Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Oh, shoot. Who's doing the intro?
Hey, guys.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Welcome back to barely DND. This is Landon, and I'm here to tell you that we actually got rid of Zach after the end of the last episode, so we're going to be replacing him with Matthew McConaughey.
Does someone want to do their best Matthew McConaughey impression?
[00:00:30] Speaker C: All right, all right, all right.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: That's Matthew McConaughey. We've got his twin brother, bathew McConaughey, as well as you heard. And look.
That's it, guys. Help. I'm drowning. I can't swim.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Help. Help.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: I made a nachos. Hi.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Why are y'all eating during the pod? Guys, over 100 episodes.
We could have waited to start recording.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Well, no, this is fake anchoring.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Anywho, welcome back to Bailey D and B. This is your sort of judges and podcast. We're back with more accidental adventure.
[00:01:07] Speaker D: I think everybody should go around and say what they're having for dinner.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Pretzel pizza. It's a pizza with a pretzel. With a pretzel crust. Yeah.
[00:01:16] Speaker D: Where did that come from?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Pretzel pizza. It's actually the name of the pizzeria.
It's in downtown Frederick if you want to come visit.
[00:01:25] Speaker D: I would love to. I'm on my way. London, you win dessert for so far. I mean, you. You win dinner so far.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: What would you have you in dinner?
[00:01:34] Speaker D: I'm having.
I mean, five raviolis.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: Did you cook them?
[00:01:44] Speaker D: No, I microwaved it.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: Okay. Because I've seen this girl eat raw ravioli out of the package.
[00:01:51] Speaker D: No, you haven't.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Yes, I have.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: I have seen you do that as well.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Yes, I've watched you do it. And Zack. Zack went along with it and started doing it too.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: When you were hanging out with me.
Yeah, it's like a thing.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: If we can all agree on something, it's. That's not true. Are the same the way that Abby eats raw ravioli is the same as the way that I occasionally drink raw eggs.
[00:02:17] Speaker D: No, that's not true. That is extra.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Not listener. Jackie, just for real. For real. Gagged. Actually, I haven't done it since I got married. Cause apparently it's very repulsive and disappointing, but, Jackie, what'd you have for dinner?
[00:02:31] Speaker C: I made a super quick plate of nachos. I just put a couple of slices of vegan cheese and jalapenos and microwaved it for two minutes.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:39] Speaker C: Quick. No quick nachos, titos, or tortilla chips.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah, brother.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Sponsor us.
[00:02:48] Speaker D: Can we get ravioli to sponsor?
[00:02:50] Speaker A: I had a. I don't mean to brag and totally break the basic bro mold, but I had chicken and rice with raw spinach, so.
But actually, it was pretty good because I make pretty good chicken and my.
[00:03:05] Speaker D: He's going Craig. He's going Craig mode.
Oh, he's going a little Craig.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: So anyhow, we'll call that our letter question. Oh, wait, no, I have a letter question. If your character.
What was your character's most common dinner before joining the fun guys?
[00:03:27] Speaker D: Dude.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Carly Carter.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: And who's the DMNPC?
[00:03:35] Speaker D: No.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: Wait. Wouldn't it have to be tello, though, since it was before joining the fun guys.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Oh, no.
Ro, what's yours?
[00:03:52] Speaker C: She probably. Knowing ro, she probably. She was. She's not healthy.
She probably had.
I guess she was in Port Leslie san la. So whatever bakery, she would just go get, like, pies and pastries and stuff her face like, she. Her diet consisted about 90% of just sugary products and then some bread.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Half dryads have wild metabolisms, and she doesn't eat animals.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: She's pescetarian. She eats fish. But she pretty much just ate sweets and ale. Sweets and ale, cake and ale.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:04:37] Speaker C: Life of a bar.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: She has amazing genes. The magic is a lot of what's keeping her alive. Yeah, because that. That's like the recipe for kidney failure there.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: The biggest role play I have is having the high metabolism of roll. Ro. That's my biggest fantasy.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Jackie. Inspiration. That was awesome.
Lando, what was Boz's average boss?
Bob.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Bob, you threw me off. Zach. Boz would love to grab a Zen and a monster and hit the day fresh. That's what his meal was.
A zen and a monster.
[00:05:16] Speaker C: What is a zen?
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Don't.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: Abby, do you know what a zen is?
Yeah.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Don't reward this. Jackie. Don't.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: I love making jokes that I know that only Abby will get. It makes me happy to see you laugh and everybody else filled with confusion. No, boss. Love to eat. Uh, I don't know.
They. Squirrels. They eat a lot of squirrels there.
There's. That's, like, easiest thing to catch. The squirrels are dumb there, so.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Well, I guess I have to canonize that.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
When we're going there, you'll have to eat animals.
[00:05:56] Speaker C: But eating some.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: No, they don't talk to squirrels. It's a rule.
It's the one animal they don't talk to.
[00:06:03] Speaker D: They're so stupid because they're doing.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: They're idiots. Yeah, they're. They're so dumb.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: In the last lines, they're just sitting around like, okay, squirrel, how's your day going? And then the squirrels just like, let me tell you about everything. And then they go, forget this.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Do you have games on your phone? That's what the squirrels say all the time.
[00:06:24] Speaker D: Greta, you're implying that toddlers are stupid.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Toddlers are very stupid, yes.
[00:06:30] Speaker D: Greta's meal, before she joined the fun guys, she lived with the hags, so she wasn't the cooking hag. So she just kind of ate whatever meat, whatever soup, whatever, like, you know, gruel.
You know, like, you know, like gruel, and it's like porridge, but like this.
[00:06:55] Speaker C: Whatever you wanna definitely not be gone.
[00:06:58] Speaker D: It's like she, her, the hag, the chef hag would make, like, gruel, but not grain. Do you know what I'm saying? It'd be like gruel. But Greta doesn't really know what it was.
She would eat the mystery things that the hags fed her. Sometimes they were very crunchy.
Sometimes there was no texture.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: This brings up a really interesting point, because, first of all, this really helps with Greta's constant characterization of somehow still being excited about hardtack and fish. Cause she was eating so awfully for a couple decades that her just taste is just bottomed out. So everything's thrilling now. But also, this brings up a really interesting point, because Greta is very much a person like the hags. However, this is an interesting aspect of how keeping Greta with them must have been a whole lot like keeping a pet, because the hags can just eat, like, rotting things and dead things. Maybe some people. And Greta needs, like, food to live. So the hags, probably for so many years, had to be like, oh, it's time to feed Greta again. And they'd have to be like, what do we get her? Someone would have to sit down and, like, druid craft some fruit or, like, you know, do some magic to make some grain. And they'd have to sit there and be like, we have to feed her again.
[00:08:22] Speaker D: They'd be like, why is she going so slow? Why? She's, like, really droopy today? And then they'd be like, did you feed her yesterday? Did you feed her the day before? What about that? And they just realized that I didn't see her for some time.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: And Greta's long survival and traveling in the wilderness, she probably did catch and make her own food rather often.
[00:08:43] Speaker D: But, yeah.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Noms would probably be a mix of one of two things, and one of them is very sad. So when jobs were good, and either she had done a job for someone or she had successfully stolen and hawked something, she would probably eat the best food she could get, especially fine breads. Considering that she liked to bake in the past, she'd probably eat the best food she could get out of the sides of kitchens at restaurants because there are probably a lot of places that she's not necessarily welcome or doesn't want to go in. So she would probably pay well for the best food out of the side of a kitchen when she had the money for it. And when things were lean, there was probably like a lot of like, stealing food before it went into restaurants. Probably. Well, taverns. Probably most often.
Probably half out of the need to survive and half out of the bitter, like, resentment to try and seek food in a more accessible way, instead being like, screw you, I'm gonna steal your food. Cause you know you make me kinda live this way ish. And so I don't wanna be a part of you and all your stuff. Those are probably her most common meals. So the steady access of food on the fungi has to be something. A small part of what's keeping her on the ship.
But anywho.
Oh, I thought Abby had a point. She was just agreeing.
This is another episode of the Accidental Adventures. For my note taking nerds, it's a level ten adventure. The date is 34 88 peep peak color drawn. 22 22.
[00:10:31] Speaker D: That's your birthday?
[00:10:32] Speaker C: I love that. Me and Abby were both like 22.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: I accidentally said the date and I wasn't supposed to.
Dang it. It is the 22nd. Okay, but your characters don't know that.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: What's funny is Zach puts the characters in a forest where it's impossible to know the time on their birthday. That's great.
That's all Zach's fault.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Skip your birthday.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: That's all Zach's fault. That doesn't have any do with our.
[00:10:58] Speaker C: Choice whose birthday.
[00:11:01] Speaker D: My birthday is. I think the 22nd, but I'm checking.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Feel really bad if I almost skipped a character birthday. I don't have them all memorized. I'm trying so hard.
[00:11:19] Speaker D: A lot of papers. Give me 1 second.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Okay. Anyway, I'm gonna move on.
This is episode. Well, okay, but.
Okay. Abby, do you have your notes? Because I'm about to say the title. I'm preparing.
[00:11:38] Speaker D: Oh my gosh.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
It is episode 103. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we are in the 100s. Holy crap. This is a big campaign. Episode 103 of the Accidental Adventures visions.
There's gonna be combat.
[00:12:00] Speaker D: Are you serious?
[00:12:02] Speaker A: No, I wouldn't title it visions. If there was combat combat in our minds, I would have leaned further into that, except that I think it would have kept freaking any of everyone out. Okay, so we're just gonna skiddily dop dop, hop into it.
Fun, guys.
You stand happy, you stand 100ft away from a wellspring and the whole party just stands there in the perfect peace and the stunning beauty at the edge of the wellspring.
A couple things to note before we get into it. There are things you all are taking in passively from your environment.
Boz, one of the things you are noticing is that your apiary is reacting near the magic. Well, actually, hold on, let me be a little more specific. Everyone's magic, everything is magicking and reacting. Every magic item is thrumming and there is cyan. Like, like, like cerulean. Oh, it's lighter than cerulean. Like a turquoise light spilling out of the hilt at the edge of star Splinter. And as, as Craig, like, slits it up, like pulls it out, the gemstone in it is just glowing vibrantly ro your lute as you're sitting there not playing it. The chords are like, like reverberating. And occasionally, like, if you even just touch the chords, you'll hear them play notes that you heard when you played like some small portion of the old song. And the magic is just reacting to it. Boz is glowing brightly with like 10ft of light as he is now just filled with magical item as a part of his anatomy. And Boz, one of the things you notice is that the, the apiary, its colors are brightening and almost reflecting in the waving patterns. So as like, as the wellspring, as like a band of colored magic wall lift up and swing away as like a blue band lifts up like, well, it's constantly shifting and changing tone and hue, but as like a band of light will lift up and dissipate, the, like, waves of the bees inside the apiary will like mimic it. And it's like the colors of the wellspring are washing over the apiary's surface but a moment later than true reflection. So at first you think it's just the light, like being caught on the glass of the apiary, but the light will dissipate and the reflection will remain on the apiary and it like, moves past the edge of its cubic shape. Like the light is bending around the opposite side. And I mean, you know, other you guys, you guys have a ton of magic items that are reacting positively and powerfully and all of you all are magically implicated and affected somehow. And every ability you have, every sense, every magical connection is heightened. And you feel like the world has more color, and it's just everything is intense, and it feels good. And you stand before what you have learned to be one of the natural, arcane sources of all magic and life. In Jalabrin, a powerful, potent source of magic, you can feel its intensity.
You have reached the destination you all sought together for so long.
I'm gonna get some whiskey. You guys keep role playing. Tell me what you're doing. I can hear you.
Or not. To be fair, I can't force you. You know. I don't have that power.
[00:16:00] Speaker C: Rotten Abby.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: You are muted.
[00:16:03] Speaker C: Is there still flowers around you?
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Landon Murray was everywhere.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: What did he say? Did he say flowers everywhere?
[00:16:16] Speaker B: I don't know what he said. It sounded like he was speaking German.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Everywheres. There's the flowers.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: I don't speak. I don't speak. Okay, so there's flour on the ground.
[00:16:29] Speaker C: I'm.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: I pick one up.
[00:16:30] Speaker C: I'm gonna go up to you and, like, touch the flowers on the ground.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:38] Speaker C: And then touch you.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: I'm gonna touch my flowers on my head, and I'm gonna touch the flowers on the ground, and I bowles.
[00:16:49] Speaker C: Can you feel, like.
Are you, like, connected?
Like, can you feel the touch?
[00:17:02] Speaker B: What are you. Are you smoking something? What did you do?
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Every moment, actually. Actually, the longer you stand there, boz, you start realizing you're having trouble lifting your feet as your roots spread.
And you feel. Buzz. That hum of the forest you've been feeling just reverberates in your chest. Chest. You have never. And you have. You've had some of the most incredible experiences of any person currently living in Yalden. And you have never felt this alive, this purely empowered and enthralled. And as ro reaches down and touches the flower.
Yeah. You can feel it buzz. You can feel the forest.
You can hear the forest.
And that cacophony of voices sounds far more like a symphony of voices now.
Like a. Like a spoken song, like a. Like a chanted poem.
Indecipherable and beautiful.
Give me.
Give me, um.
Give me a wisdom check at advantage.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: That is a natural 20. Oh, plus wisdom. A wisdom check? No, just straight wisdom.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: No, I want to pick a proficiency thing. I'll say either arcana or nature. One of the two.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: That's a 29.
Wow.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Holy crap.
That is extremely fitting.
Bahs, like, seeing something on the horizon, like, just barely hearing a sound real quick.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: Sorry. It is. It is midnight here, and somebody's driving up the driveway. Let me go check out what's going on. Do y'all mind doing something real quick with somebody else?
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, girl. Do it. We'll come back to you.
[00:19:21] Speaker C: Oh, he left.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, he just straight up left.
[00:19:24] Speaker C: I hope you can't come back to that. I will be right back. Since he's, since he's doing that, I just, I gotta.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Okay, shift. No, Abby, this is suddenly our responsibility. What is, Greta?
[00:19:41] Speaker C: Do I have to go wash my hands? I'm sorry.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: If you're gonna do it, do it fast. What you doing? Greta?
[00:19:46] Speaker D: Greta. Greta's gonna walk towards, they're like, we're like 100ft away.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[00:19:56] Speaker D: Okay. Gonna like, walk very, very slowly towards the world spring.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Okay.
It's very tricky that none of the other players can react to that choice.
[00:20:13] Speaker D: Sorry. Maybe I have a different choice in my mind.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Okay.
Okay, I'll lead with that. I trust you.
[00:20:23] Speaker D: What's the only choice that I had? But I was like, maybe I can different.
Do I need to have a different choice?
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Can we. You can totally do that. Can we do something else first? Something else that, like, everyone else doesn't need to react to.
Like anything, like personal or present.
I don't know. I really want you to just be able to do whatever you want, whenever you want. But I also need the other players to be able to react to what people are doing with the wealth.
[00:20:51] Speaker D: Can we take a break and win for Landon?
[00:20:53] Speaker A: No. Cause then that makes things very complicated in editing.
Let's do this.
Craig stops for a second.
He goes, okay, Lana's back. Land is back. We're all good. Nevermind. We're going straight back.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: No one's invading.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: So Bozeman, like, like seeing something at the edge of horizon, being pretty sure you see it. Like faintly hearing a sound.
You feel in the dimmest, most enrapturing sense. You feel the entire westwood.
All of it.
No, boss, you feel all of it.
Bahas, you feel abobab and nikistenec stretch outward toward the sun.
Do you feel an acacia raining for water in Kraska?
You feel the stillness of a stonewood tree in Ashas.
You feel the shift of mixed grasses under wind and zyllium bahs. You can feel agba.
You can feel all of it from here in the faintest way.
That's that. That's that. That's, that's the thing you're experiencing.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: I think it's overwhelming. I don't think boss is saying much at all right now. I think he's kind of glazed. I'm kind of glazed over. And then just kind of going, yeah, I want to reach out and, like, touch whoever's near me to see if they can, like, feel it, too.
Like, I'm, like, reaching out. Somebody just, like, with, like, a glaze. Like, I was like, I'm not touching him. I'm just, like, like, reaching out my hand towards anybody who wants.
[00:23:04] Speaker C: I grab his hand. Cause I was messing with the flowers.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Sure. So you reach out and you touch his hand. Craig just goes and grabs your other hand. And then Craig goes, like, okay, this is weird. And he's just holding your other hand. But, bro, is you touch bass hand.
You feel the thrum.
The dryad in you is reacting to it, and you. You're not getting the same experience he is, but you can feel the thrum.
Craig stares at the wellspring for a while, and then he says, um, well. And he looks down and there's a weight in his hands.
Guys, let me, um.
I need to go have a talk. It kind of splits off from the group. And I have spoken with Micah, who is not here. And what we are going to do is we're gonna have all of your moments this evening. And then next time, in our next episode, you're gonna go back, back in time to this moment with Craig, and Craig's other possible moment. You're going to have both those moments with Micah, and then the timelines will match back up and we'll move forward. So Micah is going to go have a conversation with the orb, or Craig is for a while. And so you guys have, like, a certain amount of time. As Craig speaks with the orb, you can have more role play, or you can just say, we stand there and awe until he returns. Up to you.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: We stand there and awe until he returns.
[00:24:43] Speaker C: Well, as Ro is still holding Boz's hand, after a few minutes, she says, it's.
It's.
It's like the most beautiful song.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: As you all stand there, taking in one of Yalovan's greatest wonders, Craig walks back, kind of solemn look, and he says, I mean, it's what we're here for, right?
[00:25:40] Speaker D: Can you start walking towards it very.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Slowly if you'd like to, because everyone else can react? Okay, so Greta kind of breaks off from the group and starts walking toward the wellspring.
[00:25:52] Speaker D: Like, very slow and, like, very slow. Like, each step is, like.
Like, each step feels, like, really heavy, but also it feels like I'm, like, floating. Does that make sense?
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Yes, it does.
[00:26:11] Speaker D: So I just, like, completely enchanted, almost like zombie. Like.
I walk towards it.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
As you slowly tread toward it. Greta, it's fine if no one does. No one needs to. I'm just giving anyone else the opportunity. Does anyone react to that particularly or.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Not like what Craig said or.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: Well, either I walk.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: If somebody starts heading towards the well, I probably, I would walk with them.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Okay, so then I'll tell you what happens. Hold on, I need to open the document real quickly.
Sorry, I should, great.
[00:26:49] Speaker D: I'm kind of scared, maybe.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: No, no, it's just, it's just this other like notes thing I have to have prepared. Sorry, 1 second.
[00:26:59] Speaker D: We're like 100ft away from it. Right? Like, I'm not gonna walk into it. I just want to, like walk.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Okay. There's gonna be, there's gonna be no crazy sudden surprises. I just had to open up something to reference for a detail.
And then Greta died.
No, give me a second.
Okay, hold on. I just, there's this other, like, tiny detail thing I had to have ready that I forgot to have up.
So as Craig says, like, this is what we're here to do.
As if in silent agreement or perhaps of her own accord, Greta begins treading toward the wellspring. Boss follows.
Craig just kind of matches pace, and the whole group is very slowly treading forward. And as you all are, this bizarre thing is happening where every step you take closer, it's like the ground is softening and you are meeting the same level plane of ground, but you feel like you're stepping through the cloud, through the grass, as if the ground just dissolving, becoming less structural and less permanent under you, but you're also not sinking. So you're a little sure. Exactly. You're a little unsure what it is you're stepping on because it feels like you're stepping through it in the wisps of light, as if light was dense, condensed from a particle into a gas, maybe even into a fluid, just pouring and burning across the ground, and it is just there. Every color in existence in some amount here in some shifting hue, is represented not in a constant garish rainbow, but in, in sudden and gentle delineations of the light. It's always golden white. And eventually it breaks into other hues and it tends to kind of like oil slick rainbow out until it's just white light again. As you all tread forward, you guys get closer. And Greta, you feel all the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Your pupils dilate, and one of the branches of light from the west ring just reaches out and reaches out toward you, branching and spindling out, stops about like 30ft in front and then just dissipating. And as it gets close to you, it's so intense that, like, your senses start to blur and you kind of have to, like, stop for a second and dissipates away. Everything calms back down, and every step closer is like stepping closer into a freezer or into an oven, or it's just thermally intense. But again, still not bad.
As you move forward, Craig goes, how close do you think we have to get it? Or. I don't know.
Wait, do I just, do I just toss it in?
[00:29:44] Speaker C: Wait, wait.
Ro thinks of old, and she says out loud, are you not gonna say goodbye to the rest of us?
[00:30:05] Speaker A: You don't feel a response.
And as you look down at the orb, all of the fluid is like, there's like that central portion, but instead of pulsing out in every direction, it's all just pulsing against the side of the glass and, like, undulating and pressing and swirling against that side, facing toward the wellspring.
And the colors, what is usually a dark black with a rainbow iridescence. The entire thing is like pulsing with iridescent hues that match the wellspring.
Greg goes, well, okay. And he walks up to, like, 20ft away from the wellspring.
It's all just, he goes down, huh, okay. As he gets about 20ft away, he puts it down on the ground and he just goes, bye, I guess, buddy.
And he rolls the orb, and it goes until it just gets kind of swallowed up by the light. And as it reaches close, all the light tendrils sweep up toward it, and then they, like, lift it up off of the ground. And as the orb is lifted up, all of the pulsing fluid inside stalks outward. And just like, it's like it crystallizes in a moment, up against the sides of the glass orb in just rainbow hues. And then it's like those begin to melt, like they're being superheated, superheated? Superheated. And the orb gets lowered down into the light, and then the entire wellspring just pulses with color.
And Craig goes, cat, I don't know how long that's gonna take or how that works.
Tello is just kind of standing stock still, a little behind everyone else, with, like, a thin mist of tears and his eyes staring at the wellspring, just kind of stunned.
What's everyone else doing?
[00:32:23] Speaker C: I go up behind Craig and just kind of, me too, put my arm, like, interlock my arm around him as much as I can as much as ro can.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah, me too.
[00:32:34] Speaker D: I go up and I hold on to ro.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Okay.
Greg's just kind of sniffing a little and just staring. He's gotten really quiet.
And then after a moment, there's this motion in the wellspring and the light that goes kind of pulsing. And then the orb bobs up to the surface, floating on the light. The dense glass object, maybe like five or seven pounds you felt before, is floating on the surface of the light, and it begins just slowly drifting back toward you all. And the orb is not the same, the dark fluid, or, well, it's not dark at all anymore.
The thick, viscous, completely iridescent fluid, a white iridescence, now brilliant, has almost filled the entire orb so that it looks less now like the venom ink strapped in the middle of a glass ball, and instead, like a glass orb that's been filled to all. But it's like, it's like outermost centimeter of perimeter with just, like, light fluid is just rolling toward you all. And as it gets to the edge, it rolls out of the wellspring and then just back over the ground. And Craig picks it up.
The fluid isn't pulsing like language anymore. It's just continuously moving.
Craig just nods and puts it in his bag to the side.
[00:34:16] Speaker D: I, like, whisper to Craig as he did it.
Did he say anything?
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Craig looks at you and says, well, we're definitely gonna have to wait until the player who actually plays me to come back to say something. Cause I'm, you know, that's. Yeah.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: Zach cast metagame.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: Zack has met again.
[00:34:43] Speaker D: They're always so smart. Cray.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: Thank you.
What's everybody else doing?
[00:34:55] Speaker C: Does anyone still feel him?
[00:35:00] Speaker D: Don't.
I don't think he likes me. Knew me.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: I don't.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: There's like a pause, and then all of you all hear in your minds at the same time.
I'm not gone. I'm just enraptured.
I still need you to take it to the ocean.
I.
[00:35:30] Speaker D: What ocean? Any ocean.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: There's no other response.
[00:35:37] Speaker D: Wow.
Dm. Did he say enraptured?
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah, he's enraptured.
[00:35:44] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:45] Speaker D: I don't know if he is enraptured.
[00:35:47] Speaker C: Or if he had been raptured.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: I mean, which of those two do you think I said?
[00:35:57] Speaker D: I honestly wasn't sure.
[00:35:59] Speaker C: It could have been either.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: Okay. Anyway, um, what are, what are, what are the other characters doing now that I want to bring this moment? Huh?
[00:36:11] Speaker B: I want to touch the edge of the well thing. I'm just looking at yeah, I do that.
[00:36:17] Speaker D: I copy, boss. I'm gonna do a boss is doing.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: I go to the edge with them, but I just sit down and start strumming my loop.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Okay, so standing, always back, looking stunned. Um, Craig's kind of sitting there staring at all, looking at you all. Boz just walks confidently. Do I have that right? Good description.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: Yeah, he does.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: Okay. Boz walks confidently toward the edge. Greta follows closely after Ro. You follow a little sooner after, and I. Yeah.
[00:36:53] Speaker D: I'm not gonna do exactly what. Boss, I'm sorry, but.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: Okay, so Boz, as he reaches down and touches the edge of the wellspring, or, like, reaches towards the edge of the wellspring, Boz, you get, like, a couple inches away, and as you look right to it, is so bright and mesmerizing, all those swirly colors. As you reach out, that golden white light just reaches up and the slightest little tendril reaches out and just barely connects with your finger, like, maybe three inches above the surface.
You all watch as Baaz touches his entire body, kind of jolts just a little bit, just bounces and bahs, your vision just, it doesn't go to black, it goes to bright.
And you cannot hear, you cannot see it. You are just flooded with sensory input. Could you give me a constitution saving throw?
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
Money is my inspiration.
That is an 18, a natural 18. Okay, erase my inspiration now.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: You all watch as Baaz, like, kind of shocks, pulses. And as he sits there for a moment, you all watch. All of those little crystalline fragments around across his body kind of shine for a moment, and he stalks still, and then he just falls limp.
And as he falls down into the light, his body just kind of, like, half of him is disappeared beneath the. The depth of the light with, like, kind of, like, his left shoulder sticking up. You can see, like, half of his face bisecting him. And boss is just fully unconscious at the end at the edge of the wellspring.
[00:38:46] Speaker C: Wait, like, in it halfway in.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: Half. Half in it, half in it. Craig goes boss and kind of, like, runs up toward him. What's everybody else doing?
[00:38:55] Speaker D: I'm gonna look to ro and be like, should I, should I drag him out? Should I leave him there? What do I do?
[00:39:01] Speaker A: Tello kind of jogs forward as well.
[00:39:05] Speaker C: I don't know.
I guess we should make sure he doesn't fall all the way.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Greg runs up and just pushes ro out of the way and kind of starts shaking bahs aside and being like, buzz, buzz, you okay? And tello kind of like, runs up.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: Do I hear them.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: We'll get to that in a second.
But at the moment, you are not conscious.
But we will get to that.
As everyone is gathered very near to Boz, the whole wellspring kind of like quakes and shakes, and a wave of light just sort of reaches out, and as it reaches out, it gets up near the edge near all of you, and a bunch of light just waves up next to you. And I need both of you all to give me constitution safety. Both of you all.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: I love that term.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: It's a little magnetic at certain distances.
[00:40:11] Speaker D: Oh, goodness gravy guy.
[00:40:13] Speaker C: I'm gonna burn my inspiration.
[00:40:15] Speaker D: Me as well. I got a good idea, but don't tell the Dan.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: You should burn the inspiration.
[00:40:23] Speaker C: It's a little better. Not too much better.
[00:40:27] Speaker D: Can I guide myself?
[00:40:36] Speaker A: Like, there's a part of me that wants to say, absolutely not. It's an instantaneous internal saving throw. That's not how that works. But then there's another part of me that specified that magic was heightened here.
So I'm gonna say guidance does not apply to saving throws. Never has. But in this one specific instance, I'll actually say that it does because, like, magic is heightened and it is a deity protecting you. So, yes, I'll say in this one instance, you can utilize guidance, because I did specify that all the magic tightened.
[00:41:03] Speaker D: I'm sorry. I forgot that you can.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: What'd you get, ro?
[00:41:06] Speaker C: A 14.
[00:41:14] Speaker D: I got a 17.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: Okay.
Okay. Let me make a couple rolls.
[00:41:24] Speaker D: Scary good.
[00:41:28] Speaker C: Great, boss. Always going and touching things.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: Hey, I have too short not to touch all the stuff you can see.
[00:41:37] Speaker C: Don't touch the bot.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: If we have any musicians who are fans, please write a tiny little ditty for Boz. Always going and touching stuff.
[00:41:48] Speaker C: I just did.
I just wrote it.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Sorry. 1 second.
I did feed Maya dinner when I got home.
[00:42:00] Speaker D: Life is too short not to touch all the things you see.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: Uh, Greta ro, same experience. Shocks of white, all sensory loss. All three of you fall rigid and just fall into the light.
Greta.
Well, let's open with Bozeman. He was the first.
Boz, you sort of blink awake. Not shocking awake. I'm breaking my own mold. You, um.
You blink awake with some heavy blinks, and as you rouse yourself, you kind of like you're waking up to griefen green strips of something, occluding your vision from every side.
As you blink through, you realize that, like, you're on your side and that grass is covering your vision. It's all around you. It's fairly soft.
And as you sit up and reorient yourself to gravity. You're sitting in, like a field, and grass is kind of all the way like, as you sit upright all the way up to your shoulders, and it's like a thin, soft, flexible reed. And there's just a little bit of moisture everywhere, like a layer of water, maybe two inches deep that you're sitting in.
And as you sit up and orient yourself around to the world, there's daylight all around you. But when you look up, you see starscape, but like, with daylight brightness around, but a night sky.
And when you look up in the air, you see Tuilo and Tuila, you see the sun, and then you see another kind of bright blue object you don't recognize, and then a bright red one, and then a kind of grayish one, and then a sort of orange auburn ish one, and then a burgundy one. And they're all kind of rotating through the sky.
And you're at this, like, patch of reeds that's surrounded by riverine strips, and then more reed clump, and then more reed clump, and that goes on for some distance out in every direction.
And there are flowers sprouting all around you, and you just kind of wake up in this space.
Also, you're muted.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: Are my friends there, or is it by myself?
[00:44:48] Speaker A: You appear to be alone.
[00:44:50] Speaker B: Do I see anybody, like, around me?
[00:44:54] Speaker A: Just the landscape.
[00:45:05] Speaker B: I kind of sit and I wait. I assume that people are going to come after me.
I'm just going to wait for them to get here, too, before I go do anything.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Okay.
It's peaceful.
Some wind moves from an unclear sars, and all the reeds dance with it.
You notice now that there are white flowers budding every so often standing up on thick green stalks with a kind of, like, triangular shape to the stalk, sprouting upward. Every so many distances between the reeds, the water is very, very, very blue green certain distances away. Like maybe there's greater depths of water in between the reed patches. Or perhaps it's shallow. It's hard to tell.
Is there for water?
[00:45:59] Speaker B: After a while, I'll water.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: Okay. You rise up through the reed, and you take a cautious step, and as your foot penetrates the surface, disrupting the fluid glass, it presses down a certain distance. So it's not that deep. It's like wet soils here. You're not wearing any shoes. It's just your bare feet.
And you realize all of a sudden that you're not in your adventuring gear. You're in, like, attire from home, a couple of simple vestments woven from different kind of, like, plant leather fabrics.
No one's come.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: Does the water feel interesting at all or.
[00:46:50] Speaker A: It's cool. It's.
It's very cool.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: Does it seem similar to the. What I have in my, um.
I guess the salutary water.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: As it percolates your mind, you realize that none of your belongings are on you. But as you reach down and touch it and test it, maybe even taste it. Yes, this is. This is like the water from the temple. It's just like it.
[00:47:19] Speaker B: I take a big old gulp. This is my favorite water.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Okay. As you reach down and place your hands in, Abby made a scared face. I don't know why. You reach down and you place your hands in and you bring it up to your mouth, and as you sip, it's deeply cool and refreshing.
It's an incredible experience every time. And as you look up from drinking, some of the water falling away from your chin and down your chest.
And the next reed patch patch over there is sprouting a very large, broad flower with kind of like, it has sort of like, fanning very delicate, narrowing, tapering petals, seven of them that are kind of in a spiraling pattern, overlaying them with thick green stalk in the middle. It's white at the base, and it slowly fades into tans and creams until it reaches dark brown edges, as if a flower wilting or maybe blooming in reverse, or maybe blooming just still filling with pigmentation.
And it's got, like some golden anthers, three in the middle, sticking outward, and it's just kind of growing. Tallest alone among the reeds.
[00:48:33] Speaker B: I move closer to it. It's not deep water, right? I can just, like, walk.
[00:48:38] Speaker A: You take another cautious step and you tread safely through it. It's shallow. You walk over the next reed patch. Reeds can be hard and sharp, serrated at their edges, but you recognize these all as very soft as you pass through them.
And as you walk closer to the flower, you see flickers of color at the water's border, golden and colorful, until they rush over the reeds and a wind to the middle. And then the flower alights with golden flame of light that at the edge of every tip burns into different rainbow hues. Slowly, a gentle fire just burning around the edges of the flower but not burning it.
Ro you awake.
You feel moisture around the edge of your head, around your face, over your neck, over your whole body.
You are entirely wet and submerged and with just kind of your face and part of your chest, your knees sitting up out of it.
Is your eyes open?
[00:50:04] Speaker C: Oh, sorry.
[00:50:05] Speaker A: You stare upward at a dark, black sky filled with stars.
And you sit up, and there is endless watery expanse. Every direction.
As you look back up at the sky, your keen mind is pricked for a second. You don't know those constellations.
And as you study it. Oh.
Oh. You don't understand what you're looking at.
There are more than just stars and thick bands of them in the sky. There are strips of deep purple and burgundy pillars of light covered in starscapes.
You look out at what you do not even understand to be cosmos.
Depictions of intergalactic bodies that you don't have reference for starscapes from other realms all over, painting the skyd, nauseating beauty.
And you stand there alone in the waves.
Or sit up there alone in the waves.
[00:51:20] Speaker C: There's no. There's no, like, shore. It's just water.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: As far as I can see, water in every direction.
[00:51:30] Speaker C: And how deep is it? Like where I'm at? You said I'm sitting.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: You're sitting up in it. But as you're sitting in it, you realize you're not on a solid surface, but you're sitting in the water, but there's no surface beneath you. It's like you're highly buoyant.
I'm listening.
[00:51:58] Speaker C: I try to, like, you know, when you're floating on water and, like, you, like when you were a kid and you want to go, like, under the pool, and so you want to go down under it, and so you, like, push up so that you can try to, like, submerge yourself.
She does that.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: Okay. As you push yourself down, you beneath its surface, and as you successfully plunge yourself below, as you push yourself beneath the waves, you like your. The position and force pull of gravity normalizing against the back of you, orients yourself downward and then reverses and you flip. And as you rise up, as you fall deeper into the water, you fall down into it until your head breaks the surface back into gas. And you rise back up out of water on the, like, on the opposite side, but back up the same way. But now you look up at a different starscape you also do not recognize. Startling and beautiful.
And you sit again atop the waves, rising all the way up above them now, as if you are perfectly buoyant.
[00:53:15] Speaker C: Do I have anything on me, like any of my stuff?
[00:53:19] Speaker A: No.
In fact, you are fully naked in the space.
Not even closed.
No belongings, nothing.
[00:53:44] Speaker C: I stare up at the. At this sky for our ski.
A minute or two, and then I submerge myself back under again and this time, I make sure, or I try to keep my eyes open the whole time.
[00:54:05] Speaker A: Okay. As you twist and submerge under you keep your eyes open as the fluid greets it. It doesn't burn, it doesn't irritate your sclera, your pupils. As you rotate under, you twist through. As you rotate under the black darkness of the fluid of the water, what spins before you is a series of light and shape you do not understand.
Images of cosmos that you and I, Jackie and Zach, do not have context for.
As you rise up out of the water again on the other side, you sit again beneath skies you do not know, but that are stunningly beautiful.
There is this ripple across the water and then again from another direction, like a wind.
But your keen ears pick up on a tonality, a note.
Dang it. I really need the sound to come through. I'm gonna lower my mic sense. Give me a second here.
Okay, I'm gonna try. This comes reverberating through.
It's deep and it's bassy and it's resonant, and you can't tell if the sound is being carried over the water or coming from the resonation of the waves. Again it comes.
It sounds like the reverberation of a thousand cellos speaking tone and tune all at once.
[00:56:14] Speaker C: I.
Since I'm kind of like, floating on top, I try to, like, push my head so that my ears kind of go into the water to see if it's, like, louder when my ears are under the water.
[00:56:29] Speaker A: As you push your ears back under the water, your body floats perfectly at the surface with only your ears and the back inch of all of your body submerged. As you look up at the starscape, it gently rotates, dazzling you, and you start to see slightest intonation, hints of a pattern in them, or a pattern of patterns, or a series of patterns.
And you hear from the waves below, but it sounds like it's being played from a near infinite number of instruments.
[00:57:15] Speaker C: Does it have the same feeling of when I was holding baz's hand earlier or different?
[00:57:22] Speaker A: No, far more intense, far more complete. Ro, you feel like you're hearing a complete melody, a melody lacking nothing, a melody lacking so little. It's like you can't find the ends of it and reverberates back and forth.
Greta, you awake?
And you are facing up toward. I'm sorry, I'm trying to find the right song for this. Is this my song?
Yeah, we'll go with this. Krita, you awake with soft, damp sense.
Give to the world behind you.
You shift your body. No, I'm gonna change a song anyway. I'm gonna keep going as I described you.
The familiar sights, sounds and sensations of long decayed leaf litter. Dark mosses, hard stones smoothed by moisture. Loamy soils giving under your weight. And you sit up and you look at dark grey trees all around you.
No. Pale, ashen gray, thick and smooth, widening at the base into competing, tightened canopies.
You're in the greywood and you can't tell if you're at the edge of morning or the edge of evening. The light is either waning or gathering.
You sit up alone in the wood.
A bird chirps and tweets as it barrels through the air and up and through the canopy.
Nondescript gray bird, cool like slate, dipping and weaving between branches.
[00:59:41] Speaker D: Go round.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: The forest spreads out around you, beautiful and calm.
[00:59:58] Speaker D: How does my body feel?
[01:00:06] Speaker A: Peaceful.
Not exhilarated, not slowed.
Stilled.
You feel Greta.
You feel the shadows at the edge of the trees.
They loom and they stretch across the ground again.
You're not certain whether or not the light is coming to abate the darkness, or if these are the last children of the dawn slowly giving way to a night that's coming.
And the tension of all this place has been to you looms not far beyond.
You become aware of how constricted the light is below the thick canopy, how much depth there is to the shadows of this place, how far into them one could venture.
As you pause there and you contemplate, you hear a sound.
You hear a little note cut short from somewhere nearby, maybe 30ft past a tree to your left.
[01:01:53] Speaker D: Can you make the sound again?
[01:01:55] Speaker A: It's like a, like a snapping of something and then like a stifled.
Yeah, kind of, maybe. But it's a little more forceful, quicker, and I can't make the right sound. But think of a note so high that it's like a bird makes, just kind of being quickly cut short.
[01:02:13] Speaker D: Then go walk over towards it.
[01:02:16] Speaker A: Okay. As you stand up and round a tree, your eyes are greeted with a sight you had completely forgotten and immediately recognize. There's a simple snare, sort of y shaped branch cut at the elongating, connecting stem, connected just sort of very crudely nailed down into the base of a tree behind it with the middle of that branch pulled backward tight on a twine, bending with the green root and just a sharp point down and there is a little small mound of like crushed beetle carapace and some seed that's connected to just a little wood slit, a little panel little shaving. Well, the shavings too thin, but a little thin panel of wood that connects to the string. The bird has landed, depressed the plate released the sling. And the simple arm has come down and the bird is pierced. Laying on the rock.
Dark red blood is flowing out from beneath it. And it's only half moving, flapping its left wing unevenly.
It's taking sharp sudden movements, but it's growing cold, slowly moving less. And you remember how you would snare birds this way. Do you recognize the snare as you're on?
[01:03:39] Speaker D: I'm gonna rush over to it and like, undo the snare.
[01:03:44] Speaker A: Okay.
You relieve the tension in the cord. And you realize that you're gonna have to pull the sharpened stick out of the bird.
[01:04:00] Speaker D: Yeah, I do so, okay.
[01:04:04] Speaker A: Its body is very fragile and gentle. And as you depress it, you just pull the sharpened stick out. And the bird sort of twitches suddenly and then grows very still and dark red blood pours.
[01:04:17] Speaker D: Can I feel for a heartbeat?
[01:04:21] Speaker A: Put your hand on it. It feels cold and still. You remember this? Songbirds die quickly.
[01:04:29] Speaker D: I, like, lay it down, like in, I'm on my knees and I just lay it down in front of me and just bury my head in my hands, like dig my palms into my eyes. There's blood all over my face. Now.
[01:04:51] Speaker A: You smear your face with the rapidly cooling fluid that grows warmer.
Pause.
You stand before the flower, a light and golden fire.
[01:05:11] Speaker B: Before the flower?
[01:05:14] Speaker A: Yeah, the flower that's on fire.
Hey, let me, let me. I'm sorry about this. Let me test something really quickly.
I'm going to take my other earbud out because it's telling me I'm running out of battery.
Can you, can somebody talk or.
[01:05:35] Speaker D: Hello?
[01:05:36] Speaker C: Hello, how do you hear us?
[01:05:39] Speaker A: Voice setting to.
[01:05:41] Speaker C: How are you doing?
[01:05:48] Speaker A: Okay, can somebody say something?
[01:05:50] Speaker C: Pepperoni.
[01:05:54] Speaker A: Sorry to interrupt my own situation, but there we go. Okay, there we go. Okay. Are you guys getting any feedback from my mic from the computer?
[01:06:07] Speaker C: I don't think so.
[01:06:09] Speaker A: Okay. Sick. I'm just gonna play it out loud because my earbuds died. But anyway, sorry, boz, you're before the burning flower.
Do you do anything with that or.
[01:06:25] Speaker B: Uh, I don't know, do I?
[01:06:34] Speaker A: That is a question only you are equipped to answer.
[01:06:38] Speaker B: So it's just, it's burning on a lake.
[01:06:44] Speaker A: Essentially, yes. Okay.
[01:06:46] Speaker B: What would Moses do?
Take off my shoes.
[01:06:50] Speaker C: You don't have.
[01:06:52] Speaker A: Well, step ahead of yourself because you don't have.
[01:06:59] Speaker B: Let my people go.
[01:07:05] Speaker A: If only I could paint a scene so beautiful.
The animation from that movie let my people go.
So Boz sings in a deep voice over the flower.
[01:07:22] Speaker C: The flower opens because he's saying to it.
[01:07:26] Speaker B: I see that we have about three choice in front of us right now. I can eat the flower.
[01:07:31] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[01:07:31] Speaker B: I can pick the flower.
[01:07:33] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[01:07:35] Speaker B: I can stand and look at the flower.
Sniff the flower.
[01:07:39] Speaker C: Isn't it really big?
[01:07:41] Speaker B: A flower?
[01:07:43] Speaker C: Isn't it really big?
[01:07:47] Speaker A: There's a flicker. I will. I am receiving the message, Landon. There is a flicker of more golden flower at the edge. Or more golden fire at the edge of the water and from the other side. And it's as much light as it is fire from the weight of ears as it burns around you in circles, as you kind of step back and you realize that the way that these patches of reeds are arranged, there's, like, a central circle and a larger one outside of that. And then one to the right, one to the left, one below. And then the pattern rotates. And then it rotates as it gets larger. It's like a series of maker symbols. Where the water is the outline of the shape, and then the reeds, or the interstitial space between. And there's flowers at the center of it burning.
And as some of that golden fire catches along the water at the edge of each, there's, like, kind of another movement of wind.
And the reed at the edge of all, where you're standing, also alights with that golden fire. Just, you hear a voice say, pause.
[01:09:05] Speaker B: Hello?
Hello. Is it. Is it coming from the flowers? Acri.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: Kind of. But every time the voice speaks, all the fire everywhere kind of, like, pulses a little bit, dances with it, really reacts.
Does Boz say anything else?
[01:09:42] Speaker B: Sorry. I'm.
[01:09:43] Speaker A: It's okay. It's late.
[01:09:44] Speaker B: No, no. I've just. I just, um.
Hi.
I don't know, man. I don't know. Like, I. What do you want me to say?
[01:10:05] Speaker A: I know.
It's a lot, isn't it?
[01:10:10] Speaker B: What color is the flowers? Acrid.
[01:10:13] Speaker A: It's, like white. And it fades to brown as it edges. But as the fire burns on it longer, that brown edge is starting to turn kind of gold.
It's like instead of burning the flower up with the heat, it's changing it from the heat changing its color.
The voice comes again and says, I don't want anything from you, boss.
Just to speak with you.
[01:10:52] Speaker B: Okay.
Who am I speaking with?
[01:11:02] Speaker A: I am Yechae maker.
Oh.
[01:11:13] Speaker B: And you want to speak with me?
[01:11:16] Speaker A: Yes, I do.
I would like you to know me and to be known.
That's why I've brought you here.
Nothing more and nothing less.
[01:11:42] Speaker B: Well, it's nice to meet you.
I am sorry. Take a medal to loss for words. I.
[01:11:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:12:01] Speaker B: How do I know you?
[01:12:06] Speaker A: I don't know that you do, but I know you.
I know your mother's laughter.
I chose it carefully.
I know your sisters coin us.
I thought it clever and amusing.
I know your mind.
I planned it very carefully.
I know your past.
I know you're present.
I know your tears.
Moreover, I have count of all the ones you have not cried.
I can see very clearly the strain over your heart, as I can with beauty and so much of what you are into.
I've always known you.
But I also understand that that's not very helpful right now. To you, there is no assignment.
I have only brought you here to speak with me. Me?
If you want to.
[01:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd love to.
I'd love to.
So you already know everything about me.
[01:13:57] Speaker A: What do you want to talk about? But I didn't.
It's not what I made you for, boss.
There is a realm far from this one.
A place of perfect function.
It orders the other realms, orients them as a gravitational block, creates a balance of relationships within. It is my child Simeconus, a perfect deity without imbalance that it functions there near to you. Countless progeny.
They do not hurt, they do not fear, they do not hope, they do not want.
They are made perfect in their function.
And what can easily be mistaken as imperfection in the circumstance and shape with which I have made you, is the freedom for which I made you the choice.
I'm able, boss, able to alleviate your every pain, able to break the Everhelp.
But I did not make you for crystalline choicelessness.
I made you to choose.
I made you to love, to be loved.
And there is only love, only relationship with choice.
I do know everything about you, boss.
But that does not mean that if you have something you want to say, that I don't want to hear it.
I enjoy your speech.
And I gave you a mouth to speak.
Um.
[01:16:18] Speaker B: How am I doing?
Are we doing the right thing? Um.
I don't know. There's been just like, an intense amount of pressure recently, and I just.
[01:16:38] Speaker A: Yes, there has a lot for shoulders.
What do you feel in your being?
Sorry. It's very hard to play a character knows and anticipates all speech. He didn't say anything. Speak as you were going to speak. He did not interrupt you.
[01:17:14] Speaker B: That is good to know.
[01:17:16] Speaker A: Deities are very hard to play. Please continue.
[01:17:19] Speaker B: Will I ever just get to go home again?
Is that even a possibility?
[01:17:32] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:17:32] Speaker B: What? Why are my bees dying? How do I fix that? I haven't even. I don't even know.
I haven't found anything about that yet.
[01:17:48] Speaker A: You can return.
You can return to how things were before, but only if you turn away from all that has been.
You can go back, but only if you turn away from what you have learned and what you have seen.
If your foe is defeated, your hopes are granted even when you return home. Then you will not be going back to what was before.
You're changed already.
And even if it were perfectly the same, you are a being, not a doing.
And the completion of your task does not change what changes in you.
But you will go home.
I have always meant to bring you there.
[01:19:22] Speaker B: Is there any even. Is there any hope of even, like, doing what we're trying to do?
[01:19:31] Speaker A: Yes.
I like what you've done with your skin.
[01:19:47] Speaker B: I didn't. I didn't mean to do this. It was inadvertent.
[01:19:55] Speaker A: You have always been prone to accidents.
[01:19:59] Speaker B: Yes.
Happy little accidents.
[01:20:13] Speaker A: Man.
[01:20:22] Speaker B: What should we. What should we do next?
[01:20:35] Speaker A: Another bit of that golden fire. Licks up over the grass, gets closer to you, travels up your arm, and warm, still.
Rest a moment.
There's room. Okay, now for this. Breathe.
[01:20:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:20:59] Speaker A: When tomorrow comes, you can face it.
[01:21:06] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:21:23] Speaker A: You hear the tune in the rhythm.
You hear its sound and sonoration.
And as it resolves, it fades into a silence, a silence that does not feel like an absence, but feels like a resolution.
Every time you hear the old song finished, it's more than a specific tune. It's much more than that. It can sound like many different. But every time, what portion of it you can take in completes it has always impressed upon you what you have heard and always beyond any faculty to perfectly replicate even its.
You have not forgotten it, but it is simply more than a single thing to remember.
And that silence that follows as you float there is both filled with ache to hear it again and laden with the satisfaction of having heard it.
And on the wind of that reverberation across the water comes a voice that says, I am the whisper between the waves.
I am the sound in the chords and notes.
I am the truth in the words.
I am the brilliance in the light.
The rhythm and the percussion of your heart is the pace of my footsteps ever toward you.
I spoke this world, I breathed these winds, every stalk in the fields.
My quill with which I wrote and write the waters of these oceans, the ink of my composition sky above you, the parchment of my prose forming the necessary precipitation of glory.
My stars and heavens, apertures of reflection ignited with your life.
But you I touched.
Your name is the tongue of cultures.
They dance and write in response, recording echoes and the crystallization of words.
Unable but to transfer the vibrations in which they were made with the joy of a realized identity.
But your name, far before sound's discovery, was always mine.
More than possession.
The name beloved.
Your heart I shaped with my fingers for my palm.
Your peace is produced.
[01:25:35] Speaker C: I think.
Ro sits up, or tries to, I guess in this, like floating.
[01:25:52] Speaker A: You succeed. Water, you succeeded.
[01:26:21] Speaker C: You don't.
You don't sound like I expected.
[01:26:34] Speaker A: You sound like my joy.
[01:26:45] Speaker C: What is this place?
Are these.
These are. It's just like looking up at the stars. All these.
All these heavens. All.
[01:27:08] Speaker A: I'm not satisfied with one painting.
I enjoy to continue to paint.
One day you'll see all of them.
[01:27:27] Speaker C: Are they like us? Like.
Like spheres. Like old said.
[01:27:50] Speaker A: I'm pleased with you.
Not with what you've done, but in who you are becoming.
I enjoy your song.
[01:28:13] Speaker C: Did all of it.
Did all of it like the fun guys and us meeting and the Kefkans and sorghum? Did it all happen for a reason?
[01:28:28] Speaker A: Much more than a reason, Ro.
It's much, much more than a plan.
I'm not satisfied with linearity.
Control is shallow.
I have power over it in the simplest sense.
But I enjoy the song.
The time it takes is worth it.
You have never been without reason.
Yours has never been purposelessness.
Your song is a beautiful resolution.
And then it doesn't end.
[01:29:39] Speaker C: What if I.
What if I just want to stay here and listen to your song over and over again?
[01:30:12] Speaker A: You were made to resound, to reverberate the song.
You would be robbing yourself, depriving yourself half measure in the place of the full.
The journey is a part of the destination.
You will return, and you will return to more than this, I have hope.
You are not alone.
I love you. Ro.
[01:31:22] Speaker C: Closes her eyes and submerges into the water again.
And I think she doesn't say it out loud, but she, like, thinks it in her head. And I don't even know if she was even talking out loud anyways.
But.
[01:31:42] Speaker A: Greta, you sit over the bird as you blink, and you open your eyes and look down.
The bird has sort of crumpled up a little more tightly, the muscles losing to the tendons as they're no longer shocked with electricity.
And you have on you. You feel more blood than you do before.
[01:32:26] Speaker D: Did you say it was warm?
[01:32:29] Speaker A: It's getting quite cold now.
In fact, everything is getting colder, and the light is getting darker.
It was evening, and the gray wood is growing black.
What do you do?
Also, you guys are champions. Hanging in. I promise. We're close to the end.
[01:33:17] Speaker D: Kurla. I'm gonna, like, this is some of the trap. And, like, throw it off to the side or whatever, make sure that it can't hurt anything.
[01:33:27] Speaker A: You disassemble it?
[01:33:28] Speaker D: Yeah. And then I'm gonna curl up next to the bird and, like, tuck my arms in my chest and make, like, a little crescent with my body.
And I'm gonna just curl around the bird, like, or like a small animal, and I'm just gonna lay and, like, nestle into the dirt and snuggle up.
And while I'm laying there, I'm thinking of how good it feels to be snuggled up in the dirt and how old I feel. I'm like, really?
The rest feels good. And I notice that my body is tired and my body is old.
It feels right to be made.
[01:34:24] Speaker A: As you begin to fall asleep, greta, your eyes blink into heavier and heavier notes for the stillness, and the rest is interrupted by another sharp, high sound.
There's no snap with this one, but there are the stilted, failing calls of another songbird not too far away.
[01:34:57] Speaker D: I get up and I take my, I take the or, songbird.
[01:35:07] Speaker A: As you tread forward, there's a break in the cloud cover above, and at a slightly awkwardly, naturally raised rock in the center of it, there's a bird with a similar wound to the first, though no apparent trap nearby, bleeding from the center of its chest.
Its wings are feebly folding to either side, kicking its legs unsuccessfully as the fear slowly contracting.
It's having uneven heaves as the blood is covering in a little more blood than perhaps a songbird would naturally contain.
In the middle of the falling light.
[01:35:51] Speaker D: I wash over it to it, and like with the other one tucked in my arms, scoop up the second, and like, as an instinct, I start to cast, like, tier one, or I try to. I perform.
[01:36:10] Speaker A: You somaticize with your hands, but no magic flows.
It has a couple convulsed movements, and it gets very still very quickly, soundlessly, a leaf drifts down and touches your forehead, momentarily kind of falling into your forehead and then down your nose, drifting from the branches up above.
And if you blink your eyes back awake, you realize that the spot where you're standing is slightly brighter than the surrounding area.
Not sunlight, but moonlight from Twilio and Twila falling through the break in the tree above.
So uncommon in this forest.
And as you look up, you catch sight of one leaf twisting and falling elegantly and gently through the silvered light, rotating and reflecting its light off to either side before falling down into the center of the stone and resting in the blood.
[01:37:41] Speaker D: Just look like you.
[01:37:44] Speaker A: What?
[01:37:45] Speaker D: What do the moons look like?
[01:37:48] Speaker A: What do the moons look like?
They're right next to each other in the sky.
[01:37:58] Speaker D: I think of Walter. I think of Tyla, I think of Ronnie, I think of my friends. As I. As I hold the two dead, dead songbirds.
[01:38:26] Speaker A: It'S still in quiet.
And then you feel a measured pulse, very soften, push in your hand.
And if you open your hands and look down, the first bird is rotated over.
Its wings are awkwardly pushing against its shoulders as it sits up in your hand.
And it flits very quickly up onto a shoulder, chirps a couple of really sharp notes.
Blood is still stained all over its chest, in fact, falling down, it still bleeding. But where it flies, it sprinkles little bits of blood, circles a couple more times, and it goes. And it lands on the rock and picks up the leaf and it flies away, bleeding across the forest.
And where the blood falls, you watch little bits of new trees start to sprout, just very gently, not much, not high, young.
And the second bird quakes and shivers to life, bleeding from its chest.
Flaps softly and lands on the rock.
Looking at you kind of calmly for a moment, still wounded, still bloody, it sings a couple of beautiful notes, and then it flies right up and out of the hole, out of the canopy, and into the night sky above.
And a voice just gently whispers, the making whole of something broke.
[01:40:21] Speaker D: Can you say that again?
[01:40:24] Speaker A: The voice whispers. Yeah. It's okay. It's okay. The voice whispers.
The making whole of what is broken is as painful as the break.
You are not made to be broken.
You are made to be whole.
And you will be.
There will be rest, and then there will be beauty.
Even the grave gives birth to green.
And slowly but surely, the moonlight begins to filter through the branches, all across the gray wood.
And as it scatters around the branches, instead of choking light out and creating an oppressive environment, the moonlight catches on their gray bark, their smooth trunks, and you remember for a moment how truly beautiful this place was with a jolt, because the classics will always be the classics. You out of the bottom of the wellspring, and you are sitting up in the clearing in the westwood.
Congratulations, Landon. You the player I'm addressing directly now.
You have survived your constitution saving throw. Wellsprings are highly potent sources of magic. So I'll go ahead and reveal this card now. If you fail the saving throw, when touching any source of pure, deep magic, if you fail it, you die.
There are no death saves.
The force of Arcana is too much, and it kills you.
All five fungis have passed.
Importantly, Craig rolled the three, but his modifier is so big, he just survived anything. Also, I wasn't gonna kill Micah's character without her being here. That would be a real jerk move, even knowing you guys have a diamond and rivify. But anyway, Baz, you drolled awake, electrified, like you had cocaine. You are up, my man. And as you stood up out of the pool of light, all of your friends are unconscious around you, and you feel an intense rush of energy and life.
You feel this rush because you are levels five through ten, and you have survived touching a wellspring, which means that you gain a level. You're now level eleven.
I would also like you to roll 44 for me. Landon.
[01:43:41] Speaker B: Were we only level ten?
[01:43:43] Speaker A: You were level ten. You are now level eleven. You have gained an entire level.
[01:43:47] Speaker B: Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it.
[01:43:50] Speaker A: 44. You said 44.
[01:43:56] Speaker B: Three, three, two.
[01:43:59] Speaker A: Landon, you may, of course, roll hit points by gaining level, and you can handle that off screen. But this amount has been permanently added to your hit point maximum, as having survived, the deep magic in the wellspring has permanently reinforced, transmuted, and grown your physical body.
As you have increased, you will gain all the benefits of being a level eleven druid. However, you also gain two ability score points. You may either spend two in one place or one in two, as you would with any usual ability score increase. Now, there is an important caveat here. With regular level ability score increases, you cannot increase above 20 if you wish to. With this, you may increase an ability score to a 22 if you so desire, or you can spend them in other places.
[01:45:01] Speaker B: Perfect.
I think I am. I'm going to increase my wisdom to 22.
[01:45:09] Speaker A: Boz, you have a wisdom of 22.
[01:45:11] Speaker B: That's plus six, right?
[01:45:13] Speaker A: Plus six. You have a plus six modifier, Greta.
You jolt awake at the edge of a wellspringen. Also, I would like you to know that as the person who manages Tello's sheet, we need to manage. We need to meet separately, because this will apply to him as well. You jolt awake, infused and filled with power and energy.
[01:45:36] Speaker D: Can I have a taste of blood in my mouth? Can my mouth taste like copper?
[01:45:41] Speaker A: You have a taste of blood, a reasonable, non zorogramy amount. And you feel this jolt of energy. Because you have gained a level. You are now a level eleven. Cleric. I would like you to roll four. D four for me.
[01:46:03] Speaker D: That's a four?
Wait.
[01:46:05] Speaker A: Holy crap. No.
[01:46:07] Speaker D: Sorry. I was rolling six. I'm gonna roll a d four. Start over, please.
[01:46:10] Speaker A: Roll a d four.
[01:46:11] Speaker D: That's two.
That's a two, that's a five, and that's a three.
[01:46:21] Speaker A: So, seven, your hit points maximum permanently increases by seven.
You also gain the ability score increase.
[01:46:30] Speaker D: Happy day for me, ro.
[01:46:34] Speaker A: You jolt awake at the edge of a wellspring.
Power fills you, having survived the DC. Also, I explained to them, having touched on a fundamental source of deep magic, the power is so intense that if you fail your initial constitution saving throw, you just die. But you succeeded it. So instead of dying, you gain a level.
[01:46:56] Speaker C: Terrifying.
[01:46:58] Speaker A: So you are now a level eleven bard. You will gain all the benefits associated with the class.
And I would also like you, Jackie, to roll 44 for me.
Listener players are furiously writing on cheats or searching things on the Internet.
[01:47:20] Speaker B: My is.
[01:47:21] Speaker A: My hit die is a d eight also. Landau?
Yes? Four. D four. Landon, as we had discussed, you may replace the polearm master feet the next time you level. You're leveling now, so you may replace the feet now if you so desire.
[01:47:35] Speaker B: Okay. I, um. I rolled an eight.
[01:47:37] Speaker A: We were hit.
[01:47:39] Speaker B: We rerolled ones right on. Hit points.
[01:47:41] Speaker A: Oh, always.
[01:47:42] Speaker B: Okay. I rerolled a one, and I got an eight.
[01:47:45] Speaker A: That is awesome. Landon, how many hit points are you at now?
[01:47:49] Speaker B: I have 96.
[01:47:52] Speaker A: Not. You're in the nineties, dude.
What'd you get on your 44?
[01:47:58] Speaker D: 68.
[01:48:00] Speaker A: Nice.
[01:48:00] Speaker C: Ten?
[01:48:01] Speaker A: You rolled what?
[01:48:02] Speaker C: A total of ten?
[01:48:04] Speaker A: That is almost the maximum you could. That's excellent. Those are. That is your permanent hit points increases. By that, you have ten more hit points. Now, obviously, I got eleven on my roll.
[01:48:13] Speaker B: It was crazy.
[01:48:16] Speaker A: Obviously. Jackie, as a level 11th bard, you also gain the hit points from becoming a level eleven bard, so you may do that as well. Also, Jackie, you gain two ability score points. You may either spend them in two different categories, or you may spend two and one, just as you would with a regular ability score increase. You're getting this from the wellspring abilities. You all have six level spells. Now, ability score increases from the wellspring are not limited by the 20 rule, so you may spend hit point or ability scores in other categories, but you may also take a level 20 score and increase it to 2021 or 22, if you so desire.
[01:48:56] Speaker C: What?
[01:48:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Guys, wellsprings and deep wells are big deals. This is a. There's a reason people fiend over these.
Gets even crazier at higher levels.
[01:49:06] Speaker D: Um.
Swag. This is a school in swag.
[01:49:11] Speaker B: Okay, can I change my subclass, Zachary?
[01:49:14] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about that one last little key thing that needs to happen right now. Give me a moment.
[01:49:23] Speaker D: Oh, no moment.
[01:49:25] Speaker A: I have to do a little bit of toggling here.
Entertain the listeners for a moment, please.
[01:49:31] Speaker D: What is she toggle?
[01:49:32] Speaker C: If you roll a one on your hit points, do you just get the one or do you get to reroll?
[01:49:37] Speaker A: We will once. I mean, the 44, it just is what it is. But your hit point.
[01:49:42] Speaker C: Yeah, but, like, my regular hit point.
[01:49:44] Speaker A: Because rolling a one freaking sucks. Yeah.
[01:49:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:49:47] Speaker D: So to clarify, when I roll my hip dice and then I add it to my hip, correct.
[01:49:56] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:49:57] Speaker D: Thank you.
I know everything. This game is so easy.
[01:50:03] Speaker C: I have 89 hit points now.
[01:50:07] Speaker A: Okay, so I'm going to upload two documents to and reference. I want to tell you some things before you look there, so please do not.
[01:50:15] Speaker D: I'm going to look there right now.
[01:50:17] Speaker A: Please don't. I have uploaded two documents.
There are. Please do not look at them yet.
One of them addresses subclasses. Please do your best not to read the subclasses for other classes until we know what everyone has or has not chosen.
This is the final benefit of the wellspring. You all may look and lore and reference.
I have uploaded deep magic subclasses and the deep magic spell. Listen, just like the last spell list I delivered, there are a bunch of unfinished spells in there. I will finish them very soon. There's five of them, but the other 30 are finished.
[01:51:00] Speaker C: 30? The other 30?
[01:51:03] Speaker A: These are the subclasses and spells relating to. I think I packed a couple extra subclasses in there, but they have all your classes in there. And these are the deep magic subclasses. Having been in a wellspring, you all may choose a deep magic subclass if you want. It is not necessarily better, it's just different.
So you may. When you change to level eleven, you can convert your subclass to a deep magic subclass you want. In doing so, you may keep all of the spells you've had before, but if you so desire, you also gain access to the deep magic spells.
[01:51:41] Speaker C: But you only get access to the deep magic spells if you choose a deep magic spell. If you choose a deep magic subclass.
[01:51:47] Speaker A: I'm not trying to point you toward it.
[01:51:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:51:50] Speaker A: Is story appropriate for everybody? Keep being what they want to. If they want to, they do not have to. It is simply a choice if you want it.
I am also very willing to talk particular deets with individual players at later times if they want to work out special finagly things, because I'm a very flexible finagly DM.
[01:52:09] Speaker D: I want to finagle. That's me. I want to finagle.
[01:52:12] Speaker A: We will talk later. I kind of figured you would. We can talk a lot of details, but otherwise, everyone, sorry.
[01:52:23] Speaker D: I would like to finagle, but everyone.
[01:52:26] Speaker A: Otherwise, that is episode 103 of the Accidental Adventures.
Congratulations. You all are a level eleven party.
And Abby, we will talk later about not only what to do with your character, but also what to do with Tello because he will also take the hit points, the level increase, the ability score increase, and a possible subclass if you want. I think I forgot to put the rogue one in there, but we can talk about that because I have one. I do have a rogue subclass, so we can talk about that.
So we can talk about all of our options there.
And next time, when we come in, we will come in on Craig's moment with old. Then we will have Craig's visions in the wellspring, and then everybody will slap back to the same time, and you guys can all be like, that's crazy. We're a level eleven. Pee pee poo poo. But, um, guys, that's, uh, happy.
That's the wellspring.
I have been sitting on that for as long as we have had a campaign.
[01:53:34] Speaker D: Wow.
[01:53:37] Speaker A: Okay. It is very late for some people, that being Landon. So thank you guys very much for staying through this entire experience. Everything's about to get a lot less intense for a while. So if people need to miss some sessions or go to sleep early, everything's going to get a lot chiller for a little bit. But thank you guys for sticking through this arc.
Thank you for enjoying those episodes, and congrats on becoming a really, really, really strong party.
[01:54:05] Speaker C: We're super fun guys now.
[01:54:08] Speaker A: Super fun guys.
Okay, I will sit on here for a little bit to answer questions if you guys have some, but we are officially done with the episode. Listener winner. Check out the Patreon if you so desire.
Life is an incredible adventure. You are a very important part of it. Skippity watm dada. Amen.
