transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] You all just go around doing jobs? What is it?
Speaker 2:
[00:05] No.
Speaker 3:
[00:06] No.
Speaker 4:
[00:08] We're quite important, you know.
Speaker 2:
[00:10] So you said that you guys are important? Yes.
Speaker 5:
[00:16] We have a gifted mission.
Speaker 2:
[00:18] What?
Speaker 6:
[00:18] A gifted mission?
Speaker 5:
[00:20] We've been granted.
Speaker 1:
[00:21] Someone gave, okay.
Speaker 5:
[00:23] We've been granted a mission.
Speaker 6:
[00:25] I don't think that's what you call that.
Speaker 5:
[00:28] Now you're turning against?
Speaker 2:
[00:31] What are we doing here?
Speaker 3:
[00:33] What are you doing here?
Speaker 2:
[00:35] I don't know. We ended up here. We shouldn't be here.
Speaker 3:
[00:38] Well, you would have fallen to your deaths if not landing here.
Speaker 2:
[00:42] But why here?
Speaker 3:
[00:44] Why not? Where else?
Speaker 2:
[00:46] Well, I get the path we were on or our deaths.
Speaker 3:
[00:51] You can only put out a ladder from where you stand. Or perhaps you have some talent I haven't yet seen. What is Keith?
Speaker 5:
[00:59] Like, what is this place?
Speaker 3:
[01:01] Oh, this is my home. This is the Castle Eschatonica, the first last place there is.
Speaker 2:
[01:07] What does that mean?
Speaker 3:
[01:08] I built this place when my world ended so that there'd be something left of all the worlds that would end after.
Speaker 2:
[01:16] The first last place?
Speaker 3:
[01:18] Well, there were last places before, but this is the first one that exists.
Speaker 5:
[01:21] I just, I knew the world was going to get destroyed, and I think there was a bit of me that was hoping that there would be some sort of process, that, you know, the gods can experience a transposition, and I thought that maybe the citizens of Perpetua would be transposed into the citizens of the new place, but they don't.
Speaker 3:
[01:41] Oh, my dear, the gods die too. They simply live a little longer.
Speaker 2:
[01:44] How did you do this?
Speaker 3:
[01:46] It was my final wish when my time was done on the Eniad.
Speaker 4:
[01:51] You were a member of the Eniad.
Speaker 3:
[01:54] You wouldn't be the first fated adventurers who came to spend their time with Old Nova and in the end felt they hadn't done enough to stop the inevitable. Then there are no words I can say to ease such guilt.
Speaker 4:
[02:06] Others have come. In similar circumstances as ours.
Speaker 7:
[02:40] Maybe we can compare notes on the various gods we run into, because it seems like doing some mediation between them might end up being our best chance for saving Perpetua.
Speaker 5:
[02:50] Yeah. Yeah, that might be a good idea.
Speaker 3:
[02:55] What is...
Speaker 5:
[02:57] Silly question. Maybe this is more for Nicky. What is Soda?
Speaker 3:
[03:06] Well, onward. There are two ways to exit here. I wouldn't worry too much about who goes where. We will end up together again eventually, but there will be a little time when you're separated from each other. One is marked with the moon and one is marked with the sun again, though kind of the opposite sides as before. The sun is on the right and the moon is on the left.
Speaker 4:
[03:33] Oh, opposite from the...
Speaker 3:
[03:35] The previous, the front. Yeah, the front. You see what I mean? The moon had been on the east and the sun was on the west before in terms of like the sides of the dungeon. And now it seems reversed. But there's no puzzle here, you know?
Speaker 5:
[03:50] But this is puzzling though, because it produces the question, do I want to go with the same symbol but the different side of the dungeon, or the different symbol but the same side of the dungeon?
Speaker 1:
[04:01] Or is it a thing where it's like going to spit in, well, I don't know, is it going to spit us out under different continents, or like?
Speaker 5:
[04:08] I think Elena, still rankled, is going to strike towards the sun icon on the right-hand side.
Speaker 3:
[04:18] Yeah, place yourself where you're going.
Speaker 5:
[04:20] And say, who's coming with me?
Speaker 7:
[04:24] This is, sorry, did I miss that? Is this taking us out of Eschatonica, or is this more Eschatonica?
Speaker 3:
[04:30] It is more Eschatonica, seemingly. Moving onwards is what you've been told. Because what you were told is you have to get through the other half of Eschatonica to reach the end, which would let you get back to your home, or your original paths.
Speaker 2:
[04:47] I'm happy to go where I'm needed.
Speaker 3:
[04:49] Ali, you seemed like you had a concern or a question.
Speaker 4:
[04:52] Yeah, I think the thing that I have been thinking in my mind is like, what is keeping these people, or at least Vale, from being like, well, we would go with the people we came with. Maybe bonds have forged such that...
Speaker 3:
[05:06] Yeah, I think that's kind of part of why this seems like open-ended to me. It's like, I wanted to just, okay, do you just revert back to the groups you were in before?
Speaker 4:
[05:15] Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 6:
[05:16] I was having a really fun time with...
Speaker 3:
[05:20] Actually, we should just have this in character. I'd rather us talk through, how do you decide who's going where? In fact, I think this is a classic. May Bella goes, like, you know, Jonathan, can I go with the other side? I want to meet some new people. Yeah, I mean, I'll go whichever side you want to go with, May. No, I want to go by myself.
Speaker 6:
[05:41] Well, no, some people should be more than one person to go to each side.
Speaker 3:
[05:43] No, but just not with my own... Not with Jonathan.
Speaker 2:
[05:48] Well, I love you, Jonathan.
Speaker 3:
[05:49] I just want to see if I can be an adventurer by myself. But with trusted allies like these fine folks here. I need to know who she's going with to address.
Speaker 6:
[06:03] I can take care of...
Speaker 1:
[06:04] Bronte is going with Kiva because Bronte misses spending time with Kiva and wants to spend.
Speaker 7:
[06:10] Oh.
Speaker 1:
[06:12] I think that's naturally where he will gravitate, so Kiva balls in your court.
Speaker 7:
[06:18] Now, here's the thing that makes this really funny is I was like, oh, it would be fun to get more screen time with Elena after that conversation. So if we do that, that's a hell of a group right there already.
Speaker 4:
[06:34] Is Veil following Elena?
Speaker 7:
[06:37] Oh, my god.
Speaker 3:
[06:39] So that is Bronte, Elena, Veil, Kiva.
Speaker 7:
[06:43] I think we have to know.
Speaker 3:
[06:45] Are you going moon side or sun side? And place yourself there, please. Elena already went sun side, so. Oh, is Elena up there already? Oh, damn.
Speaker 5:
[06:56] I went stumping off and loaded myself like a pinball into the sea.
Speaker 4:
[07:01] And then Veil is kind of standing outside of that hallway. So sort of like, I'll go there, but who's else is going to be at the party?
Speaker 7:
[07:07] Okay.
Speaker 3:
[07:09] So then maybe Bella wants to go with Jack group then? I think so.
Speaker 7:
[07:14] Okay.
Speaker 4:
[07:14] Wow.
Speaker 7:
[07:15] That means it's...
Speaker 1:
[07:16] Wow. This is the best thing that's ever happened to Bronte.
Speaker 7:
[07:18] Yeah. Bronte's in a dating sim all of a sudden.
Speaker 3:
[07:24] And Whalen, I guess, is going to go with the Nicky Johnson side.
Speaker 2:
[07:29] Whalen, would you go with them? No.
Speaker 3:
[07:34] That would be very funny.
Speaker 7:
[07:36] The vibe killer.
Speaker 2:
[07:37] The vibe killer.
Speaker 3:
[07:39] I'm here to chaperone. Yeah, no, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[07:42] That would be funny.
Speaker 6:
[07:43] Are you sure that's not?
Speaker 7:
[07:45] That is pretty funny.
Speaker 3:
[07:46] That is very funny.
Speaker 2:
[07:47] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[07:48] Okay. NPCs with the sun side. And then, Antistrophe, you're going...
Speaker 2:
[07:55] I just head up to the moon door.
Speaker 7:
[07:57] Well, we really did just split between the... We made the squishiest party on one side.
Speaker 2:
[08:01] Uh-huh.
Speaker 6:
[08:02] You did.
Speaker 2:
[08:03] But there's no combat. We just learned that there's not going to be combat.
Speaker 3:
[08:06] No, I said that we're not going to do any more combat today during this current recording session so that we could schedule around that, you know?
Speaker 6:
[08:15] And we also broke it up into a group of three and a group of seven that happened last time, too.
Speaker 7:
[08:20] Yeah, that did happen last time.
Speaker 3:
[08:22] Only, yeah, four PCs.
Speaker 7:
[08:25] I hope I get to go to a ball this time.
Speaker 3:
[08:28] All right.
Speaker 7:
[08:33] Yeah, is he not just chilling with Nova?
Speaker 1:
[08:35] Also, this is a party of eight, to be clear.
Speaker 2:
[08:37] Waylon thinks all of it seems annoying, so.
Speaker 3:
[08:39] Oh, yeah, because Waylon's actually here this time.
Speaker 1:
[08:42] Yeah, Waylon didn't come before. And Afton Zofta are, too.
Speaker 3:
[08:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was seven last time, I think.
Speaker 4:
[08:48] Right, he didn't come with, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[08:51] Are we going or not? Says Waylon.
Speaker 7:
[08:55] Yep, I guess we are.
Speaker 3:
[08:57] And as you move through the hallways, you hear Nova call out. And remember, ignore the beckonings.
Speaker 7:
[09:05] Oh, I'm also going to do the wave and be like, stay safe.
Speaker 2:
[09:09] There's going to be beckonings in here?
Speaker 3:
[09:11] Fuck.
Speaker 7:
[09:11] To the other team.
Speaker 4:
[09:13] I think that...
Speaker 2:
[09:14] Bye, yeah, good luck.
Speaker 4:
[09:15] I think they're a beckoning. I think we've all been beckoned.
Speaker 7:
[09:18] You think I'm a, we're a beckoning? No. Oh, Nova.
Speaker 4:
[09:22] Yeah, those strange things.
Speaker 3:
[09:25] As you go through the door, you are, in fact, on the sun side, met with bright light and with the moon side, met with a deep dark. And as you're speaking, as you're saying, I think, I think that they were the beckoning. What them, you find the voices of your compatriots fading away and you find yourself walking down a thin floating pathway in the Dragon Path. And there is a door in the distance attached to a free-floating building, a free-floating like part of Castle Eschatonica. And as you look around, you don't see any of your people. You are traveling alone through the ether. The light on the east kind of fades away and you can see that you are under the light of Luchena's sun, that is the light from that side. And you are cast in the sort of shadow of Caligenia's moon on the west. But otherwise you are just out in the Dragon Path. Let's start on the eastern side because there is four of you. And then we can go one, two, three, four, five. You know, we can bounce between without from side to side.
Speaker 5:
[10:50] Oh, I see. Yes.
Speaker 3:
[10:51] Who wants to go first on the east?
Speaker 4:
[10:56] I can go.
Speaker 3:
[10:57] All right, Vale, what do you do as you see this thin pathway over the abyss below in front of you in a doorway ahead?
Speaker 4:
[11:06] And so alone, obviously, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[11:07] Totally alone.
Speaker 4:
[11:08] Yeah. Okay. Not freaking about about how this is a trick because she's right. Walking very confidently forward. Yeah. These are these are trials.
Speaker 3:
[11:24] These are trials.
Speaker 4:
[11:24] One faces trials.
Speaker 3:
[11:26] One faces trials. One foot after the other. You find your way to the kind of doorway in the kind of small, you know, castle. It's almost looks like a castle tower or something, but it looks not that not that big rather. It doesn't feel like the whole like interior structure from the outside. Looking at it, you look like you're looking at like the tower at the corner of a castle. You know what I mean? Like that style of like like the rook chest piece, like that style of of structure. But it's been like smashed in half, you know, doesn't have a top. It looks just like going to walk into an empty, ruined kind of circular room. But as you open the door, you instead see a familiar sight. You see Vinner Jack's home. What do you do?
Speaker 4:
[12:18] Hello.
Speaker 3:
[12:19] Your voice hangs in the air here, like it's an abandoned home. The kind of echoes around. It's quiet, it's dusty.
Speaker 4:
[12:31] Uh, uh, Resnival time. Is there anything that, like, I think she's, like, looking to see if there's, like, anything on the tabletops that look particularly interesting. I like in the, like, oh, we just, she's letter-pilled. Remember how she was letter-pilled? I think she's like, oh, obviously I'm here for some great secret. Like, can I find something written by him or, like, what looks out of place?
Speaker 3:
[13:01] You don't find a letter, but you do find a book of prayers that has been thumbed through. There are certain pages that seem to have been, like, dog-eared.
Speaker 4:
[13:14] Oh, cool. Can I, like, stop and read one?
Speaker 3:
[13:20] Yeah, give me a study check.
Speaker 4:
[13:22] Like, out loud.
Speaker 3:
[13:23] Difficulty is seven.
Speaker 4:
[13:25] Okay. Insight, insight. That should be great for me.
Speaker 3:
[13:29] Hey, there's a crit. Wow. There's a crit.
Speaker 4:
[13:32] God loves me.
Speaker 2:
[13:34] Seemingly. Big ups to God.
Speaker 4:
[13:39] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[13:40] So what you were going to find with just the regular one was a spell, a ritual spell, to bring Vinerject back. Now, he would still be in stasis, but you would find him in his bedroom, on his bed, in this version of his bedroom, right here. And he would be, you could drag him out, and you could, I don't know, teleport him out. You had some other spells you can do some stuff with. But with a crit, you begin to read the prayer aloud and realize that if you intone the Chan a certain way, you can clear him of that stasis. It will only cost you one thing, the black ring around your finger, your birthmark. But you can have him. This is not a joke. It's not going to not be him. It's not going to be an apparition. He will re-enter the story in this moment, and you will lose that ring.
Speaker 4:
[14:34] Oh. Does Vale think that she needs the ring?
Speaker 3:
[14:41] You tell me.
Speaker 4:
[14:42] For the next part of it.
Speaker 5:
[14:43] For the prophecy.
Speaker 4:
[14:44] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[14:45] The ring is specifically part of the prophecy, right?
Speaker 4:
[14:48] Yeah. Well, it's at least like how she was recognized.
Speaker 3:
[14:51] I mean, you have the... That's right. She was recognized by the ring, but I don't think Viner ever said, I'm just going to be quiet.
Speaker 4:
[14:58] Right. Well, I mean, this is the first time she's considering that the ring has some sort of power, right?
Speaker 3:
[15:05] Yeah. Yeah. As a reminder, Veil has a sort of birthmark that looks like a black ring around one of her fingers.
Speaker 4:
[15:13] Oh, man. Oh, man. Um, I feel like she thinks this is a test. I feel like when she thinks about what it would be like to interact with Viner again, she remembers that he was like following them the last time. Like that was like the one thing that she wanted to talk to him about, to be like, why did you do that? And now she's like understanding, like the value of supposed cruelty. Like that was not him being cruel, that was him understanding decisions. And I think that maybe she thinks that she has to understand decisions too. Um, boy. But this is from the crit, would I still, like, does she have an understanding?
Speaker 3:
[16:04] You get your crit too, I guess, right? You can do an option. I was just giving you the, he would be like resurrected. Not resurrected, woken up, right? Also, so I guess you also have a crit here. But that is the offer I'm making you. I don't, you can't undo that part of the offer with the crit, but if you want to add something to it with one of the crit options, you totally could.
Speaker 4:
[16:25] Okay, but it's not like, oh, well, she knows the spell for the lower version of what the offer was, right?
Speaker 3:
[16:30] The lower version, I mean, you actually do know the spell. This is what you used on Waylon, right? It's just a better version of it. It's how you summoned Waylon before. Remember that? It's the same spell, effectively. It's just a more powerful version of it.
Speaker 4:
[16:46] Can I spin a Fabula point to get like a Caliginia voice clip?
Speaker 3:
[16:53] You can do a... It's Caliginia, but yes.
Speaker 4:
[16:57] Changing the story.
Speaker 3:
[17:00] You can change the story. You can't undo something that has been established. So again, there's no way around the cost.
Speaker 4:
[17:06] Right. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[17:08] But if you want to hear what Caliginia thinks in this moment. Oh, actually, you can't because you're on the sun side. You would hear what Luchena thinks in this moment.
Speaker 4:
[17:17] That would probably be great.
Speaker 5:
[17:19] Because we're trying to... Trying to broke away.
Speaker 4:
[17:23] Not spoken to her at all. That would probably actually be great for me.
Speaker 3:
[17:27] What's this look like?
Speaker 4:
[17:30] I think it's about praying, right? Like, I think she comes to understanding what the spell is because of, like, wanting to ground herself in this moment. And then, like, contextualizing that these decisions are bigger than herself. And, like, if most of her rituals are just her saying out loud, like, Hey, Calcigenia, can you help me out here? There's this turtle guy. I think that there's, like, I think that, like, it is her praying out loud. It is her asking this question of, like, What would the Ennead have me do?
Speaker 3:
[18:12] You know, I think there is a beam of light enters this room through one of Enerject's windows. And, you know, it's, like, so powerful, it moves the curtains like it's wind. And there is a lilting voice that says, um, Perpetua needs you as you are, my dear. You were made perfect. And your perfection will save us. Okay.
Speaker 4:
[18:45] Cool. Uh, okay. Weird. Interesting.
Speaker 5:
[18:54] She specifically said us, not you, right?
Speaker 3:
[18:57] When?
Speaker 5:
[18:58] Your perfection will save us, said Luchina.
Speaker 3:
[19:01] Yeah, that's a inclusive us. Us, the world, you know.
Speaker 5:
[19:05] Okay.
Speaker 3:
[19:06] Intentionally, like, I'm happy to clarify that that is what that is. Whether you believe that or not is up to you. But if we were speaking a different language that had and like if we ever get translated into another language and there is an inclusive us and an exclusive us, she is using the inclusive us. Veil is included in the us. The world is included in the us. Right.
Speaker 4:
[19:27] All right.
Speaker 3:
[19:27] So what do you do?
Speaker 4:
[19:29] I think Veil closes the book and says, that's as I thought. Sir Vinner, if there's a piece of you out there that can hear me through this, I thank you for taking me on this path. And I know that you'll come to understand this decision. You're not abandoned in this moment. And then I think she moves on.
Speaker 3:
[19:51] All right. Okay, but head out the back door, which fills with light as before. All right, West Side. Nicky, Jonathan, or Antistrophe? Who's up?
Speaker 5:
[20:02] God sent you a test. I'll go. I'll go.
Speaker 3:
[20:04] All right. Antistrophe. Similar situation as before. A pathway to a ruin. You walk it normal. I'm going to assume everyone's going to walk it normal style. And if you don't, you need to tell me that you don't.
Speaker 2:
[20:17] Yeah, I'm going to do this one normal style.
Speaker 3:
[20:18] OK, cool. You don't do the John Lennon walk across the road with the funny legs?
Speaker 2:
[20:26] No, I'm not doing the John Lennon walk today.
Speaker 7:
[20:28] Do the Jessica Knapp falling off the stage.
Speaker 2:
[20:30] Oh yeah, I'm going to fall off, but right into a Beckoning.
Speaker 3:
[20:34] Right into a Beckoning. OK. You open the door and you see a familiar room as well. It was your home study from when you were still in age, filled with your notes and your supplies and whatever manuscript you were working on. Very familiar stuff.
Speaker 2:
[20:51] Yeah, it wouldn't have been that long ago. No. We've never seen it, but it wouldn't have been many more weeks before the campaign started.
Speaker 3:
[20:59] Yeah, pretty early on. You recognize most of the things here, but you do miss or you do see some new stuff. One is a small model of the bronze telescope from the observatory, and a piece of paper with a sort of magic formula jotted on it. Okay.
Speaker 2:
[21:21] What kind of formula can I tell?
Speaker 3:
[21:22] Give me a study.
Speaker 2:
[21:23] I can do that. I get a plus three bonus to this, I think.
Speaker 3:
[21:30] Sure. Seven is the difficulty.
Speaker 2:
[21:34] Oh, this is an easy one then.
Speaker 3:
[21:35] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[21:36] Everything is changing sizes on me. Okay. Study plus three.
Speaker 3:
[21:40] Hey, there's a 14. A 14. Yeah. The components are pretty simple. There's stuff that you have around the house. There's a number of simple alchemical components, and the process is to put it in a little... What's the thing called? It's like a tiny dish cup thing that you can like... That's used in magical rituals sometimes. Ramekin? Yeah, Ramekin. Is that right?
Speaker 1:
[22:09] Used in what?
Speaker 3:
[22:10] Like magical... No, like in magical rituals, not a Ramekin. Not in restaurants. Not in restaurants. Not in magical restaurants. It's the thing that like... It's like the thing... I want to say it's like the thing that the pentacle actually... Or the... Actually is in occult work. What is that called? Why am I blanking on this? Well, you get what I'm talking about. It's kind of like a low dish, you know, like a low bowl basically, that you put it all in there and then you light a match. It's one of these special matches with a kind of blue match head, and you light it in front of the telescope. When you do that, you can take a level of any class you want.
Speaker 2:
[22:57] Whoa.
Speaker 3:
[22:58] Your magic will return to you. In exchange, will advance your ruin counter by five.
Speaker 2:
[23:05] Oh, but you'll get one level.
Speaker 3:
[23:07] Well, no, you'll have unlocked the class. You can advance the class. You will get your magic back fully.
Speaker 2:
[23:14] So I get my magic back fully.
Speaker 3:
[23:16] Well, you know, you're not going to be a level 10 wizard or whatever again. But you can.
Speaker 2:
[23:19] And I get my I get full access to magic. You get.
Speaker 3:
[23:21] Yes, exactly. And I should be clear, this will count as your whatever your fourth class would have been. You're not going to unlock another extra class. So you'll have to like, you know how this game works. You can only have three classes until you get one to 10. I don't think you've done that yet. I don't believe so.
Speaker 2:
[23:36] You know, I have to be getting lost, Ryan.
Speaker 3:
[23:40] Oh, you only have two right now.
Speaker 2:
[23:42] I only have two. So I totally could totally take one.
Speaker 3:
[23:44] So then, yeah, this you could.
Speaker 2:
[23:45] Oh, wait, no, I'm lying. I have three.
Speaker 3:
[23:47] I thought I had three. Yeah. So you could take your fourth early because you're not supposed to take it yet. And it would be this magic one. And you wouldn't be able to get a fifth one until you have two classes at 10. But it could be a magic one. You could start learning magic magic one.
Speaker 2:
[23:59] And so, just to be clear, this trade-off is understood by antistrophe. I have internalized the disaster, and I know that I would be advancing it by five.
Speaker 3:
[24:14] Yeah. When you look through the telescope, you see the burning of the kind of ether. And you're like, oh, yeah, this would... What you're doing is like... The way that when you read the ritual over again, you see that what you would be doing is sort of kickstarting your own magic, but in the process, adding to the burning that's happening in the distance, you know?
Speaker 2:
[24:35] Okay. No, I don't do that.
Speaker 3:
[24:37] Put it down. I mean, I guess we'll be super clear. You would get it for sure, for sure. None of this is trickery in the sense of, ha ha ha, you made the bad choice, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:
[24:50] I believe it. I believe it.
Speaker 7:
[24:51] I believe it.
Speaker 2:
[24:51] All right. But the reality is still that I would advance Ruinbringer to...
Speaker 3:
[24:57] Seven.
Speaker 2:
[24:58] Seven.
Speaker 7:
[24:59] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[24:59] Or six.
Speaker 3:
[25:00] Maybe six.
Speaker 2:
[25:00] Seven.
Speaker 3:
[25:00] Seven? Okay. I think it was seven.
Speaker 2:
[25:05] Is there something else that I can do with it?
Speaker 3:
[25:06] No.
Speaker 2:
[25:07] Okay. Then no, I don't do it.
Speaker 3:
[25:10] You do anything else here in your old study before you leave?
Speaker 1:
[25:16] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[25:17] You said that there is more than one new thing.
Speaker 1:
[25:19] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[25:20] It's the collection for this ritual. It's the stuff.
Speaker 5:
[25:22] It's all that stuff.
Speaker 2:
[25:24] Yeah. Then no, I think if I'm not doing this thing, then nothing in here I need.
Speaker 3:
[25:33] All right. You open the door and-
Speaker 2:
[25:36] Oh, sorry. You said there's a letter. Oh, that was the magic.
Speaker 3:
[25:38] It was the magic. Yeah. There's nothing else. Yeah. There's the thing. That's it. Yeah. The darkness takes you over and you return to somewhere else.
Speaker 2:
[25:46] Oh, not the darkness.
Speaker 3:
[25:47] Back east. Who's up?
Speaker 7:
[25:50] I'm good to go if nobody else is chomping at the bit. Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[25:53] Go for it.
Speaker 3:
[25:54] You walk across regular style.
Speaker 7:
[25:56] I walk across regular style, but probably with my hand on my sword. Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[26:00] What-
Speaker 7:
[26:01] That's a cool style.
Speaker 3:
[26:02] That's cool style.
Speaker 7:
[26:03] It's kind of a cool style.
Speaker 5:
[26:04] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[26:06] You head in. What was it like the place that you trained to be a Hex Cloak? What was the training facility like?
Speaker 7:
[26:13] I've always been pictured a academy with a barracks built in and stuff. This is a touchstone. I don't know if anybody else has ever played Radiata Stories as being a big influence. Cool game. Yeah. The castle in that is always what I pictured where the Hex Cloaks are based out of.
Speaker 3:
[26:33] That makes sense to me.
Speaker 7:
[26:35] Yeah. So like fancy when you come in, but then when you get down into the basement levels and stuff, it's just like rooms filled with bunk beds for recruits and training rooms and stuff.
Speaker 3:
[26:51] Cool. Yeah. We come into then one of the training rooms then at the lower levels. And you've trained here for years and years and years. And one of the things that you learn is how to summon elemental power here. And so there are a number of kind of technique scrolls and manuals in this room for swordplay, but also for elemental use. Right? And you know all the how they're set up, right? Because there's like one for summoning magic, for summoning the elements. There's one for attacking and there's one for like defense. And you see that on the defensive one, the defensive side of the room where these scrolls are, there is a new one hanging from the wall. And when you inspect it, you see that it's different than the other ones. Normally, it's like, oh, this is a technique you would use to, to, you know, fend off lightning magic. This is a technique you would use to absorb fire, right? Some of these are really high level. You can't do all of them, as you know. I don't think that you just straight up have absorbed fire. But this one would teach you how to absorb some stuff. This one, I'm just going to read what I've written here. The power to beat Therius Ager. You will always absorb magic he attacks you with, and your magic will always act as a, he'll always be weak to your magic across all elements. In exchange, It's fucked up.
Speaker 7:
[28:36] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[28:38] You may see, but never speak, to Clay Kina again. The cost of this sort of power over someone is to give up connection to someone else.
Speaker 7:
[28:50] I think that makes it a pretty easy no, honestly, because that sounds like giving Clay a death sentence.
Speaker 3:
[28:57] So you would give up Clay Kina. You would not, you would choose to let, sorry, I don't want to be clear. You could save Clay Kina. You just could never literally speak to them again. You physically could not speak to them. But you could save them and you could kill Darius.
Speaker 7:
[29:14] But I think straight up leaving things the way they are between Clay and Kiva would kill Kiva inside. That would really fuck her with her.
Speaker 3:
[29:28] What decision do you think Clay would make in this scenario?
Speaker 7:
[29:31] That's the thing. I think Clay would make the decision, but I'm not Clay. All right. Yeah. I think she hesitates a lot, but then I think she's... There's a real talking herself into being like, no, I can do this myself. I don't need this. I'm not taking any steroids. I'm hitting these home runs. I'm hitting these dingers by myself. I'm not taking...
Speaker 3:
[29:58] No asterisks next to Kiva's name. In the record books.
Speaker 7:
[30:02] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[30:03] All right. And you move forward, climbing the stairs out of the training room and back out into the light. All right, back west. I gotta tell you, you could not beat that guy right now, Keith.
Speaker 7:
[30:15] Not right now.
Speaker 3:
[30:15] Keith in the chat said, we could beat that guy. That guy is like dozens of levels above you right now.
Speaker 7:
[30:20] But someday...
Speaker 3:
[30:21] I'm just talking. Okay, you just...
Speaker 5:
[30:22] Do you see?
Speaker 3:
[30:23] I'm just talking.
Speaker 7:
[30:24] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[30:25] Oh, okay.
Speaker 7:
[30:26] That's so real, Dan.
Speaker 5:
[30:30] All right.
Speaker 3:
[30:31] And Nicky or Jonathan? I'm ready. All right. All right, go for it. Jonathan, you know what's at the end of this thing, right? You open the door, you know where you're gonna be. You don't? Okay.
Speaker 5:
[30:46] I do.
Speaker 3:
[30:46] Where do you think that's gonna be, Elena?
Speaker 5:
[30:49] Jonathan's house. Oh, Jonathan's parents' house.
Speaker 3:
[30:51] It's not Jonathan's parents' house, no. It's the top of the damn Little Snail. It's in your workshop. And it comes to you in a flash. You know how to build it. I don't know what it is. You might not know what it is yet, but it's anything you want. If I take a look here at the rules, there's like all this stuff about like permanence versus temporary and like scale and potency. Huge, extreme, perfectly potent, permanent, anything you want. You can have it for the rest of the campaign. You cannot go home again. Anything you want. But you know you won't be able to go home again. You'll give something of yourself that every time you see home, you have to turn away.
Speaker 5:
[31:36] You did spend a lot of time not going home, Jonathan. So, you know.
Speaker 3:
[31:41] Yeah, no, the problem is, is that Jonathan very dearly loves his home. He just thinks he's not good enough for it. But I think there's also a part of Jonathan that, like, as part of this journey, also has started to bristle it home. Kind of based on that conversation with his friend that runs the newspaper. Like this, this thought of like, they're not even going to try. Like they're not even going to try to save the world. Like they're just, they're okay with it all ending without even trying. Yeah. That was what Thelonious was saying about the rest of the people there, right?
Speaker 7:
[32:21] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[32:22] That was not his perspective. His perspective was they're not even going to fucking try, right?
Speaker 5:
[32:26] Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 7:
[32:26] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[32:30] Like it's, you know, we're in a strange magical place here. Yeah. The materials are at hand, you know? Can I get a big airship? Extreme, huge, permanent. Extreme, alter the nature of an area for a long time, contain the power of a demon, prevent a catastrophe, possess a full intelligence and personality. Huge, a fortress, a lake, the top of a mountain, a village or a city block. Permanent, remains available for multiple uses in different situations. There's sample airship in the book. I believe it's in here. I believe there is one in here. The Discovery, major, large, permanent. It's not even huge. Yours could be bigger than the Discovery. That's a large airship that can transport up to 50 people. You could build a large one, you can build a huge one. You could never fly it home yourself. Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 6:
[33:29] All right, let's go.
Speaker 3:
[33:31] All right, we'll come back to that and what that all looks like and means. Yeah, I got to figure that out. What's the moment look like as it hits your head that you're going to do it? Like what's the expression on your face? And what's the action that we see that communicates that you're going to do it? I it is before the first thing Jonathan does is he starts to write the draft of a book for May. That's like everything he has ever learned. That would be important for her to know if she also wants to be an adventurer, wants to wander the world, wants to like see what is out there. Yeah. All right. Back east.
Speaker 5:
[34:21] Yeah, I can go.
Speaker 3:
[34:23] All right. Crossover normal style.
Speaker 5:
[34:27] Crossover angry style. I think as soon as I realized that I'm on my own, Elena kind of just like her shoulders slump, frustration and anger. And I think fear, I think that this is all, these are big fucking stakes. And Elena is someone who has gone into the dungeon, both feeling that she's confident about dungeons, and that also she's on like a righteous quest that is going to come to some sort of resolution. And then I think in a similar way that Vale was like, the gods are here and they can't fucking do anything. That is worming, worming at her. And I think that she is too proud and too obstinate to show that in front of the parties. But now that she's on the bridge on her own, she's just, you know, frustrated and angry and, you know, is letting that out a little.
Speaker 3:
[35:24] Yeah. As you open the door, you see a place that at first feels familiar, but you soon quickly realize it's a new place. It is Pasachin, though. It is the interior of some other Pasachin temple, some other mega dungeon like the one you were from. And you recognize the mosaics on the wall, or at least you recognize the mosaics on one of the walls. I think it's, I believe it's pentagonal in shape. Let me double check that I'm right about this. An easy way to tell for me. Let's see. One, two, three, four, five. Yes, pentagonal in shape. And each wall has a different elemental kind of theming to it, and a little pool of the element below it. So like, there's very, very clearly the hanging garden's wall, right? Which has the plant life above and then like the pool of water below, right? And then there's clearly one towards the south that is like the Hasken, you know, temple of light and so on. And across them all, you begin to recognize the sort of like, some of the similar symbols that you saw when you went to the Redelencia celestial echo and you saw the map.
Speaker 5:
[36:45] Oh, Atlas.
Speaker 3:
[36:46] Atlas' map. Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[36:48] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[36:49] And you think that you're in, do you think that you're in the first or the center or the core of some ancient Paschian temple? And there is a, because you recognize that kind of map again. And there is a kind of long stone, I'll call it a key. It doesn't look like a key. It looks like a pillar. But it's very clearly designed to fit into a sort of, maybe you've seen these, actually, in the, in the, you're in Rilsper. It's the type of thing that can open up, for lack of a better word, like a boss door, you know? It can open up the deep secrets of these places. Sometimes you need one to even get into a dungeon to begin with, or one of these big structures to begin with. And this seems to be like the Paschian skeleton key.
Speaker 5:
[37:48] Oh my god.
Speaker 3:
[37:51] And it's simple. As you touch it, you could feel that the elements around you begin to kind of nip at you. You can take this, and you can, you know, gain knowledge of where this center, Paschian, you know, control temple is, in exchange for a new elemental weakness. You already got one, but you get a second one.
Speaker 5:
[38:21] What is that crown I picked up again, dude?
Speaker 3:
[38:23] Oh yeah, that's right. You're, are you wearing it right now?
Speaker 5:
[38:27] I am, yeah. Well, I was wearing it. Yeah, I was wearing it when we left.
Speaker 3:
[38:31] You could become the elemental weirdo, right? You're already vulnerable to both and Earth, and you now resist wind and fire and ice.
Speaker 6:
[38:44] I hate when I have to become the elemental weirdo.
Speaker 5:
[38:49] Oh my God.
Speaker 3:
[38:51] This is permanent. It does what it says on the tin.
Speaker 2:
[38:55] Sorry, it's a vulnerability in exchange for what?
Speaker 3:
[39:00] A key that could unlock any door tied to the Pasechens, the kind of ancient precursor race that built the dungeon that Elena is from.
Speaker 2:
[39:12] Any one door?
Speaker 3:
[39:12] No, it's a skeleton key. It keeps on working.
Speaker 2:
[39:15] It keeps, okay. Wow, that's big. I mean, I'll say this, you'd be even, which is, if you think about it, also neutral.
Speaker 5:
[39:26] Yes, the issues, so there's that. There's also the fact that Elena is a glass cannon, and so you might look at this and say weakening Elena further is actually a bad thing to do, but an optimist would look at it and say, look, Elena already goes down like a paper tag. So what's one more? The hesitation that I'm having narratively is that am I in a, it's the same thing that Vale thought, right, of like, is this a test? And I don't know whether or not I am being tested by, by dark forces, you know? I'm being tempted, right? And am I saying something about myself to the world by giving in to this temptation, you know? Um, no, I don't think I can take it because I went into this room saying Elena is angry and afraid of the dungeons. Interesting. And I think if she, I'm trying to think, if I am in a position of weakness, if I'm in a position of uncertainty and frustration, and I find myself in a dungeon that already has given me a, remember, there was that whole bit with the person who drowned? Like Elena's got this deep fear of her own dungeon past a certain floor or whatever. And now I'm like, am I being tested by divinity? And am I going to be found wanting if I take this? And even if I do take it? But then again, what's behind those doors?
Speaker 2:
[41:10] What's behind those doors?
Speaker 3:
[41:12] That's how Monty Hall gets you.
Speaker 5:
[41:14] That's how Monty Hall gets you. And often what's behind those doors are loads and loads of paladin appearing two and a half seasons before they appear.
Speaker 2:
[41:23] The optimal strategy for Monty Hall is to be more interested in different doors.
Speaker 5:
[41:28] You're right.
Speaker 3:
[41:28] That is true.
Speaker 5:
[41:31] I've never seen him do that. I've watched a lot of Let's Make a Deal and I've never seen him do the goat car. The famous one.
Speaker 6:
[41:38] Oh, he was famously kind of mad about the naming of that problem.
Speaker 3:
[41:42] The Monty Hall problem, really?
Speaker 6:
[41:43] The Monty Hall problem? It's weird that he didn't have a better sense of humor about it kind of way.
Speaker 3:
[41:48] That's really funny.
Speaker 5:
[41:49] Oh, no. It does not surprise me at all. Monty Hall seems like someone who he gets to decide what the joke is as soon as someone else.
Speaker 7:
[41:55] Can I be vulnerable here with my friends? I thought Monty Hall was a place where this-
Speaker 1:
[42:02] Are you thinking of the halls of Montezuma?
Speaker 2:
[42:04] Welcome to Monty Hall.
Speaker 7:
[42:08] No, I thought it was like a Stanford Prison Experiment.
Speaker 3:
[42:12] I see. Monty Hall at Harvard.
Speaker 1:
[42:15] Oh, the Monty Hall problem.
Speaker 3:
[42:18] It's like a room you would get in the blueprints. I drew the Monty Hall.
Speaker 1:
[42:22] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[42:22] This also means that there's a chance that had this not come up, one day Sylvia would have watched the episode of Let's Make a Deal and gone, Oh, he's named after the problem.
Speaker 7:
[42:33] I was like, Oh, that's fine. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[42:37] For people who don't know, the Monty Hall problem is a probability thing. I guess it's like a brain teaser that comes from Let's Make a Deal, an old game show that Monty Hall used to host, where there would regularly be a situation where there'd be three doors, and he would say you can open one door, and then let's say you open the door, and there could be supposedly prizes behind each door. Behind the first door you open, there is a goat, and you go, fuck, I didn't want the goat, I wanted the car. He says, all right, do you want to open one of the other doors? Is it to your advantage to keep the door that you already have?
Speaker 2:
[43:14] I guess there's a part. Yes, because it's not revealed yet.
Speaker 6:
[43:17] Once you have the goat, the game is already solved.
Speaker 2:
[43:20] The key is that you pick your door, and then he offers you the chance to swap before revealing it.
Speaker 3:
[43:25] Before seeing what's behind it. That's right.
Speaker 2:
[43:27] The part that teases is that it is completely unintuitive that the reality is that it is always the better odds to switch.
Speaker 3:
[43:37] If you door one, two, and three, and you picked one, he goes, are you sure you want one? You don't want two or three? You should always take two or three.
Speaker 2:
[43:44] Because the idea is that you're changing.
Speaker 6:
[43:47] It's only in the scenario in the Monte Hall problem, which is not ever in the show.
Speaker 3:
[43:52] Wait, what's that mean?
Speaker 6:
[43:53] That was Monte Hall's response.
Speaker 3:
[43:55] I see.
Speaker 6:
[43:55] You can't switch doors either. Is that true?
Speaker 3:
[43:58] But they do like doors?
Speaker 6:
[44:01] There are oftentimes you can switch prizes, but they never actually give you more information.
Speaker 3:
[44:06] I see.
Speaker 6:
[44:07] As per the problem. I say this as both a person who likes math and a person who likes Let's Make a Deal.
Speaker 1:
[44:12] Anyway, the important thing here is that basically Sylvie just found out that the original host of Jeopardy was Schrödinger.
Speaker 7:
[44:19] That's right. Kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who is Schrödinger? There we go.
Speaker 5:
[44:27] I'm not going to take it. It's better. It is so much better if Elena doesn't take this and regrets it for the rest of her life and can't articulate it, then does take it and has to deal with an elemental vulnerability.
Speaker 2:
[44:42] It dying more, dying every day.
Speaker 5:
[44:45] Not knowing what is behind the door is going to kill this poor girl.
Speaker 3:
[44:49] And that's what you want to do.
Speaker 2:
[44:50] I see.
Speaker 3:
[44:51] Kill her in a way that simply a weakness to poison would never kill her.
Speaker 2:
[44:56] Oh, sorry. I thought you were going the other way. I thought you were saying, I'm not going to take the key, but you are going to take the key.
Speaker 5:
[45:02] No, I'm not going to take the key. I'm going to kill her emotionally as opposed to killing her with her vulnerabilities.
Speaker 2:
[45:06] Got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Yeah. All right.
Speaker 5:
[45:08] I'm going to kill her with her vulnerabilities.
Speaker 3:
[45:10] I think that brings us over to Nicky. Yep. Walk over normal style.
Speaker 6:
[45:16] Yeah, walk in in a normal fashion.
Speaker 3:
[45:18] Normal door, walk in, normal life. What's normal life look like for Nicky?
Speaker 6:
[45:25] Just like a regular schmuck?
Speaker 3:
[45:26] A regular schmuck or like a good schmuck, a schmuck who hasn't made. Not a made man, importantly.
Speaker 6:
[45:33] Yeah. I got you. I got you. Yeah. I think it's a nice place to live. It's a good respectable job, honest.
Speaker 3:
[45:49] You're still cooking? You're doing something else?
Speaker 6:
[45:51] Yeah. It's probably cooking. It's probably being a chef at a... owning a nice restaurant, a modest restaurant.
Speaker 3:
[45:59] You got the newspaper clipping of the place on the wall.
Speaker 6:
[46:03] Yeah. And a signed dollar bill behind the counter.
Speaker 3:
[46:07] You got a family?
Speaker 6:
[46:10] Yeah, probably.
Speaker 3:
[46:11] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[46:12] Nicky... Oh, it's tricky because Nicky had a rough family experience. But I think Nicky understands that people do settle down. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[46:24] Well, sometimes you end up, you know, getting into someone else's family in a way that can make you feel really like, wow, like I didn't have this with my people, but you welcome me in, you know? So it doesn't have to be your old people.
Speaker 6:
[46:36] Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[46:37] In fact, it couldn't be your old people.
Speaker 6:
[46:39] No, it probably couldn't explicitly.
Speaker 3:
[46:40] No, like very explicitly. You could leave right now. I know you like these people. But this life is a lot. And you could have this life. I've written down here, a witness of fate protection. You've witnessed a lot here. Yeah. You were a chef who was trying to get your life right. You could have it back. You could live a life wherever you want, however you want it. You could live guaranteed to be happy. And everyone here who knows you would forget you'd ever existed. Oh, no. They wouldn't be sad about it because they wouldn't have ever known. Oh. There's no one who's sad in this. And if you want to, you could forget them too, which means you wouldn't miss them. You'd miss them right now, in this moment. But going forward, you would just be-
Speaker 1:
[47:26] It's revealing what you find sad about this.
Speaker 3:
[47:29] Oh, I think it's very sad. I'm just saying that the phenomenological experience that Nicky will have, and that the characters will have, there will not be extended remorse or regret. It's sad to me, Austin, the person telling the story. But to the people in the world, it will have been like nothing ever happened.
Speaker 2:
[47:49] Jonathan gets to never go home, and Nicky says, you can only go home.
Speaker 3:
[47:54] You can go to a new home.
Speaker 6:
[47:55] A new home, and forget about all this.
Speaker 3:
[47:58] Forget about all this, this fate stuff. You live a normal life, you die happy, surrounded by people who love you. People who get to love you.
Speaker 5:
[48:04] And they're real people, the new people.
Speaker 3:
[48:05] Oh yeah.
Speaker 6:
[48:07] It's not a trick.
Speaker 3:
[48:07] Not a trick.
Speaker 6:
[48:08] No. No, I can't. Okay. I can't.
Speaker 3:
[48:12] And now here's where we get to like the real tricky stuff, which is like, are you now going to walk away from, in walking away from the happiness you would provide to other people, are you now denying those people a joyful life with you? And I don't know, because I don't, because magic doesn't exist in our real world, so I'd never have to deal with this bullshit.
Speaker 6:
[48:29] Um, yeah, I mean, I just hope that those people are also fine how they are now.
Speaker 2:
[48:36] The hypothetical people that you would know if you did do this, you mean?
Speaker 6:
[48:39] Yeah, it's hard to prove that they're not.
Speaker 3:
[48:42] They're not happy, anyway. They'll meet some other great chef.
Speaker 6:
[48:45] They're like, what are they doing now? They're probably basically fine.
Speaker 3:
[48:48] Probably basically fine.
Speaker 5:
[48:50] Let's tune in to the orphanage and find out.
Speaker 2:
[48:53] I wish we had a big chef around.
Speaker 3:
[48:56] I wish so badly in there. No one makes me a good cheeseburger.
Speaker 2:
[49:01] I don't have any exotic ingredients, and I'm sad. There's no tall men in my life. I think he's tall, right?
Speaker 3:
[49:10] I guess.
Speaker 2:
[49:11] I don't know.
Speaker 3:
[49:11] He's big.
Speaker 2:
[49:13] He just seems like a huge big chef boyardee guy.
Speaker 3:
[49:15] He does.
Speaker 6:
[49:17] Yeah, chef boyardee wario, these are all...
Speaker 3:
[49:19] I wish I had a father figure to teach me right from wrong.
Speaker 7:
[49:23] I wish I had a father figure to make micro games.
Speaker 2:
[49:26] Our local economy needs a food truck.
Speaker 5:
[49:32] Oh dear. I've been waiting for the check to clear.
Speaker 2:
[49:38] My one wish is for someone to show me the biggest knife.
Speaker 7:
[49:43] If they had a fork, that would just be even better.
Speaker 3:
[49:47] You leave this...
Speaker 6:
[49:47] Well, the point is, Nicky doesn't hear this.
Speaker 7:
[49:50] No, that's correct.
Speaker 3:
[49:51] I mean, you see the evidence of it, right? Yeah. You've decided your own little group of hooligan orphans is the one for you.
Speaker 6:
[50:02] They sure are.
Speaker 3:
[50:03] Okay. All right, back over east for our last one over here, I think. Is that right, Bronte?
Speaker 1:
[50:11] I think so. I mean, I'm a little curious about the offer that Eftas and Zulftas get, but yeah.
Speaker 3:
[50:16] I mean, I can tell you Eftas and Zulftas, which is they can get a higher rank heir. They can leave you for a higher rank heir. They could be number one and number two. Their cost is they won't be able to talk to each other ever again.
Speaker 1:
[50:31] Yeah, I figured that would be the cost with them.
Speaker 3:
[50:34] Yeah, break them up.
Speaker 1:
[50:35] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[50:36] I think I know the answer for them, but.
Speaker 1:
[50:39] Also, would it be like number one, number one or like?
Speaker 3:
[50:43] I guess it would be, yeah, it would be.
Speaker 1:
[50:45] Because remember you're talking about it starts at zero and then it's one, two, three, four, five, six.
Speaker 3:
[50:50] Then it would be zero. Yeah, it would be zero and one. I don't know who would get zero and who would get one.
Speaker 1:
[50:55] That would necessitate them not talking, so that would make sense. One of them would have a new partner.
Speaker 3:
[51:01] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[51:01] Yeah. I guess I don't know, but I feel like they wouldn't go for that.
Speaker 3:
[51:06] I don't think they would. Bronte, as you open the door, you move into a space that is somewhat familiar, though I would say it seems different than the last time you were here. When you first arrived to this continent, we've talked a little bit about this, so I think maybe it's time to bring some of it into deeper focus. You spent some time in the northwest of the Yelavana League in a place called Glaciora. It says here Glaciora Frosted Port Town, which is the furthest west.
Speaker 1:
[51:42] I love my port frosted.
Speaker 3:
[51:44] We all love our nice frosted glass. Maybe this is actually a port town. Maybe they're actually making port to drink.
Speaker 1:
[51:53] Bronte would have absolutely made that joke.
Speaker 3:
[51:56] Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:
[51:56] The wine prince makes that joke.
Speaker 3:
[51:58] The wine prince definitely makes that joke. Does the wine prince make that joke to the ice town princess?
Speaker 1:
[52:06] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[52:07] Okay. Because you spent some time with a princess in the town of Glaciora. I think we've mentioned this before, but we haven't actually given good detail. You were there in a sort of political diplomatic purpose, not as like a permanent envoy or anything. You were kind of coming to the Elvano League to, you're the sixth in line, you're not the second in line or the third in line.
Speaker 1:
[52:38] There's not a goal, it's like an awareness thing.
Speaker 3:
[52:42] That's right. And intercontinental relations is like a kind of rare thing. We kind of know the whole point of the prologue or the prelude.
Speaker 1:
[52:51] And risky.
Speaker 3:
[52:52] And risky. You have to go far away. You have to cross territory where the vault might be or, as we've learned from the other side of the game, pirates. And so risky. So you spent a little bit of time there before you became an adventurer. And in fact, there's some... Can you remind us of your reason for becoming an adventurer?
Speaker 1:
[53:12] Yeah, it was because I met a cute person who was like, do something. You don't do anything. You're cute, but you're useless. Maybe do something.
Speaker 3:
[53:26] You're cute, but you're useless. Yeah. You know, many such cases. I have her name now. It is Thea Gallani. Or Gallani. She is the ice princess of Glaciora, the frosted port town of the Northwest. She's not in this room. So don't worry. You're not going to see her right this second. She's an elf. She has kind of bronze skin and long dark blue hair. She wears a sort of simple silver circlet. She is the kind of like, she is the heir of the kind of city state of Glaciora's royal family. You know, this is a, you're, she lives in a palace, but as far as palaces go inside of the Elevada League, it is, you know, it's not floating in the sky. It's not, it doesn't, it's not built on a moon that's like landed in the earth. And in some ways it means it's more like one of the many palaces you bounce between as a kid. So you're fairly familiar familiar with that type of-
Speaker 1:
[54:32] Like hunting lodge style palace.
Speaker 3:
[54:33] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And in fact, the room you see in front of you is the room you stayed in when you visited as a diplomat. But it seems more lived in when you come in. More of your stuff is like here in a way that's like you would have had to have like, had it delivered, you know. Maybe there's like a special chair you really like from home that someone put on a boat and brought out here. And it just feels more lived in, you know. There's, while you were staying here as a diplomat for the week or whatever, for the month, whenever the more limited time was, you know, you were getting daily laundry service, obviously. Now you have a little pile of laundry in a basket and they come and get it every three days, but it's not every day, you know. Yeah. You live here, seemingly, and, you know, as you look around the room, there's a couple of little details that you can kind of pick up on. It is, there is a calendar and it seems like the calendar has a date marked on it, circled, which is the winter feast day. There is a sort of like a schedule of events for that day that includes mostly vague stuff where it's like, you know, the opening ceremony, the, you know, the dance begins. One of the things there is betrothal announcement but there's no details about that. And then there's like a feast and then there's a speech and there's like a draft of a speech kind of written nearby that seems like it's in your handwriting. Other, other weird clues about what this life looks like for you. On one of the walls, there is a local newspaper that says, Hero of Sen arrives. And then like the kind of subhead is Grand Scenarian Noble appointed as permanent envoy to Glaciora. And here's kind of where you get some of what the beckoning is for you. You would be assigned here permanently as the envoy to Glaciora, this town you came from. Or you didn't come from it, you came from once you landed here, this town you came to. And as you read, as your eyes go down the article that's been posted up, it does note one thing that's different, which is it says that you are second in line to the throne. You're not the heir, but you are the spare. And so there's a question as to how long you would be here. And I don't know, you and I have talked a little bit about what the different responsibilities are, depending on how far in the line you are. We were just talking about if you're sixth in line, you get to just bounce around. But as the spare and as the permanent envoy, there are different requirements. For one, you probably couldn't adventure around and investigate source rod or help your friends. But more importantly, you have to be both entertaining and charming, but also ready to go if, and I guess I'll ask you this, who would be the one, what would have happened to get you to second in line instead of sixth in line? Because that sounds like some other people would have had to-
Speaker 1:
[57:49] A big jump.
Speaker 3:
[57:50] Yeah, it's a big jump.
Speaker 1:
[57:52] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[57:53] What would that take?
Speaker 1:
[57:54] I mean, the obvious one is death, someone dying. But I think the less obvious and more likely one is a sort of reversal of what got Bronte into the sixth slot to begin with, which was just general incompetence and a lack of responsibility. So for him to get bumped up, he would either need to, I guess, theoretically if he did something really, really, really impressive and long-term, that might impress them enough to get him bumped up. But that seems less likely than someone higher up from him in the line of succession fucking up.
Speaker 3:
[58:38] One of his siblings presumably, one of his sisters.
Speaker 1:
[58:40] Yes. I've talked before about his younger sister who he's very fond of. She's ahead of him in line. So if she messed up in a big way, she might get bumped down and then he might get bumped up.
Speaker 3:
[58:56] There's no evidence to the particulars of that in this news article. It's not like, and he got that promotion last year when blah, blah, blah. But notably, it does just call you the hero of Sen, which is a thing you've done already. You did help save Sen from a dragon attack. So it's not like you went off and then saved the world in this vision of reality. There's just a lot that's not necessarily clear. We describe this a little bit as a hunting lodge more than a traditional palace. But it is a place that I think you felt comfortable in and feel like there's a lot of space to be you here. There's a lot of songs to sing and lots of dances to dance, lots of people who pass through because it's a port town. So lots of room to celebrate or to throw parties, a lot of hosting events, a lot of going to other events and being the kind of, if not the guest of honor, the guest that everybody turns their heads at. But there are multiple open questions about what this life actually looks like. And I say that to contrast it maybe with some of the other things we have talked about and we'll talk about. Part of the beckoning here is a, it's a draw into a life where you don't necessarily know some of the details. You told me that they kind of sent you off to say, go do something with your life. You know, maybe there's a moment here moving around the space where you see her out of the window, like down on the, down, you know, outside of the palace walls or something, you know, like talking to someone or strolling through the town. And I think maybe, you know, with the long blue hair, she kind of moves to the side and looks up and sees you at a far distance in the window and then keeps moving. You lock eyes for a second. But it's really hard to tell if you've done something yet.
Speaker 1:
[60:49] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[60:50] And I'm not saying that to push you, like you might have. Maybe being a hero of SEN is doing something.
Speaker 1:
[60:54] That's what I was going to say is like the SEN thing, I think his impression would be like, you know, because the conversation went to figure out source rot, it kind of feels like the SEN thing wouldn't be enough. It might be enough in like the political sense of like, you know, someone around her being like, well, he did this, we should probably recognize that contribution to whatever. But is that enough to actually impress her? Probably not. He would guess not. Likewise, he would guess like, it seems weird for that to be the thing alone that would get him bumped up. So it's definitely stuff that makes him a little bit like, definitely asking some questions internally.
Speaker 3:
[61:35] Well, and so then here's the, this is kind of, I guess, the thing that I think is interesting that I'm curious about is, instead of being offered one really good thing and then one really bad thing, which I guess like becoming second in line to the throne is kind of a bad thing for him. But I'm trying to get for Bronte kind of two different, two competing good things. Because on one hand, you are currently living a life where maybe one day you could be the sort of hero that impresses someone like Thea. On the other hand, you could have the life that that would lead you to now. You could be the party boy, political, positioned, not quite the heir, live the life of, maybe not leisure.
Speaker 1:
[62:24] Cash in your chips or keep growing.
Speaker 3:
[62:25] Right, right. That's exactly it. You could cash in your chips and maybe you are a betrothed to her. Maybe over a long time, the paper doesn't say if it's your betrothal or not. It just says there is a betrothal, and you have a speech ready to give, I don't know if that makes it sound more or less like it is your betrothal. The speech is just kind of generic. We all gather here on the feast day. I'm a guest. I'm so happy to be brought in.
Speaker 1:
[62:50] But it could also be that whatever made him be second in line, made him more politically advantageous to have a match with, and then it has nothing to do with actual shit that he's earned.
Speaker 3:
[63:01] Exactly. But maybe that's an opportunity. So yeah, it is. It's the cash in your chips moment for Bronte or double down. And you wouldn't be swooped out of this particular adventure. You're not like leaving the party right this second. But when you get home, when you get back to the continent, you would know in your heart, you have to get home to Glaciora. You have to go meet up with Thea and see how things are going. And that would go from being background thing to a foreground thing with all of the responsibilities connected to it. You would probably take letters every week from Grandsonnery about the goings on there. You would probably have an appointed tutor, right? Not that you're not grown already, but you have to be honed to become the next king if it comes to that. And I want to say it feels, I can't tell you what you'll do, but I want to emphasize that it feels like a space you built in this room. It doesn't feel like a hotel room and home.
Speaker 1:
[64:13] Well, my poang is here, so they brought my Ikea poang from-
Speaker 3:
[64:18] Right, exactly, yes. Right, exactly, they brought your poang.
Speaker 1:
[64:24] I can tell it's mine because it's worn in the right ways.
Speaker 3:
[64:28] Yeah, what is something that's here that you're like, this is actually a comfort, because you have been gone from home for a long time now. What is the furniture or the object that is like, oh shit.
Speaker 1:
[64:39] I think it would, like the chair you mentioned is a good pull because I feel like it would be, I don't know what it's called, because it's not a chaise, it's sort of a chaise, but it's like when there's a chaise and it has two arms instead of just the side and back.
Speaker 3:
[64:56] Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[64:59] It's like an armchair, but long, like long bottomed.
Speaker 3:
[65:03] Yeah, long bottomed, yeah, it's an armchair the long way.
Speaker 1:
[65:05] Is that like a, is that a, what's a divan? Is that a divan?
Speaker 3:
[65:11] I don't know, but I'm writing it down as a character name. It says here it's a ceremonial county in Southwest England. I think I've spelled it wrong.
Speaker 1:
[65:19] I think you've written Devon.
Speaker 3:
[65:21] I did, I wrote Devon. I did write Devon.
Speaker 1:
[65:23] Yeah. A divan chair seems to just be like a chaise or a sati. But you know, that's still relevant. You know, it's a long couch-like thing you can recline on. Damn, there's some really cool divans out there.
Speaker 3:
[65:46] Okay, a rec... Recameer has two raised ends and no arms. That's not what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:
[65:56] No.
Speaker 3:
[65:59] I don't know. Anyway.
Speaker 1:
[66:05] It's like a non-convertible recliner, you know? It's like always reclined.
Speaker 3:
[66:08] Yeah, it's always reclined. Yeah. So, yeah. Do you sit in it to think this over? Do you... Is Bronte taking more direct action? What's even thinking about all of this look like?
Speaker 1:
[66:25] I think he'd be scared to sit on it. Because that feels like it's harder to walk away from.
Speaker 3:
[66:37] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[66:40] That feels to some extent like you're accepting an offer, or preparing to accept an offer. I think he's a little on edge about the Beckonings. As you know, he's not immune to a warning. He's susceptible to temptation, but not, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[67:02] It's interesting because like, Bronte is such a funny character in some ways because he is nobility who doesn't want to rule, but does like being noble, does like the luxury that comes with that. He is, you haven't been playing him as the sort of, one way you could play a character like this is like, oh my goodness, all this danger. And that's not him either, right? He's not that type of noble.
Speaker 1:
[67:29] Because I mean, that's the thing is like a noble, a noble son who's further down the line still has uses. And those uses are be good at talking to people or be good at fighting people.
Speaker 3:
[67:42] Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:
[67:44] Like that's, you know, his education was was I think like once his nature maybe became obvious or something to that nature. Yeah, once his his proclivity for scintillation became obvious, it was probably more a thing of like, well, do we want to spend time teaching him every language or do we want to spend time teaching him how to use a bow in case we get attacked?
Speaker 4:
[68:08] Right, right.
Speaker 3:
[68:10] Yeah. So, does the proclivity not to sit here suggest you're going to go, you're going to double down, you're going to keep your chips in the game, you're not going to cash out?
Speaker 1:
[68:20] I think it does. I think it, to him, just doesn't feel right.
Speaker 3:
[68:27] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[68:28] Like, I think a big part of it is like, he wants to be able to brag.
Speaker 3:
[68:35] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[68:36] Like, he wants to get to this point in his life, but he wants to be able to brag about it. He wants to have good stories and stuff.
Speaker 3:
[68:42] It's so funny to say that.
Speaker 1:
[68:42] I was in a big fight. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[68:46] It's funny because the first version I prepped for this, for this version of it was like, and you don't know what, it was like, you're just like hero arrives, but it doesn't say what you've done. You don't remember. You did something great, you'll learn what it is, but you can't tell the stories. I kind of knew that that would be, but I was like, that's too easy. Bronte would never accept that because, and instead I was like, wait a second, Bronte has done something kind of remarkable. Bronte has done a couple of pretty remarkable things so far. That's not, you know, that's not nothing. Saving Sen from a big dragon is heroic. There are many people for whom that would be the most heroic thing they've ever done in their entire lives, and they would be called heroes for the rest of their lives. But we're playing Fabula Ultima, we're playing Perpetua, and Bronte is a protagonist, and maybe that isn't enough for him.
Speaker 1:
[69:37] And also, that's the other side of being part of a noble lineage is like, there's kind of, I mean, to one extent, there is an expectation that you're going to be useless and rich, but also there is a sort of legendary quality to a fantasy noble line, where like, you have, I'm sure, I'm 100% sure, I haven't sat down and figured it out, but I'm 100% sure there are stories that Bronte has heard since he was a child about his great great grandmother, who picked up a hoe to till the field and swung it once and there was a mountain of gold, there's a quality there where like, no one is talking about the uncle who fought a guy once and won.
Speaker 3:
[70:37] Yeah. Yeah. Totally. There's a real, what do you do with it? You were born with a huge advantage. What do you then do with it and how much do you have to do before it actually even moves the needle on being heroic or legendary? That's interesting. The fact that that is something Bronte is interested in. Would Bronte be interested in that if a pretty girl didn't tell him to go make something of himself or was that a clarifying moment?
Speaker 1:
[71:08] I think that was a clarifying moment. I think he at home was a big fish in a, not necessarily a small pond, but a familiar pond. The pond here is bigger and doesn't give a shit about him in the same way. He's having to reckon with the limits of his own self as an individual.
Speaker 3:
[71:36] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[71:39] What he wants is still the same, but it's a perspective shift. It's a, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[71:48] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[71:49] I also think, I don't think he thinks of himself as having done heroic stuff. Like, like in terms of like being the savior of sin, I think if someone said to him, hey, have you heard about the savior of sin? I think he would probably think of that as, I mean, to be honest, default, probably Kiva. But Kiva and antistrophe, like I think he in that triad sort of places himself as an also ran.
Speaker 3:
[72:22] Interesting. Huh. As you are heading for the door out, presumably, it sounds like you're rejecting this, you rejected the Beckoning, but there is a mail slot in the, or maybe not a slot, but a little envelope slides under the door as you head towards the door.
Speaker 1:
[72:47] Does it have a puppy? Oh, it's an envelope, you said. Okay, fine.
Speaker 3:
[72:50] It's an envelope, yeah. Wait, what would have had the puppy?
Speaker 1:
[72:54] I don't know. I just remember I wanted the puppy before. I asked the guy to get a puppy up there.
Speaker 3:
[72:58] Right, because of Nova's puppy, of course. No, just an envelope.
Speaker 1:
[73:02] If there was a puppy in here and we had a puppy together, that would be a whole different story.
Speaker 3:
[73:06] That would have moved the needle. That's what the Beckoning should have been. Damn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You look at the envelope.
Speaker 1:
[73:13] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[73:15] It says Bronte. It's written in, I would say, a princess's hand. Inside is a little note card and it says, Bronte, I heard about your endeavors in the city of iron chains. I'm unsure where you will be in the coming days. But I have been sent on a political mission to Lumay, the gleaming fortress. Perhaps if you were passing through, we could spend some time catching up. It is signed Thea Galani. Somehow seems to be a real letter, not part of the packaging.
Speaker 1:
[74:00] Am I allowed to take it?
Speaker 3:
[74:02] Sure.
Speaker 1:
[74:03] How is it here?
Speaker 3:
[74:05] You know, the Dragon Pirates has strange ways. I mean, you know, sometimes when a pretty lady sends you a letter, you are cursed. You know, but it's a different type of curse. So, all right.
Speaker 4:
[74:18] Jonathan was beckoned.
Speaker 3:
[74:20] Jonathan was beckoned? Is Jonathan the only beckoned? Jonathan was only one of the player characters beckoned?
Speaker 7:
[74:25] I respect it so much. I was almost beckoned. I really was almost beckoned.
Speaker 2:
[74:29] But yeah, you're supposed to ignore the beckonings.
Speaker 7:
[74:33] It says that.
Speaker 3:
[74:34] You know what really clinched it for me? What's that? We know where the white lectern is and it's very far away.
Speaker 7:
[74:40] It's true. Oh, I thought it was because you wanted an airship to come visit your cool new friends.
Speaker 3:
[74:45] That too, but yeah.
Speaker 2:
[74:48] Jonathan's really only spent time with Bronte, which is on and I don't think liked it very much.
Speaker 3:
[74:53] Yeah. On the west side here, let me bring us back over to Eschatonica. Nicky and Atishvili, you were out on another little platform in front of another kind of castle gate. Having come through a door, you've come out of the same door somehow, even though you were in different places. Magic. Jonathan's not here yet.
Speaker 2:
[75:19] Okay. I'm not concerned yet.
Speaker 6:
[75:21] Yeah, I'm not concerned yet.
Speaker 3:
[75:24] Y'all talk about anything?
Speaker 2:
[75:27] But where'd you get that knife?
Speaker 3:
[75:30] Good question. Good question.
Speaker 6:
[75:33] The shop back at Jonathan's hometown.
Speaker 2:
[75:39] It's not like, is it custom made? It's huge.
Speaker 6:
[75:42] I just had it for sale.
Speaker 2:
[75:43] Is it for big people? What?
Speaker 6:
[75:47] I didn't ask.
Speaker 3:
[75:47] Is it for big boys?
Speaker 6:
[75:53] On two shields. You don't see that a lot.
Speaker 7:
[76:03] I was really good with meeting at a work party.
Speaker 2:
[76:07] It really is. It kind of is. It's just that, you know, the guy from another branch...
Speaker 6:
[76:12] Hey, did anything super weird happen to you in there?
Speaker 2:
[76:17] I got teleported back, or, you know, I was inside my old study, or when I worked at the university, and there was a spell there that I could cast to get some power, but in exchange, it was a bad trade. So that's what happened to me.
Speaker 6:
[76:42] I saw, like, a whole other life.
Speaker 2:
[76:44] Oh. I just saw my old life.
Speaker 6:
[76:47] Oh, no. I saw something different.
Speaker 3:
[76:50] On the Eastern side.
Speaker 2:
[76:51] Is your friend okay?
Speaker 3:
[76:52] Still not out.
Speaker 6:
[76:55] I don't know. I don't know that... I don't think we can go back and get him.
Speaker 2:
[77:01] Is Jonathan, like, is he always, like, last?
Speaker 6:
[77:05] No.
Speaker 2:
[77:06] Okay. Well, I'm sure it's fine. As long as, you know, you ignore the Beckonings, it shouldn't be a problem.
Speaker 6:
[77:13] Yeah. How about that?
Speaker 3:
[77:15] Over on the Eastern side, the both of you have come through.
Speaker 7:
[77:20] That sounds like some people didn't.
Speaker 6:
[77:22] Oh, boy.
Speaker 3:
[77:23] There's a real theme on who failed to ignore the Beckonings here.
Speaker 7:
[77:28] Oh, hell, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[77:29] Perfect.
Speaker 7:
[77:31] Oh, no.
Speaker 1:
[77:33] Turtles are susceptible to summonings, beckonings, whisperings.
Speaker 2:
[77:36] Turtles are very susceptible to beckonings.
Speaker 1:
[77:39] It's because they're a little bit slower, so it takes them longer to get away from the Beckonings, giving the Beckonings longer time to take hold.
Speaker 3:
[77:46] I see. You're like, hey, come on.
Speaker 2:
[77:50] That's rough.
Speaker 3:
[77:51] You see two terrapin who come through, and at first you don't recognize either of them.
Speaker 7:
[77:58] Oh my.
Speaker 6:
[78:00] What?
Speaker 7:
[78:02] I think I know what's going on.
Speaker 3:
[78:03] One of them you don't recognize. Actually, one of them you recognize in a way you didn't know that you recognized yet. Because of course, one of them is famed adventurer May Bella, who you've heard stories about, but you had never really met in person. You'd only ever been intimidated by her appearance at a distance. She sheathes a sword after cleaning off some, I don't know, some slime. She'd killed a slime on the other side of this.
Speaker 4:
[78:30] She's such a loser.
Speaker 3:
[78:32] Huh?
Speaker 4:
[78:33] She's such a loser. What is wrong with her? Oh, I want to be an adventurer, but I'm not even going to go on one adventure.
Speaker 2:
[78:41] She just did.
Speaker 3:
[78:42] She just went on a big adventure.
Speaker 2:
[78:44] No.
Speaker 3:
[78:44] She lived an adventurer's life.
Speaker 4:
[78:46] Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:
[78:47] She's fucking built now, by the way.
Speaker 6:
[78:49] Did she go on more adventures than us?
Speaker 5:
[78:50] Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[78:51] She's way better than you at adventuring. She's like level 20.
Speaker 5:
[78:55] Is she like a sort of hell of a royal tier adventurer?
Speaker 3:
[78:57] Yes, 100 percent.
Speaker 5:
[78:58] Okay, Yeah, 100 percent.
Speaker 2:
[79:00] Sorry. Are we thinking of the same hell of a royal?
Speaker 3:
[79:02] Then there's a- I can only describe this guy as a dapper and smooth young southern turtle.
Speaker 4:
[79:10] Lord in heaven.
Speaker 3:
[79:12] Now where am I?
Speaker 2:
[79:13] He's gonna be young again.
Speaker 3:
[79:14] He says. Who are all you people?
Speaker 5:
[79:16] I'm Dude de Clare.
Speaker 7:
[79:17] Who are you?
Speaker 3:
[79:19] My name's Waylon.
Speaker 7:
[79:20] Who are you?
Speaker 3:
[79:21] Well, where the hell am I?
Speaker 5:
[79:23] Oh, let's go.
Speaker 7:
[79:25] Keyvis is laughing in character.
Speaker 6:
[79:26] One of Waylon's non-negotiables was not remembering any of us losers.
Speaker 3:
[79:29] His non-negotiables was forgetting everything he knew before. He is eternally young, but he doesn't know anything about the world anymore.
Speaker 2:
[79:39] Does he know about his own camera?
Speaker 3:
[79:40] He's looking down. He's like, I don't even know what this thing is. Any of you all know how this thing works?
Speaker 2:
[79:44] Wow.
Speaker 6:
[79:46] I think we're getting the racism on that job board.
Speaker 4:
[79:50] I need to know if it's the same Mabel clause that we are like, oh, who's this dashing young man?
Speaker 3:
[79:56] No, I think you all remember Waylon actually. Waylon, he got eternal youth, but forgot everything, where she became a famed adventurer that everyone knows about.
Speaker 2:
[80:06] This is like a different person.
Speaker 3:
[80:08] That's right.
Speaker 5:
[80:08] I think Elena is like, I'm sorry, Mabel, I don't mean to, have you encountered, sorry, this man seems to have forgotten everything.
Speaker 3:
[80:20] Well, that's a shame by him.
Speaker 5:
[80:23] Is there a cure? Have you seen something like this before?
Speaker 3:
[80:27] I'll give it some thought, but I don't think so. I think once a man makes a choice like that, you're stuck with it.
Speaker 5:
[80:35] Elena looks around at Vail and Bronte and just mouths like, Mabel, like, wow.
Speaker 4:
[80:39] I've read about her all my life.
Speaker 5:
[80:43] You haven't heard of her?
Speaker 4:
[80:44] No, I've read about her all my life.
Speaker 5:
[80:46] Oh, you've read about her?
Speaker 4:
[80:49] Pulling out, like, a book.
Speaker 2:
[80:51] Yeah. You remember the story.
Speaker 4:
[80:53] The chapter to the Maymellon chapter.
Speaker 3:
[80:56] She had a huge blow up with her family, who didn't believe that she could become an adventurer, and swore to never go home again, and went off to become a famed adventurer.
Speaker 5:
[81:08] What's her signature weapon?
Speaker 3:
[81:10] I described her as having like a sword. I think it's like a cool scimitar. You know? Maybe it's like a pair of scimitar. A pair of cars, actually, you know?
Speaker 2:
[81:17] So, does Jonathan still have a sister?
Speaker 3:
[81:20] Yeah, it's her. Yeah, she's right there.
Speaker 2:
[81:22] Okay. I wasn't sure if this is like a new person.
Speaker 3:
[81:24] No, not a new person. Like, not a, yeah. She didn't become a famous adventurer that she read about once. She is, the world has seemed to have shifted through powerful ether magics to create in her.
Speaker 2:
[81:36] So, none of us have met her except Jonathan will see cool May Bella and be like, holy shit, it's my sister.
Speaker 3:
[81:43] It's really fuzzy in your brains, right? Because it's like, you've been traveling with her, but you couldn't possibly have talked to her before because she's May Bella, you know?
Speaker 5:
[81:52] She was going to...
Speaker 3:
[81:53] In fact, I think people just call her Bella now.
Speaker 2:
[81:56] And B.
Speaker 6:
[81:56] Something like Bella the Brave.
Speaker 3:
[81:57] Bella the Brave, now we're talking.
Speaker 7:
[81:59] Oh, BB.
Speaker 3:
[82:01] Bella the Brave.
Speaker 6:
[82:03] She needs a publicist or something.
Speaker 3:
[82:05] Yeah, you want a new job.
Speaker 2:
[82:09] There was a place where you could have wished for that.
Speaker 3:
[82:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:
[82:13] She wasn't even beckoned by people believing in her. She was beckoned by Stolen Valor.
Speaker 7:
[82:19] Guess her as.
Speaker 3:
[82:20] I think part of the Stolen Valor was believing in her. It's like you've never been 19, you know? And wish it could all just be easy.
Speaker 5:
[82:29] But it turns out that it was. So it's like...
Speaker 3:
[82:32] Yeah. If you go down the Dragon path. So you go down the Dragon path.
Speaker 5:
[82:35] And you never want to go home again.
Speaker 3:
[82:37] Yeah. She is in a better situation without home stuff than you were too, Jonathan.
Speaker 6:
[82:42] So well, we don't know what her thing is.
Speaker 3:
[82:44] No, we do. I guess we don't actually. But yeah, she also cannot go home again.
Speaker 2:
[82:50] Their parents should maybe take a look at themselves.
Speaker 3:
[82:52] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[82:54] Get them. Two kids with the same wish where the monkeys pause that they can ever look at and talk to you again or think about you. And then they both immediately take it.
Speaker 7:
[83:04] You can think about them.
Speaker 3:
[83:06] You can think about them. They can come visit. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[83:09] Okay.
Speaker 6:
[83:09] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[83:10] I think the only person who had, you can never talk to the person again was Keeva and could.
Speaker 2:
[83:17] Let's see how long until May Bella fucking calls her parents.
Speaker 6:
[83:21] Let me send the letter.
Speaker 3:
[83:22] No, it sounds like part of it also is like the story is about her leaving in a huff, in a big fight, in a big tantrum, you know? Like, I'll prove it to them. And then did what she must have done at a very young age, even for a terrapin.
Speaker 5:
[83:37] And then later in her life, she's going to send her two children to go and stay with her parents and they'll make a movie.
Speaker 7:
[83:44] Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[83:45] Yeah.
Speaker 7:
[83:46] And it won't actually be them. They'll be different old turtles. And one of her kids will rap.
Speaker 3:
[83:53] I can't do it. M. Night, stay away from my podcast.
Speaker 7:
[83:58] Get out of our company.
Speaker 3:
[83:59] Out of our company. Go to the beach now.
Speaker 5:
[84:06] Oh, God. So.
Speaker 3:
[84:09] But everyone else is here. And there is another doorway in front of you on both sides. Jonathan, how? Where are you going to leave? How are we going to get you this thing out of here? Is it waiting for you at the end? Do you know this? Do you like set it up to pick you up at the end of this this thing? Is it? Oh, yeah, for sure. OK. Yes. Yeah. But you're not on it. You said it's like autopilot. I'm so curious about what you're going to have built here. Me, too. I'm so curious. I've got a lot of notes and doing a lot of Pinterest board search.
Speaker 2:
[84:45] Oh, I love it. Damn.
Speaker 5:
[84:48] It's going to be icebreaker prime again.
Speaker 2:
[84:54] All right.
Speaker 3:
[84:55] Let's stop here and come back next time with the rest of this little dungeon.
Speaker 5:
[85:00] Yeah. Sort of shaking off the dream fugue and stealing ourselves to progress.
Speaker 2:
[85:07] Did the NPCs have a role to see if they were going to be beckoned?
Speaker 3:
[85:10] I just thought through what they would want.
Speaker 5:
[85:14] Wasn't hard for my Bella. I mean, Bella.
Speaker 3:
[85:15] Yeah. The hardest one for me was Bella, Bella the Brave. The hardest one for me really was Eftah and Zulfta to think about. Because I can't tell if they like this.
Speaker 1:
[85:25] Because they don't talk.
Speaker 3:
[85:27] Right. Yeah. Because they don't talk. They act. You and I have both acted as them sometimes, but I actually don't have a complete understanding of their interiority because sometimes when you're half controlling a character, you don't want to overstep bounds controlling them.
Speaker 1:
[85:42] I think you got the bar. I had been thinking about if I'm asked to name stuff for them for what their bargain would be, I think, yeah, it would have to be and they can never work together, talk to each other, whatever again. Then the particularities of that are whatever. There's a lot of stuff that could be on the table there.