482 - Into the Odd with Brian Flaherty

Brian is one of the minds behind Many Sided Media, an award-winning podcast production company that specializes in improvised storytelling and immersive audio fiction. You can hear him as the GM on My First Dungeon, especially on its current Perils & Princesses season, as well as one of the interviewers on Talk of the Table.

We sat down to play Into the Odd, a rules-light, flavour-heavy roleplaying game of industrial horror and cosmic strangeness. We dug into the adventure To Put Away a Sword, a sci-fi fantasy adventure in a post climate change world.

MY FIRST DUNGEON: https://www.manysidedmedia.com/myfirstdungeon

TALK OF THE TABLE: https://www.manysidedmedia.com/talkofthetable

INTO THE ODD: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/into-the-odd/

TO PUT AWAY A SWORD: https://davidblandy.itch.io/to-put-away-a-sword

ALL MY FANTASY CHILDREN: https://moonshotpods.com/all-my-fantasy-children/

PARTY OF ONE DISCORD: https://discordapp.com/invite/SxpQKmK

SUPPORT JEFF ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/jeffstormer

FOLLOW JEFF ON TWITCH: https://www.twitch.tv/gmjeffstormer

THEME SONG: Mega Ran feat. D&D Sluggers, “Infinite Lives,” RandomBeats LLC, www.megaran.com

[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome once again to the party of one podcast, the actual play RPG podcast where the gaming table is always set for two.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm your host's Always Jeff Stormer and this week on the show, I am joined by Brian Flaherty for a game of into the odd.

[SPEAKER_03]: Brian is one of the minds of how many cited media and award-winning podcast production company that specializes in improvised storytelling and immersive audio fiction.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can hear Brian as the GM on my first dungeon, a tabletop role-playing anthology podcast that brings immersive audio design and music and incredible performances, alongside fun and engaging in the actual play RPG experiences to create something truly special.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you like the game parts of this show, if you tune in to hear a game get played and an experience be shared, I think that you're really going to love my first dungeon.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is one of my actual favorite podcasts and role-playing games and is doing some things that I think are vastly different than part of one while also being very of a kindred spirit and I think like this is a show that if you have not listened to it, you will greatly, greatly enjoy.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can also hear Brian is one of the voices on talk of the table, a TTRPG interview show or he and Ellie Davis sit down with game designers, actual play producers and some of the most exciting voices in games today to talk about process and theory and really break down like what brings people to games and like how people turn those games into art.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can find more information about all of those shows and more in the show notes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Brian and I sat down to play into the odd, a rules-light flavor-head-to-be-roll-playing game of industrial horror and cosmic strangeness.

[SPEAKER_03]: Players are down and out in the massive electric city of Bastion, trying to carve out a living on its massive smoke shrouded streets, surrounded by lurking horrors and cosmic interference at every turn.

[SPEAKER_03]: This was a really great experience.

[SPEAKER_03]: We went in some cool, weird directions that I really can't wait for you to hear.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can also find more information about into the odd warehouse, but in the show notes.

[SPEAKER_03]: One thing to note, before we dive in, this episode does use material from a published adventure.

[SPEAKER_03]: Specifically, the eco-mophos adventure to put away a sword by Zedexu.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can find a link to that adventure as well in the show notes.

[SPEAKER_03]: And with all that said, let's go ahead and throw it over to me in the past so that he can get started with the show.

[SPEAKER_03]: Take a past me.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, future me.

[SPEAKER_03]: I am delighted today.

[SPEAKER_03]: I am sitting out of Brian Flairty, Briany.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much for coming on part of one.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so excited.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is great.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, always great when I can get to have on some of my favorite people, some of my favorite podcasts, or some of my favorite creators.

[SPEAKER_03]: I just get to hang out for an hour.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's the secret joy of the show and I could not be more excited.

[SPEAKER_00]: I agree and I couldn't be happier to be considered someone's favorite anything, so I'm happy to be there.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I did, I believe I did say this at packs on blog, if not last year, the year before that I did hate you with the burning patch of a thousand suns, but it's true.

[SPEAKER_00]: But also, that's, it's nice to be someone's more random as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I'm getting it from all sides on one podcast, which is great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Which is amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: We contain multitudes.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's really what it is.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think is the, is the joy of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Before we get into today's game, why don't you let our lovely listeners at home know about what you've got going on that you might want them to know about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So right now, I run a podcast company called Many Side and Media.

[SPEAKER_00]: We make a bunch of shows, including my first dungeon and talk of the table.

[SPEAKER_00]: And right now, as you're hearing this, we are currently airing our latest season of my first dungeon where we were playing Parals and Princesses, the Griddy and Pretty OSR game, where we are taking fantasy fairy princesses and going through an adventure called Sweet Revenge, where we are trying to save a cursed town from slowly turning into candy.

[SPEAKER_00]: that series features me as the GM, Shinnick to Sarah and Abby Hepworth from many sided media and also Bridget Jeffries from Chaosium and Daniel Radford, who you might know from Dimension 20.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if that sounds interesting to you and I guarantee it will, because if you like an OSR and into the odd, then you're going to love Paris and Princesses, come check it out.

[SPEAKER_03]: I really love my first dungeon.

[SPEAKER_03]: I've loved it for a long time and I was I think one of the things that I get so excited about when I when I listen to the show is as a show that is playing in a similar space to ours, but like very far with like a distance between them in terms of like

[SPEAKER_03]: creative, intention and presentation, like it gets me very excited about like what the art form of actual play and like what this thing that we're doing can be.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that to me is the sick I should on the planet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, hell yeah, that's very kind of you to say.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're just doing the same thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just I'm just sitting down obsessively and adding a bunch of Bings bangs and whistles to it for hours on end.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think that that I mean, I think that those those those bings bangs and whistles like Really do make a big difference and I think like In part aside note, this is my way I get to say this on Mike, which is a congratulations on winning some awards on those bings bangs and whistles at the time of this recording a week or two a

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we want some awards at the T.O.

[SPEAKER_00]: Web Fest, we also want some awards at the New Jersey Web Fest, and then we lost some awards at the Sydney Web Fest.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, we're getting it from all sides.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, wins and losses, strikes and gutters.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think like, I think Elliot put it really nicely, when I watched them give an acceptance speech, which was the way that you sound designed towards the emotional space of play.

[SPEAKER_03]: Elevates the show in a really wonderful and exciting way and makes it feel.

[SPEAKER_03]: I find it's very easy or not easy, like sound design isn't a credible skill, but like the impulse is easy to be like, let's make it sound like the players are discussing things in the space that we are describing, but the way that you like go, okay, what's the emotional space that we're in?

[SPEAKER_03]: How do I build backwards from that and like use the space that they're into and form that it?

[SPEAKER_03]: It rips.

[SPEAKER_03]: It rips.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really the thing that I'm always looking for is like Everyone who's ever played a role playing game knows the feeling like how intense you get into it.

[SPEAKER_00]: How much of a world is like the place We used store role playing game memories in your mind is the same place you store regular memories like

[SPEAKER_00]: The stories are the same and you feel them so viscerally and all I'm trying to do is get the listener who wasn't there at the table to feel the same thing So anything that I can do to just like close that distance to bring you as close as I can to the feeling of being at that table That's where I where I'm shooting for and that's where I hope to find success.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm glad I've been able to

[SPEAKER_00]: get close every now and then.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to say.

[SPEAKER_03]: And hearing you say that, I think like captures why, like why I have such an emotional response whenever I listen to your work, which is like we are, I think there's an interesting way in which both of us are like pulling at the same thread of

[SPEAKER_03]: trying to encapsulate the experience whether that is through sound design or by as closely mirroring the conversation between two people as possible and going like, I want, I want, you know, we both want, it's that sense of conveying, this is the magic.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's capturing the magic on screen, whether in whichever way we're doing it, I think there's a power to that that is electric.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing that is great to take a step back from what everyone is doing in the actual play space, it all comes down to like, we want more people to do this really fun thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: We found a really cool toy to play with that is a little bit intimidating to play with your first time.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just like, hey, look

[SPEAKER_00]: Look, it's so easy, just have fun, you did it as a kid, you did make, but you did make them up, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: Just do that again, but we have a couple of rules, so you can't always have a shield that blocks all of my shield busting bullets, you know, in an endless cycle of who has the bigger sword or bigger shield.

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... i could not have said it better myself and uh... i'm so excited to be sitting down playing a game at this moment especially because like we're playing game that we're both very excited about and flanking a space we're excited to play around in we are playing into the odd which is a game an OSR game about exploring the weird and unknowable and uh... the world that is larger than our

[SPEAKER_03]: What is it about the game that's got you excited?

[SPEAKER_03]: What's on your mind as you're sitting down to play?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, where are we at as we are getting ready to play this game?

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a fun practical note for me, just with the timing of this because at time of recording, we just recorded a session zero of pearls and princesses and we're about to run session one in a week.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've never GMed an OSR game.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've never played an OSR game.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm excited, but I'm also nervous because it's a kind of a new thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, I'm really excited to play this one because it's going to give me some experience and insight into what it is like to play a thing so that I can run it better for my first session, which is always, you know, first session, you're always nervous, you want to hit it at the park, so you start strong.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's nice.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second thing is I've just been really interested in the OSR lately because I love how

[SPEAKER_00]: I love how much the rules end up getting out of the way of the players.

[SPEAKER_00]: They set up great obstacles and they set up great challenges and they make heroic stories rather than super heroic stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: They make smaller moments more interesting because there are more limitations.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it relies so much, I mean, there's, I'm just kind of quoting the tenants of the OSR at this point, but like it relies so much more on player creativity rather than just like what abilities can I daisy chain together in order to get advantage and then plus five and then a second advantage and then do triple damage.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that is still very fun, but I've just done that one a lot sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited to do Let's own let's focus solely on the makeup ups and just strip down only to what we need and see how far we can get with just that and that's why the OSR really interested me and then into the hud just

[SPEAKER_00]: it's such a gorgeous book and it just lights up your imagination and just like I rolled three characters.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was supposed to roll one character for this and I just rolled three because I was like this is so much fun and it's so simple and so easy and I've got three little weirdos that I'm excited to play and it's it's gonna be great.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm I yeah I think you you've summed it up really nicely and I I think the thing that's got me the most excited is there's a degree

[SPEAKER_03]: There's a degree of joy in I'm going to throw you in a weird situation and just see how you react as much as how the characters that you're embodying react and like getting to watch that unfold and pull on those strings has got me jumping at the bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: So with that said, I want to say I'm going to set a seen a little bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then I'll have you introduce the three characters that you've created, all of whom are going to be boarding an airboat.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we see on the docks in Bastion land, which is our Bastion, which is our like big colossal massive sort of vaguely London-esque fantasy city.

[SPEAKER_03]: uh on the edges of a cliff there is like a carved into a mountain side there is a shipping dock or like a boarding dock and there are skyboats.

[SPEAKER_03]: These are uh think Mississippi Delta River Boats

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, they take off into the sky wheels.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, with the big wheel in front and when the wheel starts spinning, like it pushes the same way that a wheel that the wheel on a riverboat pushes the water and pushes it forward, it pushes the air and hurdles the thing into the sky.

[SPEAKER_00]: I also imagine it's very slow to it's not like it's like it's a propeller.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a slow journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a fast slow airship.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a military.

[SPEAKER_03]: These are not military vessels.

[SPEAKER_03]: These are either like leisure or leisure or like business travel.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like these are these are not things that you take with it with a purpose and

[SPEAKER_03]: We see boarding this like a group of varying individuals of different, you know, socioeconomic classes and backgrounds and appearances, kind of all boarding this boat in like a big sort of huddled mass and among them as the, as the, as the boat opens up to sort of the central dining area.

[SPEAKER_03]: Who is the first of our three protagonists that we see bored and like where are they going on this sort of a cruise-ish ship?

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, the first person that is popping through that door is Bonnathan McQuick.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you can call me Bonnie, and Bonnathan McQuick is a explore extraordinaire.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a person who is in it for the love and the wonder of exploration and discovery.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you see, he's lost an eye in some of his exploits is wearing like a very stylish eye patch.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, he's got a pistol on one hip and a whip on the other and a big Indiana Jones style hat.

[SPEAKER_00]: because I think he even found like a faded copy of some kind of Indiana Jones thing that's come through a time stream or something who knows.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he was like, you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to style myself on this lad.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I adore that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's he's moving into a space and owning that space the second he gets there.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, um, does this character have an arcanum?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, did we, did you roll a random magical item for this character?

[SPEAKER_00]: So I rolled all my random stats and the way that into the artworks is like you choose You look there's a big table and you look at what is your highest stat and then what is your hit points that you're Rode and it like it corresponds to a certain thing and because my one of my highest I rolled really well for Bonnet and his strength is 13 Dex's 16 and will is 7 and his HP is 4

[SPEAKER_00]: That corresponded to, I got a pistol, which does these six damage, a whip that does D4, I've got a bunch of cigars, and I lost an eye.

[SPEAKER_03]: Great.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wonderful.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wonderful.

[SPEAKER_03]: All great background information.

[SPEAKER_03]: You, bonnethe, has heard tale of a magical material, and I think like in your possession,

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm going to ask you like what the object is, what it's been fashioned into.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll tell you about the material and you tell me like what material.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think like it was shown to you in like a bar by a curiosity seller who has sent you to you have been sent to a place called Ersis Point.

[SPEAKER_03]: Ursus point is a like small or that's where you're that's where this skyboat is headed is Ursus point.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a small valley on the bottom side of a mountain.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a maybe a day and a half or a few days flight by skyboat.

[SPEAKER_03]: You could get there sooner if you took like a military

[SPEAKER_03]: it's not a like this it was not conveyed to you as like an emergency and this is a cheaper and frankly nicer way to travel.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's way more stylish and if bonthens going to shell out for something he's going to shell out for traveling in style and there was nothing more stylish than a really slow paddle wheel driven airship.

[SPEAKER_03]: The material sky metal.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is and it was shown to you

[SPEAKER_03]: like gold that has, gold that has faded into bronze, metal, that when it comes into contact with heat and the way this was shown to you by a curiosity trader many, many days ago or you know, a few days ago or however long it took you to book this track, this trip.

[SPEAKER_03]: When you apply heat to it, he, you know, he little, he lit a zip-o lighter and he held

[SPEAKER_03]: and it didn't fall like a metal object should.

[SPEAKER_03]: It floated down like a feather and you get the sense that if you were to heat it even further, it wouldn't fall at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: It would simply float or it would start to ascend.

[SPEAKER_03]: Whatever this metal is, the warmer it gets, the more it is exposed to heat, the lighter it becomes to a point where it floats in the air.

[SPEAKER_03]: what is the object that you are currently carrying with you as an example as a as a symbol of like what majesty magical wonder of the world might be waiting for you at irses point uh i think he's taken a like something i've made of this metal yeah or what form did it come in like what is what is the object that is on your person

[SPEAKER_00]: I think when it was originally shown to me, it was like a piece of sheet metal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was just kind of like raw or the hip-end like smashed down.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted out this guy in a card game, took it and melted it and twisted it until it formed a very crude, like single, almost like fighter airplane.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like imagining a new type of aircraft because that's what he's thinking of this as.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like,

[SPEAKER_00]: All you have to do is light fire underneath the wings and all of a sudden this thing can take off and we have a new form of air travel.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he is moving this thing through his fingers, flying it around the room a little bit, it'll just kind of float around and he's gathering attention of what is essentially a really fancy as metal paper airplane.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so you board, uh, you can see there is a gambling table on the boat, like there's people playing poker.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, there is someone spreading out sort of like books and maps and candles and cards and sort of like,

[SPEAKER_03]: like, uh, doing various suits saying activities among themselves, uh, there is a gentleman, uh, older with a big, uh, gorilla twirling mustache, uh, and like a floppy hat in very kind of like foppy.

[SPEAKER_03]: where like dealing cards and like cigar and his mouth and he turns towards you and gives like a like a raise of his eyebrows and there's you know the captain and the crew are walking around and giving their opinions and and greeting people.

[SPEAKER_03]: Where is Bonathon headed as we meet the second person that is boarding this cruise ship?

[SPEAKER_00]: Bonitain sees a person with an impressive mustache and a rubbish attire.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's immediately be lining for this person, because he knows in his travels, the more interesting a person looks like in the way they dress and like what they're presenting to the world, probably the more interesting information they're gonna have, at least that's what's worked out for him so far, so he's gonna keep trying it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And behind him, as he is going over to the guy, the person was like dealing cards, was that a gambling game?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: hovering over like the hovering over the card table, kind of like beckoning people over.

[SPEAKER_00]: As Bonnithin starts going over to the gambling table, he kind of calls behind him and you hear like a much smaller man kind of like grunting behind him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Bonnithin's gonna look behind and go, Chester, get my stuff over here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna be taking a seat at this table.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna find out where we're going and how we can get some good stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's one who to be had, kid, you gotta find it with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Chester Potts is essentially a pack-mule person.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is like an intern almost for this adventure.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's hoisting too big backpacks full of stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has a musket, slung over one side of like a band, at on top of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And next to him is his very faithful companion, a dog, a mut named Porco.

[SPEAKER_00]: German Shepherd is named Porco because it's like a pig.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's got very round and rotund and the two of them have a telepathic link as I rolled in a character creation.

[SPEAKER_03]: I like this.

[SPEAKER_03]: I love this a lot.

[SPEAKER_03]: What an incredible thing to roll to a character creation.

[SPEAKER_03]: I love random tables.

[SPEAKER_03]: I love games that make use of random tables so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: What I believe about the random tables in this is like it seems like the worse your stats are so if you if you're worse stat If you're best stat was like 10 and you had one health you're gonna get the coolest starting equipment Whereas it then it gets worse and worse like if you have if your top stat is 18 and you have six health to start You're getting like the shittiest weapons and like your mute and have lost an eye and don't let like you're starting at a detriment Which is really exciting and fun.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's very fun.

[SPEAKER_03]: I it's a great approach so

[SPEAKER_03]: As you, as you board, I think like you see Bonnathan settled in by the card table.

[SPEAKER_03]: This like old grifter of a man gives like a wide smile.

[SPEAKER_03]: And on like a smile that for split second feels almost too wide.

[SPEAKER_03]: His like nice vest, his like nice kind of woven vest.

[SPEAKER_03]: shines with a sort of bronzeish gold hue and he kind of like beckons like a beckons over sets everything up by the card table people are boarding now and uh do we have a third crew member that is boarding as is the two of you are getting set up.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a third crew member, the third crew as Bonifin comes in, you know, bigger, as big as he possibly can be throwing this paper, this metal paper craft around, and then, you know, Chester Pots coming in with all these bags, they're making such a scene.

[SPEAKER_00]: The third person is very deliberately much quieter, and this is Marianne, who is,

[SPEAKER_00]: it's difficult for her to be as quiet because one of her things that I wrote for her is she also has a mule named Stompi who is walking around and it's notable at this point that Chester is the one that is packing all the stuff and the literal pack mule has nothing on its back.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, this is an animal companion, also with a musket and at her side, scabbard is a blade of very similar those slightly distinct metal to that metal airplane, and this is a rainbow blade, which is love a rainbow blade, which is a piece of our cannon that I wrote, it does these six damage, but also it can fire beams of harmless light in any color of the wheel

[SPEAKER_00]: And she is like kind of moving around much quieter, which is this is very much a tactic that bonnithin and Maryanne and Chester practice all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are like there are two people who are taking all the attention that allows the third person to walk around and like slowly gain information or just be there in case something pops off in the background.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that the thing that Mary Ann as you're walking around.

[SPEAKER_03]: I do think there's a moment where Captain O'Shaughnessy kind of stops you like the captain of the vessel kind of stops you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like we can't have a donkey inside.

[SPEAKER_03]: They'll have to wait on the outer deck.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'd be happy to show you the designated livestock areas.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to understand.

[SPEAKER_03]: We have carpet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, he's incredibly well trained.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I have all the proper paperwork for support animal with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's actually a very lovely fellow, which is like, this is a stompy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stompy, can you do your trick?

[SPEAKER_00]: And stompy is going to prance like a pony in a equestrian show and be really, really charming.

[SPEAKER_03]: I

[SPEAKER_03]: I think there is a moment of extreme skepticism as Marianne is saying all of this and then the donkey starts prancing and that is in fact incredibly delightful.

[SPEAKER_03]: Just make sure that it doesn't track any mud or leave any mud that you understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our carpet and we shouldn't have a problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: I promise you it has never been a problem in the past and will never be a problem in the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have my word.

[SPEAKER_00]: And thank you so much for all that you're doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: You look like you're doing a fantastic job here.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're really on your stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I appreciate that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we're going to have a great time on this flight.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, please, uh, I'm just the captain of the ship, uh, just the captain.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's such a big title.

[SPEAKER_03]: Gravelling, grovelling is unnecessary.

[SPEAKER_03]: Any, I think Flash is like whips a cigar out of a breast pocket.

[SPEAKER_03]: But appreciate it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Enjoy your trip.

[SPEAKER_00]: She pulls out a matches and lights a cigar for them.

[SPEAKER_03]: uh, and we see the remainder.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think like as Marianne as you are kind of like quietly walking around, um, you notice a few key details.

[SPEAKER_03]: You notice, uh,

[SPEAKER_03]: You notice that there are like several people, like several people loading bags in the sort of the bag and shelf the visual in my head.

[SPEAKER_03]: And this is the most I can say this to you, Brian, because you'll get the vibe, I'm track, I'm track, luggage, luggage, luggage, rack on top of a train, where it's just a bar that hovers the holds bags on top.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, people are loading and you're seeing a tremendous amount of digging equipment work gear.

[SPEAKER_03]: interesting people it seems for whatever reason like you're noticing a lot of uh uh you know the the people that were already on the boat like there's a degree of like leisure to their ensemble right like you see this old this old poker player he's looks like he's dressed for a leisure cruise but there are fair number of people here who are dressed

[SPEAKER_03]: for work.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they're their clothes are woven.

[SPEAKER_03]: They are denim.

[SPEAKER_03]: They are patched up.

[SPEAKER_03]: They are, they have seen years and seen and seen hours and seen long days and they have seen much wear.

[SPEAKER_03]: These are not bespoke new clothing.

[SPEAKER_03]: They are clothes that have lasted for a long time.

[SPEAKER_03]: It appears people are getting onto this airboat headed to where you're headed with the promise

[SPEAKER_03]: opportunity.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is something to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does it seem like the equipment and the people today?

[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm curious is is the equipment like used?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is this like this is the hammer that everybody uses all the time or is it new?

[SPEAKER_00]: And does this look organized and funded or is this like

[SPEAKER_03]: this this has a little bit of energy of a gold rush this has a little bit of energy of people yeah the the the hammers and the tools look old there is no like a consistency to dress like the people boarding this ship like look like they grabbed whatever digging equipment they could and they're making and they're making their move as and they're making their move they

[SPEAKER_00]: I think Marianne is going to recognize this and make the rounds specifically knowing that like when this is a gold rush, the winner is the person who finds the best bean of gold.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the information will out at the end, so she is going to be just kind of going around looking to see any little tidbits that she can gather.

[SPEAKER_00]: if she can see tickets where people are getting off exactly, if she can see what type of equipment that maybe gives an idea of the type of soil that they would be looking through, just any little bit that she can report back.

[SPEAKER_03]: The thing that you notice most interestingly, typically, if this were a gold rush, if this was a people rushing to where there's reports of something,

[SPEAKER_03]: you would expect to see multiple locations.

[SPEAKER_03]: You would expect to see like a variety of spots of, either I'm going to, you know, go further up the river so that I can, I can panhandle where nobody else is catching gold or I'm going to take a mountain a few hills over or something to the effect of like, you would expect to see positioning play a part, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: You would expect to see more.

[SPEAKER_03]: every ticket that you kind of see, especially of the people that are loading, you know, chisels and spades and buckets and things like that, they're all headed to Earth's point.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're all headed to the same pretty small, no name, unremarkable.

[SPEAKER_03]: You've never heard this name until this moment, valley town.

[SPEAKER_03]: It seems that some kind of rumor about this place has started to spread.

[SPEAKER_03]: And see people are starting to make a move.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, that's the problem with rumors.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the second that I hear one, the second that anyone hears one, it means that someone else has already heard it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's no longer a rumor.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's practically fact.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone already knows it.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's the point of it?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not information.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the other thing that Mary Ann notices.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, the other thing that Mary Ann picks up on is not really people.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not really a person detail as much as it is just an oddity.

[SPEAKER_03]: Something that something that like she spots as she's walking around.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is like a luxury.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a, this is a travel, a business, luxury travel ship.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why would it have a military grade harpoon cannon plastered on like like bolted on to the or like like building on to the side of it like newly welded on clean like

[SPEAKER_03]: not necessarily newly welded like it's not like fresh but like it is but it's still not worth it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Clearly not, clearly not constructed with it because it is a different kind of metal and a different style of like construction.

[SPEAKER_03]: Clearly a post-hawk addition to the modification to the airboat to have this harpoon cannon.

[SPEAKER_00]: Marianne is going to jot down some notes in an essentially like short like writer's shorthand, so not quite code, but not not quite code.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's going to walk past Chester and like deposit a slip of paper in his pocket.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like relaying information to him to relay it to Bonifin and staying always staying one person away from Bonifin.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's always there, Emma.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're never quite together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bonnathan is is very much a fool, but also is a little bit playing the fool as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: Love it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Fantastic.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the final detail that we get as you as you settle in is as the boat takes off and you settle in and bonnet and settles in for the poker game.

[SPEAKER_03]: Chester gets a message, Chester like gets the psychic experience, the sensation.

[SPEAKER_03]: of somebody tugging on the side of your surreptitious leg.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not actually happening, but it is the feeling in the back of your mind of somebody like tugging on the threads of your sweater.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think his is first instincts and and Chester is like a pretty scrawny guy probably just like you know early to mid 20s very much like kind of intern vibes a bit and I think he's very much doing this like he's got the vibe of Chester is man this better be worth it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I think that that telepathic toe that mental tug is he immediately thinks that it's Porco asking for a third lunch and is kind of like Porco not not now do that not now do no no it's not that But I mean all it is it I mean third lunch, but also not third lunch.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: What what is it what is it?

[SPEAKER_03]: Ghosts ghosts ghosts

[SPEAKER_03]: Can you can can your kind see ghosts?

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, can you can you see ghosts?

[SPEAKER_00]: Can so no, but can are we talking?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you are you seeing ghosts right now?

[SPEAKER_03]: And you see porco.

[SPEAKER_03]: Ah, the visual of this of a dog doing this, without any of my head and I almost just an all cute because it's funny.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, Porco has like curled up around, um, has like curled up around your leg and his like sinking back a little bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he's looking in the direction of that person that has set up their little, their little table and their their candles and their cards and like, uh,

[SPEAKER_03]: They are communing with something.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, everybody, can you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you do me favor?

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you just like describe what the ghost looks like?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like does it look scary?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does it look angry, malicious?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like what is it looking at?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or what is it looking at?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or what is it like trying to do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it just kind of like a blob?

[SPEAKER_03]: As you know, just a blob, just a blob.

[SPEAKER_03]: becoming more person like features are coming in and out.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're clearly early in whatever they're doing, but I can't tell if it's, I don't know how bad it is, but felt like something to signal to you is ghosts, ghosts.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's good, okay, so listen, this is what I'm gonna need you to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was already pretty 50-50 on whether or not we were going to come on this mission because it seems more dangerous than it's worth.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if it looks like we're going to skip over to the other edge, I'm just going to need you to come over.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can just bite me, grab me, anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to just skidaddle right off this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to take one of the emergency boats and we're just going to go down into whatever extreme wasteland we find ourselves in and we're going to walk home, okay, buddy?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to burn off some of that x to those extra calories on you and we're just going to get that right here.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'd rather I like I like keeping the calories because I like eating because I like eating, but I understood.

[SPEAKER_03]: Understood, miss, miss you accepted.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks buddy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me some pictures.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I just kind of smack them on the butt a bunch of times and the boat takes off this old poker player Kenwood Sandalbaum is Dealing cards and like I think

[SPEAKER_03]: How many hands does it take Bonnathan or does Bonnathan notice that the card hands are rigged?

[SPEAKER_03]: I guess like it's how long does Bonnathan notice and how long does it take Bonnathan to notice?

[SPEAKER_00]: Man, every part of me wants Bonnathan to be really good at this, but also I know the better choice is for him to have no idea.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think Bonnathan,

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what, could I, could I roll a thing for it?

[SPEAKER_00]: What I do a little more.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's make a roll for this.

[SPEAKER_03]: This feels great as a roll.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's see, this, I think, would probably, this might, I mean, this sounds like it might even be a lock roll.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, let's do a lock roll.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a girl, me a D6, Romeo D6 and will take the number well and form the result.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is high good or is high bad?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it's players.

[SPEAKER_03]: Low roll means bad luck.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's a six, baby.

[SPEAKER_03]: You spotted immediately.

[SPEAKER_03]: What's the tell?

[SPEAKER_03]: What's the tell?

[SPEAKER_03]: What is bonnet things?

[SPEAKER_03]: The tell that bonnet粉 spots immediately.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a, he catches a hanger, which is kind of what Sandalbaum is dealing off the bottom of the deck, and when you're dealing off the bottom of the deck every now and then you will pull accidentally a second card, and your hand will very quickly adjust it, but it's a very clear flash and a very clear tell.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, it's literally the worst thing that could happen to a base dealer, and he catches a little bit of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's lucky because he wasn't looking for it, he thought it was a straight game,

[SPEAKER_00]: that he is working with an operator.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there's the person in front of him is a mechanic and knows what's happening.

[SPEAKER_03]: I forgot when I put all of the detail in the U-Rion have trained in card tricks and gloves of magic.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm so glad that we got that on the episode.

[SPEAKER_03]: I, I, I gesture dorks is at the top of the episode, truly the moment at fact that I said I hated you with the hate with the heat of a thousand sons was learning that you were not only incredibly talented and super nice, but that you straight up did, with the first time we sat down in prison, you did a close-up magic trick immediately and I was like, this fuck you, fuck you, this motherfucker, this motherfucker, you can't have this too, you can't, it's just, so I'm so glad that we got that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Great job, great job, accidental planning, Jeff.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I know, right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think, could I make a crazy move?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you, you tell me, uh, whether or not, I just want to, um, uh, bonafin is going to kind of like take off the hat, which is note where then put it in the seat next to him or put it like on the, the table next to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's going to, you know, take a sip of this drink, set it down, go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, can wood.

[SPEAKER_00]: I see you have it improved since the last time we met that's great.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's that's really good And I think like there's a moment of candle wood like twiddles is mustache for a second it goes Always always glad that I leave a memory in someone's mind now I almost forgot you but then I saw you catch that hang of it and then I remembered you and I think he is a go Kind of leans for like looks over to everybody goes

[SPEAKER_03]: My dears.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that we are going to take a little hiatus from the game.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that me and my old friend Bonathon have some catching up to do and like he does a one handed shuffle kind of like waves everyone away leans four goes How about you and I one hand All L cards on the table no tricks and does a second one handed shuffle

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... as is that cute little that cute little airplane in your pocket uh... versus and kind of like tugs at his vest and you see that same bronzy gold shine a nice vest woven of the same material that i think you and i are chasing after

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I get the sense, just I'm guessing Vest has more metal?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I get the sense that these are of roughly equal?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is this a good bet just in terms of stuff?

[SPEAKER_03]: I would say probably like this feels like a... That's such a good question.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm an errolity.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a luck roll for me, where I'm an errolity six.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, this feels like I rolled it too, which means bad luck, which means, uh, I think in this case, you, you think this is a roughly equal trade.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that like, that like, the, the, the fact that, that, that, in fact, this trade is probably deeply unequal, like this is metal that has been treated and woven and is like designed with a purpose versus some sheet metal that has been hacked at.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is lost on Bonethin.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think Bonethin is, you know, Bonethin's got 16 decks.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think he's probably trained himself in some card stuff, because if you're going to have Brian on a podcast, we've got to do some magic bullshit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's a magic bullshit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think Bonethin is going to look at Kendall Wingo.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't know if that's exactly a fair trade, but I'm happy to, man, I immediately go to Southern accent every time I play.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I can't believe it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I can't believe it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I'm not, like, I can see how you got it.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, I guess we, if we're gonna be here, we're just gonna be here, all right.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, well, well, now I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta very fine looking vest, I don't know if it would fit across my very fine torso, but I'd be happy for the mental and sad.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you're on.

[SPEAKER_03]: and let's call it a draw.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I think this is absolutely going to be a deck save.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a risky situation.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you're going to roll 1d20.

[SPEAKER_03]: You want to roll under your deck's derity.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hell yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: My decks is 16.

[SPEAKER_00]: I rolled like crazy for bonnet and so I'm feeling good.

[SPEAKER_00]: 17.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, great.

[SPEAKER_03]: Good.

[SPEAKER_03]: 7 fucking teeth.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's 16.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, then I know exactly what it is.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know exactly what it is.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is it is in my opinion, one of the all time.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is one of the all time great card playing moments in all of all affection and pop culture.

[SPEAKER_03]: We get the ending of the Steve McQueen

[SPEAKER_03]: You have, you have, you have stacked the deck, you have, you have stacked your hand, you have done all of the things right and then he flips the final card in the hand and he drew insanely the exact card the one card he needed to like to to to beat you like you were like as long as he doesn't have a royal flush right now he's fine and then he flipped the A he flipped the king of spades.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think Bonnathan looks up and sees often the distance, like, behind, behind Kendallwood, Marianne is there and she is making the, like, no-go sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, she's, she's doing it chill.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's, it's, it's, uh, no one else would notice it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But she is emphatically making the do not bet you are getting screwed sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and I catch it the second the last card flips.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, the card flips.

[SPEAKER_03]: He kind of sits back and goes,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, uh, this metal catches a pretty penny since, uh, it doesn't seem the thing that anybody else can make in the world outside of this one little spot.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm going to enjoy being able to wheel and deal with one or more extra little piece of it and he extends a hand and as he does, uh, where's Chester right now?

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I think Chester is nearby.

[SPEAKER_00]: He, uh, he kind of always exists in a place of he could be there at a moment's notice, but is like, is just in your shot, but just out of sight.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, then Chester, you are by one of the windows of this guy boat.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's when you see it.

[SPEAKER_03]: it's uh... it's flapping uh... it is aggressive it is flying in an attack like it's it's wings are extended in an attack pattern not in a like fly by pattern it is uh... sleek an angular uh... it is a a it appears to be some kind of a bird of prey uh...

[SPEAKER_03]: and it is entirely in color for on's ish gold uh and it is sharp razor sharp belated uh and it is herdling towards you and it lets out like a ferrule screech

[SPEAKER_03]: as it like hurdles towards you and you see the crew you see the like passengers look up in fright and the crew start to panic and like one of the crew hands makes a dash towards the towards the harpoon gun what are you doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: The Chester immediately slightly connects with Porco and it's just like and I told you this wasn't worth it It's gonna whip the musket off of his back and take a shot at this thing coming towards it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go Roll a die dictated by your weapon subtract the opponent's armor score.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let me pop up in the armor score on this thing

[SPEAKER_03]: I am using a published adventure.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll thank the author at the end of this is also in the intro and outro.

[SPEAKER_03]: Where's my horrible weapon?

[SPEAKER_03]: My horrible monster that is flying at you at this moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just to give you a reference of scale.

[SPEAKER_00]: How big is this guy?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is this like as big as the ship?

[SPEAKER_03]: Or like, I would say not as large as the ship.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would say about the size of the ship.

[SPEAKER_03]: probably like a large bird, not like a not a rock, not a bird of myth, but like a large bird.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're talking like a vulture, like just big ass big ass vulture is a good vulture is a good reference point big ass bird, but I also let you start the metal and sleek angles is flying at you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I see that kind of sharp metals league angles coming right at us and I'm like this thing There is a paddle wheel that is slowly paddling this thing through the air.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly a stable form of air travel All right, so and I recognize that like we are in the air If anything goes wrong everything goes right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah So I a Chester is gonna meetly fire because I don't think he realizes about the harpoon That was only something that Mary Ann saw

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think Marianne is making her way towards the harpoon as she sees this, but Chester is firing off at the first shot.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, roll me your attack for your musket.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hell yeah, musket.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Chester has stats strength of eight, decks of 11, and will of five, so his decks is 11, so I'm rolling D20 under 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two, baby.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, what's the what's the damage?

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that you automatically do damage when you attack with a weapon if I've got my if I've got my stat my thing is correctly cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll give you a second take So chester is gonna whip out his musket the musket is a bulky weapon.

[SPEAKER_00]: It does de-eight of damage and that is just a two just two.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the solid.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's two.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's chester Give me a luck roll

[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, one.

[SPEAKER_03]: Great.

[SPEAKER_03]: You deal one damage to this thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: You pick off one.

[SPEAKER_03]: You pack through one of its wings.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's wings.

[SPEAKER_03]: It looks so hurt.

[SPEAKER_03]: It looks so.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's wings are thin, like paper thin, and they seem to be this metal, but like matte and paper like, and they

[SPEAKER_03]: Like you tear through one and it flaps and it flies, you know, cock-eyed and off-track and it cycles and flops and it like But in that moment it flies towards the wheel You rolled badly on that luck roll, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: I heard that correctly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I wrote a one

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, good.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hold on.

[SPEAKER_03]: I need a sixth dice here.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not that it's going to matter.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know what's going to happen, but I want to roll this dice because it's fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a really cool idea for a bird to be made of this metal that as it gets hot, it rises.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's like great.

[SPEAKER_00]: It flies during the day.

[SPEAKER_00]: It heats up naturally with the sun.

[SPEAKER_03]: Great.

[SPEAKER_00]: So these things are not nocturnal probably.

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... it spirals and uh... gets close to the wheel of this thing and kaboom uh... the paddle wheel the the bird itself explodes

[SPEAKER_03]: as though there was a bomb inside of it and it explodes and it tears uh... it tears the wheel uh... you see the wheel is badly damaged the ship is going down the cabins and supplies and like uh... mechanisms of light however in the explosion uh... the captain's cabin uh... the wall of it has been ripped and you see captain of jonna c uh... fall out of the window into the abyss

[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the second we get off of this, you're losing weight.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fifteen pounds.

[SPEAKER_00]: Third one.

[SPEAKER_00]: But third, launch it up.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're not getting third lunch, do you lose 15 pounds?

[SPEAKER_00]: Third one.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might not even get second lunch at this rate.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Keep pushing your luck.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a nice way.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is worse than death.

[SPEAKER_03]: No second lunch.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what I'm gonna do.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna pound.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna give you second lunch, all right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But third lunch is excessive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: I got a second lunch.

[SPEAKER_00]: We got to get off the ship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Here's what I want to ask you.

[SPEAKER_03]: there are a few ways that your characters can do this uh... and i'm going to lay out the options and let you make the choice okay you are on this airboat it is uh... it has lost propulsion it is hurtling towards the ground it's going to uh... left to its own devices it's going to crash it's going to crash bad and there are not going to be survivors

[SPEAKER_03]: There are a few options for how you can.

[SPEAKER_03]: How you will get safely to the ground.

[SPEAKER_03]: What are the options that each of your characters takes?

[SPEAKER_03]: There are the escape.

[SPEAKER_03]: There are the escape craft on the lower levels of the boat.

[SPEAKER_03]: There is somebody could the wheel of the ship, the steering of the ship is still hypothetically in place, even if the captain is not here to steer the ship and the ship is losing propulsion.

[SPEAKER_03]: You could try to steer it to a safe landing.

[SPEAKER_03]: There is certainly whatever is happening with this wizard, this wizard, which person that is conjuring things in the corner, they could probably make you a deal.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's also a vest that you know is made of metal, but that's going to require taking that vest off of the guy that just beats you in a poker game.

[SPEAKER_03]: What is the option that each of these characters is taking to get themselves safely to the ground?

[SPEAKER_00]: These are all great options.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think this team, immediately sees each other and they all, like at all three of these folks lock eyes, and they all go about their own business trying to figure this out.

[SPEAKER_00]: The plan is to escape and hopefully land this plane.

[SPEAKER_00]: Marianne is gonna go to the ship.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's gonna try to steer this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Marianne has the calmest nerves and it's hopefully gonna be able to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, uh, Chester, uh, is gonna look down at pork and go.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, you saw, you still see in the ghost?

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I'm seeing a lot of things.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm seeing a lot of things.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm seeing a lot of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, mascara or ghosts?

[SPEAKER_00]: My, my thought is ghosts can fly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to go talk to some ghosts and see if they can help sound?

[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to talk to ghosts, I'll follow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, but I can see the ghosts and you can't, so you would have to do the talk.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just leave me, leave me by the hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to put my hand in Porco's mouth and have them guide me.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think like walks, I think like, yeah, Chester walks over and it's at the table.

[SPEAKER_03]: This hunched over person,

[SPEAKER_03]: eyes kind of blinking slightly out of sync and like, like, uh, leading forward and kind of like rubbing their hands together as they kind of lay things out and then taking time to run their hands together and laying things out and blink one by blink the other eye, uh, like sees you come over and like, uh, just kind of like eyes you suspiciously of like, is there something that you want.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, I get it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're really spooky and stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: My dog here says that you have ghosts and I think ghosts can fly you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I help us out as the ship is crashing because if not, I'm making my way to the escape boats.

[SPEAKER_03]: What do you say?

[SPEAKER_03]: I could be convinced to make a deal.

[SPEAKER_03]: I could.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be honest, it's a seller's market right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: You tell me what you want.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going down, baby, down.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so you tell me what you want, now give it to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Great, wonderful.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, let me say, uh, what does this person?

[SPEAKER_03]: What does this, what does this person want?

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, let me let me flip through my notes here.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, oh, I, I know exactly what this person wants.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I want the heart.

[SPEAKER_03]: of the God's soldier.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, clearly look at me, look at me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm holding two packs and I've got a severely overweight dog.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think I have the heart of a God's soldier?

[SPEAKER_00]: What does that even mean?

[SPEAKER_03]: Listen, do you accept, I don't mean that you have it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean you're going to bring it to me when we get to when we get safely to, when we get safely to Earth's point.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, but the deal is if you die and I don't, you don't get the hunt me from beyond the grave.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to be corporeal to cash on the steel.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's unfair.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will be fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, shake.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, how do you, how do you know you're going to be fine?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, reaches out shakes at which point I pulled my hand before I shake.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think you're going to be fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, uh, exactly fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to be down by anything.

[SPEAKER_03]: I've.

[SPEAKER_03]: because I'm going to, because I'm going to walk safely to the ground and then I'll be fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to, I'm going to appear safely on the ground in just a moment.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to come with me, then accept the terms of my deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Heart, God, soldier.

[SPEAKER_00]: God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Porto, this was not worth it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You take it my dog, too.

[SPEAKER_03]: Of course.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, of course.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would never abandon a dog.

[SPEAKER_03]: The dog was coming safely one way or the other.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not a monster.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dog goes also not part of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dog is a freebie.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dog is a freebie.

[SPEAKER_03]: Dog is a freebie.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would never, I would never endanger the life of a dog.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will endanger the life of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pork out on San, I never did anything for you.

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... reaches out shakes your hand as as they shake your hand uh... several other like grass hopper arms come out in like also like shake the hand uh... like a lot of their sleeve and shake your hands wasn't what you want to hand shake you didn't do the creepy stuff uh... and there is a swirl like the the creaking uh... the creaking of cicadas surround the both of you as

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... you are enveloped in a wave of insects and in a split second uh... consumed and ripped a zunder and then in a second a cloud of cicadas uh... spins and leaves you on the ground uh... by the earth's point when you say ripped a zunder they like fully destroyed me and then reassembled me they're it that's how it feels it's unclear if it happened or not but it's certainly felt that way

[SPEAKER_00]: uh... it just as we get to the ground uh... as i see the ship is like crashing in the background i just want to real back and punch this guy feel like listen you didn't tell me you're gonna tear it you said appear safely on the ground that kind of implies a pain free existence okay my guy you were in pain for a a moment i'm gonna be in pain for this much longer than you were in pain from this from the ritual yet no that's the point

[SPEAKER_03]: fine fine then.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, listen, before we go, you got to watch this because you're going to want to see how Bonnathan fixes this one.

[SPEAKER_03]: Great.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're back on the airship.

[SPEAKER_03]: Bonnathan is is is Marianne is piloting this thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to ask for.

[SPEAKER_03]: how what do we think piloting is?

[SPEAKER_03]: Is it dexterity?

[SPEAKER_03]: Is it strength?

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like it might be strength because you don't have because the propulsion is not there and it's more it's more about like dragging the ship and it's just like pulling the full weight of the ship but I could be convinced otherwise.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to convince you to will because it's her strongest stat but her stats aren't great.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're 11 for strength, 8 for decks 12 for will and she only got two hit points.

[SPEAKER_00]: She is what I'd like to pitch you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take strength because I think you're right.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is like, she's literally has to wield this thing to her, she literally has to bend this thing to her will.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm looking for is there an advantage mechanic in this game, can I get advantage?

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, that's a great question.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, I don't think that there is, but I really like advantage and I'm fine handing it over if you've got a pitch for me.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think, well actually, I think this is a very OSR thing, which is to say like, if you've got a plan that doesn't involve you rolling dice, tell me what that plan is and it might just bypass you rolling dice because rolling dice might not go well for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is the environment around here?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are we like over-open fields or are there like, cause I know we were going to like a mountainous region.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is there a mountain nearby?

[SPEAKER_03]: Hills and hills, foot hills and mountains are nearby.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're near your destination.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think what Marian is doing, I think we're gonna try to do like a controlled, like skipping landing, hitting off of like tops of hills.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think there's a great, she is trying to land the plane as,

[SPEAKER_00]: as well as she can.

[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing that there is not a like clear, um, yeah, right, like there's not a landing strip.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I think her plan is to keep it in the air as long as she can.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the, uh, uh,

[SPEAKER_00]: safety boats can get off.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then she's trying to land it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, of the three, though, though Bonnathan may present as the adventure, she is likely the one that actually has the most sure heroism in her veins.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think what I will, I mean, I think that this works.

[SPEAKER_03]: Fundamentally, I think like I will accept this trade off because I think that's a solid plan.

[SPEAKER_03]: to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... the the hand gliders uh... evacuate uh... is bonnathan still on the play on the airboat or or is he evacuating via uh... uh... glider bonnathan is on the airboat uh... he is going to look at uh... candlewood and go

[SPEAKER_00]: What do you say, double enough and wait, I made a choice for this accent.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do you say, double enough and old rules and he's going to pull out his pistol and flick it around and then re-holster it to initiate a duel with Kendall Wood's sandalball.

[SPEAKER_03]: And here I thought crashing an airboat was going to be the most exciting thing that I went through today and he's going to also flash a a pistol He's going to do the thing that I love the most which is he's going to flick his wrist and the pistol is on a slider and it's going to slide into it And he's going to lean forward opposite sides of the table shoot on three

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to keep an eye because I know the only thing we've seen of of what is this name Kendall Kendall would Kendall would

[SPEAKER_00]: Sandal Ball Sandal Ball.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that we've seen of Kendall with Sandal Ball in this thing is that he has cheated at cards And he also has a Mini gun holstered up his sleeve.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a pistol on the hip.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know this guy's gonna cheat and I know that when he says we shoot on three That means we actually shoot on two so I'm going to meet him at his level.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure 100% and like I recognize what the true rules of the engagement are and

[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm hoping to pitch you is some kind of dexterity check.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, this feels like you've you've you've sold me on the you've sold me on dexterity that feels right hundred percent And I'm gonna also roll his dexterity and then honestly, I don't even think this is a damage.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's just whoever pulls that trigger wins.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel similar.

[SPEAKER_00]: My dexterity is 16.

[SPEAKER_00]: I rolled a 15 baby.

[SPEAKER_00]: I rolled a 20.

[SPEAKER_03]: A natural 20, which in any which in many other games would be a great scenario of the 20.

[SPEAKER_00]: I always a failure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can I pitch what happens with a candle, a candle with sandable?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think a candle would has the gun like on the Extendomatic thing in his one hand and is like has it down the side ready to draw and you know, looks just because three.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two, and as it goes to two, I start to draw, and he starts to bring out his other hand, which was already pointing out, we would have had a second extendo gun, and as that one comes to his hand, he fires it and he had forgotten to load it in the morning.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's great.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's really funny.

[SPEAKER_03]: And she just gets obliterated.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was a head there before, there's not a head there now.

[SPEAKER_00]: uh... he gets sent hurtling backwards uh... the vest is yours for the taking uh... uh... i'm gonna bond with him's gonna whip off the vest and run to marion and uh... give what is bond i think it is

[SPEAKER_00]: But if it's gonna give the vest to Mary and say, Marianne, you get that, I keep forgetting to do this guys' voice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Marianne, you get the hell out of here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll get this thing to ground safely, all right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You make sure that, make sure that Chester ain't doing nothing bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure he's made another deal with some kind of crazy folk that we're gonna have to have a whole adventure to do now because he was too eager to get off the boat, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: I know he didn't want to come, but he didn't have to.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got to stop feeling that dog so much.

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... Mary yet so you hand off the vest uh... and we see the the airboat like tap on tap on a mountain tap on a second mountain comes screeching to a halt uh... and to chesters point very impressively land directly in front of uh... of where you and uh... and the cicada wizard are are hanging around

[SPEAKER_00]: I think Mary and kind of floats down very gracefully on this she's holding her mule in her hands and is like jumped out and is like letting the sun's rays like keep this thing and kind of help her float down.

[SPEAKER_03]: You float down pretty effortlessly and it's not until you touch ground that you realize where you have landed in front of.

[SPEAKER_03]: The thing that you see first is that same bronze-ish gold color.

[SPEAKER_03]: Presumably, this is where you are headed.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is Ursus Point.

[SPEAKER_03]: The town called Grove is below.

[SPEAKER_03]: And staring in front of you is the source of that material.

[SPEAKER_03]: The cicada wizard setting up laying out a rug and materials to continue doing their divination magic.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, not another cicada wizard, but are you cursed this time or did you make a, well, some kind of infernal bargain, which one was it?

[SPEAKER_00]: listen, I just have to get like the god kings crown or something.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it's nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it's a minor adventure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, it's probably not going to even be part of this episode.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so minor.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, and as, as Chester is saying that to Bonovan, Mary Ann is looking and like takes shape of the structure that is in front of you.

[SPEAKER_03]: this massive source of sky metal of golden bronze metal that is that when when hot we'll fly amongst the sky and as you look out among this absolute shuttering mass of metal you see the edges of an arm.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you follow that backwards and you see a shoulder and two eyes of glass, one broken in on a face buried into the earth, dozens, a dozen stories high, a being from the war before.

[SPEAKER_03]: dug into the earth, crafted, crafted of magical metals of which the world and society and Bastie and after the war would never see again.

[SPEAKER_03]: Here is the final resting place of the god's soldier, a 12 story tall weapon of war that has been buried in the earth and is begging out for the release of death.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, see, there you go.

[SPEAKER_00]: I found it, deal complete.

[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: I requested the heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh shit, the heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, you gotta make, you gotta make your deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta shape your deals so that they're not so like obvious.

[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta make sure that they're, you know, they're better.

[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta be, gotta be, gotta be, gotta be better than that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta think it through.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could've just taken one of the hand-gliners.

[SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we gotta get the hearts of the God soldier.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um Sorry, I got to feed my dog guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what he eats so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're much so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're a lot I just I love him so much.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's such a good guy uh And In that moment

[SPEAKER_03]: There is a screech at first of metal and then of a flesh and then of agony and all of your mind's Porko starts doing the starts like a aggressively kind of scratching behind its ear and There is like a floating

[SPEAKER_03]: there is like a screech of agony and laid out before all of you in glistening blue illusion.

[SPEAKER_03]: There are the scars of a thousand battles and the battles of other god soldiers and the agony of undaith and of continued life and floating before you is a humanoid figure.

[SPEAKER_03]: Young adult.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's find the exact note in here.

[SPEAKER_03]: A young adult, maybe in her early 20s, floating, floating and fluid, but floating in the air in front of you, begging,

[SPEAKER_03]: for anything, any kind of contact begging to be released or begging to be freed, just sharing everything and saying, you know, you just hear the words, these memories have been my prison

[SPEAKER_03]: there is then a moment where hovering from behind just their shoulder, the cicada wizard, all of these grasshopper limbs, like cocking or crooked all of these fingers at what's the heart I want the heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all right, calm down.

[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't give us a time frame on the heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like, you know, just chill and you're gonna get your heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the final thing that I will place on you on your three characters here, you have been faced with a conundrum, somewhere in this mech soldier from a magical war of years past, there is a person suspended liquid that has been the heart of this machine.

[SPEAKER_03]: they want to consume this person.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you head inside?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you head inside?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you, do you, do you, do you kill?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you go after and try to kill this cicada wizard?

[SPEAKER_03]: What's the game plan from this moment?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the three of us huddle up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, um, um, uh,

[SPEAKER_00]: Porko is kind of giving me giving Chester details of like the ghosts and the stuff because I imagine the ghosts and stuff around the skater Wizard are just getting like crazy or and more elaborate or like or in some way growing in power

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and Chester's like, okay guys, so I, uh, I kind of, I kind of, I, I kind of, I should the bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should the bed here a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should have just taken the hand glider.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be honest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hand glider's kind of scare me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I crash one once and it hurt.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I made the deal with this Kata wizard and that was a bad move.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's, I thought I was going to be getting like a little machine piece or something.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, it seems like it's going to be more of a person.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to have to, uh,

[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of change the deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: I may be cursed and that may have to be a whole other adventure Let just let you know porco is not involved, which is great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that was a good call You got to make sure the dog is separate.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know you got to make sure it if you're gonna take something on yourself You can't involve the dog.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know I know I know I learned that last time at the Piedmont Society

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so, okay, so the clear motive here is that the clear thing that we need to do is to destroy the cicada wizard, obviously.

[SPEAKER_00]: Porco, are there any ghost lingering that could possibly hear this conversation?

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, ghosts?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Spectrosicate is yes, and the cicada wizard have it like the cicada wizard like has quietly stood up and Like cracks a jar and is evolving it rapidly shifting into a gigantic humanoid bug thing to to run at you

[SPEAKER_00]: Marianne is going to put on the vest again and take off into the air heading to the mech.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Marianne's goal is to try to get into the mech in order to control it and wield it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we can save the person inside once we have that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Chester and

[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, Chester and Bonathon.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bonathon is going to use the whip at his side and is going to whip up at the cicada wizard and is going to try to like entangle the leg of the cicada wizard as it's and like try to knock it off access essentially.

[SPEAKER_03]: Excellent.

[SPEAKER_03]: I like this.

[SPEAKER_03]: I love this a lot.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think like as Marianne is flying.

[SPEAKER_03]: There are like signals like flashes.

[SPEAKER_03]: We see the inside of this thing and it is a mix of this like metal and also like blue dripping flesh.

[SPEAKER_03]: armor, plating, magical metal plating over eldritch, immortal, hell monster flesh.

[SPEAKER_03]: And with there are these flashes and Marianne's mind of like where she needs to go and like where she can find like the where she can where where she needs to be.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, uh, something is something is telling her where to go and she's turning and she's piloting through these caverns and these limbs and through the innards of this thing, uh, meanwhile, uh, outside Bonnithin and Jester, you are staring down this horrible bug thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: How are you distracting it while Mary and gets to where she needs to go?

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Chester, we just gotta take up some time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Marianne's gonna get us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know she will.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's got that rainbow sword on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't she?

[SPEAKER_00]: Marianne inside is like pulling out the rainbow sword and blasting light inside, like trying to find her way through the tunnels and things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like using like changing the color of the thing to like ultraviolet to like see where footsteps are like blood or whatever it has been.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bonnathan is going to attack with his whip trying to pull this cicada wizard either like off its feet or like back down to the ground as it is beginning to like get bigger just trying to like hold it in place and Chester is going to move kind of off to the side so they're not in like one big area and it's going to take his musket and fire.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, we're all me some damage.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hell yeah, the whip does d4 and the musket does d8.

[SPEAKER_00]: The whip was only one, but the real goal for the whip was just to hold this guy down.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the musket was four damage.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, um, you blow an arm off immediately.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like the arm goes flying.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, the cicada wizard falls backwards.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, like blood and viscer are dripping on the ground and the ground is bubbling like acid.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, it is distracted for a moment.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, it is getting ready to rear back and lunge at you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, as before that happens.

[SPEAKER_03]: There is a moment.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh,

[SPEAKER_03]: Longly find it and find it in this book because it's cool and I want to there's a thing that is cool and I want to use it Use all the cool things use all the toys baby.

[SPEAKER_03]: I want shot There it is.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, great.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... Marianne like like flies into this room and there is the is the woman that you saw floating in fluid it like a gigantic glass that a vat of goo nearby there is a being spectral almost in corporeal flowing robes

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, tending to the space, cleaning it, taking care of it, you know, like, dusting and sweeping, sort of a blanket thrown over his shoulders.

[SPEAKER_03]: And just sort of like, I literally greets you like, she's sleeping.

[SPEAKER_03]: Please be respectful.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it seems like she might want to wake up.

[SPEAKER_03]: I see.

[SPEAKER_03]: She's been calling for help again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's quite distressing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think maybe it's time for you to take a rest and allow her to wake up.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could use her help.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's someone who wants to hurt her just outside, and I'd rather they didn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: We can wake her up, and we can dispense with the entity outside.

[SPEAKER_03]: Would you be open to making a bargain?

[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly depends on the bargain.

[SPEAKER_00]: Would you have in mind?

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, and his eyes flash red for a split second, I can deal with the threat outside and I could be relieved of my duty as the caretaker of this space.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I fear if I do that, then our purpose will go undone.

[SPEAKER_03]: and take our purpose, then I can resume my old station and do what I was made to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is your purpose?

[SPEAKER_00]: What purpose would I take on?

[SPEAKER_03]: This, he kicks the walls of the, he kicks the walls of the structure.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shouldn't be.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was a mistake to make it.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was a mistake to build it and to use it and to

[SPEAKER_03]: build me and to use me and I would ask that you seek out those that are like this and destroy them, free their hearts, free the people that are trapped inside.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do that from pledge that to me and I will free and I can I can relieve my can relieve be relieved of my duties and I can

[SPEAKER_03]: I can let Anne Elise out of her century position and allow her to rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think you see Mary Ann looks and goes, well, that's interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think of that as a purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think of that as an adventure.

[SPEAKER_00]: And she gets a little twinkle in her eye and goes, you should have just said that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And she spits in her hand and sticks it out.

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... and he extends a handshake and uh... you don't feel anything at first like his hand phases through yours and then uh... you feel it sort of like get colder like uh... like ice here and sort of like take shape around your hand you people always surprised me

[SPEAKER_03]: and he blinks out of existence and a moment later, the glass tube shatters and Annely's wakes up gasping and coughing and looking around panicked and we flash back to outside.

[SPEAKER_03]: Who is closer to the bug creature of the two adventures outside?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, definitely, um, bonnathan.

[SPEAKER_00]: Cause it is literally like wrapped.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got a whip wrapped around this thing's like torso.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he can only be a couple feet away.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, we're kind of, how much armor does bonnathan have?

[SPEAKER_03]: I think the vest provides an additional plus one armor.

[SPEAKER_03]: So how much armor are you rocket right now?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I have any armor in the armor.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just double check.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's four damage.

[SPEAKER_03]: uh... if you're telling me i have oh no wait i i gave the vest to other than that's no armor that's five damage that's no armor uh... he only had four hit points uh... bonneton is torn to shreds and it has acid sprayed upon him and is rendered into his rendered into flesh and ruin

[SPEAKER_03]: in just one fell swoop uh... the the giant uh... and praying mantis cicada creature just like spits acid and it melts bottom into into into visor well that's not ideal

[SPEAKER_03]: And, uh, combat's bad, combat's scary.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, but immediately after that, as that is occurring, there is a flash of light.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Chester, you swear, you see a person's shape, sort of bluish, bluish you, red guys, and they blink, and the massive hand that you are hovering near holds up, and

[SPEAKER_03]: light forms around it and after a moment it raises up even further and you see the full magnitude of what you are staring at and it is a laser blade crashes down rendering this cicada wizard into ash in an instant and then the entire structure goes dark and moments

[SPEAKER_03]: this young woman that you saw in your vision.

[SPEAKER_03]: The heart of the God's soldier, the pilot entrusted with this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you couldn't have done that like 10 seconds earlier.

[SPEAKER_00]: We totally lost Bonifin.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're going to have to, that was our face.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how we got all of our money.

[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I'm also...

[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's a moment, I think, like, I think that's our moment.

[SPEAKER_03]: It just looks and goes like, I, uh...

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was just in a very stressful situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know you were just doing your best.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just saw an employer and dear friend get turned to ash.

[SPEAKER_00]: And an acid bath by a cicada wizard that was kind of my fault.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm having a lot of complicated feelings about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's just like kind of aggressively petting a porco try to deal with the horrors that he just saw.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think she sits down also next to Porco and starts to pet and is like, I just woke up from, I don't know, centuries, millennia of war and vigilance and watching the other weapons of destruction and knowing that one of them might wake up at any moment and trying my best to keep this thing asleep and

[SPEAKER_03]: I get it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I guess is what I'm trying to say it.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, no need to apologize.

[SPEAKER_03]: We've been through some shit today.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not a competition.

[SPEAKER_00]: We both have our things to bear.

[SPEAKER_03]: We both have our things to bear.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just remember to think about damage in this game.

[SPEAKER_00]: So tell me if I can do this damage, any damage that refused to do to zero HP incapacitate to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it starts getting removed from your strength score.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like a strength score goes to zero.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not like, it's not like, it's not a still spot.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it's still good.

[SPEAKER_03]: And just like horribly badly burnt.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think bottom of it all of a sudden.

[SPEAKER_00]: Out of a pile of shit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, bonafin!

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I feel so much better.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Analysts was it?

[SPEAKER_00]: You, your day was much worse than mine now.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm, we're, we're all good.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are all good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, but yeah, please, please keep Pet and Porco.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is going to help you.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to feed him third lunch.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're all going to get some third lunch.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and I'm just, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

[SPEAKER_00]: Chester is going over to Bonif and like helping him up to his feet like brushing off the cicadas and acid and stuff and just being like It's gonna be okay, buddy.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna be okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is just like the time of the quick silver society, all right.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're just gonna rest up.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna get back to health and then we're gonna I guess have a mech now And she kind of pauses and goes no no

[SPEAKER_03]: and like pauses and looks back and uh... in an instant like you can see the bits inside you can see the flesh blue and pulsing calcify in an instant and like wither and die and like the flesh inside rots away into nothing leaving only leaving only twisted metal and uh... and ruins and mineral deposits

[SPEAKER_03]: And there is a sigh of relief as she goes, that's one down.

[SPEAKER_03]: She looks over to Mary Ann and goes, it's time to find the others.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think a bonafin is gonna pull up his eye patch and there's like a empty socket where an eye once was.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a cicada in it that he like kind of fishes out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then pulls up Scar and lights it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of lowers his hat down as he's being slowly like put over top of the mule, put over top of stop it like carry him out to this next adventure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just lights the cigar goes, ha ha ha.

[SPEAKER_00]: Easy come, easy go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's have some fun with this next one, all right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And that'd be a fewer airplanes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's game.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hell yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: This ripped.

[SPEAKER_03]: This was a joy into the odd, baby.

[SPEAKER_03]: Into the fucking odd.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shout out to, we only barely got to it because like the precursor adventurer turned out to be a lot longer than I intended.

[SPEAKER_03]: the the sample the that the adventure set up comes from the adventure supplement uh... technically it's an eco mofo's adventure supplement but to put away a sword a dying mechas supplement by uh... is an exo uh... about a dying mech from a centuries old war that is buried itself at a mountain uh...

[SPEAKER_03]: But I just wanted to shout that out, but this was great.

[SPEAKER_03]: This was a joy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for playing this with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me out.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is, I've been, well, I got this game recently and I've been like one to play it for a while, so it's just such a joy to get to play with you.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so glad.

[SPEAKER_03]: What was your favorite moment from play?

[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, what was my favorite moment from play?

[SPEAKER_00]: I, oh man, you know what I really did like, I liked Chat with Porco.

[SPEAKER_03]: Porko was great.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was a really good night.

[SPEAKER_00]: The dynamic there was really fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it was fun playing three different characters.

[SPEAKER_00]: I liked building a dynamic between them and having them being very different.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to come up with a better way to land the plane.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like really racking my brain of like, what's the fun move here?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, and I couldn't quite find it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's just like, hey, land the plane.

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like it worked.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I, I think the thing that I really enjoyed that it exactly the way that I wanted it to was

[SPEAKER_03]: Setting up the plane crash and setting up the setting up the skyboat crash and telling you point like Here are your options which one of these works, and then you kind of like like all right Here's how each of the characters are getting down like I feel like that set us up very Exciting which was great like that that to me was the was the heart of the thing of like There's a horrible situation that will kill you if you don't act how do you get out of it and then just kind of like letting the characters make the choices that they're gonna make

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I also really love just like Marianne just like scouting out the ship and like getting the information of like what was that like that was just like a fun very quick way into What this world was gonna be and like what the it just felt like tension was rising as I was like, oh, are we racing people like what is the goal here?

[SPEAKER_00]: in a very fun way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Really.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, you know, doing a duel and finally having bond with an actually get a good role.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was great.

[SPEAKER_00]: But a good role.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just a successful role.

[SPEAKER_03]: That hit.

[SPEAKER_03]: That duel was great.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was such an unexpected development that I was so, like, just joy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I was smiling here to ear at it.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was fantastic.

[SPEAKER_00]: My vibe with Bonnet and pretty much with all of these people because I guess except for Chester Chester was just like Got it's got to be worth it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other two were just like adventure at all costs doing the fun thing first Love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's what makes game great.

[SPEAKER_03]: I am such a sucker for that motivation that it's what makes games great to me Yeah, this was magnificent.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for this before we wrap things up.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna people find you in your work-on-line

[SPEAKER_00]: You can find all of our stuff wherever you get your podcasts or our big shows are my first Dungeon which is tabletop role playing podcast that helps game masters learn new games and make each one better than the last We're a multi-word winning anthology actual play show where we bring a creator bring a role playing game designer on They teach a new GM how to play the game Then we do an actual play infuse with music sound design tons of crazy stuff And then we talked to the designer afterwards about how we did and how we fucked up as well

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but it's always very fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have our podcast or interview, sort of, uh, then we have our TTRPG interview podcast talk of the table where me and my co-host, Elliot Davis, uh, talk to some of the coolest and brightest people, uh, in the role playing game industry, uh, really just digging in on how people can get more into this industry and how we can make games even more fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then if you're looking, if you're looking for any of the stuff, many side of media.com and you can find me

[SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Bryan Flarity or just Bryan Flarity.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's just Bryan Flarity.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you search for a Bryan Flarity, it'll come up.

[SPEAKER_03]: You'll find me.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you again.

[SPEAKER_03]: This was magic.

[SPEAKER_03]: This absolutely kicked ass.

[SPEAKER_03]: This was everything that I wanted and then some.

[SPEAKER_03]: And now I'm going to throw it over to me in the future so that he can wrap up with the show.

[SPEAKER_03]: future Jeff thanks pass me and thanks again to Brian for coming on the show that game was incredible I'm so so happy this experience was remarkable and fun and weird and like when I sat down and I knew that I was playing a game with Brian who is like a GM and a accomplished storyteller in his own right

[SPEAKER_03]: I do the thing I wanted to do, was to throw as much at him to just let him play in spaces and let him just kind of embody as many characters as possible, and I think that we landed on something remarkably fun and special, and I'm incredibly grateful that we got to share that experience.

[SPEAKER_03]: Be sure to check the show notes for links to everything many cited media, including links to my first dungeon, talk to the table, and more, as well as where you can find more information about the game we played into the odd and the adventure that we explored to put away a sword.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can also follow many-sided media on social app, many-sided media, or Brian at Brian Flaherty.

[SPEAKER_03]: While you're on social, you can follow us pretty much anywhere at Party of One podcast.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can also check out our newsletter at buttondown.com slash party of one podcast, and get a monthly rundown on everything new with the show, as well as thoughts on actual play, games, and all kinds of other stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you enjoyed the show, an easy way that you can show that is by leaving us a review on Apple or Spotify.

[SPEAKER_03]: As we pitch to more guests further and further outside the game, space, Apple reviews in particular are an easy way that we can point to show excitement and legitimacy and like get people interested in the show in a new way.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they like immediately help make the show bigger and better and weirder.

[SPEAKER_03]: and they give us easy material to shout out on social which gets people excited about their show and gets people to check out new episodes and they make my day better which is like a triple whammy uh what could be better.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you're looking for something else to listen to after you finish this episode, you should check out our sister show all my fantasy children.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're my best friend Eric ATANOSIS and I take a listener submitted prompt and spin it into an original character populating a share universe one story at a time.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can find that wherever you get your podcast.

[SPEAKER_03]: Parti of one is produced and edited as always by Jeff Stormer and Jen Frank music for the show comes from the song Infinite Lives by Megarin featuring the D&D sluggers and the Parti of one logo is by Evan Roland.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can reach us at Parti of one podcast at gmail.com for press inquiries and guest requests and advertising rates, all that good stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's all we do here so until next time.

[SPEAKER_03]: So until next time, thank you so much for listening.

[SPEAKER_03]: Remember to fight the forces of fascism every single day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Remember that self-love and self-care are radical and defying acts of resistance and as always.

[SPEAKER_04]: Party on everybody.