
And that means that everyone has the Heat and the Dark literally inside of them at a certain point. That like, it’s condensed. It’s… it all goes back to the same thing. And so, that is like, the bottom… The building block of everything in our… in the world of Hieron is not the atom. It is not the quark. It is not whatever is smaller than that at the subatomic level. It is nothing. It is the Heat and the Dark, and all you have to do is for a brief moment, like, open the door to that. To stumble for a split second. And everything can be spontaneously destroyed. And that’s what’s been happening to Ordennan steel.
Ordennan steel is actually very tightly compressed Heat and Dark, and so it’s very easy for the Heat and the Dark to begin to hurt it and destroy it and hurt things that are near it. And in this case, when you open to door to become the fulltaur, when you connect to that pattern, it… the Heat and the Dark is like, uh, it’s like it’s pulling on a loose thread on a sweater. It’s like, it’s like, Weezer’s Undone-- The sweater Song. [Ali and Austin laugh] And…
Keith: It’s… it’s like, standing on land that you were standing on a second ago, and all of a sudden, you’re sinking into it.
Austin: You’re sinking into it, and you’re like, Oh, fuck.’ And then, it’s not just… Have I told you about Red… about Red Socks? The time that I was caught up in a… an avalanche of red, wet sand in Australia? And I got knocked out when I was like, a fucking 14 year old or 13 year old.
Ali: [quietly] I think so…
Keith: No, was Joel there?
Austin: No, Joel was not- Yeah! Yeah, Joel was there! Yes!
Keith: Yeah. [laughs]
Austin: Joel Ar.. Ar... yes. That Joel was there. It was on that trip. Um, we were like, moving around in this place called Red Socks, which was like, a place where like, you could walk in the mud. And it was called Red Socks cause it looked like you had big, red socks on cause it was like, weird, red beach mud. And we were all just like dancing and jumping around, and then the big hill that it was part fucking fell on us. And knocked me the fuck out, and that was scary as shit. [laughs] Um, and that’s the thing about reality is, when you lose your footing, Fero, you’re connected. You can knock down the mountain that the rest of everything is on by mistake. And that’s starting to happen. And now, Hella, you have to make the aid and interfere roll.
Ali: Ok.
Austin: To make sure that he doesn’t lose his footing.
Keith (as Wholetaur/Fulltaur): Push. Help.
Ali: I’m doing it.
Keith (as Wholetaur/Fulltaur): Help my foot.
Austin: And you do. 11. So, do you just like, stabilize?
Keith: [exhales] Yeah, yeah. I just stabilize.
Jack: Oh boy.
Austin: Ok.
Keith: I like.. I like, if maybe I have like, 2 feet like… so, you get stuck in mud and you like, are like, moving your feet in like, a weird like, way where it’s kind of suction-y. It’s like that, but really fast, and eventually you just… either you sink deeper or you get to the surface.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: And I got to the surface.
Austin: And Hella, you’ve like, pulled him out basically. And stayed there and hold him in place.
Keith (as Wholetaur/Fulltaur): Thank you.
Austin: Great. [laughs] Um, but now I need your aid and interfere.
Keith (as Wholetaur/Fulltaur): Pleasure doing business with you.
Austin: I now need your aid and interfere roll, Fero.
Keith: Ok.
Austin: [overlapping] Cause you now successfully done…
Keith: [overlapping] And this is plus bonds, right?
Austin: You’ve now successfully done the move that gives you one of your ‘thank you’ moves, one of your wholetaur moves, right?
Keith: I have 1, yeah, I have 1 hold.
Austin: You have 1 hold. Yes. Ok.
Keith: Uh, which… as we learned, all that it is is a special move, so I can keep doing regular moves forever.
Austin: Yeah. Totally. I think the special mo… What is the special move for the wholetaur? It must be some sort of distraction or like, keep someone busy, or like,
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: ...pass as a human thing.
Keith: Yeah, or… Yeah, pass as a human, distraction, um… Pa- [laughs] Um, uh… Yeah, pass as a human is funny because I am a human. [laughs]
Austin: Well, you’re a halfling, but yes.
Keith: I’m a halfling, sure, but um...
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah, we’ll probably have to get more specific about that stuff.
Austin: Oh, also, I just want to note, I just saw in the chat here, you’ve written down ‘sprangaroo’ [Keith and Austin laugh] earlier that I missed. I totally missed that earlier. So…
Jack: Sprangaroo?
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: [overlapping] Yeah, for the thing I did earlier.
Jack: [overlapping] As a name for the horrible glider creature?
Austin: Yeah. Alright.
Keith: It’s cute. It’s a cute glider. It’s like a wallaby...
Austin: It is.
Keith: ...thing.
Austin: Alright, go ahead and give me that aid and interfere.
Keith: [interrupting] It’s that… Sorry, that size. It’s not kangaroo, it’s a wallaby cause it’s small.
Austin: And take a +1 on it. This is the +1 forward cause this is literally moving across the place to save Fero. Er save Lem. Fuck. I did it.
Keith: .Ok. Um… [Jack laughs] Where’s the button for rolling bonds now?
Austin: It’s just aid… if you aid, interfere. Click on the words aid or interfere.
Keith: .Oh, I didn’t realize it was in the move list. Got it.
Austin: Yeah, ok.
Ali: Uh huh. Yeah.
Keith: Ok, aid or interfere. Four.
Ali: And then, did you add the plus hold?
Keith: Wait, hold on.
Austin: It does. It has the +1 there. 2 + 1 + 1.
Keith: Yeah, 2 + 1 + 1. So, 4.
Jack: Oh my god.
Austin: So plus… Is that +1 cause you had a +1 forward? Yeah, that was the +1.
[crosstalking]
Keith: Yeah that was a +1 forward.
Austin: Oh, plus another one cause you have one...
Keith: Oh, wait! No.
Austin: Nah, that’s still a 5.
Keith: So, it’s 5. Yeah.
Austin: That’s still 5. It’s still a real bad failure.
Ali: Aww.
Austin: Oh, buddy.
Keith: Yeah, I actually rolled the same thing those last two rolls. Was both… it was both a 2 and a 1. I can almost not fail a wisdom roll.
Austin: Almost. [Jack laughs]
Keith: There’s 2 possible rolls that I can roll. Every other possible roll wins.
Austin: Unfortunately, what’s happened instead is, there, you are now caught between the two. Um, and in fact, I think the… there’s a moment here where like, finally the turtle emerges from behind Lem. And you’re failure to help Lem, cause this is all about… this is a bunch of stuff happens all at once.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: The crocodile is coming for you, Fero. And the turtle is coming for you, Lem. Um, they are effectively-
Keith: Lem is in a sinkhole.
Austin: Lem is in the sinkhole, right. And that is the thing. Lem in the sinkhole, and at first you’re like, ‘Well, as long as nothing gets into the sinkhole...’ the turtle is under the sinkhole. So, Lem…
Jack: Oh my god.
Austin: ...you fall into a sinkhole, and a turtle like, bursts through the side of the sinkhole wall. [laughs] And it’s just a big turtle mouth, and it’s beginning to bite at you. Uh, it’s like, they’re slow snaps. It’s like, [foley] ‘Rrraaaaa, snap!’ And it’s like, a really hard snap. And it just like, if it had hit you, it would have hurt you a lot.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: Actually, you failed that roll, right? Uh, no. You’re just in there. You’re in there. We haven’t hit you yet.
Keith: Yeah, yeah. It was the roll was to not be in the sinkhole.
Austin: Totally. But, but… Fero, you are now in a situation where like, this crocodile is like, moving way faster actually. And it does the thing where it like, wraps around you. Like, not like an anaconda, but like, it’s positioned itself in a curvy way so that it’s head…
[crosstalking]
Keith: Yeah. It’s body is like a… is…
Austin: Yeah. It’s body is like...
Keith: ...in a semi-circular around my body.
Austin: It’s like spooning you in a sense. Yeah. Uh huh.
Keith: Yeah, and I’m the little spoon. [laughs]
Austin: And you’re the little spoon. [Ali laughs] What do you all do?
Ali: Um, I would love to draw upon the unholy power of my dark blade now, please.
Austin: What? Ok, what? [Jack laughs] Excuse me?
Keith: Uh, she said she’d like to draw upon the unholy power of her dark blade, please, now.
Austin: Exc… Ok.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Can you tell me what that does? What the fuck?
Ali: [laughing] Um, my friends are in trouble, so I’m now drawing my sword.
Austin: Uh huh. The Blade in the Dark.
Keith: Is that part of the move, is friends are in trouble.
Austin: Yeah, it should be. Well…
Ali: Um, I have to roll this and then on a 7-9, we’ll see…
Austin: Right.
Keith: Or a 10+.
Ali: Oh, I do.
Austin: Do you have any peace saved up yet? How does that work?
Ali: No, don’t I get it through this?
Austin: Yeah, I guess so, right? What does peace come from? Dark blade. One second.
Ali:Oh, it comes from doing what she’s asked of me. And I haven’t-
Austin: Right, which is to help dead people, right?
Ali:I haven’t done that yet.
Austin: You’ve not. Ok, so you don’t have any peace right now. Good to know.
Ali:Ok. But if I hit, I still achieve my… ok.
Austin: A hundre… Yeah. No, yeah, you can roll this cause you don’t need peace to do this. Peace would help if you fuck up. So, go ahead and give me your Road to Perdition move.
Ali: Oh, true. Yes. Ok.
Austin: Hey!
Ali: That’s a 12!
Keith: Nice.
Austin: What’s good? So, that’s a charisma roll which you’re charisma is actually pretty good, right? It’s 14, so you’re at +1. That’s a good roll. That’s an 11, naturally. Um, ok. When you draw upon the unholy power in your dark blade, choose one of the following effects.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: On a hit, you achieve your desired effect. You just get to pick one of these. Don the visage of death, terrifying a target you can see as if you cast the Cause Fear spell for as long as you focus your attention on them, plunge your blade into a corpse- it’s spirit will answer any three questions you pose to the best of the knowledge it had in life and the knowledge it gained in death,
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: ...summon supernatural darkness into an area you can see until you use this move again or dismiss it, or cast visions through time as the wizard, death will show you where you’re needed most.
Ali: Um, I would like to don the visage of death, please. [laughing]
Austin: Oh, yeah. I fuckin’ bet. Ok. So, so… it’s as if you’ve cast the Cause Fear spell. I’m gonna read that spell, which I can do just by like, going over here in this little side bar and clicking on the button.
Keith: I might have a psell missing from my thing.
Austin: From what?
Keith: From my… just my move list. You know my… my…
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: My hold that I can have and then it turns into a… like I can spend hold to heal untouched.
Austin: It’s Shed. It’s Shed.
Keith: No, Shed is just like I can negate damage by reverting back to my normal form, and I take damage when I’m shapeshifted.
Austin: Hmm.
Keith: So, shed is different.
Austin: Um, is it… Balance? It’s Balance.
Keith: Balance, that’s what it’s called. Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, do you want me to… I can toss Balance on your sheet.
Keith: Ok, great. Thank you.
Austin: It’s super easy to do. Again, it’s super… it’s so easy.
Keith: Yeah, they improved one half of Roll20.
Austin: Did that work? Did that go to the wrong sheet? One second.
Keith: I don’t see it on mine.
Austin: It did. I put it… I put it on Hella’s by mistake. Oops.
Keith: Ok, Hella can’t do that.
Austin: No, Hella, you don’t get to take Balance.
Ali: Unfortunately.
Austin: That’d be a good move. Try this again.
Ali: I can’t believe I have spells now. Jesus Christ.
Austin: Uh, alright. Hella, Cause Fear says choose a target you can see and a nearby object. The target is afraid of the object so long as you maintain the spell. Their reaction is up to them. Flee, panic, beg, fight. Flee, panic, beg, fight. Uh, while this spell is ongoing, you take -1 to Cast Spell. You cannot target entities with less than animal intelligence, magical constructs, undead, automatons, or the like. Um, so what do you.. What are you choosing for it to be afraid of.
Ali: Um, hmm… I didn’t know I had a choice cause it was gonna just be me, but because I’m like, kind of away from the area or whatever…
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Ali: Can I make it afraid of…
Austin: I guess it… you know what? I’m gonna say… I’m gonna say it has to be you, right? Because the phrasing on this is ‘don the visage of death’, right?
Ali: Yeah. Terrifying.
Austin: This is not… You’re not casting this spell as if you’re like, ‘And now, you’ll be afraid of that stick over there!’. [Ali laughs] Um, though the dopest cause fear use here could be like… Nah, I’m not gonna talk about it. Cause Fero still has Cause Fear and could also do this.
Ali: Right.
Austin: So, yeah. So, yeah.
Ali: I was either… yeah.
Austin: So, which one are you targeting, the alligator or the turtle? I guess, you probably can’t see the turtle because the turtle’s underground. So, the alligator?
Ali: I.. yeah, I still don’t think that I am aware of the turtle, so…
Austin: Yeah. Ok. So, yeah, the alligator which has now kind of like, wrapped a little around Fero catches eyes with you. Um… what were those options again? What did I just say? I said them twice.
Ali: It was fear, fight, beg…
Austin: Flee, right?
Ali: Flee. Yeah.
Austin: I think… I think it flees. I think it sees the face of you and there is something in… you know. It wants… It’s hungry. It wants to grow. Death is not that. Death is the opposite of that. And this is not a thing that traditionally has to… and like, I want to say like, here’s the thing is like, you don the visage of death, and so there is just like this incredible arrival of this dark mist in this area. Right? And we get a shot or a panel… We were doing Masks, so I’m thinking in panels right now. [Ali laughs] We almost get like, the manga panel of like, the mist filtering into its sensory flowers. Into the water lilies it has.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: And like, that’s how it senses it, right? ‘Cause it can’t see you. But it still… your presence is such that… because it’s not “thing that sees you”, it’s “you see it”, right? So, it senses you and like, recoils. Um, and like, goes like, [foley] ‘Kwaaaa’ [Ali laughs] And scuttles away. Um, and it gets far enough away that like, you see the root system that’s connecting these two things together. A vine kind of like, pops up from out of the ground almost. Just like, thick, wooden vine that - it connects the two of them. And it pulls at the turtle, but it isn’t pulling the turtle away. The turtle is like an immovable object, right? This is like an unstoppable force and an immovable object, except that they’re siblings and they’re plant creatures. So, here they are.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: Good move. Lem? How you doin’ in that pit, buddy?
Jack: I am… I’m having a rough… I’m having a real bad time.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Um, how do you get out of a… of a mud pit? I ask myself this question... [laughs]
Ali: Um, PSAs...
Jack: ...all the time.
Ali: ...about sand puddles. Whatever those are called.
Jack: Stay still?
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: Stretch your arms out in a star sort of shape.
Keith: Well, that’s to not sink.
Austin: That’s like quicksand. Yeah.
Keith: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Keith: Which doesn’t really work that way.
Jack: Um, I’m looking to see if I have kind of any specific moves that would be helpful here, but none of my moves are really sort of designed for… [laughs] being in a mud hole.
Austin: You don’t have like, ‘Escape the Mud Hole’.
Jack: No.
Austin: Get outta here, mud hole!
Keith: It could be… I guess it could be a Defy Danger to just- [inaudible]
Austin: [overlapping] It would be a Defy Danger to try to climb out.
Ali: [overlapping] Yeah.
Jack: [overlapping] This feels like a Defy Danger, or I was just trying to see if there was anything I could sort of, specifically do. Um, this feels like a pretty natural place for Lem to be… to be honest, given his involvement in the creation. [Jack and Austin laugh] of it.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Um, this is… this is…
Austin: You could stay here. This could be the end. This could be it for Lem?
Keith: Yeah, do you want us to leave you?
Jack: This is a real… ‘Goodbye!’ This is a real… No, I’m gonna try and get out.
Austin: Ok.
Jack: Um, I do not think Lem takes to heart the idea to you know, be still and careful.
[crosstalking]
Austin: Yeah. I feel like this is like-
Jack: I think we just get this-
Keith: You could probably just like- I’m still technically right there. You could grab my leg.
Jack: I think, oh yeah, I think it’s just like, Lem, one hand on his bag to stop it from just like, spilling out into the thing.
Austin: Uh huh.
Jack: And the other hand, uh like, reaching up for Fero, the wholetaur or fulltaur’s leg.
Austin: We have to pick one. We have to pick one?
Keith: We have to pick one? [Jack laughs]
Austin: I guess we don’t.
Jack: Just scrambled up the side.
Austin: Yeah, give me a Defy Danger strength.
Keith: Lots of different animals are called two different things.
Austin: It’s true.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Vinegar foxes and uh… the other thing.
Keith: Yeah.
Ali: Uh huh.
Keith: Say vinegar fox?
Austin: Yeah, vinegar fox.
Jack: Oh, wait. I just rolled strength. Sorry.
Austin: That’s right. That’s right.
Jack: I should roll Defy Danger.
Austin: Defy Danger strength is fine. That’s it. That’s 11. You get it. You did the thing.
Jack: Is a strength roll the same roll as a Defy Danger strength?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Defy Danger is a different, yeah. You’d be rolling the strength. You’d be rolling strength. The only difference is in this system, we don’t get to see all this text that would have popped up naturally, you know?
Jack: Oh ok.
Austin: Uh, so you’re good.
Jack: Oh man.
Austin: So, you got an 11. So yeah, Lem, you get onto that wholetaur, and Fero you have sure footing now, so you’re able to provide the anchor that Lem needs to pull up. And you’re able to pull yourself up. And then, and then I think you’re able to run away. You’re able to get out of this place. Um, the crocodile like, does manage to like, start to pull away the turtle, and the turtle retreats back under the ground into the sand. They will continue to live here and eat things and etcetera. For now, your boat is safe.
Jack: We might meet them again on our way back through.
Austin: Uh huh. Maybe. But you won’t have to go the whole way back. You only have to come get this boat, so that’s something. Alright, I’ve moved you back here. Um, well, can’t use the boat as your icon anymore, I guess. Uh
Ali: Boy howdy.
Keith (as Fero): Why did you do that? Why did you make that big noise?
Ali (as Hella): Well, cause we decided to hide the thing, and we had to hide it.
Keith (as Fero): Hide it from… I thought we just had to move it out of the way.
Ali (as Hella): Well, we’re leaving it for like a really long time, and I didn’t want it to get stolen or like someone...
Keith (as Fero): Eaten?
Ali (as Hella): Or eaten. Or destroyed in some way. Or infested. Oh, it’s in the mud, it’s gonna get fucking…
Keith (as Fero): Ugh, I can’t… I cannot believe how much trouble the boat has caused, and even after it broke, it continued to cause trouble. [Jack laughs]
Jack (as Lem): Yeah.
Austin: Uh huh.
Jack (as Lem): Yeah. But we didn’t know what was gonna be on the land.
Ali (as Hella): There could be more of those… there could be land alligators for all we know.
Jack (as Lem): Almost certainly.
Austin: Uh, so you’re gonna take it by foot for the rest of the way, huh?
Keith: Uh huh.
Austin: You pass through all these ruins and there are times, Lem, where you’re able to see um, where people have like, have like… uh, There are like, Archivists trying to move back in here. I think we just kind of get a montage of you like, hiding from groups of… it’s very clear that some… The people who’ve taken over this area are bandits. They’re are orcish bandits, who are like, ‘Y’all left. We stayed behind. And we took what we needed to live. You don’t get to come back to the Archives now. Like, oh yeah, Morbash died? Good. I’m glad.’ Like, it’s that sort of… these are the people who are left here.
Jack: Right.
Austin: Um, and the rest of the Archives, for people who are wondering, we talked about this briefly a few games ago, and I want to reiterate it, have kind of gone to the wind. They’re still archivists, but they’re all kind of like… they’re kind of like, wandering museums unto themselves. There is no central archive anymore. There is the ruins of the New Archives, most of which have been flooded. Some of which have been overrun by the Heat and the Dark or by the starstuff. But the bulk of it…
Jack: We lost like, 2 warehouses, right?
Austin: A decade ago. Yeah.
Jack: And that wasn’t… that wasn’t me. I mean, I might have hastened that.
Austin: No, some of it was just the Heat…. Some of it was just the Heat and the Dark, some of it was the stars.
Jack: I didn’t flood a warehouse.
Austin: Totally. You did not… well… eventually you did.
Jack: Right.
Austin: This whole area is a swamp now. Like, it’s like a swampy, mountain pass. Like, so yeah. So, eventually you absolutely water damaged a bunch of stuff. Like, you turned on that faucet and then you left. Um… this party is now 2 people who incidentally, when just trying to do a thing, have hurt the world in a big way. Fero isn’t wrong about that. That like… and also who are now afraid of doing those things…. these very powerful things, these things that can really hurt a lot of people. And then one of you works for death, so like, sick party. [Ali laughs] And so, I’m gonna give you just this...
Jack: This is my favorite wrestling tag team. [Ali laughs]
Austin: ...icon here. There you go. There’s the party.
Jack: Oh yeah. Yeah. Could you describe the icon for the listener? [Aili laughs]
Austin: Yeah, it’s just like… I searched for ‘team’ on the everything search on Roll20, and it is 6 figures. And I know there’s only 3 of you, but I thought each of you has, kind of has enough character for 2. Uh, and it’s just kind of a rainbow of smooth, shaped geometric people who are… They have a roundness and a shininess to them. I’d say that they’re made of some sort of post-future plastic, maybe?
Keith: This is… Is this ROY G BIV here? It’s in a different order, but…
Austin: It can’t be cause there’s only 6.
Keith: Oh, right. So we’re missing…
Austin: There’s red, orange, yellow, blue….
Keith: …buh. This is ROY G IV.
Austin: Is that blue or is that indigo? Are we saying that’s blue or indigo?
Keith: That’s… I guess it’s… well, it’s…
Austin: It could be ROY G BV.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You’re missing indigo. You got violet. You got blue. You got green on the end. Anyway, that’s the team. That’s the squad. Uh, and then you pass through the mountains. And you get through to the north. And you see the Isles of Flight. Um, and at first, you’re like, ‘Oh, cool. There’s some islands out there on the ocean.’ And there are. And you’re like, ‘Those don’t look that big.’ And they’re not. And then you see the Isles of Flight. And they are flying in the sky. Um, what did you get on your quartermaster roll… er not the quartermaster… the trailblazer roll? Oh, you crashed it.
Keith: Crashed it.
Austin: You crashed it so that means, you get there late, also, right? [Ali inhales through teeth] Um, oh boy. Ok.
Keith: Cannot believe the people that I choose to hang around.
Austin: Ok, so, um… [laughs] When you pull up to the border, when you pull up to the edge of this beach. Like, you bust through the mountains, you make it through the mountains. You make it through the swamp. The swamp slowly becomes more and more blue. And it becomes more and more marsh like, and less and less swamp like, as you finally make it, days later… Days later over ground, right? Like, you have backpacks filled with food and stuff. And you make it to the beach, and it’s a shoreline. It’s kind of a rocky… like, it’s a… it’s a rocky shoreline and not like a fun, like California beach, fun time beach.
Um, and from one of the outcroppings, you’re able to run out and look out over the ocean. You just see there’s like, 4 gigantic islands. Uh, one of them is… well, you know… one of them is gigantic and it’s still… it’s small compared to the other three. It’s like, a little one, a slightly bigger one, a pretty big one, and then a gigantic one. And that one is the one that’s highest up. And they’re kind of organised diagonally from right to left. Smallest to largest. Each one raising up in height and in um… and in size. Um, and you can see that over to the east a little bit, you can like, follow this rocky beach to the east by another day of travel. Um, and you can see there's like, a lighthouse out on the peak. Or out on the tip of the kind of peninsula. And then there is a huge bridge… kind of bridge that connects to that first island. And there’s nothing connecting the other flying islands.
Um, and I think it’s from there that you see… 2 things happen. One, in between the… in fact, I’m gonna bring you to this other map cause I can do that now. Boom. Isles of Flight. So, in between the uh, I’m just gonna call them for now, Islands 1, 2, 3, and 4. Um, 1 is the biggest one on the left. Um, 2 is the middle one. 3 is the third one. 4 is the one on the far right, the tiniest one, right? Does that make sense? Is that clear? [laughs]
Jack: Uh huh.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Alright. So, you see… 2 things happen, quote unquote. I’m gonna draw a bridge there. There we go. One is, there is like, the residue of colorful smoke. I reference this scene a lot probably, but you know that sequence in Fury Road, where the smoke um, the big colorful smoke…
Jack: Like, the flares? Flares. Flares.
Austin: Smokes go up. And they’re like… bright colors on the blue sky. Like red, blue, yellow, and they’re like, really like, condensed color. Um, that sort of color is already in the sky, and it’s being scraped away by people. God, how do I even describe… Ok, so you’re at some distance. Ok. You all played Breath of the Wild.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Uh huh.
Austin: Ok. You remember the first time you saw a dragon?
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: Oh my god. It was so fucking good.
Austin: Yeah, it’s super good. And so it’s like that, except imagine a big… a big colorful dragon, except with wings. With um, jeweled wings. So, it’s that same sort of like, serpent-like dragon. Not like the… not like a western-European dragon. Like, an eastern dragon that kind of… bends and tilts in the sky. Um, but it has… this one has, also has feathers. It has like… almost like, south american style… like a quetzalcoatl. [changing pronunciation] A quetzalcoatl… quetzalcoatl? You know what I’m talking about. Has like, jeweled, bright colorful wings also.
Um, and there’s one that kind of floating around in between islands 2 and 3. So like, right here where I just tapped. Or I just tapped and moved the map by mistake. So like, right in the middle here. And at first, you can’t figure out why the fuck… where they go, the color is disappearing. But you then see that there are people walking around the backs of these giant, flying jeweled dragons. These like, winged serpents who just have like, basically scrubbers on sticks. There are these just… like, these just majestic creatures flying through the sky, and on second glance, you see that they’re basically a custodial service.
There are other people, bird people standing on these dragons. Um, on these winged serpents, these jeweled serpents. And are cleaning what you quickly realize is like, some sort of sky graffiti. It’s like someone drew a sky message in bright colorful ink. Um, and you can’t read it because it is graffiti, and you don’t know how to re-… it’s like, ‘Ok, wait. What is that letter?’ And by the time you kind of start to parse it, it’s already gone. So, there’s some sort of weird sky graffiti happening here in between these two islands. And then, moments later from the big island, there is a… there is like, the feeling of just like, [foley] ‘vwoom’.
This huge blast of wind and energy as… There is this bright light, and then a spiral of people, of birds, lift off in formation. 100s, 1,000s. It’s hard to see. You’re so far away. But like, enough for you to be like, ‘Oh, that’s a huge flock of bird people.’ Lift off and fly to the nearest moon. And you see all that as you’re heading towards this bridge to the-
Keith: So, it’s just the people that are flying. It’s not…
Austin: It’s not...
Keith: They haven’t like, figured out-
Austin: They’re not on anything.
Keith: They’re just flying.
Austin: Yeah, yeah. There’s not like a… There’s not like a rocket ship.
Keith: Well, I thought maybe they like, built…
Austin: No.
Keith: Yeah, that maybe they built like a sky ship. Like you know? Like how-
Austin: No.
Keith: You know how Bowser’s got like, a sea ship that flies?
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I getcha. No, this is them. They’re flying. But also they’re not-
Keith: Oh, so they didn’t figure it out, they just did it.
Austin: Yeah… like you see other, well… No. Because you see other people flying as you get closer and closer to this farther… the furthest east island. Um, and you see that like, there are other people flying here and there, but I mean, maybe this is just… you’re all smart enough to figure this out to some degree. They’re riding around on dragons to clean the weird, air graffiti. If they can’t fly naturally, long enough to go fly around and take care of air graffiti, how is it that some of them can fly to fucking moon? You know what I’m saying?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Like, the ones who are taking off are taking off at a speed and at a power that is beyond what the other ones that you’re seeing… they’re able to fly, but they’re mostly able to like, fly for a little bit and then land. They are also kind of gliding around. They’re not that dissimilar from what you’re doing in your… in your sprangaroo form. [Ali and Keith laugh] Um, and I think you get up to the… you get up to the exterior of this like, the bridge.
Um, and there is one of these bird people like, lands. Comes like, flies down. Glides down this long bridge towards you. Um, and she has on a… what’s she have on? What marks these bird people? I’m also… I am like… I tried really hard to imagine various ways to describe these bird people. Um, that were… that were not just me saying they’re the Rito from Breath of the Wild. [Jack laughs] I think the thing that makes them different, one, they are not as…
Keith: Is that they are not Kass, not the regular bird people.
Austin: They’re what?
Keith: They’re beefy. They’re the Kass, beefy bird guy, not the regular Rito. [Ali laughs] That’s what makes them different. They’re all Kass.
Austin: Yeah, they’re just all… They’re all just super hot Kass. Yeah, exactly. The best of bird people in that game. Um, no. They’re… they’re actually like… I think actually they’re very… they’re more… Most of them are thin. They’re all like, they’re… they don’t have this big bulky structure actually. They’re the opposite of Kass. They actually look a little bit like the Rito from Wind Waker, right? Who were like, thin limbs, long limbs, a little more humanoid in their shape, and then you know, the Rito from Wind Waker were just people who had like, wing-arms sometimes, and then bird like… like, just had beaks.
These are more birds than that. They’re like, in between Rito from Breath of the Wild and Rito from Wind Waker. Um, and I think that they… when they… the one that’s flying towards you, again, it’s like, she’s not struggling to fly, but you know, Fero, she is more gliding than flying, for sure. Um, and when she lands, she speaks very slowly, and she says, um,
Austin (as Sah-ver): It’s a bad time to be a traveler here in the Isles.
Keith (as Fero): Why is that?
Austin (as Sah-ver): You’ll have to wait here. Do you have identification?
Keith (as Fero): Ideni-what?
Austin (as Sah-ver): Papers.
Keith (as Fero): Paper of what?
Austin (as Sah-ver): Identification.
Jack (as Lem): No, uh, we’re from the… we’re from the Last University.
Keith: While he’s saying that, I’m… I write my name on a piece of paper, and I hand… I…
Austin: She takes it and says,
Austin (as Sah-ver): Fero. Very good. I’ll need identification for the rest of you.
Ali (as Hella): Fero, can I borrow a piece of paper?
Keith (as Fero): Yeah, I got plenty.
Austin: What do you write? Do you just write Hella?
Ali: Hella Varal.
Austin: Hella Varal, ok. Fer… er uh, Lem?
Jack: Yeah, I just write like, ‘Lem King’.
Austin (as Sah-ver): Where are you all coming from? Who do you represent? Who vouches?
Jack (as Lem): Well…
Keith (as Fero): I vouch for me.
Austin (as Sah-ver): This is not acceptable.
Keith (as Fero): They vou… These two vouch for me.
Ali (as Hella): Yeah.
Austin (as Sah-ver): And then who vouches for them?
Jack (as Lem): Well, we… we… we have a community. We’re building a community in the Last University, so I suppose you could say that...
Austin (as Sah-ver): The Last University. This is acceptable.
Ali (as Hella): Yeah.
Austin: And she folds the papers and slides them into a little satchel. She’s wearing like, a satchel around her body. The bird people don’t wear clothes, but they do carry bags. And so she has like, a bag that…
Jack: This is a weird Dr. Seuss situation here.
Austin: Oh yeah. 100%. Um, and she slides the papers into the satchel, this like, side bag. And you see that this satchel does have effectively... I think it’s probably in their native language and not in the common Hieron tongue, um, but based on the badge, it’s clear that it’s like, a picture of the four islands. Like, from top down, which you’ve seen on a map before, but you didn’t know that they were fucking floating islands. And then like, a wall built around them. And she’s basically a border guard.
Keith: God, I should have given a fake… a perfect opportunity to have given a fake name.
100% Always. And she says,
Austin (as Sah-ver): I will run these through the system. If you are vouched for, you may enter. Unfortunately…
Keith (as Fero): What’s the system?
Austin (as Sah-ver): It is a system of reputation.
Jack (as Lem): Ah.
Ali (as Hella): Well, we’re fine.
Austin (as Sah-ver): Unfortunately, if you had arrived just hours ago, things would have been different. We would happily have brought you onto the trade island while you wait.
Keith: I shoot Hella a dirty look. [Ali laughs]
Austin (as Sah-ver): There are… many amenities there.
Keith: And then after she notices, I then shoot Lem a dirty look.
Ali (as Hella): Well, um…
Austin (as Sah-ver): Unfortunately, with the recent troubles, we could not offer that hospitality in good faith that everyone would be safe.
Keith (as Fero): What are the recent troubles?
Ali (as Hella): Yeah, what’s going on?
Austin (as Sah-ver): Oh. Violence. Attacks. Rebellion, some say.
Keith (as Fero): Ok, well…
Ali (as Hella): We…
Austin (as Sah-ver): These are things you should know if you’re going to come to the Isles.
Keith (as Fero): Yeah, well, I heard that it only happened in the last couple hours, so let’s run those names through the system and see if we can get us up on those islands.
Ali (as Hella): Also, we can keep ourselves safe, if it’s like an accountability thing.
Austin (as Sah-ver): Oh no. We simply need to make sure you’re not going to cause trouble.
Jack (as Lem): Huh.
Ali (as Hella): [laughs] Definitely not.
Keith (as Fero): Oh, yeah.
Austin (as Sah-ver): Confidence…
Ali (as Hella): Not these three.
Austin: [laughs] Not these three. Yeah, no. These three people are great.
Jack: [laughs] We’ve destroyed every city we’ve entered. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Perfect.
Jack: I don’t say that.
Austin (as Sah-ver): Thank you for your patience. I’ll return in a number of days.
Jack (as Lem): Oh.
Ali (as Hella): Oh, no.
Keith: I sit. On the ground.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack (as Lem): I don’t know if… I mean, is there a sort of an expedited process?
Austin: She like thinks. Um,
Austin (as Sah-ver): Of course. Who vouches?
Jack (as Lem): Oh.
Keith (as Fero): The Last University still.
Jack (as Lem): The Last University still.
Austin (as Sah-ver): Who vouches for expedition?
Austin: [changes pronunciation] Expedition? Exped…
Keith: Expedition.
Austin: Is that what it’s called?
Keith: Expediency?
Austin: Expediency?
Austin (as Sah-ver): Who vouches for expedience?
Ali (as Hella): The Golden Lance. The Golden Lance.
Jack (as Lem): The Golden Lance.
Ali (as Hella): They told us to come here, and...
Austin (as Sah-ver): The Golden Lance.
Ali (as Hella): Yeah.
Austin: And then like, opens the pouch and like, removes those sheets. And then like, I think she… she kind of has like, she has a few feather tips that are… that you don’t know if it’s magically or if it’s some sort of like, alchemical solution, but she has like, different feather tips on the edge of her wings that have different color like, marker on them almost. And so she makes another mark that is like, the symbol of like... er not the symbol of the Golden Lance. But like the… whatever like, a single mono-character would be of that. Of the Golden Lance, and like, does that and then slides it back in.
Jack: Someone getting obliterated. [Ali laughs]
Austin: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. It’s a stick figure man being just dest.... just being fucking owned. Just that guy got destroyed. Um, and so she says,
Austin (as Sah-ver): Very well. I will see if I can grant you expedience. My name is Sah-ver. Thank you for your patience.
Keith (as Fero): Who vouches?
Jack (as Lem): Oh.
Austin: And so she says,
Austin (as Sah-ver): Zogia vouches.
Austin: And then returns and leaves. Zogia is spelled Z-O-G-I-A. Her name is Sah-ver, which is S-A-H hyphen V-E-R. And she takes off in a lift, and kind of glides up back the bridge.
Jack: Well, we…
Ali: Wait, did you…
Jack: Who just drew a little slug on the map?
Keith: I did. I accidentally drew.
Austin: A little slug on the map. I gotcha.
Jack: Oh, what were you gonna say, Ali?
Ali: She didn’t say how long it would take this time.
Austin: No, she didn’t.
Keith: [overlapping] More than a couple days.
Austin: [overlapping] Sometimes expedience is fast.
Jack: Um, I have an orc move...
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: ... that says, ‘When you enter an important location, your call, you can ask the GM for one fact from the history of the location.’ Is this a thing that I should wait until I am on an islands?
Austin: No, you can do this.
Jack: Or is this sort of Isles of Flight thing?
Austin: You can do this. And I think you actually have another thing you could do here, too.
Jack: Yeah. I have… I haven’t done this yet, this season, so I”m a little rusty about this, but I have like, 2 arrival moves, right?
Austin: Yeah. I think you actually have like… you might have multiple arrival moves, yeah. Though you’ve never been here, so you don’t get to do a Port in the Storm, right?
Jack: Right.
Austin: You do get to do Bardic Lore.
Jack: Bardic Lore.
Austin: And you get to do this, ask a question. Ask me for one fact from the history. Um, the… this place...God, what do y'all know about it. Um, ok. Here’s what you know. Long ago, after the erasure, post-erasure, this group of people connected to the continent for the first time by way of Severea. Severea lead the people here from the continent… er from the Isles of Flight to the continent. And it was always discussed as a sort of like… the way that they always framed it was around… was like a sort of failure. Like, they weren’t supposed to… for the first few generations, they were really at odds with everyone else. And in fact, they still are kind of, an isolationist culture. Like, not isolationist… they’re just… there is no natural curiosity to explore. They’re not trying to expand their borders onto the rest of Hieron.
But when they arrived originally and began to trade with people and began to explore a little bit and talk to people, there was a sense that like, they weren’t born for this. They weren’t meant to be out in the world with other people. Theirs was to be among themselves. And there was a greater calling at which they failed. Um, and so, that is a bit you know. And also you know that they were guided here by Severea, and their relationship with Severea is tight. Severea is who they worship at this point. They had a history of worshipping other gods. You know, there’s a good of feast, god of harvest, god of the night, and all that, but like, eventually Severea revealed herself to them. And the name Sah-ver, which is what this cop’s name was, is like, one of the most common names here. [Keith laughs] Sah-ver is just like…
Jack: [laughs] This… this border cop.
Austin: This border cop is named Sah-ver, and that’s just like a common name here. It’s the Jane Doe… the Jane Smith of the Isles of Flight. So, that is the fact you know.
Jack: Ok, um, I have… So, as far as my Bardic Lore, um… my Bardic Lore is specific about grand histories of the known world.
Austin: This is that.
Jack: Uh, which was an option. Oh. No. That was… so I was doing my orc move first.
Austin: No, no, no. I’m saying… I’m saying you can ask.
Jack: Oh. Yeah, totally.
Austin: This counts. This is… this is…
Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: ...part of the world. Yeah.
Jack: Um, so, kind of what’s the deal with the… sort of social or political structure of this society.
Austin: Ah. So, uh, you may have gotten a hint that it’s often deeply about you know, who vouches for you. Who… who puts… who says…
Jack: Oh, much like the halflings.
Austin: Yeah, but it’s a different sort of thing, right? Because it is about organisation as much as it’s about individuals. Um, and in fact, the name… hearing… hearing her say Zogia vouches for me is odd. It’s not normally, ‘Oh, this person said I was cool.’ It’s… it’s establishments. It’s organisations. It’s guilds. Um, it’s a workplace. It’s a church. It’s not normally a person. And so, you immediately are like, ‘Oh, wait a second. Excuse me?’ Um, because that’s not what you read in the known histories of the world. Um, in the known histories, you know that this was a pretty stratified society, but that the stratification was primarily around casts of people who work in different sectors.
Not about a hierarchy of casts. So, there was like, a religious cast. There was a… there was a you know, an engineering cast. There was a military cast. There was a cast for the jobs no one wants to fucking do. And actually, for a long time, that job… that cast was really well respected right? Like, that’s like, doing the work of undertakers or doing the work of disposing of waste. Um, so like, there is this… there was this division for a long time, and at some point, that started to change a little bit. Um, but you don’t have the specific details on that cause that’s not the known history of the grand histories of the world.
Jack: Right.
Austin: That’s recent news. Or more recent news. More recent than the grand histories. Um, what do you… what was the book that you learned that in?
Jack: Um, I learned about it from a uh… like an illustrated map book for children.
Austin: Ok. Yeah. Good.
Jack: It was like a big map of Hieron. Uh, with like, arrows pointing to it. Where it’s like, ‘The orcs are here. Halflings are here.’ Uh, and then on each page, there was like a… each double... each spread was like a zoomed in version…
Austin: Right.
Jack: ...of like, Rosemerrow. And it’s like, ‘These are halflings. They live in a city called Rosemerrow.’
Austin: So, you know the names of these people then. These people are called the Mistral.
Jack: The mistral?
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Like, M-I-S-T-R-A-L?
Austin: You got it.
Jack: Uh, but I guess I didn’t know that they were… I guess, this was presented to me as like, a top-down… I’ve only ever seen these islands top-down.
Austin: Yep. 100%
Jack: I’ve never seen… So, it was like, ‘The Mistral live on 5 islands, in the north of Hieron. They can fly for short distances.’
Austin: Yep..
Jack: And Lem’s just like, ‘yep.’ Like, baby Lem’s like, ‘Yes! They’re in the north.’
Austin: ‘God, bird people. Sick.’ Cool. Um, any other moves here before we move on?
Keith: Um, nope. I don’t… I don’t have anything.
Ali: Yeah, I guess we’re just waiting.
Austin: So, ok so…
Ali: I sit down next to Fero.
Austin: Yeah, you sit down. You kill some time. You eat a meal maybe. Um, and two hours later, Sah-ver returns. Um, and she says,
Austin (as Sah-ver): Blessed by luck, you have been expedited. Come with me.
Jack (as Lem): Amazing.
Austin: And she leads you up this bridge, and she kind of glides above it very slowly. And I think that’s probably the first time you realize like, ‘Oh, she’s not like, flapping her wings at all. She isn’t…’ Like, she’s… there are times when it’s… like when she was gliding down, it did look like she was gliding, but this flight is not just flapping. This isn’t just like, ‘I have bird… I have bird parts.’ There is something magical happening here. There is like… there’s lift where there should be no lift for her. And… but also it’s not consistent. Every once in a while, she lands and then has to like, wait a few minutes, and then lifts back off.
And this is a long walk up a wooden bridge that’s… that’s anchored to the top of this place. And it’s not… there are parts that are like, there are parts in the…. There’s a part at the very beginning, the very end, and the very middle that are like, three big concrete… er not concrete, but rock, stone archways, but the bridge itself is all like, long wooden planks. And that is very scary. Like, it’s not a thin bridge, but it’s still kind of spooky to walk on this damn thing and be like, ‘It’s gonna fall. I don’t know how to fly at all.’ Um, but you make it up there, and when you make it up there, you uh… you know, you are in a trade district for this island. I haven’t figured out what the architecture is yet here.
Cause I haven’t thought about like, what does the ar… what happens to an architectural… of a place where people are flying a lot. I imagine it’s like, lots of open sides to buildings. Um, it’s like, it’s almost like it’s a vertically built city, right? And so, this is a trade district where… think of it as like, um, a tower. Like, a really wide tower. Think of like… not a skyscraper, but you know, a 10 story tall building where it has landings instead of having like, walls. Does that make sense? Do you know what I’m talking about?
Keith: Uh huh.
Austin: [overlapping] Where like- Um, what is the type of-
Ali: [overlapping] Yeah. Or like, the boat we were looking at before where it’s like, you know what I mean? Where it’s like different levels? Is that what you mean?
Austin: No, I actually mean like, a pagoda, actually. Like specifically like a pagoda that you would find in like, East Asia, except really wide. And instead of just being roofs that look out, like a balcony and then a roof or a window and then a roof, the roof is like a landing pad that you land on, and then you walk inside from there.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: So, imagine like open-air street markets, but they’re just on the side of this building.... Not on the side, but like, inside of that building, but they’re like… you fly up there. You jump up cause you’re a bird person and you just fly up to floor 7, you know? And there are stairs inside because this is a trade… this is like, the trade island, but it is not a like… It is not built for you in that sense. Um, and so just, people flying all over the place and you know, running you know, sacks of grain around. And there’s you know, people… this is like, a really active city. This is… this is you know, it’s probably about as active as you’re used to in the… maybe more active than what you’re used to in the university. It reminds you of Aubade in a sense, um, but except that in Aubade, everyone was taken care of. In here, like, you immediately… there’s like, beggars. People who are like, asking for food and asking for money as you arrive. Sah-ver is like,
Austin (as Sah-ver): Ignore them.
Austin: Um, you see someone who… Hella, you see someone die. Like, you feel it happen. Which is new for you maybe. Um, there is a person who is being attended to who is actually covered in paint. In the kind of sky color paint. Um, they are a pink bird, and they have a… there’s another person who looks just kind of like them. I don’t know how well you are at telling bird people apart yet, at telling these mistral apart, but one of them is pink and one of them is purple. And they have very similar markings. Like, there are similar like, feather markings. And the one who is covered in the paint, um, dies in front of you. And the other one is like, holding back some sort of wail. Like, not a… not a mammal. Not a sea mammal. Like a cry. Um [laughs] and…
Keith: A W-A-I-L?
Austin: ...is like, keeping it together. Yeah. And then some of these other people with a similar border guard icon on their… on their satchels arrive, and um, they go like,
Austin (as unnamed border guard): Did you know her?
Austin: And the one who is… who is clearly the sibling of this one on the ground, like scurries back and runs away and flies away. And leaves the one who’s covered in paint on the ground. And is chased away by these other border guards. Ans Sah-ver says, um,
Austin (as Sah-ver): There are more and more who are vouchless.
Ali (as Hella): Wh…
Keith (as Fero): [whispered] Yo, those people suck.
Ali (as Hella): Wha- vouchless? Cause they… wha… hmm. Go on.
Austin: She doesn’t elaborate. There’s like, a deep judgemental… she is like, not pleased with them. You know?
Ali: Ok.
Jack: [overlapping] And doesn’t want to even-
Ali: [overlapping] How far away are they?
Austin: They’re within walking… like, you’re walking through the streets basically.
Ali: Ok.
Austin: And the streets are not paved. These are unpaved roa… or like, unpaved, dirt roads because there’s not much travel that happens on them, right? LIke, there’s probably one or two big… like major roads on each of these roads. But the bulk of transport either happens by flight… um, either by flight of people like, with backpacks or like, big sacks of stuff on their back going to these really well-made buildings. Um, like it’s just like, they haven’t… it’s the same reason that like, we don’t have great submarine lanes cause like, we don’t… that’s not a thing we need. [Jack laughs]
We don’t need canals it he middle of the… Wyoming, you know? That’s not what it is. And so, but here you know, for you walking around here, like... I think maybe this island, cause it’s the trade island, has the most um, the most in the way of like, non-flight options. But there are just… there are… it is not going well. There is… there are people who are fine also. Like, it has the energy of a lived in city. There are people who are selling their wares, and there are people who are cooking. And there are people who are playing in the streets. Like, it’s not… people live here.
Ali: Right.
Austin: People are living their lives here, no doubt.
Jack: But there’s like kind of overwhelming sense that something… something is awry in this place.
Austin: Oh, in… yes. In the Isles of Flight, something is awry in the Isles of Flight. Um…
Jack: Um, when you des… So, when we arrived, and we saw it from a distance and we saw these kind of colorful dragons with the um…
Austin: Oh, those are around also, by the way. It’s just… yeah.
Jack: ...sky… the sky writing. Um, is the trade district that we can see, as colorful as that first impression?
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not-
Jack: Or it’s not that the color is restricted to the people covered in paint. And everything else is more…?
Austin: No, the people covered in paint like, if you inspected her, you would see more about this paint stuff. That’s what I will say. But also, you’re being guided somewhere by Sah-ver. The cop.
Jack: Yeah. Could we lose her?
Austin: Maybe. How do you do it?
Jack: Or could some of us lose her? Um… how do you lose… I mean, I do this by accident everytime I arrive at a new place.
Austin: You really do.
Jack: But now I want to do it on purpose.
Ali: [laughs] Well, we can just… We’re sneaky.
Jack: I don’t know that we should all lose her though, right?
Keith: I…
Ali: So, we…
Keith: I think we should just go with the flow for five minutes.
Jack: You want to stay with the cop?
Keith: I don't want to stay with the cop, but I do think that we should chill for just a like… any amount of time.
Austin: I just want to read some alignments again, real quick. [Ali laughs] Just cause it’s fun. Just cause I like doing it. Fero, yours is ‘Favor your instincts over fear of consequences.’ Lem, your is, ‘Avoid conflict or diffuse a tense situation.’ [Ali and Jack laugh] I just think it’s interesting you’re playing each other’s alignment.
Keith: Well, my instinct is not to fucking mess with these people right now. That’s my instinct.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Ok. Uh huh. Over consequences. Ok…. Ok, so well, maybe that’s an important thing to zoom in on. When you write down, ‘Favor your instincts over your conseq- over consequences.’, do you mean consequences for yourself or other people?
Keith: Broad consequences.
Austin: Ok. Just askin’ the questions here. Um, so yeah, so Fero’s sticking with her. Lem, Hella?
Ali: I’m curious about this paint….
Jack: Yeah. I’m also…
Ali: ...situation.
Jack: Um, I mean, alright. How do I… how do I…
Ali (as Hella): Fero, can you make a distraction?
Keith (as Fero): No.
Ali (as Hella): Oh, ok.
Jack: I’m gonna say-
Keith (as Fero): I’m not... I don’t care about this thing you guys have decided that you care about. I don’t care. [Jack and Ali laugh] That’s not what we’re here… I don’t care. I’m not… I’m not immediately gonna start causing shit.
Jack: I’m gonna say,
Jack (as Lem): Oh my god, Hella. I dropped it.
Ali (as Hella): What did… what did you drop?
Jack (as Lem): The… the… the book, Hella!
Ali (as Hella): [gasps] The book.
Jack (as Lem): The gift.
Ali (as Hella): You dropped the gift.
Keith (as Fero): No, we left the gift… we left the gift back… We didn’t even take a gift.
Austin: Oh my fucking god.
Jack: Hello. Hello, this is Fourteen Fifteen and Tender Sky have arrived. [Ali laughs]
Austin: [laughing] And why… Fero is absolutely the person who is like, ‘Uh, you didn’t give us homework. You were supposed to give us homework.’ [Ali and Jack laugh]
Ali: I…
Jack: Oh no.
Austin: So, wait. No, no. This is what’s happening. This is… this is… this is Defy Danger charisma, and Fero, you are aidi-... you are interfering.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I don’t know that we’ve ever used aid, interfere for interfere before.
Jack: Can Hella aid?
Austin: Hella can also aid, yeah. So.
Jack: Wait, whose charisma is higher? Mine.
Austin: We… let’s start with Lem’s. Lem, you were the initiator here.
Jack: Ok, so I roll…
Austin: So, Lem, roll Defy Danger charisma.
Jack: Defy Danger.
Austin: So, just click on Defy Danger and then choose charisma.
Jack: I got it this time.
Austin: Alright.
Jack: Defy Danger charisma.
Austin: That is a 10.
Keith: So, I can’t…
Austin: Now.
Keith: I can’t even… Oh it’s a…
Austin: You can interfere.
Keith: No, it’s an 11. If I interfere, it will just go down to a 10, right?
Austin: It’s not an 11, it’s a 10.
[crosstalking]
Keith: It says… Oh, oh. This is two different rolls, sorry.
Jack: No, it’s an 11. It says… Oh, that was my strength roll. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: Yeah, I’m looking at the one right here.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: So, Aid or Interfere.
Austin: Yeah, it’s a 10, so you could aid, interfere to drop it to a mixed success.
Keith: 6.
Austin: Unfortunately, you don’t. You failed the Aid, Interfere. Um, which opens you up to danger, retribution, or cost. So, here’s what happens. Um, the.. Sah-ver is like,
Austin (as Sah-ver): Very well. Retrieve your book.
Austin: And then says,
Austin (as Sah-ver): Hella, Fero, come with me.
Austin: And leads you along. And places you into a room when you arrive. Um, and the thing that’s gonna happen here is, they will leave you in that room until Lem shows up with a book. [Jack laughs] And I think she explains it to you. Like, as you get in, she leads you just like, it is like, 5 minutes away. Um, and she’s like, continuing to like, answer questions on the way. She’s very nice. She’s like, very polite about ever…every… just deep politeness. And is like,
Austin (as Sah-ver): Please have a seat in this room while we wait for your companion. So that we can properly check you into the Isles of Flight.
Austin: And there’s food. There’s fruit on the table. There’s, y’know, if you want tea, you want water. They’re there. There’s books. But the door is locked.
Ali: She didn’t answer that thing about what being vouchless is. Not very polite.
Austin: Do you… did ask that. She said… what she said was um… Did you ask her again? Did you like, push on it?
Ali: Yeah, I think just before… yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Just being like,
Ali (as Hella): Well, so what… I mean, what did they…?
Austin (as Sah-ver): To be vouchless is… I am clipped, but I am not vouchless. Some give me their name. Zogia gives me his name. Some others… I belong to the church. I am vouched. They are discarded from society itself. If none vouches…
Keith (as Fero): Why?
Austin (as Sah-ver): ...then who are you?
Keith (as Fero): But then… but why?
Austin (as Sah-ver): There are limits. Restrictions. Inevitabilities. And rarities. These must be judged. Priorities must emerge. They do emerge. And we would not ignore that there are priorities. Instead we make judgement. To be vouched is to allow for quick judgement. Just as you were allowed to enter quickly. How would you know who should be expedited without knowing who was vouched for?
Ali (as Hella): That’s different from people dying in the streets.
Keith (as Fero): I also…
Austin (as Sah-ver): It may be. But sometimes, those who are dying in the streets are the cause of much chaos and harm themselves. And so, when we have limited supplies, when we may only heal some, priorities are arrived at. On a day like today, the ritual. Our medical supplies, our healers were needed there, in case of an accident. Such are priorities. To be unvouched is a choice. They have failed at being vouched for.
Ali (as Hella): Hm.
Austin (as Sah-ver): And perhaps one day, the vouchless may find someone who, or a group who, again says that they are part of the whole.
Keith (as Fero): Alright.
Austin (as Sah-ver): Thank you for waiting. Hopefully your companion will arrive shortly.
Austin: Lem? How’s it goin’?
Jack: Uh, I’m retracing my steps…
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: ...towards the… towards the figures. And as I’m there, I’d like to… I’d like to send a message with the box.
Austin: What do you say?
Jack: I’d like to say, uh…
Jack (as Lem): [typed into message box] “All arrived safe and unharmed, though journey was difficult. How are you?”
Austin: Nothing yet.
Jack: And then I’m gonna approach-
Austin: [interrupting] Uh, but we do get a cut in of… we get a cut in of Emmanuel like, in the field, doing you know, doing some farming. And then this thing starts like, vibrating, basically [laughs] inside of his pocket. And he’s like,
Austin (as Emmanuel): Oh, uh.
Austin: And is like,
Austin (as Emmanuel): Ok, what?
Austin: And then he’s like, ‘uh’ and then quickly like, grabs a pad from somewhere and starts trying to write down what the fuck is happening on this little box. [Jack laughs] Because he has to then go translate it. He doesn’t know what…
Jack: He doesn’t have… he doesn’t… he’s not even carrying the little book with him.
Austin: No. And also, he has to like… he’ll have to go translate it later. He doesn’t know… He can’t be like, ‘Oh yes. Switch… the switch flipped three times. The little rotatey cup did the two full rotations clockwise and then one counterclockwise’… He’s not gonna remember that in 2 hours. [laughing] And so, he like, gets part of this message, but nothing yet. I think he just said… [laughs] What you get back is like…
Jack: Is it just like, [foley of jumbled text] ‘busurlurgaslugarluh’.
Austin: Yeah, it’s like that or it’s like, you know, ‘cow’ uh… ‘seaside’... you know, uh, ‘happy sunday’. That’s it. And it’s like, ‘Great. I… Ok. He hit some buttons back that said something.
Jack: Like, the message got received.
Austin: Yeah, basically. Um.
Jack: Um, this means that my box then automatically just says that as well cause.
Austin: Right. That’s what I’m saying.
Jack: [overlapping] Oh, yeah. That’s how I get it, right?
Austin: [overlapping] That is what he has said back to you. Yeah, exactly.
Jack: Great. Yeah, so I’m gonna approach this… this… this… I think I’m gonna follow in the footsteps of where I saw this figure kind of ducking away.
Austin: Oh, so you’re following the person. You’re not going to the dead body. You’re going to the person who tried to get away?
Jack: Um, I mean [sighs] the dead body’s just there, right? It’s just kind of…
Austin: Yeah, it’s in the ground… on the ground right now.
Jack: Oh geez. Then yeah, no. I think definitely, I think let’s start with just the body.
Austin: Um, alright. So, you arrive at the… this body. Um, it is a… it is a paint covered, um, bird person. A mistral. I think you immediately recognize that it is uh… [sighs] It’s been… they’ve been killed by a spear or something. A puncture wound. Um, went right through them. Like, all the way through them. And that’s mixed in with the paint. And you see a little… you’re able to like, go through their stuff. Um, and they have like, a little… they have like, a little uh, notepad. Or not even a notepad, a piece of paper that just has like, something written in a language you don’t understand.
But probably could translate if you had time. But you do see that there is this like, there is a symbol there that you recognize or that you’re able to… to work with. Or there’s a thing that you recognize as being a symbol for an organisation. And it is like, a feather dipped in a… it’s like a… Imagine the simplest version of a quill that you can imagine. Like a… like a quill in a thing of ink. Um, so just like, a little ink pot with a quill coming out of it. But with as few strokes as you can imagine drawing that with.
Jack: Hm.
Austin: Um, and that is like, what the symbol is, and then you recognize… You start to realize, like, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that symbol somewhere.’ And one, you realize the symbol was one of the things that was being erased from the sky. And two, you realize you’re pretty sure you saw it somewhere on like, a wall somewhere. Like, it’s graffitied other places around here.
Jack: Right. It’s like a mark. It’s like a...
Austin: It’s like a mark. It’s like a symbol
Jack: ...the mark of an organisation.
Austin: Yeah, it’s an organisation's mark. Yeah.
Jack: I’m gonna take the paper because I’ll probably want to translate it when I have some more time.
Austin: Yeah. Uh huh.
Jack: Um, can I investigate the paint? Or something? Can I like, um…
Austin: What are you looking to know? I mean, you could Discern Realities. You could definitely Discern Realities and ask me some questions.
Jack: Yeah, yeah. I want to Discern… I want to Discern Realities on this thing.
Austin: Yeah, let’s do that.
Jack: Um, let me open up my thing. And let me hit… Discern Realities.
Austin: That is an 8, so you can ask one question and take 1 forward on that. So, what do you ask?
Jack: Um, what here is not what it appears to be?
Austin: [sighs] Um, I actually think it’s a… it’s a… the thing that you notice is that it is not simply that… People are avoiding this body with a sort of fear of what would happen if they didn’t avoid the body.
Jack: Hm.
Austin: And so, what you’re noticing is just like, there are people curiously watching you. And there’s like, people are actually… the more you’re there, the more people get closer to it. It’s almost this like, ‘Well, if you’re… if you’re gonna… if you’re here, then…’
Jack: Huh. Yeah.
Austin: ‘Yeah, ok, I can stop.’ Like, people stop just kind of looking and walking past, right? There’s just sort of like, you’re almost like a magnet here to this. And so what you kind of see is that, it is not hate in the other people who are walking by. It is not like a disinterest. It’s fear that was keeping them away. And you being here is beginning to change that. Um, and so that is the thing that you.. That you notice. There’s something else in the body that’s like…
Jack: Is the paint, um…
Austin: It’s not special paint. It’s paint-
Jack: If I just like, touch it very lightly, it’s just paint on my finger.
Austin: Yeah. It’s a… it’s a… you get paint on the finger, when you pull you fingers away, it stays in the air for a moment. It’s like, it’s like…
Jack: Oh wow.
Austin: It’s like sticky, but it’s sticky to the air, not to your fingers. Do you know what I mean?
Jack: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: It’s like if you pulled away, it is kind of like a glue or like a goo. But then like, and so it does like, connect, but the connection isn’t solid. It’s like, this sky painting. It’s like, it’s like sky writing material, but very dense and colorful.
Jack: Um, ok. Uh, I’m going to you know, close the eyes of the body.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Um, I don’t know that...
Austin: At this point, people have like gathered around you. And one of them says, like,
Austin (as unnamed Mistral): Did you know them?
Jack (as Lem): Oh no. I just arrived. Um… can… can you do something about this?
Austin (as unnamed Mistral): Can you?
Jack (as Lem): Well, I… I just arr… I don’t know anything about this place. I wouldn’t know where to put them
Austin (as unnamed Mistral): Their name was Arn.
Jack (as Lem): Thank you. Um, if we wanted to… to take this… to… I don’t know. How do you… what do you do here when someone… you know, we can’t just leave it in the street, can we?
Austin: There’s like an older, um… an older one of the birds walks a little closer to you and says, like,
Austin (as unnamed Mistral): They are vouchless. They are clipped and vouchless. It is a great risk to do one such as that a favor.
Jack (as Lem): Wait, even for me?
Austin (as unnamed Mistral): Yes. Even your presence now draws risk.
Jack (as Lem): Ok. Um… alright. Ok. Well… Ok. Thank you for telling me that. I have to go to a bookshop.
Jack: And I just sort of like, step through the crowd. And sort of start looking for like, just some sort of like, trade dealership. Or like some…
Austin: Are you just looking for a book so you can arrive with a book basically?
Jack: Yeah, totally. Like, I just want to pick out like a… I want to pick up a b- [laughs] I want to pick up a book that… it is obviously gonna look like the party gift got from the gas station.
Austin: Uh huh. Right.
Jack: But I want to make it look like the least party gift… I don’t want it to be a book that was written in mistral.
Austin: So, um, so, when you go to buy something with gold on hand, uh if it’s something readily available in the settlement you’re in, you can buy at market price. If it is something special, beyond what is available here or not mundane, roll + charisma. You just want a regular fucking book, right? You’re not looking for anything super special.
Jack: I want a… Yeah, I want a book so long as it’s not like, marked with the ‘printed here’ thing.
Austin: Oh, ok. I see. Right. That is actually harder to get. Yeah, ok. Cause I’ve already established them as being a little isolated, right?
Jack: Yeah, but we talked about trades.
Austin: Yeah, we did. But like, is there a book shop here that says… that’s selling books that are not like… their books?
Jack: I guess it’s like me trying to buy… buy a book in London in like…
Austin: Right.
Jack: I don’t know. German?
Austin: Like, if you wanted to buy a book in Japanese in New York, I could tell you where to go for it. But like…
Jack: But you’d have to like… but if you just let me loose into…
Austin: Also, this isn’t New York.
Jack: ...into Manhattan and were like, ‘Buy a book in Japanese.’
Austin: Yeah, and also this place is not Manhattan. Like, it’s a trade district, but it’s a trade district in like, you know, uh… Canton, Ohio. Not in… oh, we can’t do Canton cause there’s already a Kanton in this world. But you know?
Jack: Canton, Ohio.
Austin: Right, but not Kanton, Hieron. OHireon. Um. [Ali and Austin laughs] So, give me a charisma.
Jack: OHieron wrote that book about the watch and the cutting the hair off, right?
Austin: Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah.
Jack: So, uh… ok. I roll charisma.
Austin: Yep, just roll charisma.
Jack: Just regular charisma?
Austin: Yep.
Jack: Nothing happened. Maybe I didn’t click it.
Austin: I don’t… maybe you didn’t click it. It would have happened by now.
Jack: I’ve clicked it twice. Maybe my Roll20’s gone down. I’m gonna refresh Roll20.
Austin: You’re Roll20’s… it’s possible.
Jack: Oh yeah. It’s just the internet on my mac is being weird.
Austin: Hm.
Jack: It came through twice. I just saw it real quick.
Austin: Wait, did you? I haven’t seen it yet.
Jack: Could someone tell me what I rolled? Oh, maybe it’s local at this point.
Austin: It must be.
Jack: God, the internet is so weird. When I reload Roll20, is it gonna give me two…
Austin: It might.
Jack: ...charisma rolls?
Austin: I haven’t seen anything yet.
Jack: It says, your connection was interrupted. Now it’s loading. It’s thinking about it.
Austin: Do you want me to just roll this for you? Do you want me to hit the roll button?
Jack: Yeah, just hit me a… Hit the roll button.
Austin: There we go. You got a 5. [Austin and Jack laugh] On a charisma roll.
Jack: Now, I don’t know if that counts. When you do it.
Austin: Oh really. Uh huh.
Ali: Is your roll still trying?
Jack: Uh, mine is… I’ve got Roll20 back.
Austin: If you get in and your roll happens, I’ll count your roll, but…
Jack: No, I got back…
Austin: ...I rolled 2 fucking ones.
Jack: … and it hasn’t come back.
Keith: Wait, are you able to use the rest of Roll20, or…?
Jack: Yeah, no, Roll20’s running again, it’s just the rolls that I made just before I left didn’t come through.
Keith: Maybe you should… Oh, ok. So, it is still working for you. Ok, ok.
Jack: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s working. It’s just uh, Austin rolled…
Austin: I did.
Jack: Austin rolled a lot worse than I.
Austin: So, here’s what happens. You’re… you get referenced again and again from different… from different bookshop to different bookshops. And someone’s like, ‘Oh, no. Far away books, we don’t have. No. Mistral books.’ And then someone else says, ‘Oh, you should go to the religious bookstore. They would, of course, have books from different faiths.’ And you go, and they’re like, ‘Ah, no. With recent regulation changes, no they’ve all been sold out. Or they’re all traded away. Or we only have Mistral language ones.’ Um, and then they send you from there to like, an engineering bookstore, like a stem bookstore. Etcetera. It goes and goes and goes.
Jack: Like, cut to Hella and Fero just in this room, like sipping water.
Austin: Yeah, yeah. And then you get… someone finally is like, ‘Oh yeah. Go back to this other bookshop.’ And they send you to a different bookshop, um and it’s like… It’s like, ‘Oh, you need rare oddities.’ You need the bookstore that’s like, explicitly… It’s not a bookstore at all. It’s just an oddities store. It’s like… it’s like an import shop, and they might have a book or two. So, you’re in this very like, cramped import shop, and you find a book. And you have it in your hand. You’re going up to the counter to buy it, and then in the… in the doorway appear two… You know how I’ve described them as not very big birds? Right? These are two big birds. These are birds that are bigger than… They’re just big birds. Like, they’re not especially… they’re not like, a different species of bird or something. This is the thing that we did in that last game.
Jack: We just got some big birds here.
Austin: They got some big birds here. There big mistral here. Um, and they both have the satchels with the… on their left… over their left shoulder is a satchel that’s being… it’s like being... or over their right shoulder across their back, or across their body, like a messenger bag. On that satchel is definitely the border patrol symbol again. And then your eyes naturally go over to the right, and they both have big batons in their hands, or in the edge of their wings. Maybe you don’t even have… you know what they actually have? Actually they have the thing that killed that other bird which is…
Jack: Oh.
Austin: They have… They’re not spears. You thought that was a spear. They’re like, flexible swords. They’re like, flat razor blades that bend when they move their hands.
Jack: Oh.
Austin: Um, and they’re sharp at the end, and they’re sharp all the way around. And one of them like, pulls up with it, just like holds it above their head and just kind of like, almost like a snake or something. Like, wiggling it around in the air.
[Jack de Quidt’s “Something” begins playing in background]
You know, wiggling is not a very threatening word to use, [Jack laughs] but they’re wiggling it around in the air. It’s kind of like.. It’s almost like, it’s almost… It’s hard to take your eyes around, or take your eyes off of. Um, and they say,
Austin (as unnamed Mistral guard): You, who vouched for vouchless. Come with us.
[Music plays to end]