Sangfielle 47: Wax, Iron, and Ichor Pt. 4
Transcriber: robotchangeling
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.
Austin (as Marisha): The things I was researching could not have been any use. [sighs] It's about the nature of godhood, which is a strange thing. And you would think, given…
Austin: She gestures at her own kind of religious garb.
Austin (as Marisha): That I would have a stronger feeling about it. But the truth is: here in the Heartland, what is a god? You know?
[Music begins: “Sangfielle”]
Jack (as Pickman): You're unaware of what's been happening outside, aren’t you?
Austin (as Marisha): Um, I knew a storm was anticipated sometime soon, but I had assumed that had passed.
Jack (as Pickman): Blackwick has come to ruin.
Austin (as Marisha): Excuse me?
Jack (as Pickman): Alaway and their waxen army have swept through the streets, killing or turning many of the townsfolk. Deputies have set up in the north and are holding that part of the town.
Austin (as Marisha): Deputies of whom? The council's?
Jack (as Pickman): The Pale Magistrates arrived.
Austin (as Marisha): [scolding] What did I tell you? You group of— [angry sound] You thought you could just change things to make them better. And in the process, you made it worse for so many more people, didn't you? How many did they hurt? We warned you about them! You could have let us handle it.
Dre (as Chine): So do you want us to just leave you here, or…
Austin (as Marisha): Don't you dare threaten me, Chine. I knew you as a little boy, and I could… [frustrated exhale]
Dre (as Chine): No, you couldn't.
Austin (as Polyte): You know, up in the mountains, there's another part of the Mother-Beast left, still pumping away. I think that's where all the stuff in the mines comes from. The heart of the Mother-Beast. You know the, um…there's that river. I rightly think that's her blood.
Keith: Here's a question. Alaway’s trying to siphon off a certain— uh, siphon off the Mother-Beast’s power. But what if someone had like a second, like a different thing that we could redirect the siphoning off into and at least take some of that god power away? Maybe get two—
Sylvia: Are you gonna suggest Aterika'Kaal?
Keith: I'm just— no bad ideas, brainstorming. [Sylvia and Dre laugh]
Austin: Do you say this in character?
Keith: Yes.
Keith (as Lyke): If someone had some vessel that already had a god in it. [Sylvia laughs softly]
Dre (as Chine): Mm.
Sylvia (as Hazard): Oh, do you know anyone like that?
Keith (as Lyke): I'm just, again, just spitballing.
Dre (as Chine): Wait, you carry a god around with you?
Keith (as Lyke): And that it's one that we know, um, isn't trying to, you know, howl, you know, machines, and that isn’t trying to kill us.
Janine (as Es): We know that?
Dre (as Chine): Wait, wait, wait. How long have you carried a god with you?
Keith (as Lyke): Session one.
[song ends]
Keith (as Lyke): It's not a vampire. It just needs the…it just needs the stuff that’s in blood to live!
Austin (as Alekest): [crosstalk] No, a vampire’s anything that saps the life of another thing to extend its life and power.
Sylvia (as Hazard): Everybody knows that.
Keith (as Lyke): But it's different. It's different.
Dre (as Chine): Mm. That's not true.
Austin (as Alekest): It's not true. We're fighting a wax vampire. That’s—
Dre (as Chine): Well, yeah. But you said anything that eats something else. Do you…you eat vegetables.
Keith (as Lyke): This is—
Austin (as Alekest): No, it draws the life out of— the life force out of a currently living thing.
Dre (as Chine): Oh, okay.
Austin (as Alekest): Yeah.
Keith (as Lyke): Right, Aterika’Kaal just kills people.
Austin (as Alekest): Yeah, yeah, yeah— is that true?
Keith (as Lyke): Well, it will.
Austin (as Alekest): Can it like move life force around from one thing to another thing, the way a vampire might?
Ali (as Marn): Can we get back to the task at hand?
Austin (as Alekest): Hmm.
Keith (as Lyke): We can just…okay. I can— we can do both. So.
Janine (as Es): What if when I drink water out of a cactus?
Austin (as Alekest): Are you killing the cactus?
Janine (as Es): It’s still alive.
Austin (as Alekest): Well, then what's the difference between you and a vampire?
Janine (as Es): I’m draining it. I guess I'm a cactus vampire. [laughs softly]
Keith (as Lyke): Attitude. It's attitudinal.
Ali (as Marn): I [clears throat meaningfully] think we—
Keith (as Lyke): Sorry. Marn, go ahead. [Ali laughs]
Ali (as Marn): We should go—
Dre (as Chine): Oh, I’m here to listen, Marn, sorry.
Ali (as Marn): We should go to the hymn, ‘cause I think those folks deserve to know what's going on. And whatever Lyke is going on, we can talk after hours. We…we work together. We have all day to talk about these things.
Keith (as Lyke): I don't think there's after hours for a while. I think it’s just on hours for a little bit.
Austin (as Alekest): Maybe it's about how it's the exclusive way they can extend their life and power. Most people don't have to eat from living things. Vampires can only eat from living things.
Ali (as Marn): I need to get Bucho. [Ali laughs softly]
Keith (as Lyke): But everything that you eat that's not a living thing was a living thing.
Dre (as Chine): See, that's what I was saying.
Austin (as Polyte): Well, then we shouldn't have any problem with vampires.
Keith (as Lyke): Again, it's attitudinal.
Dre (as Chine): Yeah.
Austin (as Polyte): Hmm.
Keith (as Lyke): Vampires are villains.
Austin (as Alekest): I agree with Marn. I agree with Marn, we should probably send some people to the…vampires aren't all villains.
Keith (as Lyke): Okay.
Austin (as Alekest): That's painting with a very broad brush. I've known a few.
Ali (as Marn): Yeah, Virtue was great. [Sylvia and Jack laugh]
Austin (as Alekest): I didn't know…was Virtue, uh…
Austin: Does Alekest know Virtue? No. Probably has heard the news.
Austin (as Alekest): Oh, Sapodilla Virtue. You knew Sapodilla Virtue?
Ali (as Marn): Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvia: Oh, you know big SV? [laughter]
Ali (as Marn): I taught her how to, you know, know where the moss grew.
Austin (as Alekest): [impressed] Oh.
Dre: Taught her everything she knows. [Ali and Sylvia laugh]
Sylvia: God.
Ali: Well, I'm going upstairs to get my face fixed.
Dre: Yeah, I'm gonna go get my everything fixed.
Sylvia: I would also like to stop bleeding, yeah.
[recap ends]
Austin: We should do these heals.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvia: Yeah. Um, can I trade in this candelabra to get like this Bleeding taken care of? D6 is enough for a Minor, yeah?
Austin: Yeah, it is.
Sylvia: Okay, cool.
Austin: So you're just paying for it.
Sylvia: Yeah, I'm just paying for it.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: I don't have any beef with this person. I don't know why y'all are being weird about it.
Austin: [laughs softly] Okay, but also, to be fair, you're paying this church back with a thing you took from the church’s basement. [Jack laughs] So, in a sense, you're paying nothing at all. [Keith laughs]
Sylvia: Listen. Do they want it back or not?
Austin: [laughs] Yeah, put that in the corner.
Keith: I noticed you're missing a candelabra.
Janine: Paying with labor, paying with…
Austin: Yeah, you carried it up from the basement.
Janine: I saw this in the basement. I carried it up. [Austin laughs] You know, I polished it where I was holding it.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Uh huh.
Sylvia: Good as new, retrieval service. What do you want from me? [Austin laughs softly] It's heavy, and I'm so small.
Austin: Aw. [Sylvia laughs]
Keith: Later, they're just gonna bring it right back downstairs to put it where they're missing a candelabra mysteriously.
Sylvia: Well, I'm not Bleeding anymore, and that's what matters.
Austin: That's what matters. Stitch you right up.
Dre: Um, what would it cost to heal two Minors?
Austin: Uh, six each. Six, six points each.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: Six resource value.
Dre: So that would be…
Austin: D6s. Oh, you're asking to combine it.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: What you would do. That'd be a D10 worth.
Dre: Okay. Crap. Um…hmm.
Austin: Which would also be…it could be a D6 and a D6. It could be a D8 and a D4. You don't have any resources, Chine.
Dre: No, I don’t.
Austin: What's going on?
Keith: Is it ‘cause Chine eats all of their resources?
Sylvia: [laughs] I was gonna say.
Austin: [realizing] Oh, it’s ‘cause they eat all their resources.
Dre: Yeah.
Ali: Can I— can we— wait.
Austin: Yes, yes.
Ali: Can I do this Compel roll? [laughs]
Austin: Yes. What's that look like?
Ali: [laughing] Can I just get this out of the way to start?
Dre: I was also— yeah, you do that, and then I was— I have something I was gonna pitch to you.
Ali: Uh huh. And then we’ll figure it out, yeah. Sorry, Hazard, that…
Austin: Uh huh.
Sylvia: Oh, it’s fine.
Ali: Funny little guy walked in first and was like, “Hey, here’s this candelabra,” [Ali and Sylvia laugh] and I was like, “Hey…”
Sylvia: It’s a good bit.
Ali: Yeah. [Austin laughs softly]
Dre: “Hey, I don't know if I want to get involved with this, but uh…” [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: Listen, if this goes well, maybe I can come back and they’ll let me take the candelabra. Who knows? [Ali laughs]
Ali (as Marn): Hi, I'm glad to see you're all right.
Austin (as Kerr): Um, glad to see you're okay. That was—
Ali (as Marn): I'm not okay.
Austin (as Kerr): Oh.
Ali: Like, just— [Ali and Art laugh] Marn is like wearing like a shirt with like—
Austin: I guess, looking at you, you’re explicitly…yeah.
Ali: Yeah, just blood all over it.
Austin: Yeah, you are Spitting Teeth, is the exact Fallout name.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Any action that requires you to speak or look respectable is Risky. Uh huh.
Ali: [laughs] Wait, should I not do this?
Austin: I was wondering. I’m thinking. I'm starting to think.
Ali: I’m not trying to look respectable.
Austin: [doubtful] Mm…
Ali: I am, in fact, trying to look very unrespectable to be like, hey, you’re a fucking doctor. You know I'm a fucking doctor. You know, mano a mano. [laughs softly]
Austin: The thing is, Ali, it's not any— it's not any action that requires you to speak respectable. [Ali laughs] It's any action that requires you to speak—
Ali: Right. Sure.
Austin: Or look respectable.
Ali: Sure. Sure, sure, sure.
Austin: And you're speaking.
Ali: [laughs] Let's see. I mean, let's just ruin this for everybody.
Austin: Yeah. Let’s just roll.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Let’s just roll. Yeah, yeah.
Jack: I could help.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. [Ali laughs]
Austin (as Kerr): Eh…you look a little rough, Marn.
Ali (as Marn): Yeah, I got shot and locked up and I don't really know what else.
Austin (as Kerr): I'm glad— but I’m glad you're okay. I didn't want any of this to go like this. I tried to—
Ali (as Marn): No.
Austin (as Kerr): I promise, I tried to tell everybody to leave and not to make a big deal out of it all.
Ali (as Marn): Yeah, this got out of hand. There were other forces at work here besides the Magistrates, and that's not…
Austin (as Kerr): Yeah.
Ali (as Marn): On you.
Austin (as Kerr): You hear about the candle man? All my people are talking about the candle man.
Ali (as Marn): Uh, that is a person named Alaway. And you, uh…if you hear about—
Austin (as Kerr): Oh, that’s in your notes. I read, someone named Alaway down in Yellowfield, right?
Ali (as Marn): [quietly] Yeah. Uh huh.
Austin (as Kerr): Same, same person?
Ali (as Marn): Mm-hmm.
Austin (as Kerr): I mean, yeah, candles. Sure.
Ali (as Marn): Yeah. How's that been going, by the way, reading those?
Austin (as Kerr): Well, good. Just at night, you know.
Ali (as Marn): Right.
Austin (as Kerr): I can't sleep, so I've been reading it, and like, just in case if something happens to them, I can remember enough to tell people, you know what I mean?
Ali: I appreciate that.
Austin (as Kerr): When I get back.
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin (as Kerr): Which, I'm gonna leave as soon as this storm passes. I'm gonna head back up to…
Ali: Oh, yeah. [mumbles affirmatively]
Austin (as Kerr): Is everything all right? It's, I’m getting…Marn, I’m getting…
Ali (as Marn): Ah, my jaw kinda hurts a little bit, and it's…
Austin (as Kerr): Oh, I meant vibe-wise. I meant I was— it felt like you were upset at me.
Ali (as Marn): Oh, I…you know.
Austin (as Kerr): I kind of sensed a vibe shift. [Ali and Austin laugh]
Ali (as Marn): No, I'm…you know, we had our…we've, there were words. And now I'm bleeding, so that's, you know, yesterday's business, as far as I'm concerned. I was, you know, I was hoping that you could… [Ali laughing] My hands are shaking and I would like my face to be fixed.
[0:10:11]
Austin: Give me a Compel roll.
Ali: Thank you. [Austin and Ali laugh]
Austin: Pickman, how are you helping?
Jack: I am standing next to Marn and looking huge. [Ali laughs] I have an incredibly sour look on my face.
Austin: Mm. [Sylvia laughs]
Jack: It is clear that while Marn might claim that this was all yesterday stuff, [Ali laughs] Pickman standing next to her does not feel the same way.
Austin: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Jack: Arms folded. I don't have my big gun anymore, because it became a tree.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: It did become a tree. [Sylvia laughs]
Jack: And this has meant that Pickman doesn't really know what to do with her hands, ‘cause usually she's holding the gun.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: So lots of, you know, hands on hips, big folded arms. Standing there like a brick wall.
Austin: Yeah. All right, take that plus one.
Ali: Is this Compel, Haven, plus one, Risky?
Austin: It sure is.
Ali: Great.
Jack: Ah, beautiful!
Austin: Hey, Success no Stress. Eight, five, seven, ten.
Keith: Oh, is it Risky?
Austin: Because of Marn's Fallout.
Keith: Oh, right. Okay.
Austin: Spitting Teeth.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Yeah, gotcha.
Austin: Kerr is like:
Austin (as Kerr): Yeah, we gotta…we gotta get you fixed up. You're all, um…you're all really looking bad. [increasingly nervous] You know, normally there's the matter of making sure that the Boundless Conclave keeps its coffers up, but I think we can waive that or I can try to cover it from my own private…uh, does anyone need any help?
Austin: Looking up at you, Pickman, scared. [Ali laughs] So yeah, Minor Blood Fallout for free, one Minor Blood Fallout for free, or a Major down to a Minor for free.
Jack: Excellent.
Ali: Wonderful. Love that. Getting rid of Spitting Teeth.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I am getting rid of Limping. I think that there’s a… [laughs softly]
Austin: Yeah. Also, I should say this also has Fortune. So if you'd rather fuck with Fortune instead of Blood, that's also viable.
Ali: Oh, sure.
Austin: But. What were you gonna say? You're getting rid of Limping is what you said, Pickman.
Jack: Yeah, I think that there was something wrong with Pickman's hoof.
Austin: Oof.
Jack: And I think that there is like the feeling of trying to sort something out with a horse that you're worried is going to kick you.
Austin: Oh, yeah.
Jack: From this little Carpana trying to sort out Pickman’s foot. [Ali laughs sympathetically]
Dre: [sympathetic] Buddy. [Austin laughs softly]
Keith: Do you have a second Blood Fallout?
Jack: Nope. I’m all good.
Keith: Okay.
Jack: I was— I think I— I imagine that Pickman said to Lyke:
Jack (as Pickman): Yep. Great. Good idea. I'm just gonna go upstairs and help Marn with this shit.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack: And that came down like:
Jack (as Pickman): It's fine. I sorted it.
Keith (as Lyke): Okay.
Jack (as Pickman): My foot’s fine.
Keith (as Lyke): That's great. We can use it later if we need it.
Jack (as Pickman): Mm-hmm.
Dre: Um, I'm guessing, since I wasn't helping with this roll, I don't get one of the…
Austin: No, everybody.
Dre: Oh, okay.
Austin: Everybody gets…
Dre: All right, all right.
Austin: This was a…yeah.
Dre: Cool.
Jack: I just think you shouldn't—
Ali: You’re all my plus one. [laughs]
Jack: I think you shouldn't hitch your wagon to the Magistrates, as a rule.
Austin: You know.
Keith: Um, I will say if there's an Echo Fallout…
Austin: There is not an Echo Fallout thing here.
Dre: I’d say, this…
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: The hymn has an Echo Fallout thing there, I believe.
Dre: Great. Can't wait to go there. [laughs]
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: Actually, if— maybe while we're doing this, I could go and do my Echo thing in my Sanctum.
Austin: Yeah, you can do that, right? You can produce an Echo dealy.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Not in this— not for frees like the Stress, but.
Austin: Uh huh. So you open up your gate. Uh, give me a one D6 when you do this. Let’s just see.
Jack: [anticipating] Oh, how many bodies are gonna be this time?
Austin: Maybe there's none. Uh, yeah, there's a body in there. [Dre, Jack, and Art laugh]
Keith: I'm gonna just drag it away— drag it…
Austin: It's like, uh…it's dressed in the sort of adventuring clothes Duvall would have worn back when Duvall was an adventurer.
Keith: I'm dragging it, and I'm scolding Aterika'Kaal. [Sylvia laughs]
Keith (as Lyke): You have got— you can't just be eating people that come in here like that. This— you—
Austin: It reaches for the body.
Keith: What does it do with it?
Austin: It’s trying to pull it away from your hands and pull it closer to, like, into the kind of bramble, as if to say, “I'm not done with it yet.”
Keith: Can I make a Compel roll against, uh, Aterika’Kaal? [Ali laughs softly]
Austin: Sure. Absolutely. It's Risky.
Keith: Risky Compel roll that I don't have.
Austin: Is anybody else here with you to help? Is anyone else trying to heal Echo or any of the other Aterika'Kaal related stuff? What else can Aterika’Kaal heal?
Keith: No, I'm…I'm making…
Dre: Is it Stress or Fallout? It's Stress, right?
Austin: You can spend resources to do…it’s—
Keith: Right. You can—
Austin: It’s like a Haunt that you can use.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: It’s just it also does do Stress for free.
Dre: Okay.
Keith: Right, when you meditate.
Dre: I guess, I guess I'm there, then, ‘cause I have Major Echo I need to get rid of.
Austin: Yes.
Keith: So I'm gonna—
Austin: That’s a place that you could do that, yeah.
Keith: I'm…I am pretty sure Chine doesn't have Compel?
Dre: No. [Austin laughs]
Keith: Yeah.
Dre: Uh huh.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: So I'm making a— I'm making a note to come to— that I've got to deal with this.
Austin: Yeah. Do you not have Compel? Oh, you have Haven.
Keith: I have—
Austin: That’s what you got from Frontier Etiquette.
Keith: I have almost everything but Compel. [Ali laughs] It’s like one of the…
Austin: Yeah, you…yeah, it’s one of three.
Keith: It’s one of three skills I don't have.
Sylvia: I have Compel and Haven, if you want to help scolding your god. [Keith sighs]
Ali: Now, now, buddy.
Keith: It’s such a bad roll, though.
Austin: Yeah, who else wants to scold a god today? [Ali laughs]
Keith: It's still so bad, though. What, plus—
Sylvia: Yeah, don’t worry about it.
Keith: Plus one on a…
Austin: Yeah, what do you— what would you be rolling, Religion, as the…?
Keith: I'd be rolling Religion, maybe Occult?
Austin: So, one of those. So Religion, that’s…
Keith: A lot of Aterika'Kaal stuff has been Occult so far, so.
Austin: Yeah, yeah. Oh, the domain in there is Wild Religion.
Keith: Oh, okay.
Austin: We know this at the bottom.
Keith: Well, my— yeah, my Aterika'Kaal, when I had Aterika'Kaal—
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: I still have it in my resources, even though it's not really true anymore.
Austin: Right. Right, right, right. It was Occult.
Keith: It was a D10 Religion, Harmful. So, yeah.
Austin: Right, right, right. Yes.
Keith: So some of it's Occult.
Austin: That makes sense.
Keith: Some of it’s Religion, and I guess now it's Wild too.
Austin: ‘Cause t's a big…it's a big plant god.
Keith: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on there. So.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: But I'm fine.
Austin: So—
Keith: I'm not…look.
Austin: So you're not gonna Compel it. You're just gonna let it take it? Take the body?
Keith: Yeah, it seems dangerous. We got other stuff going on right now.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, okay.
Keith: But, you know. I don't like— I don't like this, but I'm also like, you know, this is a dangerous place that people who have…they have to have some sort of level of knowledge about what they're doing to even get in here. And, you know, Aterika'Kaal is just a dangerous place like any other dangerous place.
Austin: Like, it…um…
Keith: These are my rationalizations. These are Lyke’s rationalizations.
Austin: Yeah, okay. [Ali laughs softly] I want to make sure that's Lyke’s rationalization. Do you want me to tell you that Lyke notice, like, thinks of a thing? Or do you not want me to tell you that Lyke thinks of a thing?
Keith: Tell me. Yeah, if I think of a thing, tell me. I think of it.
Austin: Uh, I think it's probably worth thinking, hey, can Ater— you said like, oh, people who get in here must know that they can get in here. They must have some degree of knowledge if they're able to get in here.
Keith: Right, I'm thinking of like people using some sort of—
Austin: Totally.
Keith: Sanctum magic that I can do.
Austin: It might strike you, in this moment, that maybe Aterika'Kaal can place gates places too. What if Aterika'Kaal is just opening their own doors, and people are walking in?
Keith: I would like to do Discern Religion roll.
Austin: Now that you got. Yeah, sure. Give me that.
Jack: It's just like, “Come to the garden, Mitchell.” And then he comes in and gets killed.
Keith: And maybe, maybe if…
Art: Mm.
Keith: I feel like you're implying that this is true. I want to— I want this roll…
Austin: Yeah, give me a Discern check. Yeah.
Keith: I want this roll to, uh, like, if I…
Austin: This is not Risky.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: ‘Cause you're not like…you're not trying to pull a body away from a god.
Keith: Yeah. Hopefully this will give me some insight on maybe if I can fix that better.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Ten.
Austin: Oh, that's a crit. Look at that. Yeah, you, in fact, see that there is—
Keith: It’s close. A one, a two, and a ten.
Austin: That's a wild roll. Um, yeah, you totally— this is totally a thing that you confirm basically immediately. You look past where the body had been pulled into the bramble and see one of your doors, your style of door open, your gate, further down past all that, like through the bramble, the kind of the other end of this, uh, this kind of big open rose garden thing that you're in. Where, where it’s just opened out to some other garden somewhere. Aterika'Kaal is and has been opening these gates to lure people in. Now, you're right to some degree that they’re people who are already off generally adventuring and going—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: “Ooh, what's this? What's in here? Hehehe.” But like… [Sylvia laughs] That doesn't…that's not a death sentence. You're one of those people. It would be very easy for you to be like, “Ooh, what's in here? Hehehe,” and then get eaten by a god, you know?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Those places... I think that you're, with a ten, what I'll give you is that second step, which is one of two things is happening here. Either there are places that just have a lot of magical or spiritual energy, they're close to the Course, where like there's a lot of excess, you know, overflowing energy. So it's like, yeah, if you're walking near the Moon-Touched Woods, that's a place where one of these gates could open up, right?
Keith: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Or it's kind of like, um…it's kind of like piggybacking on the, uh…on other gods. It's piggybacking on the routes that other gods can open, somehow. It's like as if, if there were a…we’ve talked about there being kind of other planes or other realms, ‘cause we talked about like the Residuum a lot with Virtue’s one move. If you could imagine that there is a sort of vast…let's imagine the Boundless Conclave truly has a temple somewhere that is like an extraplanar temple with a thousand doors that all connect to all these different god realms. Which I'm not saying that's true, but if you imagine a realm like that exists, it’s as if Aterika'Kaal is rerouting some of those to get people to come in. It's like other people are failing, you know, Sanctum of the Stone Chorus and falling in sometimes, right?
[0:20:06]
Keith: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Where they're trying to go into like the deep—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —you know, hidden part of their god’s realm. They're trying to get to the doc, the mean doctor, and it's like, “Oh, fuck, where am I? I'm in this garden. Well, this garden seems nice.” Nope.
Keith: No. It’s not nice.
Austin: And again, this hasn't happened dozens of times or anything like this.
Keith: No.
Austin: Yeah, it, we…I think you've seen all the bodies. It's been four bodies so far.
Keith: Four bodies. Yeah.
Austin: But that's a lot.
Keith: It's a lot.
Austin: That ain't nothing.
Dre: [laughing] It's just four bodies.
Austin: Anyway, Chine, you do see this happen.
Sylvia: Hey.
Austin: Anybody who's in there sees all that happen, sees that body get pulled into the bramble.
Dre: Oh.
Keith (as Lyke): Don't worry. [rapidly] It's under control, it’s under control, it’s under control. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Uh, I…if there's one person you want to be in here and see this, it's Chine.
Austin: It’s Chine. [Dre laughs] Yeah. Chine's probably fine with this.
Dre: Yeah, no.
Austin: This is life, right?
Dre: Yeah, no.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: This is the sort of shit that you put up with that other people don't like that you put up with.
Dre: Yeah.
Keith: Right. But also, this is like Lyke being only 30% fine with this.
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: Like, look, I’m making a big omelet.
Dre: Sure. [Austin laughs softly]
Keith: Uh, you know, like I want this to be, I want, but you know, the goal is that this is not a dangerous thing.
Dre (as Chine): So like, do I need to go bring a body back here to…?
Keith (as Lyke): No, no. You can just— it just works. It doesn't…doesn't want to get you, ‘cause it's, you know, we’re chill, I guess.
Dre (as Chine): Oh, no, no, no. I meant like, you know, like, you know, to feel better. Is it like I gotta offer a sacrifice in here?
Keith (as Lyke): No, you just gotta sit.
Dre (as Chine): Oh, okay.
Keith (as Lyke): You just sit and think on it.
Austin: It is licking up some of the blood from that corpse, by the way.
Keith: It does that.
Austin: Both It and Aterika’Kaal are both still siphoning some of the blood from that body. You know, they're just feeding together.
Dre: That’s fine.
Austin: Just hanging out.
Keith: I don't know what just happened. Sorry, my…
Dre: I wasn't sure if that was in character or not.
Austin: I thought that was Lye in character! [Austin and Ali laugh]
Dre: Yeah.
Keith: No, no, sorry. My character sheet got like…
Dre: I don't know what happened. Normally my— er, my pet god and your dog don't get along well, but… [Dre and Keith laugh]
Keith: No, they got along last time you were in here.
Austin: Uh, you know.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: There's— there is a chance that, you know, you get that thing where two dogs are like, seem fine, and they start snapping at each other a little bit, but then they go back to being fine again a second later.
Keith: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: That's kind of the vibe, I think.
Keith: Okay, so, um…all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna heal my Echo Fallout.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Total, total resource cost for a Major Fallout?
Austin: Is eight. Eight to reduce it down to a Minor, and then another six to reduce it down to nothing.
Keith: Great.
Austin: You're flush, Lyke.
Keith: Yeah, I got—
Austin: Jesus Christ.
Keith: I have so much stuff. Yeah, so this is not a big deal. I’m going—
Austin: [laughs softly] I just, again, I just want to…for the record. I'm putting this in our Discord, because again…and you're right, Chine eats the resources.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: You're not wrong about that. But. And I guess you still have Aterika’Kaal listed here. Not a resource at this point, right?
Keith: Not a resource, no.
Austin: But you got the Sa’Ferna-ta-Fera book. You got this Course smoke. You got an otherworldly book of fables.
Keith: But you know what else happened?
Austin: Which you took from fake Chine’s house. What?
Keith: Is that I had a ton of resources that I had to use up to heal after the train fight with the Ravening Beast, so I have like four or five fewer things because of that.
Ali: [sarcastic] Oh, four or five. My goodness.
Austin: It’s only, what? Yeah, uh huh.
Dre: You've only got 13, instead of 18. [laughs]
Austin: It's ten and then another four pieces of equipment. Okay, Tombo’s not really equipment, so. [Ali laughs]
Keith: No. Don't tell that to Tombo, though.
Austin: [laughs] Yeah, Tombo— Tombo’s like, “I'm useful.”
Keith: I was fine keeping Tombo in the bio, and then, you know.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Tombo’s like, “I'm equipment. Put me in there.”
Austin: [crosstalk] Put me in there, coach.
Dre: [crosstalk] Put me in, coach. [Austin and Dre laugh]
Keith: Um…so, I'm going to, um…you know my Mark of the, my Mark of the Phantom says, uh…
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Oh, no, no, Mark of the Weaver.
Austin: Shadow. Weaver, sure.
Keith: Where is that? It says that I, uh…I'm covered in spiderweb ink. I have the…or, um…
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: So…
Austin: Mend skill, you fix something once per…yeah.
Keith: The like, the spiderweb pattern that I'm like, that I see kind of like stitches.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: It's not gonna work with my like bulging blood sacs all over my body.
Austin: [slightly horrified] Uh huh?
Dre: Hmm.
Keith: So I'm going to use…I'm going to use an additional ink source from the calligraphy set. [Sylvia laughs softly]
Austin: Ah, sure.
Keith: And I'm just going to cover my blood sacs and welts with ink.
Dre: Sure.
Keith: Just like fully saturate them with ink.
Austin: Great.
Janine: Oh my god.
Art: What a great time I’m having. [Janine laughs]
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: Normal things that happen on this show. [Keith laughs]
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: Mm…
Art: I'm doing good and having fun. [Keith laughs]
Sylvia: [sarcastic] Come on. Like you've never had blood sacs before. [Keith and Austin laugh]
Keith: So that's what I'm gonna use to reduce the Major down to a Minor.
Austin: Okay.
Keith: And I'm not sure if it's important what I then have, but I'm gonna use…I'm just gonna reduce it down to nothing.
Austin: If you're just gonna clear, you can just clear it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: Yeah, and um…I guess I'm just gonna take those Ravening Beast needles.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Um, and maybe draw some quick sigils in.
Austin: Sure.
Keith: With the ink.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that does it.
Keith: And then the ink is like eating away at the needles until they're little nubs.
Austin: Mm.
Keith: And I, very careful, like I'm using a mandolin, have to not— make sure it doesn't get my fingies when I'm getting close to the end.
Austin: Mm. Sure, yeah, of course.
Dre: Gotta use a guard.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah, but I don't…Lyke doesn’t work with a guard.
Dre: That's fair.
Austin: Chine, are you able to heal in here? Do you have resources to spend?
Dre: Yeah, sure.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: Yeah, I've got my Cleaver poleaxe.
Keith: Oh, I thought you just had—
Austin: Oh, right.
Keith: I thought you just had Stress.
Dre: No.
Austin: Mm-mm.
Dre: No, I've got Major Echo.
Austin: Eyes.
Dre: Yeah, no, I'm gonna spend my cleaver poleaxe and the sharp stick knife to get rid of my Major Fallout.
Austin: All right. Damn, okay.
Ali: No poleaxe.
Dre: I don’t care where I came from. I said it earlier.
Austin: You're right, you did say it. So get rid of that equipment you started with. [Ali laughs] Whew.
Dre: Uh, I do need…Austin, I missed what the rest of the tags were from the ax that I got last session.
Austin: Ah, fuck. [typing]
Dre: I know it was Piercing and other things, but I only got Piercing.
Austin: I'll check.
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: I'll have to check a little later.
Ali: Oh, this is just a level— you're just switching out your equipment. [laughs]
Dre: Yeah, it’s fine. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah, you got the mark two. [Keith laughs] Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I think it’s—
Keith: Just a note: everyone can be picking stuff up, by the way.
Dre: No, I know.
Austin: Brutal and Piercing. It may have also had Dangerous, I think.
Dre: Okay. Cool.
Austin: Yes, Dangerous. Brutal, Piercing, Dangerous.
Keith: Oh, by the way.
Austin: Is what I have written down.
Keith: This is a new thing that I can do. As a reminder, can I get my free resource from Aterika'Kaal zone?
Austin: Yeah, it's from that guy, left behind.
Keith: One day it will be not from a guy. [laughs] It will be just something that was in there.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: Yeah, Aterika'Kaal will just put it in a little present box for you, and you just pretend—
Keith: This is like a cat who like brings—
Sylvia: I mean, the guy’s kind of a present box, right?
Austin: Uh huh. Yeah, sure. Uh huh.
Art: What are people but present boxes? [Austin laughs softly]
Dre: But a miserable pile of present boxes.
Austin: Ahh. Uh, where's that…
Keith: They’re also blood sacs.
Austin: Yeah, give me a, give me a D10. Does it— wait, what's the exact thing? Aw, it’s only a one, so that's kind of, that's, okay. Give me another D10.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Also a one. Jesus.
Keith: Oh, wait, am I rolling wrong?
Austin: No, you're not.
Keith: No, I just got two…
Austin: Those are both D10. You just got two ones in a row. Get those out of there.
Keith: A two. Rough.
Austin: You got a two. [Dre laughs] This is a nightmare, Keith. You're, get these out.
Keith: [laughing] No, it’s fine. I’m wasting the rolls.
Art: History says I gotta get rolling this game. If Keith is rolling ones, I'm gonna be rolling tens. Let’s… [Austin laughs] Give me a thing.
Keith: No, I'm just getting my bad rolls out of the way for this thing that doesn't matter.
Ali: Mm.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: Am I still rolling? Am I rolling until I get above a four? Is that what I’m doing?
Austin: No, no, no. No, no, no. You're not, no, no, no. You were rolling to— I was looking at this resources chart. One to five is a D4, and so you got a D4 thing.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: And you got a Cursed thing. So it's a D4 Cursed…who's got a good Cursed item off the top of their heads that this weird adventurer, this Indiana Jones type would have had?
Ali: Some sort of amulet?
Austin: Yeah, some sort of cursed amulet. [Ali laughs] You got a cursed am— you know, here we go.
Ali: You know, go back to the classics.
Austin: It's been too long.
Ali: You don’t have to get complicated here.
Austin: Uh… [typing sounds] Let's get this. One second. Where is that god generator at? We haven't used it in so long.
Dre: Ooh, yeah.
Keith: Oh, yeah.
Austin: Uh, where was that?
Keith: This is who this person was trying to see?
Austin: Yeah, and it's an amulet to that god, a hundred percent. Um, there is a better— wait, hmm.
Keith: That would— that would bring him to the zone.
Austin: I thought it was on this site that I'm on, but…
Keith: Mythical creatures generator, fantasy— no, that's…
Austin: This is just names. I want more than names.
Keith: Oh, is it…?
Austin: Do I— have I posted it in the chat at some point?
Keith: Is it perchance.org/fantgodgen?
Austin: I don't think so.
Keith: No?
Austin: I mean, link it for me. [typing sounds]
Keith: This doesn't— this doesn't seem like what we were getting before.
Austin: No. But let's use it. We're here now, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I'm gonna hit Randomize. Hujilip is a god of responsibility.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: They physically represent themselves by taking the form of a humanoid trim rhinoceros with plucked eyebrows and one platinum eye.
Dre: Oh, hell yeah.
Austin: So it's like a…it's like a platinum eye that then has like a…a rhinoceros horn.
Keith: It's watching you be responsible or irresponsible?
Austin: Well, I'm just saying what the amulet is. The amulet is like a rhinoceros horn—
Keith: Okay.
Austin: —with like a platinum eyeball in it, and it's Cursed. And it's the god of responsibility. [pointedly] Lyke. Maybe be a little more responsible.
Keith: Oof. I felt it.
Austin: Cursed. All right. Are you all— is everyone healed up? Is everyone who needs to heal healed up?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Let's do this investigation before we wrap.
Ali: Oh! [laughs] Sorry.
Austin: Oh. Uh huh?
Ali: I…okay. One thing.
Austin: Yes.
Ali: Sorry. Just before we— [laughs]
Austin: No, you're good. You're great.
Ali: Assuming that there's like been time passed and this is turning into like a group splitting up.
Austin: It seems like there has been. Yeah, yeah.
Ali: You know, people are gonna leave tomorrow morning. People are gonna leave late tonight. I do have this, um, Minor Echo Fortune, which is sort of… [laughs] Narratively—
[0:30:08]
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: You've upset an important figure in this or a nearby Haven.
Austin: Oh, I think that that's resolved at this point, in that it's…
Ali: I was gonna clear it with Kerr.
Austin: I think you just— that's clear.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: That is…
Ali: Okay.
Austin: When a thing like that cashes in, it cashes in. You know what I mean?
Ali: Okay. Sure. Sure, sure, sure.
Austin: Crisis, “Something bad is happening. People are wax,” stays.
Ali: Right.
Austin: That has not been…you know what I mean? In a way, it upgraded to that, in a sense. [Ali laughs] You know what I mean?
Ali: Sure. Sure, sure, sure. Fine.
Austin: I do have a question for you around Fallout, though. Does your stick lizard show up now that you're back? I think it does. I think like, once you're back above ground, that little stick lizard shows up. Like, just hops down from a window, lands on your shoulder.
Ali: Oh, word? Like… [laughs softly]
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: On me?
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: Is that, uh…
Austin: Just looks at you.
Dre: Is that not chill?
Austin: The little tongue, little tongue pops out for a second.
Ali (as Marn): What’s going on, man?
Austin: Hops off, begins to like look around the ground. Looking to see like, did you leave me anything?
Ali (as Marn): You want some jerky?
Austin: Yeah, it does want some jerky.
Ali: This stick lizard has just introduced themselves to me. [laughs]
Austin: Oh, yeah.
Ali: After following me from a boat.
Austin: Yeah, it was worried!
Ali: Sure.
Austin: Because of you being gone, and like, it probably can smell that you were in a weird wax dungeon.
Ali: Sure. Yeah, I will, I will be like…can this be a— I'm sorry to extend the scene further. [laughs]
Austin: Mm-hmm?
Ali: But I was thinking of doing like a Bucho heart to heart, and can this be like…
Austin: Mm.
Ali: I'm standing here flicking little, [laughs] little pieces of jerky at this lizard.
Austin: Yeah. While Bucho is…
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Catching up with you? Yeah. [Ali laughs] I think Bucho is like, deep sigh, and is like:
Austin (as Bucho): Does it have a name?
Ali (as Marn): Uh, no, I've…I just…this thing just turned up, and I figured it looked hungry.
Austin (as Bucho): Hmm. All things we feed should have names.
Ali (as Marn): You think so?
Austin (as Bucho): Hm. All things.
Ali (as Marn): Um, sure, well…what's your favorite kind of tree?
Austin (as Bucho): [thinking noise] That is a hard question.
Ali (as Marn): [amused] I know, right?
Austin (as Bucho): What are these big ones, here, you have?
Austin: Pointing outside.
Ali (as Marn): Oh, these big Blackwick trees?
Austin (as Bucho): Yeah.
Ali: Were those…they're like fruit trees, right? Something? Did they have a name?
Austin: I think we just said that they were like really big…what type of fruit was it? [Ali laughs softly] Does anybody remember?
Ali: It was like—
Jack: We’ve…
Austin: A year ago?
Ali: It was pomegranate adjacent, right?
Austin: It was pomegranate adjacent.
Jack: Yeah.
Janine: Wasn't it just pomegranate?
Austin: I don't remember. [typing sounds]
Ali: [laughs] It was so far removed from…
Sylvia: It was, you know, they were like big pomegranates.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: They were.
Sylvia: The whole thing was that they were just very large.
Keith: It was like literally eleven months ago.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Austin (as Bucho): I quite like these.
Ali (as Marn): Sure, well, uh, Pom. Pom is this guy’s name.
Austin (as Bucho): Ah. A pleasure to meet you, Pom. [Ali laughs softly]
Austin: Does a little bow.
Ali (as Marn): Pom, say hi.
Austin (as Pom): [friendly high pitched noise] [Ali, Sylvia, and Keith laugh]
Austin (as Bucho): [sighs] I did not think we were going to get out. Before Pickman did the tree, and the others arrived, and…it seemed over.
Ali (as Marn): Yeah, I…I regret not remembering most of the in-between there.
Austin (as Bucho): Mm. You're doing all right?
Ali (as Marn): Better now, yeah. Yeah.
Austin: He nods.
Ali (as Marn): How are you feeling?
Austin (as Bucho): [sighs] In the Shape Knights, once every five years, you're allowed to take a sabbatical. Six months without your armor, six months just living a life. I have delayed my sabbatical for a decade.
Ali (as Marn): Oh.
Austin (as Bucho): As soon as we are done, I am taking it.
Ali (as Marn): You…you could be done.
Austin: I think his like brow furrows at the thought of that, [Ali laughs softly] and like shakes his head.
Austin (as Bucho): I've made a commitment. I'll be done when the trains are done.
Ali (as Marn): Oh, sure. That seems…
Austin (as Bucho): What would I do? Eh, I don't have…I couldn't be a…a cobbler, or a nurse, or…I don't have those sorts of skills.
Ali (as Marn): Well, you learn them. That's what people do. They learn things.
Austin (as Bucho): I've learned plenty.
Ali (as Marn): Right, and you can do stuff.
Austin (as Bucho): Oh, I mean, I…the thought of needing to start over is frightening.
Ali (as Marn): Sure, yeah. Yeah, I feel that. [Ali laughs]
Austin (as Bucho): [sighs] I'm sorry if I put you in harm's way.
Ali (as Marn): No. No, no, no, no. I thought we owed you a favor after what happened in Sapodilla. Now I should have just told you to get out of here.
Austin (as Bucho): Well, if I had understood how much of Sapodilla had to do with a friend of yours, and if I had known fully the company you were keeping…
Ali (as Marn): [quietly] Yeah. Sure.
Austin (as Bucho): Perhaps I would have not gotten on the boat, but, eh.
Ali (as Marn): Yeah. That’s fair.
Austin (as Bucho): Music and dancing and the food and the cards, and who knows? Perhaps I would have anyway. We're here now. Hmm?
Ali (as Marn): Yeah. Right, yeah.
Austin (as Bucho): And we're gonna kill that Alaway son of a bitch.
Ali (as Marn): Yeah. Definitely.
Austin (as Bucho): And then…and then there will be tomorrow.
Ali (as Marn): Uh huh. Yeah. Yep. [Ali laughs] I'm just, I'm ready to, you know, be on the other side of this.
Austin (as Bucho): Mm. I'm going to get a drink. Do you want anything?
Ali (as Marn): Um, I'm…yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Austin: And like puts a hand— I guess, in my mind, he's been sitting on the ground during this, [Ali laughs] just kind of recovering. And kind of puts a hand on your shoulder, but like not to push up off of you, because that'd be a lot of weight to put on you.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: But like, you know, maybe to stabilize himself a little bit, and then…
Ali: Sure. Sure, sure, sure.
Austin: Then is up. And goes to get that drink.
Art: This guy's exhausting. He's exhausting me at this point. [Austin laughs softly]
Ali: [defensive] What?
Art: What?! [mocking] “Oh, I had to go on a cruise and have fun.”
Ali: He’s fucking going through it!
Art: “Your friends bother me.” I…
Dre: [sarcastic] Definitely didn't invite me to a city where I got put in prison or anything.
Art: Yeah! [Austin laughs softly]
Ali: He’s fucking— I mean, okay, it was—
Janine: They tore up his apartment.
Ali: The only reason we went to that city was, A) because of you, and B) because he was like, “Yeah, come through. I have a spot there.” But… [Janine and Ali laugh] He's having a hard time!
Art: Hmm.
Ali: He almost got turned into a wax guy, and then we were like, “We saved you,” and then he got almost— he like, it’s been a tough 48 for him.
Jack: He had a really bad time thinking about and then looking at the moon.
Ali: Yeah!
Austin: That did happen. Yeah. [Sylvia laughs]
Art: All right. I guess, like, quick show of hands: who would say that they're objectively not having a hard time? [Ali laughs]
Jack: We’re player characters. [laughs softly]
Janine: It’s not a contest. [Austin laughs softly]
Art: Yeah, 'cause he's losing. [Austin laughs]
Janine: I don't know that he is, frankly! [laughs] I think he's got a few up on me.
Austin: Yes, Es is kind of killing it. Es has a cool sniper rifle. [Dre laughs]
Janine: I mean, you know, things have been going pretty well for Es, other than the whole, like, mass, let's call it, collection?
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: And use?
Austin: Yes. Yeah. Uh huh.
Janine: Of her people, that she had to—
Austin: That was bad.
Janine: That was a bad spot. And…
Austin: That you’re currently suffering— we haven't mentioned it in a little while, but which you're currently suffering as you continue to see their faces in the faces of any of the wax figures. Right?
Janine: Well, I— no, no, no, what I'm seeing is hosts, my former hosts.
Austin: Oh, your former hosts. That's what you're seeing. Right, right, right.
Janine: Yeah, in the faces of wax people.
Austin: It’s been a minute since we recorded that last episode.
Janine: I emotionally dealt with the other thing by being a bit of a pill on that boat, and then…
Austin: Right, the boat. Yeah. Right.
Janine: You know.
Austin: Having a better time.
Janine: Working through it in my own way.
Austin: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Janine: By asking if there's a bath I could use. [laughs softly]
Austin: Yeah, I recall that. Yeah.
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: All right. I think we're doing this investigation, so we can see what's up with Alaway. [Ali laughs] Right?
Ali: [quietly] Yes, my bad.
Jack: Yeah, I think so.
Austin: All right. I think this is— this is really two rolls. It's a delve on the way up, to like successfully navigate, or some other sort of exploration thing. And that is, that is going to be…who's doing this? This is Lyke, and—
Jack: Keith and me.
Austin: And Pickman, right? That is going to be, again, I think Delve does it. I could imagine it being Endure to just being about like, you're just walking and enduring the fucking heat of this river. And, and that is that plus Warren, or Religion, ‘cause of the blood of the Mother-Beast being Religion. And then, and then we'll talk about what happens after that roll.
Keith: So it's Delve or Endure.
Austin: It's, it’s…yeah, or you could pitch me something else, but I think it's one of those two, thinking about these skills.
[0:40:02]
Keith: And then Warren or Religion.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: So, I have Delve and Religion.
Austin: Okay. Well, and that's…yeah, so let's make that roll. And again, that roll is navigating these underground tunnels, trying not to fall into this extremely hot, molten liquid metal.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah, god.
Austin: Which, again, is constantly, just again to remind you: candelabras are popping out of it for a brief second, you know, kind of like bobbing up, you know, like the way that things do in water, kind of like bobbing up and down as they move. And when they dip back down, they turn into something else and come back up. It's like things are being formed and unformed over and over again. You're constantly seeing stuff you've never seen before. Do you know what I mean? [laughs softly] Like, you're constantly just seeing, either in the minor sense of like, I've never seen that boat before. Or like, that is the fin of, you know, of an airplane, and you don't know what a fucking airplane is, you know? So, it’s all sorts of stuff like that that are happening here. But yeah, so this first roll is just getting up there. Are you helping on this, Pickman?
Jack: I sure am, yeah.
Austin: What are you helping with? How's that look?
Jack: Um, I am…I have to imagine there are situations where Shape Knight armor would be, uh…
Austin: Mm.
Jack: Shape Knight armor cannot withstand lava, but it can withstand, like, puddles and pools in a way that presumably Lyke’s clothes and boots would struggle with. And so I'm pathfinding in ways that Lyke is not necessarily able to.
Austin: Yeah. So take the plus one. This is Standard.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Do this roll, and then I also just want to know what you talk about on this hours long trek. [Ali laughs softly]
Keith: Ten.
Austin: That's a crit. Look at you. Nice.
Keith: Got those ones and twos out of the way.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh. And that ten is gonna— I think that I'll, I'll let that be a Mastery on your next roll.
Keith: Nice.
Austin: That you kind of find your way up there safely and quietly so that this next thing is gonna be a little bit easier for you. But, but what's the—what's the mood between the two of you? I…you two haven't had time together since Sapodilla, right?
Keith: Mm-hmm.
Austin: I guess you were on the boat together, but then Lyke left the boat, so it's been a minute.
Keith: Yeah. And also only the first part of Sapodilla, very briefly we were.
Austin: Yeah, you've not spoken really about the Virtue stuff, the Aterika'Kaal stuff, et cetera. So.
Keith: And Pickman was concerned about that stuff.
Jack: Um, I have been latterly. When, so, you showed me Aterika'Kaal in early Sapodilla, and Pickman—
Keith: Mm.
Jack: But you didn't say that it was a god. You use just sort of said, like, I got this weird thing.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: And Pickman was not at all interested.
Keith: No.
Jack: Latterly, with some more information about what Aterika'Kaal had been, I think I would have been, but at the time, no.
Keith: Right. But you were so not interested in it. [laughs] You were just like, “I don't know about this. Go ask someone else.”
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: Um…so you've gotten some more information. Have you— has your opinion changed from, like, now that you— I guess you don't still know a ton more.
Jack: Mm.
Keith: This is still slightly— this is like 80% out of character still.
Jack: I'm trying to think, um…yeah, I think as they are, as they are crossing some sort of like faintly perilous pass, Pickman just says something like:
Jack (as Pickman): If you try any shenanigans with that god you've got, I swear to god.
Keith (as Lyke): What do you even mean, “shenanigans”? I don't even know what you mean.
Jack (as Pickman): Don't play dumb with me.
Keith (as Lyke): I'm not!
Jack (as Pickman): All this time, you have been trying to build that thing up for your own power.
Keith (as Lyke): No, I— it— it was— it was like trapped. I wanted to help it. I wanted to, you know, I wanted it to be able to live its life, I guess.
Jack (as Pickman): Why?
Keith (as Lyke): “I guess” being is if that's the thing that gods do, is live a life. I don't know. Why?
Jack (as Pickman): Mm-hmm.
Keith (as Lyke): It seemed really sad.
Jack (as Pickman): Mm. And so you fed it.
Keith (as Lyke): A bit.
Jack (as Pickman): And what did it give you in return?
Keith (as Lyke): I almost said no, because that's how little feeding it I did. I really just kept it in a glass jar. But it was— it was hurt, and so I, you know. And I was already bleeding, and I sort of, you know, I gave it a few drops.
Jack (as Pickman): [aghast] You fed it your own blood.
Keith (as Lyke): Just a bit of it. It felt, it felt…it was sad that we had to kill this thing because of what Dayward YVE did to it, or what his family did to it anyway. It wasn't, you know…it wasn’t—
Jack (as Pickman): But it's sustainable now.
Keith (as Lyke): No, it's still not. It's still not done.
Jack (as Pickman): What does it need to be done?
Keith (as Lyke): I don't know. I think it needs a different…I don't know if it's still…I don't know if it's like it used to be or if it's still like what the YVEs made it, and—
Jack: Big spray of lava over the top of us. [Jack and Austin laugh]
Keith (as Lyke): So, you know. I don't…I don't want to force it to be something that…I don't want to do what the YVEs did to it, but I also don't want to be dragging bodies out of the way every time I go in there, [quickly, defensively] which also isn’t happening—
Jack (as Pickman): [alarmed] There are bodies?
Keith (as Lyke): It was only half the times that there was bodies in there.
Jack (as Pickman): Whose bodies?
Keith (as Lyke): I don't know. People who found their way in.
Jack (as Pickman): Jesus Christ.
Jack: I mean, Pickman can’t say that.
Keith (as Lyke): But not— but—
Austin: Okay, wait.
Jack: Jesus doesn't exist. [Austin and Jack laugh] We run into this problem every single…
Austin: We do. It's really hard. It's really hard.
Keith: Just, uh, it's, you know…
Art: [sarcastic] All our universes have Jesus Christ, and it’s because that's the one true god, and it’s in all worlds. [Ali and Sylvia laugh]
Keith: Okay. Okay, I have a counterargument to this. The absolute worst thing in the whole world is when you're watching a sci-fi thing and they have like fake swear words in it.
Austin: Uh huh.
Jack: [imitating] By the mother.
Dre: Oh, it’s the worst!
Austin: It’s, yeah.
Keith: It's the absolute worst, and so whenever we say Jesus Christ, I just imagine that the thing that we said is the in-universe equivalent—
Austin: Right, yes.
Keith: —where we don't have to say something cringy to replace it with.
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: Make it make sense. You make it make sense, so that we don't have to say something stupid.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Dre: You don’t want to—
Austin: You do the work.
Dre: You don’t want to say “gorram” all the time? [Ali laughs]
Jack: Ahh.
Keith: Yeah, you want to— do we want to say gorram all the time?
Sylvia: [crosstalk] You shut the fuck up, Dre. [Dre laughs]
Keith: Dre’s right. That would suck if we were— if Jack right now said, [imitating Pickman] “Gorram.” [Ali and Dre laugh]
Jack: It would—
Ali: Say, “Oh, Slumbo.” [Sylvia laughs]
Jack: Oh, Slumbo.
Austin: See, this is the thing, [Ali laughs] is there's a big part of our listenership who would fucking eat it up if we were saying like, “By Slumbous.” You know what I mean?
Keith: Yeah, well, I'm sorry to those people, but also I didn't like, uh…I didn't like that Sabrina show. And I didn't like when they said, uh… [Ali laughs] Like, you know…
Austin: But they have Jesus Christ. They could say “Jesus Christ” in that show.
Keith: No, but they say like, oh….
Sylvia: Yeah, but they didn’t, is the thing.
Keith: They flipped everything. Instead of saying like, “holy shit,” they would say like—
Austin: Wait, is Jesus not—
Keith: They would say like, “evil shit,” or something.
Sylvia: No, like, they…
Dre: “Aw, Satan!”
Austin: I understand. But my— but, no, no, no.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: My point is they live in a world—
Art: It was like an edgelord (??? 47:24)
Austin: But they live in a world where they could be saying Jesus Christ.
Keith: Right.
Austin: And they're choosing not to.
Keith: Yeah, but I think it's the same vibe.
Austin: So I think it’s a different situation.
Keith: It’s a different situation, but it's the same, uh, it's the same feeling that it gives me.
Austin: Mm.
Jack: Anyway, I think… [Ali laughs softly] I think Pickman went into this conversation thinking that Lyke was being power crazy and is coming out of it thinking that he's being stupid, so says:
Jack (as Pickman): You are being taken advantage of by the god, and you will come to regret it.
Keith (as Lyke): It saved our lives a bunch of times.
Jack (as Pickman): I don't give a shit. You're being taken advantage by it. It is more powerful than you and me, and it's going to get stronger. When the vines come knocking at your door, don't look to me for help.
Keith (as Lyke): I still think it can work. [Ali laughs softly]
Austin: After a long, quiet walk from there, you find yourself, um…you find the, uh, the sort of river, as it is, kind of comes to a…a not a halt, but the river starts to slow towards the top, to where like the metal isn't as, isn't moving as rapidly. The liquid metal isn't moving as rapidly as it was further down. And then you soon come to a part where it has totally solidified, but there is like a…so it's like, it's almost as if it's dried into like a hardened metal, right? And it's like, you know, a bicycle wheel is sticking out, completely stuck half in the earth. And, you know, a car fender and a part of a guitar, you know? [laughs softly] And it, from there, on those solid things, there is still a kind of a line of this liquid metal, like a little dribble that has been—
Keith: This is the same liquid metal that I have a thing of.
Austin: It's the same liquid metal. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Keith: Can I scoop up some extra and bring that from a D4 to a D6 or 8?
Austin: Sure. Sure, totally. You should be very careful, but this is the one place where you can do it, because it's turned into this sort of drip. And that drip is kind of going up through some…you've gone from like, at this point, walking kind of horizontally, to needing to climb up.
Jack: Oh, dear.
Austin: You know, in a really difficult way.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Especially for you, Pickman, with the armor on, but you got a crit on that roll, so like you completely do it. You find the right way to go through this final little step. And it's, you get the impression that like whatever was producing that river…like, it's not that that river was coming from a spring in the ground. It’s that it was coming from something that was placed at the top of this. In fact, there is like a little platform or something, almost like a tiny natural altar carved into the stone where there would have been an object. And it has been, it has been kind of pulled deeper upwards, you know, into this cave system, and it's dripping out the kind of molten metal as you go. And you have to be careful not to touch it, ‘cause it will burn you badly if you touch it. But you follow the line, you follow the line. And you come to a kind of opening where you can see the light of day. And maybe it's, you know, the suns are setting, and so it has this kind of orange glow from it being sunset. And you kind of get the sense that you're…again, with a crit, you're underneath a building or a structure of some sort. But you'd have to get closer to see what's going on, so I would need a Sneak here to not be seen.
[0:51:00]
Jack: Well, it's time for the guy I was just really rude to to help us out. [Ali laughs softly]
Austin: Uh huh. Give me a Sneak, and then this is gonna be Religion or Haven, I think. ‘Cause you're coming out towards a structure.
Keith: Okay. I'll do— I’ll roll, uh, Sneak Haven.
Austin: Mm-hmm. And this is Standard, ‘cause you have that move. Otherwise, it would not be Standard. And then take Mastery.
Keith: And it’s Mastery from that crit.
Austin: Yep, totally.
Keith: And I don't know if there's any way for Pickman to help.
Austin: Pickman, are you going up there? Or are you…are you sticking back and letting Lyke do it?
Jack: Um, I think I'll stay back. I really think I would be more harm than good.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: I'm like the size of a truck.
Keith: That’s sort of what I was thinking, like, how would—
Austin: Same.
Keith: How would there be help from afar? Like…
Austin: Yeah. Oh, I don't think you're helping.
Keith: Yeah. This is…
Austin: I was more looking as like, if— I think this is a situation where you both would need to roll independently.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: ‘Cause you either— ‘cause you’re, each of you could make a mistake here, [laughs softly] you know, and get hurt.
Keith: Right. Okay.
Austin: So I think Pickman staying back is not the wrong idea.
Keith: I’ll roll with Mastery.
Austin: Yep.
Keith: Nine.
Austin: Hey, there's a nine.
Jack: [relieved sound]
Austin: Success, no Stress. You come up into the under area, not quite the crawl space, because it's not as structured as that. But it's like a building up on stilts a little bit or up on a sort of a foundation, but underneath that foundation has like…or maybe the foundation itself is like extremely unfinished, right? It's not even an unfinished basement. It's not that— it's not that— it's not standing room. And you hear someone singing to themselves?
[music begins: “Eat”]
And you can hear the sound of silverware on a plate. And it takes you a little bit to put together where you are, but I think that you're able to realize, oh, this is the Weather Room. You're up at the Weather Room. You're underneath the Weather Room.
Keith: Oh, this is the— this is the spy little lookout place.
Austin: Yeah, there's a little lookout place up on the hill.
Jack: We were just up here.
Austin: Yeah, mm-hmm. You follow this kind of, this line of the blood of the Mother-Beast, up to a sort of, like, it's as if someone smashed a hole in the ground. And you very cautiously look up and over it into this room, and the room is dark. The blinds inside are all closed or bricked over at this point. The room, from what you can see from the light—and the light is only from the blood itself casting this kind of warm, orange glow—is a mess. This is not a holy place, right? This is not a special altar of doing some sort of ritual. And, as if to punctuate that, the voice is singing an almost sarcastic version of the Hymn of the Mother-Beast.
Austin (as voice): Her love is vast and nourishing. Her glory does astound.
Austin: And it is Alaway in a suit, in the Regan Alaway form that we've seen, except instead of skin, it's a sort of flaky aluminum, like if you took molten aluminum and then quickly cooled it in water. It becomes this sort of like flaky, asymmetrical, almost like cereal flakes but made of metal. And that's covering his whole body. And as he sings to himself, he, with a steak knife, cuts into and begins to eat or is in the process of eating the heart of the Mother-Beast. The ritual, as what it is, is very close to what Chine does, in fact. With each new kind of stab into this heart, more of the liquid spills out, continuing to bleed. And as it pools on the ground, once it pools into like enough of a puddle, you know, little things start to appear. You know, it's like a keychain shows up. The head of a hammer but not the whole thing. It is still making stuff, as he just chows down. And he's just like, you know, big, big bites, juicy bites, really messy and gross, splattering against his clothes. They burn as the liquid hits him, but then it just like turns his skin into this metal. And he can keep singing the song, you know, as it goes. And for a moment, he looks over at the hole where you are, as if he can just about sense you at the edge of his perception. And then starts another verse. And takes another bite. [song ends] It's a big heart. It's gonna be here— it's gonna be a little while until he can eat it all. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Lyke is still feeling like, uh…
Austin: But it's—
Keith: I wish everyone had come here.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh. And, and I think that like, you know, he just, he stands up at a certain point. He puts the fork and the knife down and goes to open a window and look outside. And there is some part of you that feels it like it's a dare. You know? This is he’s setting up a snare for you. And this is the success, is you don't fall for it, right? I mean, you can fall for it if you decide you want to fall for it. But he is turning his back to you, almost like a dare. You know? What do you do?
Keith: [sighs] How far away?
Austin: How far do you want him to be? I mean, this is your situation?
Keith: Oh, I was thinking like, grab the heart and go.
Austin: You could certainly try to do that. [Ali laughs] It would be very— that would be dangerous. [Jack laughs]
Keith: Even if it’s a Sneak?
Austin: Yes.
Keith: Can’t be Dangerous if it’s a Sneak.
Austin: Because the— uh, the thing that you'd be doing— actually, it would be an Endure to take the heart.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: The thing that you'd be rolling for is can you hold the heart of a bleeding god of fire and iron. And ichor, you know? Ichor? I never know how to pronounce ichor. I always say ichor.
Keith: I think it's ichor.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Okay. How about…how…how about…this is Lyke’s, this is my one move.
Austin: I mean, you don't need to make a move at all. If you want to leave, you could just leave peacefully.
Keith: Yeah. But this is my one idea.
Austin: But if Lyke—
Keith: Here’s the one thing that I think that I could do.
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: I could cast the Stone Chorus in between— basically using the, the back of the thing.
Jack: He’s gonna do the shenanigans! He’s doing shenanigans right away, at the top of the stairs!
Keith: Using the back of the thing to separate Alaway from me and the heart. [Ali laughs softly] To buy myself time.
Austin: To then run up and grab it.
Keith: That would still be—
Jack: But then—
Keith: That would still be— that would be two rolls.
Austin: It’s gotta be—
Keith: That would be…
Austin: It would be two rolls.
Keith: That would still be an Endure.
Austin: It would be the Discern Religion to cast the spell, and then it would be an Endure.
Jack: And, and I just, you know, you would be opening the Sanctum of the Stone Chorus to Aterika’Kaal to a man who has, literally in this scene, demonstrated his desire to take the power of gods. [Ali laughs]
Keith: But, but, but the rules have…the rules say that he can't take Aterika'Kaal’s power.
Austin: Why?
Keith: Because there's something special about the Mother-Beast and its heart.
Austin: The rules say that, uh, that the thing that you have to do—what we established earlier was—is manage to consume a god while it’s using its power, right?
Keith: Right.
Jack: Oh, right.
Austin: We've seen, for instance, Virtue do this.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Oh, yeah, with the Oratorio.
Austin: Virtue did this exact thing.
Keith: Right.
Austin: Right, with the Oratorio. So it's not that it's not— it's not that it can't happen.
Keith: It’s just hard.
Austin: It's that it's hard to do it.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Now, that would be a real task, wouldn’t it?
Keith: I don't even have Endure, so it's not even a…it's not even a… [Ali laughs]
Austin: Okay. You're not gonna tr—
Keith: No.
Austin: Right, okay.
Keith: If it's— if it— if it's about that. Also, in an hour, I'm getting spit back out right here, although Alaway might— doesn't know that.
Austin: Oh, I didn't even know you were gonna go in there. Uh, you could grab it, go in—
Keith: Mm-hmm.
Austin: And then use one of its doors out to take it somewhere else. [Jack laughs softly] Which we just established is a thing.
Jack: Okay, but now— [laughs] okay.
Austin: I think this is a terrible idea.
Jack: But now it's Aterika’Kaal is just gonna see Keith coming in, see Lyke coming in with the heart of a, as far as we know about Aterika'Kaal, potentially a rival god.
Austin: A delicious heart.
Jack: And just go—
Austin: Yeah, mmm.
Jack: Mmm!
Austin: Yum, yum, yum!
Jack: Yummy. [laughs]
Austin: There’s no…
Jack: Remember when you tried to move a corpse of a person, and Aterika'Kaal was like “Mm, mine.” [Austin laughs] You're gonna come in there— now, here's the thing. I think this is great television. But, um…
Austin: [laughs] Yeah. I want to throw it all away! We spent all that time coming up with two other sessions we're going to do. How is that better than this? [Ali laughs] Just guys being dudes.
Jack: This is a terrible plan.
[1:00:00]
Austin: It is a terrible plan.
Ali: We could do other stuff, you know. [laughs] We can figure out things to do. Follow your heart. Do what sounds fun. Is that one of those, the rules in this game?
Keith: What— [Ali and Jack laugh]
Austin: Yeah, sure. You do what’s at heart with Heart: The City Beneath.
Jack: Most of all, have fun. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Okay, okay. This is such an opportunity. I don't mean to take up a bunch of time just sitting, like, with Lyke just like sitting with the scene paused. But I'm just like—
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: This is such an opportunity.
Jack: Kind of terrifying, though. He’s singing.
Keith: Yeah. Here's my other thing that Lyke is thinking. Like, what— I didn't use Mark of the Weaver earlier. What does Mark of the Weaver— oh, I did use Mark of the Weaver earlier, didn’t I?
Austin: You did. Yeah.
Keith: No. No, I didn't.
Austin: Didn’t you?
Keith: No, I just—
Austin: No, you didn’t.
Keith: I just mimed the…
Austin: You just, you colored it with—
Keith: I colored with, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, you used it as a color.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: So, um, I'm thinking like, what does Mark of the Weaver do to the heart of the Mother-Beast?
Austin: Could you put it on your hands to give you…to give you like a little shield? Like, get— like, it wouldn't give you Endure, but would it give you a plus one in this sense? Or would you get to roll Mend instead basically, in the sense that you would be healing your hands from the burning.
Keith: While they're burning?
Ali: Mm.
Austin: The burning of raw creation, as you're trying to grab this thing and go.
Keith: I'm doing it.
Austin: [brief pause] That was enough. That was enough for you. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Yeah, it’s enough for me.
Austin: Having that visual. Oh my god.
Keith: I'm eating…
Austin: [laughs softly] [sarcastic] You're very different, by the way, from all these other people who eat things to become more powerful, uh, because you're good.
Keith: I don't eat things to become more powerful. I eat things to shield myself from the stupid ideas I have.
Austin: I see.
Ali: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Right. Much different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you eating?
Keith: Um…well, I'm gonna eat the, uh, the hot river lava.
Austin: [laughs quietly] Oh my god.
Keith: The heart, you know, the heart of the stuff that is being…
Austin: You're consuming it. You're not literally eating it, because that would hurt you.
Keith: Right, I just say eating.
Austin: You're using it in this…
Keith: I just use that word, 'cause I can’t stop.
Austin: I know what you mean. Yes. Yeah, I know.
Keith: I'm consuming. The word that the book uses is consume.
Austin: Uh, Keith? [Ali laughs softly]
Keith: Yeah?
Austin: You not be able to stop has never been more clear. [laughs]
Keith: What do you mean not being able to stop? What do you mean?
Austin: Just having idea— I love it. I'm ready. Like Jack said, it's good TV, isn't it?
Keith: Okay. [Ali laughs] So I'm deleting my river. I'm rolling a one D6.
Austin: This is a shield for you.
Keith: Sorry, Jack, were you gonna say something? That's a four.
Jack: No, no, no.
Austin: Take four…
Jack: I'm just—
Austin: Four Mind Protection?
Keith: No—
Jack: I'm just down at the bottom of this thing. Pickman is down there going, “Now, what we told was no intervention.”
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: “So Lyke’s gonna come down the stairs in a second.”
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: The four is a Protection against any consequence of the spell going wrong.
Austin: Right. From the next— right, yes. Yes, that’s very good.
Keith: And so I think that this is…so, it’s Discern Religion.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Uh…I don't think this is the Risky part. Just roll that straight.
Keith: Eight.
Austin: That's an eight. Success, no Stress. So, vines pop up through the floorboards and form your little gateway.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Pickman, you absolutely hear this happen. [Jack laughs softly] Floorboards start to break, as this magical— and you hear the sound of whatever that is, the like bwoom or whatever the magical thing sounds like. It probably doesn’t sound bwom. Bwom is sci-fi. I don't know what it sounds like here. Uh, like a splash or something. Except we use a splash for our gates in our sci-fi season, so that doesn't work.
Jack: Ooh. Okay.
Austin: Yeah? You got a sound?
Jack: No, no, I don't have a sound. What's the next roll Art’s making? Art, oh my god. What's the— [Jack and Austin laugh]
Austin: Duvall would never do this. [Ali laughs]
Jack: No. What’s the next roll Lyke is making? This is a two roll problem, right?
Austin: This is an Endure. I mean, it's gonna be a— it's gonna be a…
Jack: Yeah. Okay.
Keith: It’s Endure, Occult? Or Endure, Religion?
Austin: Endure Religion, yeah.
Jack: I'm…
Austin: Plus one from your Mend, basically.
Keith: Yeah.
Jack: Before you make this roll—
Austin: [quietly] Oh my god.
Jack: From the bottom of the stairs, I would like to do something. I don't think Pickman does this consciously, because I have a new move. The porcelain heart in the back of Pickman's chest starts beating. [Ali gasps]
Austin: Right. Yeah.
Jack: As Pickman thinks to herself, “Oh, god. He's gonna fuck this up. [Austin and Ali laugh] What are we gonna do?” And she's just paralyzed. She can't— she doesn't know what to do. She can't move. She thinks, “I can't go in there. I might just run,” and the porcelain heart starts beating. [reading] “Place a D6 before yourself set to two. This represents your Chaos. At any time before another player makes a roll, you may describe how you rewrite reality by one Chaos. [Austin laughs softly] Represent this by turning the die one value lower.” So I'm gonna turn my Pickman's Chaos to one.
Austin: To a one.
Jack: You can spend Chaos—
Keith: And what does this do?
Jack: “You can spend Chaos in order to increase or decrease a Stress die by a step, to a minimum of D4 or a maximum of D12.”
Austin: Mm.
Jack: “Or adjust the highest results in a dice pool by one, [Austin: Mm!] to a minimum of one or a maximum of ten.”
Austin: So you can increase— you can basically give a plus one to this roll.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: Would you rather give a plus one to this roll or a minus one on the incoming Stress if it's a failure? The plus one on the roll, right?
Keith: Plus one on the roll, yeah.
Austin: That makes more sense.
Jack: I think so.
Austin: I's a free help, effectively.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It's not a free help, it's a free…I don't know the math on this. This might be…it’s a guaranteed plus one on a die, so that ain’t bad.
Keith: Plus one value, not plus one die.
Austin: Value, correct.
Ali: Mm.
Keith: So if I get a six, it becomes— five, it becomes a six.
Austin: It becomes a seven. If you get a five, it becomes a six. Exactly.
Keith: Right. Okay. Okay. So it's Mastery, Endure Religion, Risky.
Austin: Uh, Dangerous.
Keith: Dangerous. Oh, it's Dangerous?
Austin: It's Dangerous, yeah.
Keith: Okay. Now, can I…can I make a barter? Can I barter with you? [Ali laughs softly]
Austin: You can always barter with me, Keith.
Jack: Ah, the old Keith special.
Keith: That— I’m borrowing—
Austin: What are you trying to barter with?
Keith: This is an Art special. The word barter I got from Art. [Ali laughs softly] Or bargain. What was…
Art: I invented the word barter. Not a lot of people know that.
Austin: Oh, I didn’t.
Keith: Well, it was— no, it was from the live show, and then you did it a couple other times, where you were like, can I instead change the rules to make it worse for me but also better for me?
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: I'm doing— I want to do that. [Dre laughs]
Austin: What are you trying to do?
Keith: Um…
Art: I think it was an unreserved good at the live show. [Austin laughs] I just want to get out in front of this.
Austin: Yes.
Keith: Can I, instead of deciding to protect myself, roll Evade Religion and just take a Blood Fallout?
Austin: Huh. Giving yourself a bonus die.
Keith: Right.
Austin: But, but focusing on getting away.
Keith: Yes.
Jack: [groans] He's gonna know! Al—
Austin: I mean, yeah, he's gonna know.
Jack: I mean, he’s gonna know immediately.
Austin: But this also— you know what, this is fun, because—
Keith: But it's Evade. It's also Evade.
Austin: It’s also— okay, let me— can I shine some light onto the other thing that's happening here?
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: ‘Cause I know what's happening, Keith.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Keith has a Major Beat: Take a Major Blood Fallout.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: And this would guarantee that. [several people laugh for a while]
Jack: [laughing] Piece of shit!
Keith: I want to be— I want to fully disclose something. [laughter continues]
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: And I want— I need— I want people to trust me on this.
Sylvia: Yeah?
Keith: And I don't mind if you don't, but I want you to anyway. [Ali laughs] I genuinely had this idea before I remembered that, and then I was like, oh, great.
Jack: Okay.
Austin: Mm…
Jack: No, I do believe you. That is very funny, though.
Austin: I do believe that. I do believe that. I do.
Jack: Oh, that's excellent.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Uh huh. And this is an easy one for me, for I know exactly the thing it is too, so.
Keith: So this is Evade, Religion, Mastery, plus one, Dangerous.
Austin: Uh huh. And you're getting a Blood Fallout. You might also get a different Fallout based on your roll and…to be clear.
Keith: Four.
Austin: You’re— oh my fuck…
Sylvia: [pained] Oh!
Jack: Oh, no, wait. That's a five.
Austin: It is a five. That's still a failure.
Jack: Yeah, but…
Austin: Five is still a failure.
Ali: [quietly] What?
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: Two, four, four, eight, five.
Austin: The eight goes away. The five goes away. Yeah, two, four, four, eight, five. The eight goes away; it's Dangerous. The five goes away; it's Dangerous. The four becomes a five. That is still not enough. That is not a success. A six is a success. You're off by one. Uh, take…okay, so, first of all, let me look at… [laughs softly] Time to look at Alaway’s stats everybody! You know, you had to swing for it, didn't you?
Keith: I had to.
Art: You know when you think that we're about to wrap and we're gonna have like two or three more sessions before the end of the season, and then it's like, oh, maybe this season will be over in ten minutes. [Austin and Jack laugh]
Jack: I was just thinking this, right? Where it’s like…
Ali: Yeah, no, yeah.
Art: Does anyone empathize with that?
Jack: We can and there is value in making plans to get us to stuff like this.
Keith: Ooh!
Jack: Oh, go on.
Keith: No, no, no. I don't— I thought I had something, but I think I don't. [Ali laughs sadly]
Dre: Aw.
Keith: I don't know what happened, but—
Jack: But like, sometimes what we need to do is just start rolling dice, and then the dice find the things.
Austin: Sometimes you just gotta start rolling dice.
Keith: Yeah, there hasn’t been a lot of rolling.
Austin: Okay, so, uh…
Keith: [distantly] I’ve gotta have something, right?
Jack: Oh, wait, hang on.
Austin: Take five, first of all. Uh, take five Echo from this.
Keith: Um, okay. [distantly] I’ve gotta know…
Austin: And give me your Fallout check.
Keith: Okay. This is five Echo.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Now, do I get…
Austin: Yeah?
Keith: Do I get that Blood Fallout first or second?
Austin: Yeah, I can tell you exactly what that Blood Fallout is. That Blood Fallout is Critical Injury: “You take a hit somewhere vital. The GM picks a skill you have access to, and you no longer have access to that skill. For example, a hit in your sword arm could remove Kill; an eye injury could remove Discern.”
Jack: [laughing] Oh no.
Austin: “Ripped tendons in your fingers could remove Mend.” You've lost Mend. Your hands just burn up the second you touch this thing. And your, the things that give you the spider web ink completely get burned over. And then give me your Fallout test on Echo.
Keith: Okay, I have a few things. I do need to work it out a little bit, but I—
Austin: Oh, wait. Wait, wait, wait.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You only take one, ‘cause remember you rolled that four Protection spell.
Keith: Oh, yeah. Okay, I only take one.
Austin: So you only take one here. That's not so bad. That's really low chance of getting a Fallout here, Keith. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Yeah. Um, no, okay, hold on. I don't want to give myself homework here, but that was just— that only works for casting the, um, the gate.
[1:10:03]
Austin: Oh, you're totally right. You're totally right.
Keith: But what I do have, though, is when I, uh…when I receive a minor advance or a major advance, I refresh D8 or D6, D6 or D8. So I actually can refresh before rolling this.
Austin: No, you can't.
Keith: I can’t?
Austin: No. No, no, no. A refresh, the— when you receive Fallout, if you receive Fallout you immediately do a Fallout test.
Keith: Damn.
Austin: Yeah. Unfortunate.
Keith: Okay, so that’s five.
Austin: But if you don't get a Fallout, you can do that immediately. You take Minor Fallout. You take Minor Echo Fallout. This makes sense to me. Given, given everything that's been happening,
Keith: Oh, wait, actually. Can I do one more thing instead? [Ali laughs] I'm already taking Minor Fallout. Can we rewind a little bit? ‘Cause I keep forgetting that I have something.
Austin: What do you have?
Keith: I have a move. I have a move that lets me have you reroll a Stress die.
Austin: Mm.
Keith: And I take the second result whether it's higher or lower.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Mark of the Phantom lets me do that, the skill move. “You may make the GM reroll Stress die. Keep the second result, even if it's higher.”
Austin: Okay. All right. It was a one!
Jack: Oh! Beautiful!
Austin: Look at that. So there you go.
Art: Wow. Great.
Keith: So that's…I'm safe now.
Austin: Uh, no you didn't, ‘cause you did— what did you roll, Keith?
Keith: I rolled a one.
Austin: You rolled a one.
Keith: So that's Major Fallout?
Austin: No, it's still Minor Fallout.
Keith: Oh, still Minor? Oh, okay.
Austin: Uh huh. Unfortunate. I know exactly what happens.
Jack: It would be so funny if he talked himself into Major Fallout.
Austin: It would have been very funny, but that doesn't happen, no. So, to talk through for people who are listening, Keith got five on Stress from before, rolled a one, asked me to reroll the Stress. I rolled a one, but Keith’s Fallout test was a one, which means that would’ve—
Keith: Right.
Austin: That’s still Fallout.
Keith: We erased that first roll, but we didn't erase me Fallout rolling.
Austin: The wild thing there is if you had reduced down to one— if you had not done the homework of saying, “Oh, wait, Austin, I actually do have five Echo,” you still would have gotten that Fallout on a one.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Which is wild.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: The Fallout is: Pickman you hear the soft, wet, fleshy sound of a heart hitting the ground. And then you don't hear anything else. The singing continues. Someone comes over and picks up the heart, puts it back on their plate, and starts to dig back in. Keith, I need you to take the Echo Fallout, uh, let's see what it's exactly called here. Glitch: You disappear, only reappearing after every other player has acted at least once. Immediate.
Art: You know what I've learned in this season is that I don't love the word fleshy.
Austin: Mm.
Ali: Oh, yeah. [Jack laughs]
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Bad season to have to learn that.
Art: Comes up a lot.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Mm.
Art: It’s not great, yeah.
Keith: Okay, I do maybe have one other thing, real quick. [all laugh]
Ali: Jesus Christ!
Sylvia: Oh my god.
Austin: You're disappeared!
Art: Don’t you just stop existing? How do you…?
Ali: I’m in your corner. I'm not mad. I’m glad that you have these resources. But this is power gaming. [someone laughs]
Keith: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm really sorry. [Ali laughs]
Jack: Keith, approaching the guillotine: “Now, hold on.”
Ali: There's nothing to apologize for. But I just want to say… [laughs]
Keith: I know.
Ali: This is…
Keith: I know, I know, I know. I understand.
Ali: This is strategy at work.
Keith: I have, uh… [quietly] Fuck. [Ali laughs] I should have written down the move that I wanted to take.
Austin: Oh, 'cause you got a major advance. I see.
Keith: I did, and it was really relevant. [Ali and Austin laugh] Um…
Art: It's probably you can’t get hit with Fallout and disappear. [Austin and Ali laugh]
Keith: I just tried to…I tried to…
Dre: All my rolls are good now.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: I tried to Ctrl F on Heart, and it like opened another page and ruined my thing.
Austin: What's the thing you're looking for? I'm looking at your major abilities right now.
Keith: There's some— there is something that lets me do, like, not take a Fallout or ignore a Fallout or something like that. And I was like, ooh, this’ll be great, because I have that Blood Fallout thing, and I’m gonna get Blood Fallout.
Austin: Mm.
Keith: And I'll be able to do something about it like right away.
Austin: Mm-hmm. [Ali laughs softly]
Keith: But I have totally lost my page here.
Austin: I don't see, uh…
Keith: Yeah, it's okay.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh. Sorry. I'm looking for you, I just don’t see it.
Keith: No, no, it's fine. We can move on.
Austin: Okay.
Keith: I'll be glitched out.
Austin: You'll be glitched out. You have glitched out. So yeah, Pickman, you hear the heart land on the ground or on the floor. You see someone reach down and pick it up and maybe look through the floorboards, whistling. Then, you know, picking it back up, putting it back down on that plate, and getting back to it. Lye Lychen is not to be seen. Power of a god.
Ali: [quietly] Wow.
Austin: Everybody has to get captured and rescued once in this fucking campaign, apparently.
Ali: Oh, sure.
Austin: Pickman, what do you do?
Jack: This is just—
Austin: It sets in in you, right? It has to set in that your friend isn't coming back right now.
Jack: Yes, absolutely.
Austin: Like in your chest, you know?
Jack: And, you know, it's just this great image of like this massive goat person crouched, not quite under the floor, but like some…
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: I've been rationalizing it that I am further than arm's reach away from Lyke for move reasons.
Austin: Mm-hmm. And you are, you have been, but you're still pretty close.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: Is this just a long quiet walk back?
Jack: I'm trying to think of a…I'm trying to think of a reason why Pickman would try and go up into the room where the person she knows is very good at sneaking…
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Went and then disappeared. And I…
Austin: You can go ask for your friend back, I guess, right?
Jack: Oh, also, the…Alaway possessed Pickman.
Austin: Yeah, that happened.
Jack: Um, and…Pickman is not afraid of anything, [Austin laughs softly] except.
Ali: Mm.
Jack: Um, I think Pickman is the person who says they're not afraid of anything.
Austin: Pickman definitely feels like someone who says that, yeah.
Jack: And so there is something in her going, [nervously rationalizing] “I don't think I need to go up there.” Um, I'm trying to think if there is anything I can usefully do for Lyke. [laughs]
Austin: Uh, you could do a move. You could make an action. [laughs softly]
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Austin: But I do think that this is a bigger thing. Like, we wrote down Glitch, but I, like, Glitch doesn't, isn't enough. There has to be— it's not just that, like, you have to do actions. Something has to be done to get you back, Lyke. I don't even know where you are. You might not exist.
Keith: I thought it said everyone makes a turn and then I’m back.
Austin: Yeah, that's what— that's what the thing we picked was, but I think that's wrong.
Jack: [laughing] You might not exist.
Austin: I think that that's not enough for the thing you've done. I don't think that it's targeted enough. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't think that this is a, oh, Alaway didn't like zap you away for a second. You know what I mean?
Keith: Okay. Yeah.
Austin: It's not— you're not dead. You can come back. This isn't a Critical Fallout.
Keith: Right.
Austin: But like, in the way that I'm allowed to invent Fallout, but I never do, because it doesn't feel good to do, because it doesn't feel like it's balanced enough, because like, ugh, I have to be like, is this weighted the same way the Fallouts in the book are weighted? At like…
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: This is one spot where I’m like, no, you went up against something you shouldn't have gone up against. And you almost did it.
Keith: Admittedly.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: On both accounts.
Austin: And I mean, here’s the other thing that's happening up there, is Alaway is like, Alaway peeks in and sees what's up with Aterika'Kaal. You know, huh. This is open for an hour.
Keith: Uh, the gate closes after it's been casted.
Art: Mm.
Austin: Oh, does it?
Keith: It reopens after an hour. Yeah.
Austin: Mm.
Keith: We’ve used it to escape people before.
Austin: Right, right, right, we've done that.
Jack: Oh, sure.
Austin: But you didn't even go through this time, right? So actually, maybe the other question here is like, does Aterika'Kaal think, “Could I get that heart?” [Ali laughs softly]
Keith: Hey, look, I don't know what Aterika'Kaal is thinking.
Art: Well, this was the…
Austin: This was a plan, yeah.
Art: This was the plan that was pitched, right? This was…
Keith: That was a plan that I put forward.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: This is like there's two dogs in a house and then a bit of steak falls on the ground. [laughs]
Austin: It really is. [Sylvia laughs]
Keith: I mean, look at…
Austin: I want to fucking just have— like, I kind of want Aterika’Kaal to grab the heart, Alaway to walk in, the door closes behind you, end of season! Like. [Ali and Jack laugh] Who knows what happens? Let's fucking wait on it.
Keith: Well, really, tell me what's so bad about…is it really worse to have Aterika'Kaal and Alaway to each eat half of a heart than for one of them to eat the whole thing? Especially Alaway, I think.
Dre: Mm.
Keith: That's maybe even a win.
Art: Well, what if Alaway ends up eating the heart and Aterika'Kaal? What if Alaway just, like, gets double god?
Austin: But, I mean, why would Ater— why would— what if Alaway is like, “Yeah, of course I'll feed you, buddy.”
Jack: This is what I'm thinking, that Alaway is a fucking snake. Um…there’s no way Alaway—
Austin: “I’ll feed all your worst, your worst desires. We’ll work together.”
Jack: In much the same way that, you know. [concerned] Oh.
Austin: Is that the most fun? What's the most fun? [laughs softly] In a way, it solves the problem instantly. [Dre and Jack laugh] But we also had this whole—
Jack: The problem of us.
Austin: Again, peek behind the curtain. We had this long discussion about whether Alaway was interesting as a villain. Ugh, Alaway’s just not that interesting. We should probably try to wrap this up this season. Spoilers, we're thinking about what happens after Sangfielle. [laughs] There's probably gonna be another season of Sangfielle, I guess I've just confirmed unintentionally. [Sylvia laughs] So should we wrap him up? Because he's not like, it's not as interesting. But this is interesting to me. You know, dovetailing into Aterika'Kaal is fun.
Jack: Oohoohoohoo. Okay.
Austin: Here's my pitch. I'm gonna give a real pitch.
Art: It's like…it's like super mean to Keith to do that.
Austin: What is? I guess, but, [Ali and Dre laugh] but only in the sense that I'm giving Lyke extreme motivation for what comes next, right?
[1:20:05]
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Because, here, let me give you the pitch.
Keith: Oh, did you— well, did you— I sent you, two days ago, I sent you a Discord message. Did you read it?
Austin: I don't know that I did. Let me see if I…I get a lot of discord messages these days. Let's see.
Keith: It was about…
Jack: Keith says, “I'm going to throw four rolls when I encounter Alaway.”
Austin: Oh, I fully didn’t see this, Keith.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Uh, let me read it to myself really quick.
Keith: Read what I said about Aterika'Kaal, though.
Austin: Yeah, I will. Do it like out loud?
Keith: Yeah, that's fine. It's just the first paragraph there, the first message.
Austin: Uh…wait, is it? [mumbles]
Keith: Oh. [reading message] “Beyond that, I would like to push Lyke into some kind of action on the Aterika'Kaal stuff.”
Austin: Mm.
Keith: “And I would like to do some sort of true war thing.” Oh, and do I talk about it later on?
Austin: [laughing] And I want to do a true war thing! [Ali and Jack laugh]
Keith: I do want to do…I think there's a version of Aterika, uh…
Austin: Oh, I see it. I see it.
Art: Feeling like a sore loser on the true war tournament matter.
Keith: “There's a version of dealing with Aterika'Kaal that ends with Lyke being satisfied that he rehabilitated a god or at least it looks,” uh…
Austin: It looks like, right.
Keith: “It looks like what he thinks Aterika'Kaal would have been before the YVEs showed up. That's probably his main retirement path, but it also might kill him instead.”
Austin: [laughs] That, so, my pitch isn't even about killing you.
Keith: Right.
Austin: Here is my visual pitch.
Keith: But I was, I was already being like—
Austin: Yes.
Keith: Well, I want to push the Aterika'Kaal thing into being something that's like, uh, like…
Austin: Either changes or…
Keith: Life or death.
Austin: Right, right.
Keith: Like a big thing that Lyke has to make real decisions about.
Austin: Right. So, here's my pitch, visually. The heart lands on the ground, like we said, right? You know, Alaway picks it up, puts it back on the plate, goes to start eating it. A little vine tendril comes out, reaches for the heart. Alaway grabs the tendril. They hold it for a second, you know, holds the fork or the knife in his hand as if he's gonna stab at it. Then grabs the heart, puts the fork down, walks into the gate. The gate closes. Lyke comes back. Lyke returns from nothingness. Lyke, you saw something that I'll have to tell you about. You saw…where you were, there was nothing. Uh, or maybe it was actually something specific, actually. There might have actually been something else that I could tell you about. I have to think about what it is. You try to open the gate. You try to do Sanctum of the Stone Chorus, and Aterika'Kaal doesn't let you in.
Keith: From the glitch zone.
Austin: No, from being back. You come back. You're above. You're in the, the weather house. You're in the Weather Room. You're there. Alaway is gone.
Keith: [crosstalk] Does it go— does it open another path to another god?
Austin: You go to open up another one. You get a— you get a crit. It should open. It opens to another god, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I think it's interesting. We can cut all of this.
Jack: Do we want to sleep on this?
Austin: Yeah, we should sleep on it.
Jack: Do we want to…do we want to figure this out?
Austin: And then the rest of— and then, and then we still have stuff to do this season, ‘cause you still have to deal with the deputies. We still have to figure out, like, I could do an outro here that is about—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: The storm tearing into this place, you know, a train arriving. What happens for the rest of this is I think kind of denouement as we try to make sense of the disaster of this place. But that's my pitch. I think we sh— we can sleep on it. And I would love to hear other big stakes, but.
Keith: I want…so, one of the, one of the things that I feel like we tried to do with Lyke for this season or for, or with the junk mage character was—
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Like, they sort of start off— we talked about the sort of like addiction metaphor that they're—
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Keith: The heavy-handed addiction metaphor that they're doing.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: And then the sort of introduction with the major abilities of the Old Gods stuff—
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: —which feels like it comes out of nowhere. And I feel like we did a pretty good job of sort of introducing the beginnings of that. Like, we've like created that with the story.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Instead of having it from the beginning. But I do just want to read Sanctum of the Stone Chorus as written in the book.
Austin: Yes, go for it.
Keith: Um. “On a success, you find or spontaneously create a path to one of the parasitic temples of the Old Gods, [Austin laughs] which sucks existence from the world like ticks.”
Ali: Ooh.
Jack: [laughs] Aha.
Austin: Oh. Oh, oh. Oh, really?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You didn't read that part before.
Keith: Well, we rewrote what the move was, because we…
Austin: Oh, we did.
Keith: Because we, it was the Boundless Conclave.
Austin: Right, right, right.
Keith: And it was one of the Boundless Conclaves, and the priests were enticing, uh, you know, magic users to come and…
Austin: Yes. But you…it’s as if Lyke rewrote the move by mistake to the regular Heart version of the move.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: That's very fun for me. I love that. That's fantastic.
Keith: “They claim in a hundred voices like the scraping of tectonic plates that they are the Old Gods imprisoned in the Heart by upstart deities.”
Austin: Mm. Huh. [Ali laughs softly]
Jack: Upstart deities, huh?
Austin: Huh.
Jack: Like a certain well-dressed aluminum-faced fellow. [Keith laughs]
Austin: Or, you know, in general—
Keith: Or what if that's the imprisoned one and the upstart deity is Aterika’Kaal?
Austin: Or both of them are these Old Gods and the Boundless Conclave and the contemporary notion of like, “Oh yeah, there are these three big churches and blah blah—” That's not how fucking Sangfielle works.
Keith: Right.
Austin: Sangfielle is parasitic beings feasting from other dimensions. Do you know what I mean? Like.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It's not this weird—
Keith: Maybe there's one big god with a thousand different tentacles that each look like a different Boundless Conclave god, and that’s…
Austin: Totally.
Jack: Maybe.
Austin: We don't fucking know!
Keith: Yeah, we don’t know.
Austin: This is not that…this is not Hieron, in the sense that we— that I have a big secret about how gods work here.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You know what I mean? Like…
Keith: There’s no answers. There's no…
Austin: The answers are that it's really unknowable in a kind of frightening way.
Keith: There's no, uh, there's no Sangfielle mystery box.
Austin: Not so much. There are some mysteries. There are some things that I know that we haven't gotten to, but. Anyway, we need to make— we need to make decisions, including: should we all go to bed? [Ali laughs] I would love to know what else is happening down below, and I would love to know—
Keith: Sorry.
Austin: Well, I guess the thing is: can we do the thing we normally do, which is let's play it out as if what I've just said is true, and then we'll sleep on if it's good. That like, Pickman, Lyke returns, y'all get to go back downstairs and have to face everybody and talk about what you just saw.
Keith: I can already tell that it's good, ‘cause it feels really hard to agree to it. [Dre laughs]
Austin: See, that’s, this is…
Keith: Because I just want my Aterika'Kaal friend.
Austin: Yeah. But that’s stakes!
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It's, I…if it's too much, it's too much. Like, I don't want to— you're right. Art, you said it was mean to Keith, right?
Art: It just feels like you're undoing a hard-won thing.
Austin: I am. But also, I really said this is dangerous.
Keith: Lyke’s gonna re— I'll re-win it. I'm not giving up.
Austin: Phew… [Jack laughs]
Art: I'm not saying that Keith has to think it's mean. [Keith laughs] I'm saying my first thought…
Dre: Aw.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah.
Keith: Thanks. Thanks, Art. I appreciate it.
Art: Yeah, you (??? 1:26:50).
Austin: And I won't do it! Like, I'm happy to go a different route. I'm happy to go the route of just—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You gotta go do a boss fight against Alaway and go talk to Altapasqua and go talk to the hymn, the folks in the hymn. That's fun. I like that adventure. But sometimes you stumble into the thing that no one prepped for, and you're like, ooh, that's juicy.
Keith: That's what I— and that's, I feel like I've geared the last seven years to doing that, to trying to do that.
Austin: I mean, that's…
Jack: Yeah, the…
Keith: Stumbling into the thing that wasn’t prepped for.
Austin: This is the same thing as “What's up with those pirates?” in Autumn in Hieron.
Keith: Yeah.
Dre: Uh huh.
Austin: It's the same.
Keith: What's up with that big steak? [Austin and Jack laugh softly]
Dre: Who’s that big steak?
Austin: Do you come back down with— I mean, Pickman, Lyke, you're back together.
Keith (as Lyke): I have a long list of really complicated facts that are the news. [Austin laughs]
Jack (as Pickman): Yes?
Keith (as Lyke): The heart is a real heart, and Alaway was eating it like a big steak.
Jack (as Pickman): Okay.
Keith (as Lyke): And I really, really thought that I could grab it, and I did.
Jack (as Pickman): Oh my god.
Keith (as Lyke): But when I grabbed it, I disappeared, and I wasn't anywhere. Or maybe there was something. I don't know what I saw. [Ali laughs] And when I came back…
Jack: This is as we're walking back down the river that is slowly drying up.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh huh.
Keith (as Lyke): The heart was gone, and so was Alaway. And that's the news.
Austin: You don't mention the stuff about Aterika'Kaal.
Keith: Um, no, I'm not trying to hide that.
Austin: Okay. I guess you didn't see it happen.
Keith: I didn't see it happen.
Austin: But it sure is coincidental that you can't get back in.
Keith: It— I'll be upfront.
Austin: Yeah, okay.
Keith: I'll be upfront with that.
Keith (as Lyke): I can't— and I think maybe they went into the, into my…into the thing.
Jack (as Pickman): Into what thing?
Keith (as Lyke): Into the my, um, dom— into my, you know, domain path thing.
Jack (as Pickman): The one we were just talking about on the way up here.
Keith (as Lyke): [shouting, frustrated and sarcastic] No, a different one! [quiet, serious] Yes, that one.
Austin: Ugh.
Jack (as Pickman): Okay. Can you go back in and get it?
Keith (as Lyke): I…tried that. And that's how I know that's what happened, because it wouldn't work.
Jack (as Pickman): So we don't know where Alaway is.
Keith (as Lyke): No, we know exactly where Alaway is. We just don't know what is happening in there. I guess it's possible that he could get out, but. I mean, it's more than possible. It's— I bet Alaway could get out of there, but I don't— I think that they're still in there.
Jack (as Pickman): When we went into the Sanctum of the Stone Chorus…
Keith (as Lyke): Uh huh.
Jack (as Pickman): And visited the realm of the wet god.
Keith (as Lyke): Uh huh?
Jack (as Pickman): As I understand it, that was an actual place in Sangfielle.
Keith (as Lyke): Yeah. Yeah.
Jack (as Pickman): Can the same be said of where Aterika'Kaal is?
Keith (as Lyke): No.
Jack: Oh.
Austin: I guess not. It used to be, and not anymore.
[1:30:01]
Keith: I’m 90—
Austin: Right? You…
Keith: I’m 99% sure no.
Austin: Yeah. I was thinking it was, because it would be near old Roseroot.
Keith: No.
Austin: But you're right, you built it this new place.
Keith: It exists in another universe.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah. It is like a pocket dimension.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith (as Lyke): Which is…better?
Jack (as Pickman): No, it's worse, Lyke.
Keith (as Lyke): Are you sure?
Jack (as Pickman): Well, 'cause we can’t go there and fight him.
Keith (as Lyke): Oh, yeah. Oh! Well, I'll say this. They only have an hour in there or he gets stuck in the pocket dimension forever.
Jack: [laughs] Wha— is that true?
Keith: Well, it's a little bit true.
Austin: [doubtful] Mm…
Keith: It's stuck in— he’s stuck in there until he gets out, anyway. [Ali and Jack laugh]
Janine: Oh, god.
Austin: Can we get everybody onscreen at this point?
Keith: If he didn’t— if he couldn’t get—
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Can we get everybody—
Jack: Yes, absolutely.
Austin: Yeah, okay.
Jack: Yeah.
Sylvia: Okay.
Dre: I didn’t realize that Keith was following Animorphs rules with…
Austin: [laughs] That’s how the move works, but…
Keith: If he couldn’t get out, then he couldn't get out.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Keith: But if he can get out, then he can.
Jack: I think it's just a match cut from—
Janine: Yeah, well, he’s becoming a god, so…I guess he could be able to, right?
Keith: Hey, I don't know maybe he's got killed by Aterika'Kaal.
Ali: Wishful thinking.
Austin: There's a type of roleplaying game where the way to figure it out would be for me to just start rolling dice as they fight or something. [Ali laughs softly] And that's just, I'm glad we're not playing that game. [Keith laughs] You could have fun in that game, you know what I mean?
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: The gods have different moves or whatever, and like, oh, this one has ten damage reduction. You know, but I'm glad that—
Keith: It’s called roleplay, when you roll the dice and that determines how you play.
Austin: [laughs] But I’m glad that—
Ali: Well, that— wait, wait, wait. This is how we should do it. We should roll a one D10.
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: And then make a relationship chart.
Austin: Oh. [laughs] Yes!
Dre: [intrigued] Okay.
Ali: [laughing] And then we all…
Sylvia: Oh my god.
Austin: Ahh.
Dre: Okay.
Ali: And what number we get determines how they feel about each other.
Keith: Oh, we can all do our—
Austin: Right, right.
Ali: Within the realm.
Keith: Yeah, we can all take an enneagram test. [Ali and Austin laugh]
Austin: Jesus.
Art: Wait, you're gonna roll the die and then make the chart? That feels like… [Ali and Austin laugh] putting your thumb on the scale there.
Austin: A little bit.
Ali: Well, okay, sure. I, you know.
Austin: I know what you mean. I know what you mean.
Ali: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Art (as Duvall): Oh, I can't believe that I was right about everything the whole time.
Keith (as Lyke): You were not right about everything!
Art (as Duvall): Everything. It was a bad idea. It was gonna turn out bad. It turned out bad.
Keith (as Lyke): Anything could turn out bad, and that doesn't make it the same as doing something bad on purpose!
Art (as Duvall): No, I'm taking this one. [Austin sighs]
Keith (as Lyke): This— we don't know that this is worse! This could be better, still. It's just…
Art (as Duvall): So you're gonna like wait a little bit and then just reopen and see who won and if they kill you right away?
Keith (as Lyke): Well, so, it definitely always has opened after an hour before, but it also has always opened before when I tried to get in, and I can't get in.
Austin (as Alekest): You can’t get in.
Keith (as Lyke): So I don't know what the— I don't know.
Austin (as Alekest): You tried to get in, you can't get in?
Keith (as Lyke): I tried to get in. I can't get in.
Austin (as Alekest): [quietly] Tried to get in, he can't get in.
Keith (as Lyke): I can try again.
Jack (as Pickman): No, don't open it here!
Art (as Duvall): Well, it's a place too, right? We could go to the place it is.
Keith (as Lyke): It's not a place. I mean, it's a place, it just doesn't exist as far as Sangfielle is concerned.
Austin (as Alekest): We think.
Keith (as Lyke): We think. I'm 99% sure.
Austin (as Alekest): There's a lot of places to check that would be— it's not really good odds.
Keith: Um, what is, uh…what was Virtue’s thing called?
Austin: The Oratorio?
Keith: No, the like, uh…
Austin: Or you mean something else.
Keith: The like, uh, the like, you know.
Ali: The Residuum?
Austin: The Residuum.
Keith: The place I disappeared to the last time.
Austin: The Residuum, yeah.
Keith: The Residuum.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith (as Lyke): I guess it's kind of like that, but it's like a different…it's like a…it’s like a different one of those, I think.
Jack (as Pickman): Is this place…
Jack: Pickman looking at Alekest.
Jack (as Pickman): …similar to the kind of no-place in which the city exists?
Austin (as Alekest): Zevunzolia.
Ali (as Marn): Wait, what?
Austin (as Alekest): I think it's much different.
Keith (as Lyke): I don't know. I don't know if it's a void. I don't know if it's the Rara— the Rera— what was it?
Jack: [laughs] The Residuum.
Keith: The Residuum?
Austin: Residuum.
Keith (as Lyke): I don't know where— I don't know if it's where the, you know, maybe where the Mother-Beast gets all that stuff from? I don't know. It could be anywhere.
Austin (as Alekest): Maybe we could get there through another realm. Do they connect? We could go from one god to another god, et cetera, et cetera.
Dre (as Chine): Yeah, there—
Keith (as Lyke): The evidence is that they connect.
Keith: And I hold out the amulet.
Austin (as Alekest): Mm. Well, how many gods could there be? [Austin and Jack laugh]
Keith (as Lyke): The…the answer to that is the same as the question. [Austin laughs]
Ali (as Marn): You found it in that guy's house, though, right?
Keith (as Lyke): Say again?
Ali (as Marn): That guy's house, that guy who sucked whose house we were in? Es knows. Duvall, your cousin was there, that guy? That's where y'all got the…
Keith (as Lyke): Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's where…
Art (as Duvall): Yeah.
Keith (as Lyke): That's where it was from.
Janine (as Es): Dayward.
Ali (as Marn): Oh, Dayward, yeah, Dayward. The (??? 1:34:55)
Keith (as Lyke): I thought you were talking with the amulet. No, I got the amulet in the… [quietly] inside the place.
Austin (as Alekest): That guy’s a piece of shit.
Keith (as Lyke): Guy’s a piece of shit.
Ali (as Marn): Can we go back there and look for a twig or something?
Keith (as Lyke): We really burned it up good, I think. [Austin and Jack laugh]
Ali (as Marn): Yeah, seems like it.
Austin (as Alekest): [sighs] Well, maybe it's a good thing we have more time to prepare. Did Alaway have a particular reason they would focus on Blackwick instead of just go off and do anything else?
Keith (as Lyke): Uh, this is where the Mother-Beast was.
Ali (as Marn): Spite.
Austin (as Alekest): [quietly] Hmm.
Keith: Are you— are you hinting at something?
Austin: No. No, I'm just saying, I'm voicing the thought that's like, well, maybe Alaway will just go off and do other stuff for a little while. We just don't know.
Keith (as Lyke): No, the only— I've never met Alaway.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith (as Lyke): Well, I extremely briefly just did. And the only thing I know about him otherwise is that he's extremely motivated to do bad.
Austin: No, no, no. I don't mean not do bad, but do bad elsewhere.
Keith: Right.
Austin: In the sense that's like…
Keith: What's the difference?
Austin: Uh, are we in imminent danger or not. You know what I mean?
Keith (as Lyke): Oh. No, I think we're not. I think that's the silver lining, is that we are no longer in imminent danger.
Austin (as Alekest): There is the storm and the train and the deputies.
Keith (as Lyke): Right, we’re in the other two or three other imminent dangers, but this..
Austin: And I guess here's a thing. I think the wax, all the wax creatures have either been killed by the deputies or just stopped. Along, you know, on the outside of the, um, the Triadic Pyre, the church of the Triadic Pyre, all of those wax bodies have just melted into a sort of almost like a giant doorstop or something. You know, like a giant, like up against that front door. Just a big, just a big collection of wax. It's gross. What’s wild is I had a bunch of other notes about other gross stuff that was gonna happen today. Like, I truly was like, I think I'm going too hard on these descriptions of things that are really gross that is gonna happen if you try to fight Alaway. And just none of them happened, because they're…you’re welcome.
Keith: Another silver lining. You're welcome, everybody.
Austin: Truly, I was like, I think the content warning on this one is gonna be, like, too scary, so.
Dre: Yeah. Art doesn't have to listen to the F word anymore.
Austin: That’s true.
Art: So many fleshy things in that list.
Dre: I did— I tried not to say it, come on.
Austin: Uh huh.
Art: Well, it's like you can't tickle yourself.
Austin: Ah, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. [Keith laughs]
Dre: Huh. Yeah, I guess— huh. Huh.
Austin: I think that's— are we gonna break? Are we done? What's the thing? What's the… [laughs softly]
Keith (as Lyke): The only thing that— the only way that we could make this better is if I opened the thing back up and let the Ravening Beast in there, huh?
Dre: Wocka wocka.
Austin: We don't even know where the Ravening Beast is at this point, right? I mean, it was…I guess it’s in you.
Keith: No, that's just Lyke telling a joke.
Austin: Ah, I see. Yeah. Yeah.
Keith: That everyone found funny, I think.
Austin: I think you—
Janine: I just…
Austin: No, go ahead, Janine, please.
Janine: I had a thought in my head of like opening it and there's just like a train, [Dre laughs] like you’d hear a train whistle and then just like closing it, like Wile E. Coyote or something.
Austin: [laughs] Yes.
Janine: Like looking at the camera.
Austin: [laughs] I think you do dream of the…of the Ravening Beast tonight, Lyke, and it's that version of it that pulled you away from Virtue and the explosion and all that back in Sapodilla. It's the like, the version of it that's almost caring, you know what I mean? It's the like licking your face version?
Keith: It's the…it’s Marn's little lizard friend version of the Ravening Beast.
Austin: Right. Right. It's that version of it. Yeah. Yeah. If you can just keep it at Ravening Call and not let it get to Ravening Beast, it's not a bad impulse to have in you. You know what I mean? It's just it grows sometimes.
Keith: Yeah. Right. And it is scary, still.
Austin: It is scary.
Jack: Do we get like a…is there like an omen or something?
Austin: Oh, you know what? Yeah, I…yeah. In fact, I think I know exactly what it is, which is that, forgive me, but I think a few things happen at once. The building that you're in begins to shake as the storm arrives and the wind whips through and around the town. And at first, I think you just, you hear just the countless grains of sand scrubbing away at the walls and the windows and the door. And then, cutting through that sound is the train whistle. And I think here is where it becomes very clear that you maybe thought these were two different things, the train and the storm, but the train’s deep, loud call is from in the dust. And then behind it, and you didn't hear this before, and it's quiet at first or just maybe quiet compared to the loud whipping of the wind and the train call, there is music playing, a sort of sick, feverish song, droning and thrumming and warbling, and you feel it in your skull more than hear it with your ears. And none of that is the omen.
[music begins: “Sangfielle”]
Here is the omen. We see, from a wide angle, the six massive trees standing tall above Blackwick. And from their branches, too early still, the fruit begins to fall. And in some spots, it's clear it is not yet ripe. Yet also, from other angles, it seems bruised and oozing. And we get closer, we move closer, we zoom in through the storm, past the train whistle, past the music. We get closer and closer until we see it smash against the ground. And inside of this one big broken pomegranate, we see the flesh of the fruit. And inside of that, kind of all through it, almost like an echo of the entanglement of Alaway-Aterika'Kaal in the blood of the Mother-Beast, we see these half-finished objects. It’s a pair of of cast iron gates, all mixed up with each other, their posts stabbing into an unfinished bell, half of a bell, which kind of lays on the side of a spokeless wagon wheel. And all of it is soaked in the juice and the color of this rotting fruit.