Transcribers: maggie (mag #4225) 0:00:00-0:52:40; Isaac (telechubbies #5450) 0:52:40-1:59:43
Austin: Sangfielle is a series that draws on elements of dark fantasy, horror and gothic fiction. As such, a list of content warnings will always be made available in the episode description
[Intro]
Austin: You approach this place, the priory of the mother hymn.
Sylvia [as Virtue]: Alright… who wants to open the door?
[Dre laughs]
Sylvia [as Virtue]: it's not gonna be me. I mean… Come on! How are we gonna get back? I cast the spell.
Andrew [as Chine]: Hellooo?
[music begins: “Sangfielle” by Jack de Quidt]
Austin: The door opens and it is… Sister Marisha, who would have been the boundless conclave attendant that you knew as like… a child, who left Eastern Folly-then Eastern Folly-in the middle of our Ground Itself game.
Andrew [as Chine]: Sister, we are here looking for a child of Blackwick who has gone missing, and we think he has wandered in here.
Austin [as Marisha]: Alright, well, I'll be back in a moment… I need to check in on some things. If you could just wait here I would appreciate it greatly. I'm putting trust in you, Chine.
Andrew [as Chine]: Yes, ma'am!
[Laughing]
Austin: [Laughing] Oh my god.
Austin: You find a small, uh, again, little chapel down one of the hallways. The door is unlocked… you go in, it’s lit by candlelight, and at the very front, at the lectern, there's a book, and this is the Hymnal of the Mother Beast.
You start to piece together a little of what’s happened here based on the hymn. About two hundred years ago, around the Panic, around the time that this place became Sangfielle, the Mother Beast began, herself, to panic. The prioress kinda felt through… um… a sort of um… an oracular gift, through the Mother-Beast, that terrible times were coming, um… that the child would be lost and that this would send the Mother-Beast into peril, and then the world soon after.
As expected, the child disappeared at some point, and then there's the moment where they made a decision, which was: to stop time for the Mother-Beast, to prevent the Mother-Beast from dying. And to do that, they needed a place to put her, um… and that place is the hymn that you are currently inside of.
Austin [as Marisha: I don't know what let the Magistrate and the Kay’van here… [struggling for words] and frankly I do not care. I am not interested in political rivalries from beyond the Heartland, and I much less want them to arrive at our doorstep and ruin our windows in what is already a difficult and stressful time. I would advise you to leave, to return to Blackwick and tell whomever sent you: “I am sorry, the boy has been lost. Such are things in Sangfielle.”
Jack [as Pickman: [matter-of-fact] We’re gonna leave with the kid.
[Someone chuckling]
Austin [as Marisha]: You are asking to put the life of a man you do not know in front of that of all of my sisters. If you leave with this… with this agent of Kay’va, then the Magistrate will leave as well, and return to the Magistratum, and return with many more.
Jack [as Pickman]: No. We are going to kill the Magistrate.
Andrew [as Chine]: Yeah… What she said.
Austin [as Marisha]: You are going to kill the person who came here, came to the Folly in pursuit of a quarry who seems to have done some great wrong to, to, to [stutters] the Magistratum, and you think that making them disappear will have no consequence for you… [Short pause] then fine.
[Laughs in the background]
Austin [as Marisha]: You know?
Jack [as Pickman]: I don't see why that bothers you, cause all you care about are consequences for you.
Austin [as Marisha]: Uh… I am fine with this, I will go to speak to the prioress on your behalf.. You will take the mark in your head, you and yours.
Jack [as Pickman]: Sounds about right.
Austin: And she raises up from the… from the table.
Jack: As soon as she's gone, Pickman turn to the group and says,
Jack [as Pickman]: Does anyone have a spare weapon?
Sylvia [as Virtue]: I will give… I do, actually.
Andrew [as Chine]: Yeah… I mean, I gotta knife I could give you.
Sylvia [as Virtue]: Oh yeah, have a knife too.
[Laughs in the background]
Austin: Um… anything that is not a weapon on your sheets is a d4 weapon which is the same.
Sylvia: Oh, I was gonna straight up like, give Pickman my sword.
Austin: Okay… um, there is an extra knife… Oh you are gonna give the regular…
Sylvia: The duelist’s saber, yeah.
Austin: ‘Cause you have the good knife at this point, right?
Sylvia: Yeah, I also have another thing I could use as a weapon, so like… you know.
Austin: Yeah, gotcha. Gotcha.
[Andrew chuckling]
Jack: Oh, shit! Virtue picked up that–! Oh… ! This is really interesting.
Sylvia: Yeah!
Jack: We haven't played with a system that has like… equipment in this way before.
[Laughs]
Austin: That has like, quality equipment, yeah.
*Everyone*: Yeah!
Sylvia: And that thing is like limited use too, so I wanted to, like… give Pickman something that they could use more than one time.
*Everyone*: Sure![Laughs]
Austin: So then yeah you've got the sabre from… from…
Jack: What tags does it have?
Sylvia: It’s just Kill D6.
Austin: [overlapping] D6.
Jack: I've got this written down as Virtue’s Sabre…
Sylvia: Yes!
Jack: Kill… [chuckles quietly]
Sylvia: It's just like, if you google a basket-hilted sword, that’s kinda the vibe I’m going for with it.
Jack: Just tiny in Pickman's hand.
Sylvia: Oh for sure, like… not at all for someone wielding that sort of armour, but better than nothing.
Jack: Yes! Thank you. [pauses] So does she leave? She’s gone off to go and tell the prioress?
Austin: To talk to the prioress. To make this pitch.
Sylvia: [overlapping] Oh, I should also tell Pickman about the whole pocket dimension situation? [voice rising nervously] Real quick?
[Laughs]
Sylvia: ‘Cause Pickman was not there for that.
Jack: [overlapping] I think Pickman just nods. [chuckling] Just…
Austin: “Yeah, sure.”
Sylvia: [overlapping] Just basically the same explanation I gave Chine earlier… don't need to do it again.
[Austin laughs]
Sylvia: Umm… We should start looking for this… I keep wanting to call them a kid. We should keep looking for this Janek guy, right? At this point. Or like, are we gonna wait this time? [laughs softly]
Ali: What i–she’s like– she was like, I assumed she was gonna go… get him. But maybe that's…
Austin: She’s gonna talk to the prioress about this. It’s not her decision. She doesn’t run this place.
Ali: Sure, sure, sure.
Austin: She is the one who like, was alive in the last hundred and fifty years, and can talk to you without creeping you out, probably. Y’know?
Ali: [laughs] So in theory, we could still just go find him and break him out. Quote unquote.
Austin: Sure, I- yeah. [Short pause] No one rolled for Discern on her, but she wasn't lying to you when she said she'd go figure this out.
Andrew: Mmm.
Austin: So, you tell me how you frame this or handle this. If y’all wanna go try to break someone out, find them and break them out, we could go down that route.
If you wanna wait to see what this next– what the Priory will be doing in response to your kind of offer, which is basically “take the heat for this by killing this person”, which they don't wanna do, for some reason.
Ali: I- I mean part of me feels like we made the offer, [laughing] so we should see how it plays out.
Andrew: Right, yeah.
Ali: I'm fine with sneaking, I'm great at sneaking, I've recently gotten really good at sneaking.
Jack: Well, I mean… so maybe we, you know when like, um… You know when you know that a bad thing is coming in games, and you send someone off to hide so that they can, like, jump in at an opportunity– [Sylvi laughs]–Adaire Ducarte scheme? I don’t know, Marn, do you wanna like– do you want to get into a more advantageous position? Like, do we want to, like, ready ourselves for whatever is about to happen? I don’t know.
[Pause]
Ali: Um… I don’t know what that preparing is– [laughing] looks like!
Jack: Yeah it's like… what is the… [Chuckles]
Ali: Beyond either, like… leaving this room and like… I guess going to find someone or information? Or, like, just waiting for her to come back.
[Pause]
Jack: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew: [overlapping] Mmm.
Ali: I have like a setup action that takes like an hour, so… we´re not doing that!
Austin: [overlapping] You do, that’s true. Wait, why?
Sylvia: [surprised] Is she gonna take over an hour?
Ali: Maybe…
Jack: Might be a serious negotiation, yeah.
Sylvia: [overlapping] Yeah, that’s fair.
Austin: She’s going to go talk to the prioress about doing– [stuttering] You know, they live in a hymn that has infinite time in it, so I think they probably go a little slow.
[Everyone laughing]
Jack: What does this setup do?
Sylvia: What if we followed her?
Ali: Yeah, let’s just– let’s just read this rule. So I have Forewarned and Forearmed: “Never get in a fight you can’t win. Once per session, when you have an hour or two to spare at a landmark, you can make prepa–preparations for the coming challenges. Pick one of the benefits from below. You and the characters you choose to take part in the preparation gain this benefit.” And the benefits are, um… [laughs] A Whetstone and a Weapon Drill, which, uh… “One piece of Kill equipment gains the Brutal tag.”
[Jack laughs]
Austin: Brutal, very good. Brutal makes stuff – gives you, I think, 2 dice to roll on for damage and you keep the highest, so… very good.
[Appreciative noises from the cast]
Ali: Oh, damn. [continuing to read] Checked and–
Austin: [overlapping] And that stacks if you already have a brutal thing, by the way.
Ali: Yowie zowie.
Austin: Yeah!
Ali: [reading] Checked and Triple Checked – “One piece of Delve equipment gains the Trusty tag.”
Austin: Same thing as- as Brutal but for Delve equipment.
Ali: Okay. [reading] Tough it Up – “Gain +1 Blood protection.” One for the Road-- I should rename that.
Austin: [overlapping] Mhm. You should rename that, yeah.
Ali: [reading] “Gain +1 Mind protection.” And then, uh, Creative Acquisitions – “Gain +1 Supply protection.” So maybe we want either Blood or Mind here?
Sylvia: Yeah… um, I'm fine with either, I don't know how other people are feeling.
Jack: I– [sighs thoughtfully]. If we, uh– if– if the way this is going is towards combat, Blood might be the better option. I don’t know if Magistrates would inflict Mind stress, but I’m sure there’s a way that, y’know, we could get it. [Ali huffs a laugh] But if he’s gonna be shooting at us – but if they’re going to be shooting at us, Blood. Or, if someone else– Does anyone else have a weapon that has the Brutal tag? Because they could get that double stack–
Andrew: [overlapping] I do.
Jack: Ooh! That's also an option. It’s up to you, I don't know.
Ali: Yeah, I think we all get the same thing though, so I feel like, like blood might be the, like… the team building thing.
Jack: Like a group buff?
[Everyone laughing]
Jack: Yeah, yeah, definitely! That’s our first job!
Austin: [overlapping] What's Toughen Up– what does that preparation look like?
Ali: Um… what does that look like? The first thing that came to mind is it just like… Is it just like, Marn starting to like… instinctually start to do like stretches and stuff and then everybody else is like “well…”
[Jack chuckling, Ali giggling]
Austin: Yeah! It could be. Yeah.
Ali: We might as well, I guess.
Austin: Stretches, checking your armour. Like, um… Making sure that like your, your… like, just in general that your stuff is all where it should be, y’know?
Ali: Sure, uh.
Austin: You're not gonna trip over– [stuttering] you know like, if your pants are a little long you make sure they're rolled up and creased right, so they're not gonna drop any–
Jack: [overlapping] Drop another fucking gun. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah, yeah, uh huh!
Ali: I feel like… I feel like the way it spreads through the group is like, because Virtue and Marn have the connection that Marn has been, like, teaching Virtue–
Austin: [overlapping] Mmmm. Yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah!
Ali: Like, life skills? So it’s like, Marn being like “Oh, did you remember to do this thing?” or like, something they talk about, and then the other two– either asking the same thing of the other two or being like, getting the two involved in the conversation as well. Um, yeah.
Austin: Totally! So I mean, you do this and towards, you know– I think by by minute, like, 75 you're wrapping up! [Ali laughs] and… there is a kno– the door opens and it is… Sister Marisha there, and… um… she says:
Austin [as Marisha]: Come with me.
Sylvia: Alright!
Jack: Let's go!
Austin: I think that the things are tense for a moment as you're walking down the hallways and going back towards the front door. And then at the front door, one of these nuns is there, with the, uh, espignole that’s still broken, but you’re leaving, so they’re giving it back to you, Pickman. Um, you still can’t use it. [chuckles] Or you could use it, but it’d be a d4 improvised weapon without any of its tags, you know what I mean?
Jack: Right.
Austin: I mean, you could totally hit someone with it–
Jack: [overlapping] I could swing it at someone.
Austin: But – yeah, yeah, exactly. Um… and, and outside as the door opens are two figures with black hoods tied to their heads, wrapped around their heads. One of those hoods is pierced through by these large spiral, um, markhor goat horns, which clearly is the Magistrate. That person is a– how do we– how are we pronouncing it, Jack?
Jack: A Caprak[1].
Austin: Caprak, Caprak. Which is the name of the goat species here that includes Pickman, Pickman is one of these. Um, and… Sister Marisha says:
Austin [as Sister Marisha]: I managed to convince the prioress. You will take them both back, according to the route I give you, and you will execute your Magistrate when you cross back over. We cannot risk having them die here.
Jack [as Pickman]: Why not?
Austin: Um, I think that her eyes instinctively looked up at the red lightning.
Jack: Oh.
Austin [as Sister Marisha]: We have already been… marked by this Magistrate’s justice. We dare not risk… if there is a contingency in place. This hymn is already dead. [pause] The mark will spread over the coming hours, days. It will take a long time, because time here is long. But there is no Mother Beast anymore, which means there is no stabilizing presence. [pause] This is a hymn without a chorus, and so there is risk that if he dies here, it would be the end of this. So, bring him up with you, before you end it.
Jack: Just like, a slow nod. That– like– I think, as far as Pickman’s concerned, this is a very fair explanation.
[Ali laughs]
Ali: The fear there is not just that death in this situation would cause it to unravel, but that there might be a… response from killing this person in that way.
Austin: There are two different fears. One is: if this person dies here, this place will unravel. It’s already unravelling, and it would–
Jack: [overlapping] It's like a failsafe.
Austin: To where, like… Right. You know, like, one of the classes in this book is the Incarnadine, does straight up just have a thing that it’s like… If you die, your soul detonates and hurts people around you, right?
Andrew: Oh yeah!
Austin: You don’t know what the fuck could happen if you kill a Pale Magistrate, who could say? They have weird bullets that seem to curse things, right, that they call holy bullets. You know, who the fuck– they don’t call them that, they call them something cool that I haven’t thought up yet, but they’re holy bullets. You know, they’re bullets blessed by the God of immediate justice and like, lightning or whatever. So… be careful.
But the more political concern was that if they let this person go and gave you the kid, which now they’ve called the agent, the Kay’van agent, then, uh… this person would go back to the Pale Magistratum, know how to get here, and come back with a bunch of people, y’know?
Ali: Sure.
Austin: Other Magistrates. And sure, this person wouldn't be able to come back, but could send in a bunch of other people who could, you know?
Ali: [overlapping] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah.
Austin: So, so these are the two risks, which is why they're like, “Alright, fine, if you’re gonna kill this person,” and they trust you that you’re going to do that, um, which maybe they shouldn’t, um, but this is– you were so cold about “we’ll kill the Magistrate” that they buy it. And that will fall on you. And it would’ve fallen on you either way if the Magistrate was killed here. The difference is I don’t think– I think that they trust, like, if the– “if this person gets killed up there, the fuckin’ Magistrates are gonna come wipe your town off the map, and then who fucking cares at that point”, you know? So that’s a threat on you. Um… In any case, provides a map. You’re basically going back the way you came, all the way down that canyon to the, um, that bridge that you came to. And you keep going in that direction, and eventually you will come to a mountain. And there is a small, a smaller shrine at the top of that mountain, where there will be another different hymn to sing, and that will be where you, where you go.
She did also hint at something here that I wanna underscore, which is… this hymn is falling apart. There is a mechanic in this game, and one of you has a Beat about this – Marn does – about establishing a Connection on a Delve. A Connection is a special thing you can build between two landmarks, that… makes it so that the cost, the resistance, the like, HP of the delve gets halved. And that, that connection is what, like… It’s almost like you’re building a road between two places, you know what I mean?
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: To do that, there's almost like a sidequest that you have to do to make that connection. That might be clearing some rocks from, from a canyon pass. It might be, you know, killing the bandits who are harrassing people between two landmarks. In this case, and she's already kind of gestured to this, and I'm just gonna say outright, it would be finding something to replace the Mother Beast as a source of power and stability for the Hymn of the Mother Beast that you're inside of. That’s a big Connection ask, but, y’know, we’re playing Heart: The City Beneath, there’s fuckin’ wild shit out there. So yeah, that is what it would take to connect this community to Blackwick, if you wanted such a connection to begin with.
Ali: That's a big ask. [laughing]
Austin: So yeah.
[Ali laughing]
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh. It ain’t small.
Ali: You want that orange tree wolf?
Austin: I don't-you tell me I mean, you have to come up with-
[Ali and Andrew chuckling in the background]
Austin: You would have to figure out– you would have to figure that out when you, when you get there, or when you– whatever. Um, I guess you could raise it? I don’t know if that comes to mind [Ali laughs], but you could raise it.
[Ali laughs]
Jack: “There's a dog up there made of flowers, you want that?”
Austin: “You want that one? Is that a good enough–? [Sylvia laughs] Is that the same thing as your Mother Beast? I mean, think about– listen! There’s overlap, right?”
Ali: Yeah!
Austin: “It’s- it’s the white flower caretaker, and the thing it does is protect, it's like, you know? Garden-protect its– maybe not its children, but the children of the tree! Right?”
Jack: [overlapping] It did lay an egg inside of the Mother Beast, though, which… [laughs softly]
Ali: Yeah, already those kids are like, y’know, blood of the Mother Beast, so…
[Various noises of assent; Ali laughs again]
Austin: Maybe when you get back, you could attend to this, and we could talk about whether or not that establishes a Connection.
Ali: Yeah! I want-I mean I, I. It seems.
Austin: That's fine!
Ali: It seems like it'd be difficult to pursue here now right? It feels weird socially in this situation to be like “so… I heard you guys are missing a Mother Beast?” [laughs]
Austin: Totally, totally. I mean-I guess, the thing-maybe the way she repeats it or the way that maybe it's gets in your head she says “remember, when you leave you won’t be able to come back without the Mother-Beast. These trips are one way, this door opens once”. So the idea like, “oh you could reestablish a source of power” then, then that door, that you could come back using the first hymn. You know?
Ali: And-and power in my understanding here is just like something to worship or just like…
Austin: I don't think she gives you more than that, you know what I mean?-
Ali: Yeah, yeah
Austin: That's a life question to have. Is it about having magical power? Is it about something to worship? Is it about something connected to the kind of poetic, you know parenthood stuff that we've been talking about? Like guardianship, that cultivation, you know?
Ali: Yeah I'm trying to build the mental bridge but I guess it's just gonna be like “hey Virtue let me borrow that”
[Ali and Andrew laughing]
Austin: Yeah, god-you could build that bridge in any of those directions and it would make sense for you to pursue it, you know what I mean?
Ali: Mhm
Austin: So yeah,,[pause] um i-i think in some-i thought about sending, having them walk ??? with you there but I think that at this point there is like, she trusted you, she's convinced the priest you've not met, that, you are to be trusted with this, and so I dont think theyre gonna send guards with you-also they don't have guards, they have like people made of ash and ceramic, and those are not particularly-you know there's a lot of them so I bet you couldn't have killed all of them but [laughing] they're not, very well ??? beast, you know what I mean, that's not a-a fight. Y'all would win that fight on a 101 even on a 1 on 10 thing probably, alright maybe you get hit hard I guess fight could really get to you, in any case they send you in your way-
Sylvia: I-
Austin: You have a very basic mapbag. Go ahead Virtue!
Sylvia: I wanted-i'm trying to decide. I have like one more ship kind of thing to do, but is also a character thing that like Virtue would do, um…maybe is on the way out but I wanna ask sister Marisha.
Sylvia [as Virtue]: So… What exactly did you do with the legs?
[Pause]
Austin [as Sister Marisha]: The legs of the Mother Beast?
Sylvia [as Virtue]: Yeah! like,,
Austin [as Sister Marisha]: They were reattached, they were attached to the Mother-Beast, for what we took, for what was taken, she didn't take it you know? She-after the time.
Sylvia [as Virtue]: So you weren't there, then… you don't really know much of anything other than trying to sort of put the magic back in the box.
Austin [as Sister Marisha]: I'm a confidant of the prioress.
Sylvia [as Virtue]: Mhm.
Austin [as Sister Marisha]: Who wrote the hymn, I'm blessed by her will.
Sylvia [as Virtue]: Well…
Austin [as Sister Marisha]: If you're asking if I know more than YOU, then that is unquestionable.
Sylvia [as Virtue]: Yeah… we’ll see. Tell the priest she has a lovely prose.
Austin [as Sister Marisha]: [grumbling]
Sylvia: Aaaaand I'm leaving.
[laughing]
Andrew: So, we still don't know what they did with the first set of legs, right? That they used to power him-
Sylvia: That's what I was trying to ask but they were being mean.
Austin: Oh! They used them, they're gone, they were used to make this. They burned them, they turned them into-like who knows what you do with magical stuff?
Sylvia: Yeah, that was kinda like, like my- was there like a specific ritual? but she's like not gonna answer.
Austin: I see yeah, no she's not gonna tell you, and she would never tell you anyway.
That- that book that you have will have an answer in it somewhere.
Sylvia: Yeah, that book that I'm not mentioning at all while we leave…
Ali: It's so good to be-
Sylvia: If anyone does, I will kill them… [with a suspicious tone]
[Austin and Andrew laughing]
Andrew: Virtue was like “Yeah, we did your little stupid song and it got us in” and the ??? was like “you do not call it a song” and then Virtue goes like “and I would like to know your religious magic, please that would be so-
[Ali laughing]
Sylvia: Yeah, I'm just asking questions!!
Jack: Yeah, you know what? Shoot your shot!
[Everyone nodding]
Austin: Um, alright! So… y’all are about to be on another delve!
Andrew: What um… ? Does anything happen with this Magistrate when a group of people basically say “Oh yeah! Go with this person… -”
Austin: [interrupting] This person is a-
Andrew: [continues] “Go with this person, they're gonna murder you.”
Austin: Neither of these people has responded, as if they cannot hear you.
Andrew: Interesting…
Jack: Should we wanna… take the hood off… ?
Sylvia: Yeahh, I was gonna ask that
Austin: Oh yeah, okay yeah, you take the hood off the ??? um… as a reminder- they are like seahorse people, they have a skin top over kinda armor plates and spines and stuff. Yall just take some time to look at seahorses, um… seahorses look sick.
Andrew: I'm just gonna go google-
Austin: Imma go google on images and look for seahorses. This, this-I would say that they are—
[Laughs]
Austin: [continuing]Finally! You made it home. Um… There's a whole rain of seahorses and I think the ??? from the free seas tend to be more colorful… -okay, there's two things, one is that it can be very pale or very saturated with their colors, um… and this one, the person you know is Janek is very pale right now, um partly you suspect that is because he’s been ruined, partly it's because of being in this place, in this very little humidity. Um… but is also he is just naturally this kind of more yellow-orange seahorse person.
The, the… a lot of the ???, specially from the ones in free seas or kinda the ones in islands far off in the southwest beyond, beyond the big city, they often have more bright colors and different colors, you know umm… Coloration across their whole bodies but with, with Janek they're just basic yellow-orange but today it's almost like a beige-white. And… Ithink that he looks specially-I don't think they have snouts, I think they have humanoids faces, I don't think they have that like small into the horseshoe, not horseshoe- into the seahorses like… face in that way, um, maybe like a little bit of it, is just like a slight horse-more like a horse face than a seahorse face, if that makes sense you know what I mean… ?
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: It doesn't come to a shark at a point but they have like, they have in general like this kind of bigger… [looking for the word] You call it a snout, what's on the front of a horse? That's not a snout right?
Andrew: I think a snout sounds right! I don't know…
Austin: You think it's a snout? Okay, then kinda like that, let’s say. And I think that as you, as you remove this black mask you see his face and he kinda of like, his hands are also tied both of them have their hands tied behind their backs with rope, um, a camp rope. And as you move the mask he's like gesturing at you like “hey can you get my hands free?” as soon as he sees you.
Sylvia: Ahh, um…
Andrew: Maybe no, maybe no I'm not.
Austin: Um, then begins shaking his head back and forward eventually you realize he has like beeswax in his ears.
Virtue: Oh, Chine. Could you take care of that?
[Laughs]
Austin: Wow!!
Andrew: I mean… yeah.
Sylvia: I'm sorry, I'm asking the person who's willing to lend you anything, so…
Andrew: I mean, I'm not gonna lick his ears!!
Sylvia: No!! I know! I'm just saying you probably have a higher threshold for things.
Ali: Yeah you and Chine are doing it all the time.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Andrew: Oh no, that's fair, that's fair. Yeah yeah yeah, okay, yeah I got it.
Austin: So you, you do that. Oh I guess, I'm a fool… his mouth is also, must also be, must also been close- I dont think-how do you prohibit from talking, you could take their mouth shut
Andrew: Oh, I mean…
Austin: Cause, is there like a muscle?, because… of the horse mouth…
Ali: Was that-
Andrew: I mean how terrible do you want it to be., like you could seal-
Austin: No…
Andrew: Yeah,, okay
Austin: No… we don't need-
Jack: Are these like, are these like ties around the… ?
Austin: I think it is a tie, yeah… And there's a similar one around-which you haven't looked up yet- around the Magistrate, the Magistrates goat mouth. Um, and um, as you remove it he's like,
Austin [as Janek]: Thank you! What about my hands? You can get my hands?
Andrew [as Chine]: I mean, okay. What are you gonna do with your hands?
Austin [as Janek]: S-stretch them? I've been tied up since I got to the bridge.
Andrew [as Chine]: What's the, what's the deal with you and the Magistrate here?
Austin [as Janek]: Magistrate… you know these Magistrates are always getting up to this and that… putting things on people who are innocent, looking for guilty parties where there aren't none
Ali [as Marn]: That ???
Austin [as Janek]: That's what I'm saying!!
Ali [as Marn]: We could take him? If-
Austin [as Janek]: You have my word… Absolutely you could!
Jack: I’m tired.
Andrew: Yeah, alright!
[Laughs]
Austin: Damn! Everyone ordering Chine to do shit!
Sylvia: To be fair, seemed very ready to listen with the ???
Andrew: With the ???! This is what I'm saying!!
(Everyone): Yeah!
Andrew: I will say as Chine doesn't untie them, he just cuts the rope with his fingers
Austin: Right, cool
Sylvia: Fuck yeah!
Austin: Cool, cool. Um… I think you could like, um… okay!
[Laughs in the background]
Austin: You've got big ass fingers now. Oh shit!
[More laughing]
Austin: Uh… like- bends down, bends down, touches hiss toes, stretches a lil bit and… -
[as Janek]: Alright so, I appreciate youre coming to get me, um…
Austin: And then like, looks at all of you and then like she thinks she's gonna say something and thinks better of it, and says “I hope we are leaving now”.
Virtue: We´re on the way! Um…
Marn: How did you um, get here?
Virtue: Yeahh
Janek: Well, the Magistrate had been pursuing me and I came down to the chapel and he got up with there, there was a creature of large size, we avoided it, we made our way back to the room, he put up some sort of word and we found our way here. It was a bit of a struggle, um we had-like I said, I am in the skim of it, an innocent ??? but he has reason to believe that it would be his interest in the enemy and I managed to keep him off me for some amount of time by telling him that I'm the other side of the hymn, there would be something that he'd be interested in seeing.
Virtue: You know, that leads me to another question-sorry to interrupt. But how did you know-
Janek: [Interrupting] You sure have a lot of questions, Virtue.
Virtue: Yeah… I get told that a lot. How did you know about the hymn?
Janek: [Short pause] I find myself a curious sort. You know the type, I'll get my nose into things.
[Marn nodding]
Chine: So are you, like, a grave robber, like…
Janek: No, no. A grave robber? No!!
[Laughs]
Jack: This is such a fucking-
Janek: An amateur occultist, an occultiste.
Chine: Ok so you're more of a desecrator than a robber.
Janek: I have robbed nothing.
Chine: I know, I just said…
[Laughs in the background]
Janek: I've desecrated nothing!!
Chine: Okay, see now thats-
Janek: What would I've desecrated?
Chine: I don't know!
Janek: This non-desecrated me, tying me up and putting a hood on me.
Chine: Oh wait, they did that? Not the Magistrate?
Janek: Is the same hood! You put the same hood on him, come on!
Chine: Okay, I'm confused as you went from him trying to kill you to yall being best friends and making it here together.
Janek: We didn’t-who was best friends? No one was best friends!
Virtue: You at least had to work together! That ain’t-
Janek: Yeah! To get away because there was that beast here and because he was gonna kill me, so I told him that there was a treasure on the other side of the portal. We came i-
Marn: We-
Janek: We avoided the plant-
Marn: Let's rewind. [Laughs]
Janek: The Magistrate and I have a aistory, yall dont need to know that, that personal
Marn: I'm asking about that… now
Chine: Yeah… Saving your life is kinda personal?… ?
Janek: He doesn't like me very much
Marn: What does he think you did?
Janek: It truly does not matter.
Virtue: You know, we could ask him…
Janek: How much do you know about the high Magistrates of the Pale Magistratum? Do you know them by name? Do you want me to list them off to you? Do you even know who Calvin the Third is?
Marn: The third… -
Jack: I think Pickman does, but they're just like, visibly stressed.
[Laughs]
Janek: So why does it matter? This is what I'm saying, is a different bald parts out there. We are talking about bald parts now… apparently.
[Laughs]
Jack: No ponytails…
Austin: No ponytails, yeah. It’s a long story that we'll tell you on the way.
Ali: Well yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Andrew: Okay.
Jack: I think Pickman is just like hoists the Magistrate who is still hooded-
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Upon her shoulders…
[Laughs]
Jack: Like the umm… the shoulder it's just like without a word begins tracking off in the direction of the map.
Sylvia: Real quick, does the Magistrate have like… her gun on them?
Austin: … No, gun is not here. None of their supplies are here.
Sylvia: Okay
Austin: Th-the church, the priory seems to have kept their ship.
Sylvia: Yeah, alright-I mean im keeping the priorists ship, I cant judge.
Austin: Yeah [Laughs] There is a trait there without saying it as much, um…
I will say there's a point where I-I also haven't done it yet, so I'll set on this, um. We should make our first ???, which is this is a lighter delve than the one that got us here but we do have to get back, I was telling you this before we started recording this is not the classic Friends at the table, we get to the end if the adventure and we hand-wave how you get home. There is a delve, you have limited resources of the game about that. So youll have to get back the way you came, and this time I would say about 30, you know 20-30 minutes down the canyon all the walk that you came um… the clouds had gotten darker and darker, the lightning's gotten brighter and brighter and you hear more thunder and it begins to rain and instantly you get that thing that it hasn't rained here in a long time and then there's just-it starts to flood, there's not-you know what I mean, there's no gather system in this canyon. This canyon was a river way once and so it becomes increasingly treacherous as you walk kinda west to this canyon towards where that bridge was. I need someone to take a lead on this ???
Sylvia: Um… I’m okay doing it. I feel like I'm rolling a lot, I'm okay doing it just because I got the map and stuff, but if someone else wants to go… ? I guess I didn't realize…
Austin: Yeah. This delve is desolate here.
Andrew: I do, I don't have desolate but I do have delve as a skill.
Sylvia: I have both…
[Ali nodding]
Andrew: Yeahhhh.
Jack: You should do it then
Austin: Go for it!
Sylvia: Okay… !
Andrew: I think it works for both: the mechanic and the fiction.
Sylvia: Is this a standard?
Austin: Yeah this is standard. Oh I think someone could help here, but like you're rolling for everybody in a sense, you know what I mean? In a sense…
[Nodding]
Austin: So… But if someone wants to take the risk, you can go for it. If you can tell me how you're helping to navigate this increasingly wet and sloppy like… canyon floor.
Ali: Oh no, I would help.
Austin: Okay! So there's plus one, how are you going there Marn? What's your-yeah, give me the picture of Marn helping in this kind of increasingly rainy situation.
[Ali laughing]
Ali: Is it like, like like a thing of Marn walking slightly ahead of Virtue but Virtue is like looking in that map and being like “yeah, just keep walking that way”and somebody if gonna trip or fall into the lake I think is gonna be Marn.
Sylvia: Marn is able to like cut to brushers or whatever too.
Ali: Yeah yeah
Sylvia: Yeah… Ilike that.
[Laughing]
Sylvia: I gotta a ten
Austin: You've got a ten?
Andrew: Nice
Austin: You got 2 tens. Um… which is why I don't even think there's like a, a double crit there, that's a double crit, you succeed dramatically and increase outgoing stress??? By one step, what is your self stress? I think is just D4, because you don't have a-you don't have a any-
Sylvia: No I don't have any delve, no
Austin: Yeah alright, so then do 6, you want me to?
Sylvia: That's a 6!
Austin: A 6
Sylvia: I like this game!
Austin: The luck is back, god damn!
[Ali laughing]
Austin: This is an easy walk, despite the rain.
[Andrew laughing]
Austin: [continuing]I think you just find the path and let me tell ya I think there's something about Janek telling the story that is making it easy, you've had a weird day, and now you have a someone who seems to think that his greatest skill is talking, explaining to you his long path to this place, im gonna ??? it, basically.
[Music starts]
He was in the Pale Magistratum, he got cut up in some stuff, he is still very dodgy about what that stuff is, but it upsets some political people in the Magistratum again he is very much like “you don't even know who this people are, why do you care”? You will need to do some sort of comparing to get more of that, to get more out of him about that, um but he became a wanted man in the Magistratum and came here, fled here, became friends with more people, loves-loves Blackwick was a part of it, tells the whole story about going down there and seeing the Mother-Beast, you wouldn't understand seven legs, each one bigger than the last, a neck (bigger than any of the other legs) up like it was a bell tower, I look out the window and I saw this place from there, which made me confused and came back and the windows weren't even really going outside!! So… tells the whole story about becoming interested in these things, there's always been interest, you need to understand, etc, etc, etc.
This Magistrate was dispatched to chasing down-you know, I never thought of myself as a big deal man, I thought if I left they'd leave me be but apparently that's not the case, they sent this mf here-
[Ali laughing]
Austin: [continues]… After me… his name is Ezek, says it’s not short for Ezekiel, I do not believe him and he-you know he, he caught, down in the chapple, the beast tried to kill them, there was a moment where they bounded over keeping the beast calmed and then the Magistrate shooted him and I blocked with my blade, they say they couldn't be done, I moved that fast, Im faster than the bullet itself and then he convinced I need-they need me to stay alive so I can take you to this place where there's a huge bunty, there's a time itself stand still etc, etc. Leaves into the church the guy realizes of the to the priorist-this guy realizes it's just a bunch of old nonse, there really isn't nothing of value here come up with ???, there's a big debate, you know in my mind about what value is everything seems valuable, the priory could eat the salt and it tastes good and you could live of that. Of course there's things of worth here, and he tries to shoot me, he misses me, I don't know how to begin with we got to be a Magistrate with a gun arm like that, and… the-the window brokes, there is a lightning and then they pull us back, they dragged us to the into the room. They told him that they were just gonna arrest me but they lied and they took his things away, and now… we are here.
[Andrew laughing]
Austin: That's the story, and by the time you finish back in the bridge.
Jack: That sounds great! I'm so glad to see this guy.
Austin: [sigh] So!… You're at the bridge and when you get to the bridge and in that moment your feet hit like the wood of this bridge-this is not a rope bridge this is like ???, you know… old fashioned- or imagine it as almost like a, you know there's a good support under the scaffold folding the boards down to the old, cathedral down in the solder, not good but this bridge is a very ???. Um… as you step on it, I think specifically as, um I guess it would be based on the walking, it would probably be-what is the, the kind of order of walking here? Where is the Magistrate between all of you?
Sylvia: Um…
Ali: Is it Pickman… ?-
Sylvia: [interrupting] Why not Marn and me in front?
Austin: Yeah… Marn at front, then Virtue, then-alright so you're right, Pickman is carrying-
Jack: Yeah
Austin: Yeah. So… as he hears-or doesn't hear but feels he's being carried, cause hes being carried by you Pickman, as he feels your hood hit the, or he feels the harmer hit the um… that hard wood instead of that, the, that dirt and rock of the canyon and hears the sound, does not hear because of the bees wax on his ears, but feels the vibrations through you, begins to struggle and manages to slip away from you for a moment.
And without being able to see anybody, lowers his like… shoulders and begins to kinda charge at the group based on kinda where he feels you are with those long horns down, and he's trying to like pierce you with his horns…
Andrew: [worried tone] Jesus christ!
Austin: It's still raining btw, and you're on a big bridge, you know?
Andrew: And ??? on what we talked about before… when we talked about like the skills and what they do, you don't use the kill skill to be like “oh yeah I'm gonna knock this guy out” like kill skills if you're gonna kill somebody-
Austin: [interrupting] You could, you could roll to do that… um… but-but no
Andrew: Yeah…
Austin: You know what I mean?
Andrew: Yeah
Austin: Like you're going to hit him as hard as you can in the head to stop him, it's more like “i'm gonna stop him” and if he kills them, then it kills him
Andrew: Right
Austin: This is a-
Andrew: [interrupting] Would… would Endure be a better fit there?…
Austin: Yeah, and the Endure would be like “I'm gonna take the damage as it comes in, and then in exchange I'm gonna be able to like… get softer hits in… ” you know what I mean?
Andrew: Yeah!
Austin: That makes sense to me…
Andrew: Yeah
Austin: Then again with no like, you're really sediment for blood, for blood stress for sure-
Andrew: That's fine!
Austin: As it happens-
Andrew: Thats fine
Austin: And then you use some blood protections and stuff, so yeah… what's that look like?
Andrew: Um… I just-I think it is, it's almost like-I think Chine almost try to like almost ??? this guy and wants to bring the blood on his polax, like, on the back of his head… as he spins like-
Austin: Uhh, fine. Alright, give me, give me endure desolate.
Andrew: Okay, and I'm guessing since I'm doing it in word, not kill and I-maybe this is a separate role, but since I'm using my acquittement, does that do anything here…?
Austin: That will be on the damage roll that you do.
Andrew: Got it, got it, okay!
Austin: Uhhh, that is a success of the cause, take the ???
Andrew: Okay…
Austin: Take, uhh… give me a-one second I have to check this-there is a damage on this motherfucker. Um, take D6.
Andrew: Okay
Austin: Same as this tear.
Andrew: Uhh 6!
Austin: Got six!! Put that in blood!
Andrew: Okay
Austin: Actually, you know what? Wait wait wait, don't put that in blood, I'm wrong! Put that in, put that in echo.
Andrew: Sure!!
[Short pause]
Andrew: Okay
Austin: And then roll… a fall test, right? You were at-
Andrew: I am in 4 cause I have two protections-
Austin: You are at, a total of-Do you. Okay! You have just a flat protection right? So, you put it in my-
Andrew: Oh!! My bad, oops! Thank you, okay.
Austin: So you were at 6 total right?
Andrew: Yes!
Austin: Right
Andrew: Okay so, fallout test!
Andrew and Austin: [at the same time] No fallout!
Austin: That's good, um but you were pierced by his kinda twisted horns and as, as like you're hitting him with this things, you do your damage, you should do your damage to him. Um, which is brutal, um… and so you should roll [Little laugh] you should roll 2 ???, is what you're gonna roll, and I guess I'll finish narrating what happens after that.
Andrew: Both take two
Austin: Wow!, um-
Andrew: Um, did we… get the thing from Marn… ? I can't remember what we took from Marn’s.
Austin: Thats blood protection
Jack: How much blood protection was it? Was it one or two?
Austin: One.
Andrew: One.
Jack: Gotcha.
Austin: You… as the-you are pierced by, or you're scraped by his horns, as he goes by and you hit him in the back, with the, the kind of ??? of your arm, and you feel the, you feel something enter your skin and your body, as if the howns themselves had been poisoned or coded with something.[Short pause] And the, the-you look in your arm, you have to clear your eyes as first you think you've gain like a boils on your arms, and you blink in your eyes and there's no boils there, there's no-it's fine, but you felt that way for a second and you saw, you know you saw and then it's gone.
Andrew: [Nodding]
Austin: And, I think in this moment as he like passes you the, the um… the like[Trying to find the words]the hood comes off of him, the kind of mask they wrapped around him, the hood comes off of him and he can see now!! And um, then, his mouth is still shout but like growling at all of you, especially seeing that his ??? has been freed, and I think at this moment Janek is like: “we gotta put this man down!”. What are you gonna do?
Ali: Setting this scene right now… so like, I guess Pickman is like in the back of the group and then horn guy run through-
Austin: [interrupting] Yeah, real quick, just let me have a little of visibility here-
Ali: just like that, so can we ??? what these are… Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, we are still on the-you are still on the church-
Ali: [overlapping] I'm looking at this little tree. [Cute laugh]
Andrew: Lovely little tree!
Austin: The little tree… is a lovely little tree. Um… let me get a map, and let me get some basic coloring here… okay! So, there is a bridge, THIS is a bridge! [laughing] As a reminder that the bridge is in the middle of a huge ???, um… Pickman all the way bottom, then it sounds like a… -God now is not, now is not a, it’s Virtue and then also back here is Janek and then… Marn, and because of the way this thing just happened I think that it is Chine and then, and then Ezek, Magistrate Ezek. Magistrate Ezek Sem… SEM, for people at home-
Ali: Shhh! Shh! [Making him shut up]
Austin: So this is the basic, so is like Ezek kind of the furthest in on this long bridge, which again is still raining in, there aren't ??? here, but this is, you know… be careful. Chine then is in front of… Ezek, Marn is next than Virtue and then, yeah and then Pickman. And Pickman is like in the front, the first few steps on to this bridge, is a bit longer than these 2 but you get it, the scale…
Ali: Yeah, yeah yeah…
Austin: It crossed the Vast castle so…
Ali: Yeah, and it looks like it is about to attack again or… ?
Austin: You're gonna charge again… yeah with these horns, that seem to be poisoned.
Ali: Sure… !
Andrew: Yeah they fought.
[Ali laughing]
Austin: And like echo poison, heart poison, curse poison you know?
Ali: I… I never, this is such a [Laughing]
Austin: What's up?
Ali: Is, is there a way to get him to charge me in such a way that I move and then he just dont
Jack: That would kill him
Ali: We-
Austin: That would kill him… probably.
Ali: We did-
Jack: No he um-[Short pause]
[Ali laughing]
Jack: I think the ??? are right, I think if we killed him here this place is absolutely gone.
Ali: Sure.
Austin: And maybe don't care about that.
Jack: I do!
Austin: Right th-yeah, right but you know maybe Marn doesn't.
Andrew: Yeah fair.
Austin: I'm gonna put that on the table, like you know… people could be selfish or…
Ali: Um… yeah, I guess we're not… We're like, at the door, we´re not like out.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Um…
[Pause]
Ali: Yeah, I guess I don't know a better way to back up Chine aside from like ??? as well… like um, yeah I don't know what that is besides like trying to bind him again in some way? But I don't know how, like it must have some cool rope or something [Laughing] and like…
Andrew: I mean he's so bound right? He just has to put off-
Austin: Yeah, but those horns are hood off, horns out.
Andrew: Yeah.
Austin: I mean horns are always out.
Ali: So we just have to like… either… fuck up one of his legs like[Laughing] or go back to being held.
Austin: You have figured something out.
[Andrew nodding]
Austin: Yeah, yes
Ali: Um… [Long pause]I mean, I believe that I have the… [Laughing]I would have like the unquitment on hand, to hold ??? person [Laughing] Sooo.
Austin: Totally!
Ali: Suree.
Austin: Do you wanna go for it? How do you wanna do that? Is that also… -that sounds like you need to work for me also or avoid it if you're trying to dodge like ???
Ali: It's the same sort of principle of like set yourself out for… the way that you know this person is gonna attack and avoid the hit.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: That makes sense, with the- with the hood off is not risky.
Ali: So… this.
Austin: So, so.
[Ali laughing]
Austin: How could it be useful as a thing I would say, this is now back and hell territory for sure.
Jack: Ummmm…
Austin: So yeahh, avoid um based on what you just said desolate is the main, unless you have-I think is desolate, I don't think there is something else on here, what were you gonna say, um… Virtue?
Sylvia: Oh no.
Jack: It was me.
Austin: Oh sorry.
Jack: I. I could-So I have a move that a could gain a Domain, and then I could use that to help Marn if we wanted it like, Pickman joins the battle [Laughing] Pickman receives an invitation to smash.
[Someone laughing in the background]
Sylvia: You already smashed actually.
[Ali laughing]
Austin: Oh yeah… That’s all!
Sylvia: My bad, my bad…
Jack: The little crew [???]
Austin: That was the original name of that game was the Little Crew.
Jack: The Little Crew and the guy with the fishbowl on his head. That was, that's what they called it in, in Spain. Um, I'm going to, uh, if you're up for that, Allie.
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: So I'm going to use, uh, the, one of the properties of my armor, um, which allows me to consume a resource. Ah, shit, Austin, do I, it says gain access to a skill or domain, not that skill or a domain right now.
Austin: I don't think, I think, I don't think so. I think it is-
Jack: otherwise, it would say-
Austin: because this is once per, once per session. Um, which is more limited than like the cleavers version. Right. Which is once per situation.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: Right. Or it's not even once per situation, you can do it as much as you want apparently. Um, uh, the, um, second.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, but it is, you do need to do it with a D8 resource or higher.
Jack: Yes. Perfect. That's all right.
Austin: That is very funny. Yeah.
Jack: Why do I have to do it with the D8 resource? Or- Oh yeah. It does say D8 resource,
Austin: That's what it says , it's a D8 resource or higher.
Jack: Yeah. So I think that the, like the camera is like looking down this column of people on the bridge. Um, and in the background out of focus, we just see, Pickman like raise the Magistrate badge in their hand and crush it. Um, and just like insert it into a, like a furnace or a hatch on something under their arm or the wind on the bridges, like blowing that Cape away.
And we can see that that's like almost like a pilot light burning on like a little bit of that armor. Um, a big thing that I would avoid with this armor, it's like, it's not steampunky, even though this is kind of like a steampunk train night, this is much more like
Austin: uhuh.
Jack: A weird medieval armor that has a fire burning somewhere in it.
Um, and they just, they put the, uh, they put the, the Magistrate's badge in their armor to burn it as fuel. And this is going to give me the desolate domain, um,
Austin: For the rest of the session.
Jack: For the rest of the session. And I am going to immediately, um, Well, do you want to roll first Allie? And then I'll tell you how I help or should I tell you how I-
Austin: Well, give me, give me broadly- So you're just, you're helping physically though. You're getting in there.
Jack: I want- Yeah.
Austin: Okay. So then yeah. Allie, give me a role. Remember it's risky. So make sure to mark that when you, uh, did that.
Ali: Ooh.
Austin: Yikes.
Ali: That's a 2.
Austin: Ooh.
Jack: Oh shit.
Austin: All right. Well, that's a three, so it doesn't matter. Um, it's difficult. Uh, sorry, it's a risk.
This is a risky thing because you're going up against the Pale Magistrate, which is a risky thing to do. Um, and, and the Magistrate now has some more of the, more of his wits about him. Um, uh, this is when something is risky, you get rid of the highest die you rolled. In this case, it's a four with a two and a three.
Ali: Great.
Austin: Uh, so that's a hard fail. Give me a D6, for stress.
Ali: This is-
Austin: - you're taking.
Ali: A knife, I bet, but that's not mine.
Austin: Uh, it does say knife that's that's fine. Uh, and then, and then also give me a D6, um, uh, uh Pickman.
Jack: Ooh.
Austin: All right. Uh, so you, you would have taken, um, one, uh, actually, uh, you were still gonna take one, one, um, Echo, uh, Marn. Um, and then, and then likewise, Pickman, you're going to take four, uh, Echo, I think I need you both to do a fallout test.
Oh my God. Whoa. What an unlucky roll.
Jack: Pfff woah.
Austin: Marn rolled a two, which is how much stress she has.
Pickman? Four, another minor fallout here. We fucking go.
Jack: So we clear echo, right now?
Austin: You clear Echo, correct. That Echo goes away and I'm going to give you your fallouts in a second. Hey, what went wrong here? How, how, how bad did this go?
Ali: [laughs]
Austin: Yeah. Do you have any images in your head about it? I mean-
Ali: I mean, it's just like, doing it too slow? Right? Or like…
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Underestimating how quick he would be?
Ali: -Otherwise? Or like, yeah.
Austin: Mhmm. Um, so, uh, let's see here. Um…
Jack: If it helps, you pick Fallout. I think the way Pickman got involved was that she lowered her head and tried to lock horns with the Magistrates.
Austin: Ooooh, yeah. Um, two things happen at once.
Jack: [Laughing]
Austin: Marn, you're going to take the, the, uh, the minor fallout Bubos, B-U-B-O-S. Your skin blisters and bubbles. When you take blood stress, take an extra D4 as the boils, split and burst ongoing. Um, this is that corrosive, that corrosive poison, that spread with you, uh, that, that, that, uh, Dre thought, sorry, that Chine thought, um, that they had, that they had received, you did receive it.
Um, maybe Chine's closest to the course has protected, uh, protected, protected them in a way that, that, um, it's not the case for you. Maybe just bad luck, who could say why follow up triggers the way it does.
Um, something different happens with you. Pickman, um, your vision swims as you start to perceive worlds other than your own, layered on top of one-
Jack: What?
Austin: Uh, any action you take that requires accurate judging of distance - jumping, shooting, running down a corridor - becomes risky once per session. You see something useful. Ask the GM what it is. Ongoing.
Jack: Wait a second-
Austin: umm…
Jack: What is this?
Austin: This is Hex-eye. This is the, the, I will post it in the-
Jack: Is this the Echo- Echo Fallout?
Austin: This is the Echo Fallout. This is minor. This is minor Echo Fallout, the same level of-
Jack: -into a Pale Magistrate?
Austin: You're you're… I think that like the, um, as you, as you're like passing through and as the attempt to help, um, pin him down goes bad. Uh, his, his horn scrapes just under your, just like on your cheek and the poison spreads quickly into your eyes. Um, and in this moment you can see the world you came from. You can see this place, but, but in the moment that it is, um, and without all of the weird salt mines, you're just like in the woods to the east of town, do you know what I mean?
Jack: Uhuh.
Austin: And you can see like the realm of the Mother-Beast, uh, which is not like this realm. That is like, you know, she has her own, she has her own realm that now is dying, uh, from a lack of, of her, of her death. You know, her death is now slowly. I mean, there, you can see the residuum from here.
Um, something that normally only, only, uh, Virtue can see or can visit quickly. So you can see all of that, like the color of things that have been that have left this place. Um, and it's all like, it's all layering in front of you. There's a kaleidoscopic effect. It is hard for you to deal with.
Um, uh, I will say, um, once this, once we get out of this? You are going to need to sit down, um, and, or, or, or be guided as you walk until you get your wits about you. This will be hitting your, uh, be-rendered-helpless-in-the-heart-for-an-hour, um, tag or a beat rattle.
Jack: Jesus, okay.
Austin: Uhuh.
Jack: I have no stress now though, which is, which is good.
Austin: That's good. Yes, totally. Um, and Hey, it's already risky to fight a, a Pale Magistrate. So, uh, this does not make it, this does not make it dangerous. I'm not going to stack it like that.
Um, all right. Who's up? As the Magistrate, the ma- at this point with both of you fallen, I think the Magistrate is trying to see, like, quickly see like, oh, can I get a knife from one of them to get my hands free? Which would be very bad. Um-
Jack: -We still on this-
Austin: so there this moment-
Jack: Bridge?
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, everyone's on the bridge.
Sylvia: Are we still on the don't kill this guy thing?
Ali: I'm thinking that it's it's it, it might be tired.
Sylvia: Okay, cool. I have a ranged attack I can do…
Austin: Uhuh.
Sylvia: Because of my grim Reaper skill. Um…
Austin: Tell me what this says.
Sylvia: So, um… oh actually, I don't have the flavor text here. Let me get that cause I'm pretty sure this is a good one.
Austin: [Laughs]
Sylvia: Look, it's important.
Ali: Mhmm.
Andrew: Uh hey, I'm here for a-
Sylvia: Grim Reaper. "Your death has long whispered to you about proper methods of execution; on occasion that helps directly. Gain the kill skill. Your death's attentions now function as the following weapon: D8-ranged one shot. "
Austin: So how does Darling up here?
Sylvia: Um…
Austin: That's the name of this-
Sylvia: Yes, Darling Malice.
Austin: -Right? Your killer, Darling Malice.
Sylvia: I think… [sighs]
Austin: Is Darling a name or a title?
Sylvia: [It's a name.]
Austin: Okay.
Sylvia: Ah, which I did just listen to Good Society, and I did not know there was a character-
Austin: I know, I'd forgotten too. I'd totally forgotten too.
Sylvia: Um…
Austin: Different Darling or-
Sylvia: Very different. Um, I think like, I, the, one of my things for this is that I think it is fairly rare that you see a full like image of, um, um, like I think part of it is like, I really want to emphasize the fact that this is like a remnant of someone and not necessarily like, this might not be them like as a ghost.
Austin: Riiiight, right you're not having conversations.
Sylvia: Yeah like I think occasionally there will be interactions where she will say something like, I will hear something from her, but it's not like a conversational thing. No. Um…
Austin: Gotcha.
In moments like this, this is when this is when things are close-
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Right. This is when there is that like overlap, but that's not happening all the time for you.
Sylvia: Uh, yeah, for sure. It's like-
Austin: Okay.
Sylvia: It is very weird, 'cause it does, it is sort of like, it is a constant presence, but it also is not like something that- it also feels like it's like, always behind her as opposed to like something she can like-
Austin: Right.
Sylvia: -See, I'm less sensitive, like these situations.
Austin: Mhmm.
Sylvia: Um…
Austin: Here, I have one final, final question on this. Is this, are you deciding to do this or is this an involuntary?
Sylvia: Oh, I think specifically for [???] Says,
Sylvia [as Virtue]: "Darling, take care of this moment.", you know, uh, before this happened.
Austin: Okay.
Sylvia: Like, so this is-
Austin: This is a kill roll for, this has kill desolate.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Is anyone helping now that we've seen what help looks like, for real.
Ali: Um, I mean, I'll pull a knife out and cut this guy, but I don't, [laughs and snorts] I don't want to, yeah-
Austin: You have to-
Ali: Dilute the coolness of the ghost attack.
Andrew: [Laughs hard]
Austin: Mmm fair. You know what fair, fair, fair.
Sylvia: Uh, is this risky or… ?
Austin: It is still risky.
Sylvia: I wasn't sure if the range helped me out.
Austin: Aryt, yeah. So actually, it's- actually, I'm going to go back around. Maybe you do want to help, uh, help with this one somehow, uh, Marn, because risky is risky, right? Because right now you're at what, two nights?
Sylvia: Uh, yeah?
Austin: Three nights, three nights. Cause you've desolate. Right? So that'll be, that'll be three nights, lose the highest one, as it stands right now.
Sylvia: I don't think I'm going to roll two tens again, but you know that I also, like, you just took a Fallout, right, or… yeah.
Austin: Yeah, that is true. So maybe you're dealing with that fall. Maybe that makes more sense for you to be dealing with that. I think maybe Chine's. I mean, Chine also just took a fall.
Sylvia: Yeah everyone's-
Ali: I mean-
Austin: No, Chine did not take a fall. Chine just took stress.
Andrew: But I also don't want to kill this guy.
Ali: [Laughs] I feel like the, the, the, the, like the, the action of getting hurt[s], like seriously hurt[s], is what makes Marn pull her knife out? To be like, oh, this is-
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah, okay.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: This is- okay that makes sense, then yeah, alright. So then add a die, add a die.
Sylvia: That's a five.
Austin: Oh my God. That's a 5 1, 2, 5, 9. The nine gets lost because it's risky.
Sylvia: I think why- so can I describe what this is, like this attack is?
Austin: Please.
Sylvia: Um…
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: It is kind of like a spectral spear. It is the stake that went through, um, Virtue's heart that is-
Andrew: Yoooooo.
Sylvia: -Being used as a projectile. Um-
Austin: Incredible.
Sylvia: So there's just like, I, I don't know if it's like a thing people can see or not because the, they do talk about how the, um, the sort of like dead walkers spirit, like doesn't, isn't seen, unless it, like, there's like really- by like, in certain areas or by like powerful people?
Austin: Yeah. But we're living in it. We're living in a living solemn.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: So maybe this is a place where that could be the case.
Sylvia: Yes. So I think it's like, there's this, like you see? And let's like, um, I described when Virtue, when the residuum that like a bunch of hands came up. This is like the same hand basically. Um…
Austin: Sure.
Sylvia: It just like appears on like, just like a javelin throw, but I think it goes like through the bridge and there's- it then disappears.
Ali: [Chuckles]
Sylvia: And now I got a goatman with me.
Austin: And now you go, okay, well, so I do think, um, Ahem, again, two things happen at once. Cause two people helped on this. I need you both to make a D6 stress roll-
Sylvia: So sorry, Marn.
Austin: As was before.
Jack: Jesus Christ. It breaks bad so fast.
Austin: Pfff, no, Marn only gets one. Also Marn, I realized before, that went into mind before? It could have gone into, or no no, to go into where do we put it into last, what was that, Echo?
Sylvia: Bwoahh.
Ali: So I- do I still have the echo stress or… ?
Austin: No, it, it, it cleanses itself-
Ali: and then-
Austin: -Cleansed itself. But the thing I realized was, you know, we shouldn't at this point, you already have the Bubos. We should just roll with that. But you could have used your ability, right? To move it into a-
Ali: [Gasps] Ohh.
Austin: -Fortune instead? Once per situation. But hey, it's a situation still. So if you want to move this one there, you tell me, uh, I actually, you're not going to move it cause this is just Fortune stress immediately. So take, take, put that one in Fortune as I described what's gonna happen. Um, and then, and let me do your side. There was then a roll into Virtue's.
Sylvia: [Chuckles]
Austin: Um, so take one and then, and then roll, fall off. All right. Yeah, a few. Okay. If you'd gotten two Fallouts in a row on two stress, I would have been the least lucky thing in the world. Um, but the thing that happens is, uh, as you swing, we see what a Pale Magistrate can do. It spins in such a way so that you cut him free, uh, like with, uh, like moves his hands back, like, and like ducks so that he cut his hands free.
Um, so there's that, um, and then as the, as the, um, the, uh, stake comes towards him, lifts up one of his gloved hands and the glove like absorbs the stake. Uh, as if it's nothing. Take yours in mind, as you're fucking shook by what a pale Magistrate can do. Um, as it hits the glove, you can see that there is like the shape symbol that was drawn on the, on the alter before? It's a similar sort of alchemical, you know, uh, mark that, that helps block this incoming magical attack. Um…
Sylvia: [Laughs] Virtue!
Austin: Sylvia, do you want to read what you wrote?
Sylvia: Yeah, I think, great! We kidnapped John Wick.
Andrew: [Groans]
Austin: Yeah, motherfucker. This is… uhuh! Um-
Sylvia: Alright, I'm gonna do my Fallout tasks.
Austin: Give me, give me your fallout tasks. Where are you? What's your, what's your total right now?
Sylvia: Nine. I got a major fallout…
Andrew: Oh my god.
Austin: Buddy. Wow.
Sylvia: This is actually good! Let me explain! Because the first time each session, each session, you suffered major Blood, Mind, Fortune Fallout. I get to inflict D8 stress or whatever, cause-
Austin: oh, is that true? Read that again. Read that slowly one more time.
Sylvia: Okay. "You are followed around by a manifestation of your death that is invisible and intangible to everyone but you, although when you are on the verge of dying, or in places that resonate heavily with death and sorrow, it might be visible to others. The exact appearance of it is up to you. The first time each session you suffer, major Blood, Mind, or Fortune Fallout, your death manifests to protect you and inflicts D8 stress on whatever caused the Fallout."
Austin: Incredible. So, um, give me that roll, give me that D8 right now, and we'll try to resolve all this at once.
Sylvia: It's a three.
Austin: Three. It's not, I wish it was higher. Um, what's that look like? What does the, what does…
Sylvia: Ugh.
Austin: I have an idea.
Sylvia: Yeah, go ahead if you have an idea.
Austin: Instead of, instead of the stake, like kind of being absorbed by the hand, um, it just stops there and holds there and like, you know, where you get the eye contact between this goat person and you, um, and then Darling appears to push the, the ghost.
Sylvia: Fuck yeah.
Austin: It goes through stake-
Andrew: Incredible.
Austin: Um, and, and like burns away this glove, you know? Um, so that's, that's sick. You do a little bit of damage here, you three, which has to hit, which unfortunately hits the protection that this person has, uh, which is, which is not nothing.
Sylvia: For a major stress, I clear all…
Austin: Mhmm.
Sylvia: For major fallout. Okay.
Austin: Yeah. Um, let's see. Yeah. You, you clear it all, but…
Sylvia: [chuckles] but?
Austin: But- ooh, these Mind ones are rough, bud.
Jack: Uh, I like some of these less than the others-
Austin: Oh, me too.
Jack: -In terms of like…
Austin: Same, same.
Sylvia: The problem I think with Mind stuff is that it's very easily easy to get into the trap of like sanity.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: A hundred, a hundred percent.
Sylvia: So like, yeah.
Austin: The one that I'm actually going to pick is, is- the, the way I like to think about it instead of like, sanity is if this is still like mental health, but like Stress has an effect on people, right?
Jack: Mhmm.
Austin: You can get pushed to… Yeah, exactly, exactly. But that's in this case, um, you're going to give you Despair. Your mind races with the implications of what you've seen your life before, seems unreal and distant. The GM picks a domain that you have access to and you no longer have access to that domain ongoing.
Um, and um, I think that this is, um, uh, I think the thing that, you know, to, to sell- to, uh, Help really sell this, uh, after that happens, he like that glove burns away, right? And as, as he, as it does, he like reaches up with that, with that hand to, to rip the binding off of his mouth, then reaches into his inside coat pocket and produces another glove and puts it on like very forcefully, uh, and says,
Austin [as the Magistrate]: "I do not care what domain you think you're in. This is the realm of Fulmina, goddess of instant justice. Your kind has no power here, vampire." And then just like starts to march towards you.
Andrew: Fuck this guy.
Austin: Um, yeah.
Sylvia: Which domain am I losing, also?
Austin: You're losing Desolate because there has been, oh, no, sorry. You're going to lose, you're going to lose Religion, because this is about him insisting that you're, you've been like marked by his God in such a way that like, it's hard to shake that thought, right. Um, and you feel her presence like, there is a, I think as she puts that second, uh, that second glove on, there was another stroke of lightning in the sky to show that Fulmina is with him. Um, as a reminder, Fulmina is also part of the Triadic Pyre. Uh, Fulmina was the goddess of the, the, uh, kaprak, uh, up in, up in the Pale Magistratum, but has also been adopted by the Triadic Pyre as one of their kind of three, three phases of death. Uh, she is flame's spark.
Um, Chine uh, I think you said you had something?
Andrew: Yeah.
Austin: Just remembering that?
Andrew: Umm…
Austin: You said it in the chat. There it is.
Andrew: Yes, um, uh, oh, I think, I think it's time.
Austin: Sorry, I'm going to move people around on this, on this situation. So that we're a little bit more like, Hey, where are we where, you know what I mean? Uh, anyway. Yeah.
Andrew: Um, I think it's time for Chine to get serious here. Um, and I think that means it is time for Chine to shapeshift.
Austin: Hmm, what does that mean? And look-
Andrew: Um, so the move is called-
Austin: I say "worried."
Andrew: -Chimeric strain. Um, uh, what this looks like, I think is that, um, I mentioned, oh, hold on, what's this in the chat? Let's fucking go. Yes. [Laughs very hard]
Sylvia: Just me being very excited.
Austin: Uhuh.
Andrew: Um, I mentioned that like, Chine has like some like, fur on their back, like kind of going down the back and down their legs. Um, and what this looks like is that the actually that fur gets thicker and denser and heavier. And as that happens, it pulls all of the skin over the rest of their body down and tighter. Uh…
Austin: Oh, okay.
Andrew: Hold on. I'm going to link a picture here.
Austin: Uhuh?
Sylvia: Fuck yeah.
Andrew: Uh, and their, and their ears, like get longer and pointier as this happens, um, and their teeth get longer and sharper and pointier.
Austin: Great. Good. Wait where'd you put this out. Oh, you put it in. Wow. Oh, I love this picture. Where are we? How do we find this picture? Let me do a Google search for the same word.
Andrew: I don't know. Uh, just looking at weird shit on Pinterest leads you to cool places.
Austin: This is, this is, it seems to be the concept art for the Anubis, uh, creature from Grimm season three. It is on someone's uh, art station. It looks like. So we do it, Anubis Grimm. I think you'll get this image. This is sick. I'm, I'm a fan, but not the- it's the drawing. Yeah, it's not the picture of the person.
Sylvia: Yeah, the real one's not as cool as-
Andrew: No yeah, no the drawing is cooler-
Austin: -The concept art's the cool one. Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, Uh, sorry. I was watching a GIF from the show.
Ali: [Giggles]
Andrew: [Giggles] You think it was the one I'm looking at, where he's like transforming?
Austin: *Bleoaahh*. That's how, that's how I think he sounds.
Um, all right, so what's this do read me the move.
Andrew: Um, when you activate this power mark D4 stress to Echo: For the remainder of the current situation, all melee attacks you gain- uh, you make, gain the Brutal and Weird tags. And I also have piercing as well, because of my built-in unmaking clause skill.
Austin: Oh, sick. Okay. And Weird, just, so you know, is when you would inflict Stress with this item and roll the maximum number, mark D6 Stress to Echo for yourself. So the Brutal, very good. The Weird, very dangerous.
Andrew: It's fine.
Austin: Also give me that, give me that D4, give me that D4 Echo to yourself, love to be one with the heart.
Andrew: One. So I don't take any.
Austin: Oh, because you're in protection.
Andrew: Mhmm.
Austin: Yeah, absolutely. Hell yeah. Love that. Um, all right. Uh, let me, you don't have to roll cause you didn't take any, you don't have to roll for a Fallout because you don't actually, unless you actually take Stress.
Andrew: Oh nice.
Austin: So you've transformed. What, what are you, what do you do?
Andrew: Um, what I would like to do, um, I think this is a Hunt skill, cause this is tracked down someone or something that's trying to get away from you; because I'm still not trying to kill this person.
Austin: Okay. I don't know that it's Hunt. He is not trying to get away from him.
Andrew: He's just trying to kill us.
Austin: Yeah. He's trying to kill you. He thinks he's going to win this fight. He might.
Andrew: Yeah, he might.
Ali: [Laughs]
Andrew: Um, obviously what I'd like to do is try to just break off one of his horns with my hands. I don't know if I can do that.
Austin: That sounds like Hunt or Sound. That sounds like Endurekill to me.
Andrew: Okay.
Austin: You have all of these things, right?
Andrew: Yeah.
Austin: And then it's, it's still Desolate, but you don't have that. So it's not that. Um, is anyone helping?
Sylvia: Yeah, I'm down to- I could help here, especially,'cause I just lost all my stress.
Austin: True. Either, I- it's fine. Either of you can do this.
Sylvia: I, I, I don't want- Marn's been through a lot…
Ali, Andrew: [Cackles]
Austin: So then, so then Virtue, Virtue. Go for it. What's what's what's popping? How are you helping?
Sylvia: I have this knife. I think like…
Austin: You do have that knife. It's true.
Sylvia: Well, you're trying to specifically like rip his horn off, right?
Austin: Mhmm.
Sylvia: Okay.
Andrew: I mean being stabbed probably makes you not pay attention to someone.
Sylvia: Yeah, I think it's just sorta like, yeah, I think it's like, "How dare you say that to me? I'm going to stab you."
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: Um…
Austin: Alright.
Sylvia: Would this count as a use of this knife, Austin though?
Austin: No, because you're not, you're not rolling your damage with it, so don't let it down there. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, all right. So add another die to that. So that is, what? That is Indoor plus one for just your base one, and then you don't have Desolate, right?
Andrew: Mhmm.
Austin: Or wait, do you- No, you got religion before? So yeah. Um, yeah, no. Okay. Give me a, give me a roll as a- because we were off one.
Andrew: This is risky?
Austin: This is risky still. Yeah. This whole fight for it.
Sylvia: I should just say, like I'm good to assist, 'cause I have Desolate as a domain, right? Because I don't have Endure?
Andrew: Oh god.
Austin: Yeah. That, that still works.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: It still helps. You lose your nine. so you get the seven here. Everyone takes Stress. Both of you roll D6 for me. Uh huh.
Sylvia: I got a two.
Andrew: Oh, I got a one. So I got zero.
Austin: Nice. So you get, you get zero. Virtue, take two. Uh, put your two in Blood.
Sylvia: So I only take one then, because I have the-
Austin: 'cause of the blood protection. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, and that Blood just comes from like, I, he can't use his horns because, because, uh, Chine's trying to rip them off. Um, but can, like throw punches at you and does just like catch you in the ribs in a really like what the one really strong head. Um, uh, he kinda like that low, you know what I mean? That like low side hook, just like "bop~". Um, if you could imagine a punch that goes "bop!"
Ali: [Giggles]
Austin: That's what this, that's what's-
Andrew: Yeah, no that's what a Bop-It toy is.
Austin: The Bop- yeah, exactly. Um, um, go ahead and do your, do your damage here, Chine. We'll, we'll… I guess actually wait, sorry. Uh, Virtue roll for, roll for…
Sylvia: Oh, yeah.
Austin: Cause you took one still, no Fallout.
Sylvia: I did not roll the one, so I did not…
Austin: One-in-12 chance, so alright, go ahead and give me your…
Sylvia: Honestly, like worse odds than I'd think.
Austin: Yeah, totally. Um, alright. So your damage here, what are you- you're using?
Andrew: I'm unarmed.
Austin: Basically using your hands. Are you? You are unarmed. You're not using your polax here. Okay. So then, I mean, you're still- Alright, 'cause you transformed, right? Uh, so then give me your, what is the, what is the weapon it's D…
Andrew: It's D4 right? Cause it's unarmed?
Austin: Okay. I didn't know if you had something else that gave you D6…
Andrew: No, it's just the tag. So I get the Brutal, Weird and Piercing tags.
Austin: Piercing is very good. Here is what I'll say, because this Magistrate, and I think you get a sense for this. This Magistrate is as armored, so to speak as you has the same protection level as you do, just two, which has meant that like a lot of these hits have not done much. So give me a D4.
Andrew: Okay. If it's brutal, should I just go ahead and roll 2, D4 and we take the highest?
Austin: Roll two, D4. We'll take highest. Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: A three.
Austin: That's a three. That's three that pierces, um, what's this look like? It- I mean, we don't have to zoom in on this. It, it- you do the thing that you said you wanted to.
Andrew: Okay, yeah.
Austin: Right. Um, you break off one of these horns, um, uh, uh, which we'll come to as a resource in a moment, I guess, fucked up. Um, uh, and he pushes away from you, um, and like, tries to make some distance. Um, which way does he go here? Um, I think… ugh, based on where- I guess Virtue, you're up in his grill also now. Right?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Um, and then, so is Chine, Chine, I'm gonna leave you behind as if like you had to climb around and get the thing, you know? Um, so yeah, I think that he is at this point, um, having gotten that good hit in on you, um, does like slide past you, Virtue to move towards where Janek is. And he was like, at this point, rushing towards Janek as if, to be like, "Before these motherfuckers take me out, I'm killing my prey. I'm killing my quarry." Um, and Janek like, raises his hands, um, as if to be like, "No, no, no, no, no."
Jack: I'm going to make a run for Ezek. I'm going to try and like, knock Ezek.
Sylvia: Well, it's so dangerous on a bridge, isn't it?
Austin: It's so dangerous on a bridge, isn't it?
Jack: I don't think this is the kind of run a knock where I'm like going to try and send him flying. I'm trying to intersect.
Austin: How can you be sure of that?
Jack: It's my-, uhhh because of my clever skills,
Ali: [Laughs]
Austin: Hmmm, I see.
Ali: I guess, I mean-
Jack: Goats are very sure on their feet.
Ali: If you make sure that you're pushing vertically and not horizontal, hey right?
Austin: Hit forward, right? Yeah.
Jack: Yeah. That's true.
Austin: Not side to side. Alright. What are you rolling for this, Pickman?
Jack: Um, I'm going to roll kill.
Austin: Ah, I see. So you're not in fact being careful about this.
Jack: Yeah. I was actually thinking about this. When Marn was like, "This has kind of got, this has kind of got real here." Uh…
Austin: Yeah. Mhmm.
Jack: You know, you're early in a season and you're trying to feel out what a character is, um, on what that character believes in. Yeah. And I don't know if Pickman is the kind of person who would say, I think Pickman would say, you know, "We're going to try really hard to kill him outside of the thing, but he attacked us on the bridge."
Um, Yeah, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go kill. And I have the domain Desolate because my armor is just now steaming in the rain. Like the cape has come off completely and is now just like flapping along the bridge. It hasn't fallen off the bridge. It's just sort of like moving like a wounded bud off towards the corner.
So that is, uh, this is risky because we're fighting fucking, what's his name? [???] Blank in the corridor.
Austin: [Laughs] Yes, that's correct. Um, um…
Jack: Kill…
Austin: And it's also a rainy bridge where things could just go bad.
Jack: Desolate.
Okay. I'm just launching myself in this motherfucker.
Austin: Do it.
Hey, yooo! [Laughs]
Jack: Oh wait, no, I shouldn't have made that plus one. I had plus one dice there, but that's the change?
Austin: That's- they're your first three or nine, nine, eight.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: I just want to be, I want to be clear that that was a misroll.
Austin: It was, but that means I get rid of the first nine and the second nine counts, like, which is actually already what happens. So yeah. You're- you nail it. Um, gimme your damage roll. You don't have a, you're not, or you have the saber-
Jack: I have the saber…
Austin: Are you using that saber?
Jack: Do I fall, basically fall on him with the sab- fall, as in like an active word there?
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack: Fall on him with the saber, saber. Um…
Austin: Maybe.
Jack: Or, I mean, we've committed to kill him. Like I rolled kill.
Austin: You did. Yes. You did.
Jack: So now I can't just say "In the air, Pickman decides fists only!"
Austin: Yeah. So give me your D6 for the saber.
That's a six. Um…
Sylvia: Pretty good sword, huh?
Jack: That's a great sword!
Sylvia: [Chuckles]
Austin: No it's a saber.
Jack: It's a saber, sorry. If we weren't fighting to the death, there will be a "Thanks. Thank you for the saber, Virtue. Unfortunately, I'm seeing into heaven right now."
Sylvia: Yeah. You're busy. I'm having, I'm having an existensial crisis. It's all good.
Austin: What's it look like when you kill him? Like in terms of the, do you see into the heaven he gets pulled into or what?
Jack: Oh, oh, can he go off the bridge? Because then I think, sure. I think he goes off the bridge and he just like instantaneously falls upwards at high speed.
Austin: Ugh, I love it so much.
Jack: With the velocity of someone, you know, falling. Like it's not like he's rising up into the air. He is, he's just going screeching into the sky. Um, I mean he also falls because I'm seeing the, the world as it is.
Austin: Yeah, but the way- as, as he falls up, he gets struck by a third hit of that lightning, um, in that realm, um, and becomes like one with Fulmina, his goddess. Um, and that, that strike of lightning does not stay here because it's not in this realm. It's in Fulmina's, um, you know, imminent, imminent justice, um, instant justice, imminent justice is good too though. Instant justice, uh, which seems to have worked on him here perhaps. Um, actually I'm wrong. It does happen here too. I think this is the touch of Fulmina that we were warned about; that third strike of lightning, like hits again. Um, and this time it like instantly continues to grow. Like it's as if you're seeing it's as if you're seeing a, um, a… How to describe this, um, You know how, like you can, you can see a time-lapse of a plant growing it's like that, but like, imagine that it is a, a slowly growing lightning tumor in the sky, as these independent three lightning strikes, these kinds of forked bolts begin to like connect to each other.
And as they connect to each other, they begin to grow, like quicker and quicker and create new little, you know, lines between them. And it's like, there's a lattice of red lightning in the sky slowly growing. Um, a bell starts ringing far in the distance, back at the prior. Right?
Sylvia: We should hurry.
Austin: Uh, yeah. Uh huh. Um, Dre, uh, you can take the resource. Um, uh, Corrosive Horn, D6.
Andrew: Mm. Okay. Sure, yeah.
Austin: Um, I, I need a better name for Corrosive- I don't know what the deal is with their bullets. I guess it's, they're blessed by Fulmina. You know, that is, that is the, the, the kind of weird corrosive stuff that's happening here. Um, but, but take that, um, I, that is one of those resources that if you tried to eat that I will make you roll on in ??? because it's clearly very fucked up.
But yeah D6, I, um, I think that this, I think though I do think that this might be a cursed, you know, it's, let's say Occult, let's say it's the cult domain, a resource, um. Uh, as the bell starts ringing, Jack, um, and as you know, just guy falls away and at both up and down, the, the, uh, earlier, as I mentioned, the effect of this hexeye is like too much for you to deal with. You cannot, you can like be guided to walk forward, but you do not have control of yourself in a way that you're confident you won't fall off this bridge.
Jack: Yeah, fair enough.
Austin: So you should go ahead and mark, be helpless, be rendered helpless in the heart for an hour or more as you see the swimming truth of all reality here. Um, which is fun in my mind because it's not the part that you're connected to.
Jack: What do you mean?
Austin: Pickman, like, you're seeing, "This is fun." You're seeing what Chine believes in.
Jack: Yes, yes, yes.
Austin: Chine, can you describe the Course for me?
Andrew: Oh boy.
Austin: Um, actually, actually can we just like, as you're moving on, Pickman cannot, cannot like, guide, um, herself, you know, forward. So Pickman, can you describe, do you tell the rest of the party, what you're seeing?
Jack: Yes. uhh I want to give Dre the description, but I think Pickman in just, you know, very, um, broken sort of, um, fractured terms, is describing what they're seeing. And they're also saying,
Jack [as Pickman]: We shouldn't have killed that Magistrate. This is a punishment. I am being punished.
Jack: Um, as they’re describing what it is that they are seeing, which is, Dre?
Andrew: Boy, I mean, if Art's character is into the, what, what is it called? The Structure? The Order?
Austin: The Structure, The Shape. Yeah. The Shape is the train line, but like The Structure, The Shape, those are words that mean The Orderly, The Orderly stuff, but also the kind of like the logic of modernity placing itself on the chaos, insisting that this would be better for people.
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, this is, this is chaos with order, but it is an order, like, unknowable to our minds. Um, it is loud. It is overwhelming. It is intoxicating at the same time.
Austin: Yeah. It's everything, right? It's, it's a world of, of, of, you know, ongoing, ongoing deferral of truth, but like, there is no, there is no, "No's" here. There's only "Yeses". And in- you know, indefinitely just forever, just 1, 1, 1 realm after another, in which the thing that you think couldn't be true, is. Um, and it's just, it's with your adrenaline, calm from the fight being over it all, just, you know, you lose the focus that you had on here as my- here's the object of, of, of, of, uh, my, my hate and fear. And now it is: everything is flooding in on you in this moment.
Jack: It's just awful.
Austin: Very overwhelming. Um, so yeah, and again, the thing that I love about this to some degree is like, Chine, you don't even know the name of the Course yet.
Andrew: Mm.
Austin: Right? Um, maybe that can come from some way of helping, helping deal with this. I don't know. But, uh, this is, this is, the thing that, that has been described to you by Pickman lines up with the way you hear, the way you feel about, about the Heartland, you know, the way you feel about what the truth of it all is.
Um, so I think at this point, uh, Janek is like,
Austin [as Janek]: We have got to go..
Austin: Um, and, and y'all continue to go up the, up, up there, across the bridge and all of that, right. Um, someone gave me a roll D4 here, as you finish that situation and finishing the situation was a boon. You can roll D4 to make progress on this-
Andrew: I'll roll it.
Austin: -On this Delve. Alright.
Jack: Three.
Austin: Hey, that's a three. That's– that is– you get up to– so you cross the bridge. Um, as far as you can tell, none of the, none of the Sisters of the priory are on their way, or if they are, you've outpaced them even with the, even with the brain and, and even with Pickman's, uh, seeing all of the worlds that there are at once. Um, and you make your way to this mountain and there was like a, a little mountain pass, um, with little stone steps kind of carved into it. Um, that goes up quite a long time and you make your way up it, and there is a shrine to, to the Mother-Beast here. Um, it is kind of an open air shrine situation. You know, there, there are statues out. Um, there are candles there to be lit. There are offerings that have piled up.
Um, on the way up, you pass more bones, um, you pass other other people who've made this trip. Um, and in fact, in the shrine, there are the bodies of people from, from… It, it's hard to know what time is here, right? Um, but from your lifetime, for sure, who made it into this place who got lost and fell into this place and who could not make it out.
Um, and, um, they did not know the words. They did not know how to do it. Who could, who could say, um, but you've made it here and I do not have a second hymn written, but presumably you have written down. Um, and I think I can tell you what its meaning is because this is, uh, this is a hymn about if the first hymn was like, “I promise we did this thing for you”. This is a hymn about confronting your guilt. This is a hymn about basically saying that you're a fraud and a failure in the eyes of the Mother-Beast, because you're leaving, you're giving up on the hymn. Um, and it is, it is about how, um, despite that, her love for you is persistent, um, and unconditional. And that in knowing that, you know that you're even less deserving of it.
Um, that is the gist of this hymn. Very weird one. Uh, um, and it's time to do that hymn to get the fuck out of here, presumably, unless you're, you're doing something else while you're still here. It's up to you.
Sylvia: I don't have anything.
Andrew: No, I'm, I'm good with leaving.
Jack: Marn, do you want to make a connection to a doomed world?
Ali: Um, I don't have to go back to the old world and figure some Beast stuff out first?
Austin: Yeah, at this point. I mean, you can tell me if there's another way you want to do it. Um, but I don't know if that's in Marn's wheelhouse. Like there's clearly a connection to Fulmina here now, a different goddess. Um, but I don't know if that's a door you want to open or would think to open?
Ali: Right. The only, the only thing that I can think of is, is it like Marn convinces Chine to leave behind like that egg or whatever. And then it's like a natural… Whatever?
Austin: [thoughtful noise] The egg, the orange?
Andrew: [overlapping] Oh, the orange!
Ali: Yeah the oranges that would have, uh…
Austin: The orange? Hmm.
I don't think that would be enough to make this happen, but I think that, I actually think that that is a good idea. So what I'm going to say is that if, if, uh, Chine does that now I'll grant you mastery on it. And you can, you can split that up. You can turn that D6 into a D4 to leave one behind.
Uh, Chine, the fallen, the fallen oranges. If you leave an offering at this shrine here, um, that will give mastery on the, on Marn's tests, going back to the other chapter.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Um, so…
Ali [as Marn]: Hey Chine, let me borrow an orange. [Laughs]
Austin: Virtue, are you leading this Religion… Occult roll?
Sylvia: [overlapping] Yeah, I mean, like I did the first time, right? Oh, wait. Hmm.
Austin: Oh, you don't have Religion anymore.
Sylvia: No I don't.
Ali: [Laughs]
Austin: Does anybody–
Andrew: [overlapping] I do.
Austin: Who still has religion? You do.
Andrew: Mhmm.
Austin: I- so here's the thing: I'm going to let you have it. You should not have it anymore.
Andrew: Oh, right.
Austin: Because we are not in the situation that you ate that in.
Andrew: [overlapping] I mean, yeah we can, we can…
Austin: Do you want to cut that, that down one more time? You want to eat a little bit more of that thread?
Andrew: Uh, no, I think I'm, I'm, I'm upset. I didn't want to kill that guy.
Austin: Okay. Okay. So you're not helping here. Okay. Then clear– I'll make sure you clear that Religion, that Religion tag.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Um, this is the, this is the cost of it, right? As you give it a shot, you don't know if you're gonna need it or not. Um, what should I say? Does anybody else have Religion or Occult in this crew?
Sylvia: Oh, I have Occult. Oh no, I don't, okay.
Austin: Oh you do?
Sylvia: I got it mixed up with Cursed.
Austin: I know. Then this is– okay. So you're going to have to cast this or- not cast, you're going to have to sing this hymn, not cast this incantation, uh, without the Religion, uh, domain.
Sylvia: Cool. So this is just Discern, then?
Austin: This is just, uh, it's Discern or Delve. I think it's Discern, yeah.
Sylvia: I have both, so…
Austin: Um, people can help, I think.
Sylvia: I could!? You know what? “Once per session, before you roll to resolve an action, instead state that your result is a six. You succeed, but take Stress.”
Austin: What's that look like, like in terms of flavor?
Sylvia: I think it is, like, there is less confidence in Virtue's voice, specifically when doing this as compared to like, um, compared to like the first time where like, yeah, she didn't like singing, but she knew what she was doing. Like she knew that this fell would be a thing. This time, she's like, I don't know, like this could go all sorts of fucking ways.
Austin: Yeah. Give me, um, give me a D6 for that stress.
Sylvia: Alright.
Austin: I do love using that move for this though. Take–
Sylvia: [overlapping] I was like, you know, I want to go home.
Austin: Yeah. Uhuh, you rolled a five here. Um, I think this is, you're so in the dumps, but like, you know what I think, given the, given the magical element of this story, I think this goes into Echo, five Echo.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Also, also, wait, you, can you, uh, you've not clicked this yet, but I'm going to give you the, take the minor Fallout.
Sylvia: Oh thank you.
Austin: I'm going to rule that if you take major Fallout, when your beat is minor Fallout, it counts. Cause I think that's being a fan of the player. Um…
Sylvia: Thank you.
Austin: Alright. So then give me, uh, give me that Fallout test as you, as you're seeing this, this great.
Sylvia: So that's, uh, sorry. Was that Mind or Echo?
Austin: That was Echo.
Sylvia: So I take four because I have one Echo protection?
Austin: You have one Echo protection, correct. Correct. Um…
Sylvia: I got a 12, so I'm good.
Austin: So you're good. The thing that is happening here, like visibly, or like emotionally, or visually, or whatever is as you do it, and, and you can feel that like the, um, I think the visual representation of it is, each, each word you sing, you can see the like lightning, lattice vibrate as if it's like a visualizer on, for an MP3 player or something. But each time you say the word, it, like, it feels like the lattice is lowering. It's getting closer and closer to you. It's approaching you. Um, it's drawn in by your, by the lack of confidence in your voice. Um, it's, as if it smells blood it's as if it's like, I could, I could nest in, in her, I could find, I could take you over. Um, you don't have the confidence to resist the sway of Fulmina, goddess of instant justice, um, and Flame’s Spark.
Um, but, but you do manage to, to sing the hymn. Um, and, um, uh, at the end, uh, there is, uh, one more flash of light and you reappear up in the mountains above Blackwick, um, uh, in a, in a little alcove, um, that is connected to the tunnel system where people mind, um, and this is like a shrine that you realize, like there is, um… You know, sometimes, um, this happens in video games when you're exploring cave systems would… Presumably happens in a cave systems also where like, oh, there's a, there's a, like a cutback turn that it's, you don't even see it because it's, it looks like the tunnel is straight, but actually there's like a little bit of like a, a turn that goes backwards behind you a little bit. And you have to like, come back through the tunnel the other way to know where it's at. I'm thinking of a very particular moment in Demon Souls, specifically that has one of these like openly, uh it's in like the fire level, the mining level.
Um, what I'm getting towards is like you're in a little alcove in the mines that would be very hard to see and find if you didn't know where it was to begin with. Um, and this is where the nuns must've come first, um, when they first left here, they must have come in through here or, or part of them came this way, and some of them came in through the underground chapel or something, but we knew some of them went through the mines.
And so this is that entrance. Um, and so you see like prayer books here and other little like, smaller hymnals, nothing of value that you don't have another copy of back at the, you know, the Boundless Conclave or whatever. Um, but, but you're, you're here. Old, old candles that have been burnt out, but you make your way out of here and you're back in Blackwick, you're looking down over it.
It is nighttime now. Um, uh, it is, it is, you've been gone for the whole day. In fact, maybe it's late at night, you know, it's like midnight or something, you know? Um, but you're able to make your way back to town safely. You finished your second delve. Um, how's everyone doing?
Sylvia: A little despair-y, but otherwise I'm okay.
Austin: Fair.
Jack: I can see all the gods.
Austin: Uh huh. You sure can. You still have that. Um, as a reminder, here are the, uh, the Haunts here, back in Blackwick, you got a Doctor, D6 Doctor. You got a good Supply. You have a trade house from the mines. Uh, and you have that dining hall for Mind Stress, uh, and Fallout. Um Pickman, yours is what, Echo? Hm.
Jack: Mm.
Austin: That's no good. You're gonna need someone to help you with that, huh?
Jack: There's no Echo. There's no Echo Haunts here, huh?
Ali: Oh really?
Austin: No, it turns out, huh? I love, I love it when the next venture finds itself.
Jack: Is there a, is there a Fortune here?
Austin: There is not a Fortune here, there is a Supply.
Jack: My gun is broken.
Austin: Umm uhh, yeah but, but that one just says, "You cannot use it until you take the time to repair it."
Jack: So… right.
Austin: Some minor things can just be like, hey. Um, and so what I would say with that is I would let you, I think with enough downtime, it will naturally repair itself. Um, um, but you could also, I think maybe roll. Maybe the play here is, is to make it a supplies check with downtime. It's like a D4 Stress to Supplies to repair.
Jack: Yeah. But that's a, that's another time.
Austin: Yeah, we don't, we don't need to worry about that right now.
Jack: Mission Two: someone go and fix Marn Pickman!
Ali: I can't, I can't use the mend skill for this?
Austin: Um, no. "Echo Stress and Fallout can not be removed without specialized abilities or access to haunts. [Jack: [distantly] Fuck!] Blood and Mind and Supplies can all get repaired to different ways. Fortune and Echo can not."
Echo is the Heart, right? Echo is, is for us, the Course, the Structure, the Shape. It is, it is the big stuff.
Ali: Sure, I just feel like written into the show is me being able to [laughs] make like a poison, um, thing. But yeah.
Austin: It's not poison, that's the thing. Right? So like instead, what the scene should be is yeah, you're able to cure them, right? You're able to put the, the, uh, the right ointments on them a hundred percent and then they come back because this is not a physical malady. This is magical and not, and not magical in the someone-cast-a-spell-on-you way. This is “reality has decided that this is a true thing about you”. Um, in the same way that you are Marn Ancura. In the same way that you are, you know, a member of the Telluricist Union. In the same way that you're good with knives. You are someone who has these, these blisters on you.
Um, and they, they're not going away. Um, which yeah, is scary. Um, that is why this is an Echo thing and not a Blood thing, right. So we'll have to, you know, maybe this is a good thing for you for long-term to try to work towards. Um, uh, I am curious if you were going to try to establish this connection.
Ali: Oh, is that yeah. I mean, sure! [Laughs] Um, is that just like a pop-back-through-the-door situation or like…
Austin: Yeah, you could go back there. I mean, so I think the thing that happens is, you know, the group, the five of you now with, with Janek, make your way back down towards the edge of town. Um, uh, I think before. I mean, I think he is going to go back to his house, right? Um, uh, and I think he says,
Austin [as Janek]: Listen, I really want to thank you all for coming in there and getting, getting me out. It, it y'all don't even know me, um, at all.
Austin: I don't, I don't know that you knew him, Chine.
Andrew: No, I don't think so.
Austin: Yeah. And he showed up here after that. Um, and he says,
Austin [as Janek]: My name ain't Janek. Janek is, uh, it's easier for certain places. You know what I mean? My name is is Ekule[2] Polyte. My last name is what I use. You can spell it any way you want. Just don't call me 'Uh-cool Polite', and we will be, we will be cool…
Andrew: And polite?
Austin [as Janek]: In fact, you can call me Cool. Some of my friends do call me Cool, because I am. Um, uh, if you need anything, you let me know. I've been around, uh, I know more than I let on. And so I'm telling you that, so I can be a bit of like a resource for you, you know? Uh, can I help you out a bit here?
Ali: [Laughs, then giggles]
Andrew: You know, just carry them in your pocket.
Sylvia: D6.
Austin: You could be a bond. He could be a bond. Yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah?
Austin: Um, so that- Hey, if you invest in him, maybe he could become a, uh, he could become, uh, a Haunt that could help heal you. Um, but for now I think he goes off.
Jack: Echo, please! [chuckling]
Austin: Uh-huh, uh, he did say he was a bit of an, an occultiste. So, um, so yeah. Uh, if you want to go try to make that, that, that connection, I, you know, what's that look like? We don't need to get super specific, you know, the, the, the flower, the white flower, uh, caretaker is still down there. Um, the, the oranges are bigger than ever. Um, You're you, you re-enter that space, maybe more prepared, you know, more light, more torches, more, um, you know, more ready to know what is down there. Um, but what would a ritual to make this connection be like?
Ali: Um, yeah, I don't know. I mean, um, I, the, the, the really practical thing is like trying to, like, catch it and then go back, right? But that seems almost too, like, neat.
Austin: W- yeah. W- the, the weird thing is, you can't go back until this thing is bound in some way to whatever the weird energy of that hymn is, right?
Ali: Can I break down the slice of the Mother-Beast's leg to a D8 and then feed it to it?
Austin: Ooooh I love this. This is fun. Yeah, absolutely. Do that. Break it down to a D8 and-
Jack: Feed the leg to the, to the white flower beast? Oh my god.
Ali: [Giggles.]
Austin: This is… So you have mastery, which from the, from the oranges being on the other side, there's like a, an open, there's a connection, right? It can sense that. Um, what do you roll for this?
Andrew: Oh no, Chine's just clapping in the background though.
Ali: [Breaks in laughter.] Um, the, I, uhh. At least a D8, right? If I'm using my D8 resource, like, I don't know.
Austin: No, no, no. This is like, uh, uh, the, that will just, I mean, that's just allowing you to do it is what it is, but I'm trying to figure out what skill and domain this would even be.
Ali: Um…
Austin: I feel like, like it could be Compel but, but I don't know that this thing is compellable in that, trying to find my skill write-up so I can just read with the-
Ali: Yeah. Is this a Discern now?
Austin: "Understand the world by drawing on accessible information." Um, Hm, no, I don't think track down something. It's not Hunt. "Repair something or someone that is broken, build something new." I think this is Mend.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Cause that's the process, right? This whole thing is, is that, um, and then I think it's Occult or Cursed. I think it's Occult prob- probably, which I don't think you have. I don't know that anybody has Occult, right now.
Ali: Uh, sure. Yeah.
Austin: Um, I think we also have Mend.
Sylvia: I had an item with Mend, but I don't have the actual skill.
Austin: What's the item that you have? Oh, that's the resource that you have.
Sylvia: Yeah uh, the, it's equipment. It's Manticore Blood, Mend, Mind, D6.
Austin: Oh, that's nice to have.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: That's fun. Um, yeah, I think it's just going to be, I think it's just going to be Mend, plus one, plus Mastery plus, uh, you know, so you get, so you're actually getting a plus, you're just getting the one plus one. Yeah, I guess, you, yeah, just click Mastery. That should roll it that way.
Ali: And then I'm still doing the plus one and then this is standard, not risky.
Austin: This is standard, not risky. Yeah. Yeah. That rolled too many, because you did not unclick, I think. I'm guessing you did not unclick after you hit down on the, on the, um, thing, on the plus one. Yeah.
Ali: Oh sure.
Austin: So that's a thing to be wary, but it doesn't matter because we can see what the you rolled were, which were four, eight and three. The eight is a success. No stress. What's this look like, as you feed this dragon leg to the flower beast?
Ali: [laughs] It's just a slice. It's like, you know, just a little piece.
Andrew: [overlapping] A little treat!
Austin: A little treat that connects it from this world to the next. Or not the next, but this world, world to the hymn of the Mother-Beast. Does it like ascend her to Mother-Beast status? Is she the new Mother-Beast?
Ali: [Laughs] Certainly could. Yeah. Yeah. Is there like, does the, the, the caretaker transform in some way? Um…
Austin: Zzz yeah, I don't know how?, um, I think the, the, the white flowers gained a streak of orange, um, um, that represents both the oranges, but also there's like, it's like if I had a color picker, I would have pulled it from like the sun in the, in the, um, Mother-Beast's hymn or something, you know what I mean? It's like, it's, it's like, she's touched by that, by the color of the suns there, um, the colors of the palette, they're the kind of, you know, um, uh, sunblasted wastes of that place.
Um, uh, there is, I think part of it is that the space changes the windows down here. Once again, connect to, to that world, to that realm, to that fracture. Um, and like there's like that, that sand, the salt starts to blow in from, from here, um, uh, through those windows, um, like the holes in the, in the stain glass. Um, on this side of things, um, I think this, this place, like the tree grows a little bit, um, and the room grows with it until it is once again a cathedral size. Like it was that the kind of kids who first came down here reported it to be.
Um, um, and there was a degree to which I think what part of what happens is the citric acid, the kind of that, that it's not, it was not actually citric acid. It was like something that smelled like citrus and was like an acid, which is not what citric acid is. Um, But instead of burning away the Mother-Beast, it's like, um, it's like the, the roots and vines and everything else here just kind of blend with the Mother-Beast. Right. Um, and over time, the two will kind of join more, more closely together.
Um, and I don't think that we see it right now. Um, but I think that like maybe what we do is we get a shot up, up at the shrine entrance where those, those oranges, um, one of those oranges has already begun to sprout as like, a second tree there. Um, uh, uh, we don't know, we still haven't seen what these oranges turn into and I'm going to leave that closed for now, because it would be a fun thing to, to return to once I have a really good idea. Um, but yeah, um, I think I haven't eaten this.
The, the, um, whiteflower, uh, uh, caretaker kind of just like goes back under the tree and like curls up to rest. Um, surprised by the outcome as much as you are. Outside of the windows, you can see that the red lattice lightening begins to recede-
Jack: Oh shit.
Austin: -As some stability gets, gets brought back. The first, those three strikes are still there in the sky, but the lattice has kind of like blown away, as if it was just like an atmospheric lighting effect, you know, as if it was an aurora that's moved on, you know, but those three strikes of lightening have not cleared. Um, so you know, this is still not, we're not at a hundred percent, but we're back at like 80 and stable or 60 and stable or something.
Jack: Presumably we could go, we could go in like her-
Austin: This is a connection now. Yeah.
Jack: The whole, once you move, you can never come back, was predicated on the fact that it was getting destroyed.
Austin: Correct, correct.
Jack: That's good.
Austin: Yes. No, sorry. It was not predicated. It was predicated on the, there was no, um, as part of the God-Beast stuff, there are part of the Mother-Beast stuff, there was that connection could only happen once each direction because the Mother-Beast was dead. So it's like, there was not that permanent stable connection between the two and or whatever. Whatever I said two hours ago, it's been a long time.
Jack: Mhmm.
Ali: [Giggles]
Austin: Um, alright. I think that, that does it. Um, so also, yeah, you should check if you have not yet, that you've made a connection here, establish a connection on a delve. Um, and then, and then, yeah, I think we're gonna wrap up. Are there any final shots here?
Sylvia: Um, I think Virtue, back at like the headquarters, is reading through the, um, hymnal of the Mother-Beast, taking notes, but she's back somewhere where she can do that.
Austin: I'm going to give you something I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you something as you're now in a more rested place. And we'll end on this. Um, one of the things that you find that you skipped over before is a little bit more about when the Mother-Beast got sick originally after losing, losing, uh, her child or her child leaving or whatever it was. Um, it said that the, the, the best, uh, you know, kind of medical and, um, religious healers in the, the abbey up here in Blackwick, now Blackwick, attended to the Mother-Beast. Um, and she coughed for a full day as if something were caught inside of her. And when it became, when it was finally became free, uh, she spat it out. You know, it worked its way up to up her long monstrous neck. Um, and they don't say monstrous, of course, uh, but you know what the fuck it is.
Uh. It is spat out. Um, uh, and it was a grapeseed, a tiny thing, a grapeseed, and they placed it upon the altar in the basement chapel. Um, uh, and you can't quite like, shake that image from your head that there was a tiny grapeseed where eventually they found this egg sack. Um, um, and so that is something, I guess. Um, uh, they thought it was like, you know, anything of the Mother is holy, so we have to keep it. And so they put it in, in like a bowl basically on, on the, on the altar where it was alone. Um, and, and when, uh, I think maybe they tried to move it from there at some point. And the Mother-Beast got like defensive about it, maybe. Um, uh, and so they kept it down there. So yeah, a grapeseed on an altar.
Jack: Was this after the, they made the stained glass panels with her holding the grapes?
Austin: Not clear if this was before or after you don't have the timing on it. Um, I, I guess if you check for hymns, you would see that like, after that, there were hymns about, about grapes, you know? Um, and, and maybe that's part of it, right. You sort of think like is an egg sac, egg sac look like? A bunch of grapes? You know what I mean? There's a, there is a sort of abstract similarity, right? Um, in terms of it being like a bunch of little orbs, so…
Love this season. Love to talk about gross shit.
Sylvia: It's so good! [laughter]
[Sangfielle by Jack de Quidt plays out to end]
[1] Pronounced cap-rahk.
[2] Pronounced UH-koo-lay.