Rise

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And that's basically it. Welcome to Ark 5. Very nice! Look at you! Such a professional support. Good job. *intense unity issue* *intense unity issue* Ooooooooh, let's do that thing where we go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm Jason. I'm the Dungeon Master. Going around the table starting with Susan. Hi, I'm Susan. Should I introduce my character? No, not yet. You're fine. Okay. I'm just Susan. Hi everybody. Just Susan. Just here to hang out. No fun question this time, no. If you could be any tree, what tree would you be? Maple. Because then I could produce great syrup.

It's a little presumptuous, but okay. Maple makes great syrup. But I mean, I think the region depends on, you know, like, are you up near like the Saskatchewan area or are you, you know? Probably. Because I probably died in Florida. I currently am. Just like a lot of other people. Yeah. And Alex. Hi, I'm Alex. Thumbs up. A tree? Oh, same question? If you could be, no, no, no, no, no, not the same question. That's very plebeian. We're not going to do it. If you could be any breed of dog, what breed of dog would you be? I would be probably corgi. Even though they have like knee problems.

I mean, I have knee problems. I'm old. But corgis are beloved throughout the galaxy, I'm assuming. So. Pretty corgi. Yeah. And all them ladies would be touching you. They're also kind of assholes, but like they get away with it. Yeah. Because they like descend from like herding dogs, right? They're like a herding type dog. So they're used to like. Yeah. They're kind of yippy. Yeah, they nip at the heels of like goats and cows and sheep. Like, hey, get the fucking line. I see it. I see it. You're right. Yeah, I'll do that. Yeah. Yeah. Jasper. Hi, I'm Jasper. That's that's it for now.

Jasper, if you could live in any city. In the world, where would you live? Oh, that's you know, good question. And I would love to make it be something farfield, but honestly, I truly love New York. I really do. I, I never thought in a million years I would ever live. Nah. Hey, you can bing bong. Yeah, I'll bing bong. It's from TikTok. It's from TikTok. You know, but it's the whole TikTok thing, like the guys on Coney Island or whatever. I'm telling you, though, I never thought that I would ever live in a big city like this. Like truly like the big city. Right.

Moved to New York and I never looked back. It was like a fish in water. And Brianna. Hello, I'm Brianna Marie. And that's it. Oh, no, that's not it. OK, let's say for those of you don't know, Brianna is my partner in running Dungeons and Randomness. Let's say the company does really well. Yes. Sorry, I just wanted to linger on that thought. Yeah, like, oh, man. So good question. Let's say we could offer you a ten thousand dollar bonus. To dye your hair a random color. Yeah. Hold on. OK. It cannot be pink or purple. Yeah. Yeah, still. Yeah. OK. Well, then there you go.

OK, guys. Once we reach ten thousand on Patreon, then that is where that money's going. A thousand. I'd be upset if it were black, but I mean, oh, wouldn't it be... Guys, welcome to Arc five. Today we're starting out in the city of Overdale. Now, Overdale's had its share of trouble, right? There was a terrible, big racist regime that took over the place years ago. We've kind of gotten a little bit away from that, but not far enough. You know, it's like it's been like three and a half years. So can't really imagine. Imagine that you're in this city where all this tension.

The majority of non-human races were removed or murdered at one point, right? Just culled. And slowly but surely, people have come back and there's been this... The people who have come back, most of them, there's kind of a grassroots campaign to kind of really double and triple down. It's like this is the dwarf district. This is the... You know, really try and make this place like a second home. And that has caused some of the humans that weren't too crazy about losing their big racist leader. Really kind of recoil, right? So there's this divide in the city.

And you guys have been here for at least eight weeks training with the White Ravens Academy. It is an organization that is just trying to do some good in the world, right? Think of it as kind of a Doctors Without Borders slash, you know, Red Cross slash, you know, FEMA type of thing. Like you guys are sent out into the world with specific missions. It's like, hey, these people here really need some help. You know, we're going to train you for two straight months, just boom, a boot camp of intensive training. And then at the end of it, we're going to send you out into the world and you're going to do everything in your power to try and help them.

And you have spent at least eight weeks in this city. And this is your this is this is kind of your graduation ceremony. You are being sent out on your very first mission. And the person who is running all of this is Po Tootillo. He's a guy who's lived in this city a really long time, really close friends with the current queen and really wanted to kind of give back. And you know a bit about him, right? You know, people talk. There are other students here. You guys are just the first graduating class. So there's lots of rumors about certain things. And I would love to start things off with some random dice rolls to see what rumors you may have heard.

Now, I'm going to go around the table and ask each one of you to roll a d20. The higher the roll, the closer to truth we are in this rumor. It's like, hey, man, this is kind of substantiated. Like I got a little proof. The closer to one we get. And it's just wild accusations, right? So it's whether they have receipts or it's just tea. OK, let's date this episode. Let's do it. Let's let's just. I dated it three years ago. Honestly, you were trying to get everyone to do the mannequin challenge in the in the. I wanted to be more horror related, but yeah. Oh, I thought I thought you're saying horror related.

And I know I was thinking more like this wins from the shining. That's what I was going for. That's fine. Oh, OK. You know what? Let's start with you, Bri. Give me a d20. OK, here we go. Eighteen. Eighteen. So one of the first things you're going to hear is that this is not the first time that there have been white ravens sent out into the world. Right. This is very much substantiated. There's there's someone named a sore gray wing who has taught some classes here and and and kind of helped you guys kind of like a guest lecturer type of thing. You've even had some practice combats with her.

And she's told you horror stories about the time that she was stuck in Lockford and werewolves basically descended upon this town, tore some of her comrades limb from limb, dragged them out into the street and ate them. They were trapped inside an attic and they were just horrible, horrible stuff. And so where's the type of person to probably get into it a bit? Like it's a campfire story, but you guys are just eating lunch. Right. Right. And then probably towards the end, it's like, well, you guys aren't going anywhere near Lockford. It's fine. Like it's totally fine.

But the white ravens actually started as kind of a kind of a guerrilla military group. They were they were resistance fighters trying to take down this evil regime. And then once once they were gutted, they didn't really have a clear mission anymore. So it was it kind of became a oh, we want to do good. Well, what the hell does that mean? What you know, how do you do good? Like what? You know, so this is the second attempt to get this program running. Alex, give me a D20. Got it. Fourteen. Fourteen. OK, so a little bit of truth to this one, but but there's probably some some nuggets of of like accusation in there.

Right. So the rumor is you guys are being sent out to Donhurst, which is a city that's been taken over by by vampires, actually. Like you've heard it's probably like town crier news. Like you've heard a bit about this. Like, man, that sucks to be those guys. Like everybody has been displaced or dead. All the former city residents have you know, they fled in the middle of the night. They went in to clean up the place. But you know, there's there's all kinds of stuff like you've heard stories about, you know, 12, 13 foot tall demons infesting every every corner of this place.

And you're you don't know what to believe at this point. So between that and the werewolf thing, as you get closer to that graduation day, it's like, oh, where what are they sending us in for? You know, cool. Jasper, give me a 20 please. Sure thing. Not sure where that guy went all the way the hell over there. That's a five. OK, one of the more prevailing rumors is that Poe himself is a werewolf, and this is all a ploy to get you onto the east coast of the continent so that he can lure you back to that town with his brethren and eat every single one of you.

There does not seem to be any proof of this. This is more of an inquirer story, like it's it's, you know, like a read all about it, kind of a click baity type of type of town crier story. But yeah. Susan. Yes, sir. Give me a 20 please. Sure thing, Mr. J. You guys really throw them out there. Yeah, man, I don't mind that go that far. Can I request that we get rid of this? The one that landed on one that's sitting directly in front of us, Jason. I know that. What is this curse? But like the table wants it to be, you know, like, you know, you need to get rid of it.

I didn't do anything. I'm going to put this on us, Ricky Bobby. I don't like it there. The frame centered on it. Yeah, I'm going to keep it like I'm going to keep it right there just as a reminder, you know, like it just in case. Just in case. It's not tidy. I'm just going to get rid of it. I'm just going to cover it up. All right. All right. There. I love it. So a seven, a seven isn't much more substantial. So you hear that this is all a tax write off for the city, that the more ravens they can pump out into the world, the more they get to the more they get to write off your training as like a tax shelter type of thing.

So it's basically it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just spit them out here. This is a diploma factory. But like, get out there and do some shit. And then when you die, we get to collect on all this all this insurance money we have. Like weird. One of those rumors that if you stop and think about it for more than two seconds, it's like that doesn't make any sense. They save way more money by not training us. And yeah, so so again, this is your graduation day. So you have gotten used to the site of these barracks now, day in and day out. You've been each each class basically has their own little barracks.

Imagine more like a summer camp than a big army training regiment thing. And here you're running obstacle courses every day to kind of get that stamina up. You're being tested in different things. There's there's specific lessons and lock picking and, you know, wall climbing, stuff like that to get you used to things that you might encounter in the field. And you've been told that within the hour you were going to be gathered, briefed on your mission. And released into the wild for your first your your first like your actual this is not a dress rehearsal.

This is a full go. So I'd love to pick up with you guys kind of packing up your things like it's kind of like a weird, bittersweet thing. You know what I mean? Like, first of all, going around the table, this is an eight week situation. But are you guys the weirdos, the type of weirdos who check into a hotel room for two days and then unpack all your things and put them in the dressers? Are you those guys? Would you describe a person without taking a swipe at me like once? No. I'm sorry if you saw yourself in that description. I can't help that. That's gaslighting.

Don't do that. Any time I do that to her. How dare you? How dare you get out of his suitcase like an animal? I mean, I did that, too, but I wouldn't I don't detract from other people wanting to use the hotels accoutrement. I just think it's it's weird to settle in, you know, like why? What if you're going to be there for a while? You know, I mean, man, why is it there? Why are those drawers? Yeah. Why would they even put it there? I mean, like, I'd rather have a working fridge than a dresser. OK, well, that just shows me the caliber of hotel you stay at. Well, OK, well, all of us can be guests.

Alex, like if you come to Dragon Con, maybe you'd be a guest. I'm just saying. Anyway, I had to cancel the mind. I know. I know this year. We got you, though. So you guys are packing up and you're you're kind of you're getting your your rucksacks ready. These are these are big heavy bags that adventurers use that. Well, we're playing Cortex Prime now, but in the D&D world, you would have everything from like a food tray to vestments and candles. If you're a cleric, all kinds of stuff just jammed in this pack. And if you imagine this thing, it's like 40, 50 pounds.

It's huge. So I imagine you're traveling a little lighter because, you know, you're not different system, different, different like setting. We're trying to paint a picture. But while all of you guys are packing up, what what's the vibe like? What are you guys feeling? Is it is it nervous excitement? Are you confident? Are you? Something else. I guess nervousness, right, for for Kanan, because he's never he's never been this far. You know, he's from the beautiful city of Esterhold, if I remember correctly, from my I don't remember my backstory. I only wrote down notes.

Good start. Good, good. I know. I know that he hasn't traveled to the northern side of the area of the mainland. He's stuck to the Esterhold down south. So coming to Overdale. First and foremost was a big thing for him. And now being told, hey, you're going to have a mission, like get ready. This is kind of putting him on edge, you know, a little bit like, OK, I don't know what to expect. I hope it's not a two, you know, not too crazy of a mission, even though he has worked with these three for a train, with these three for eight, eight weeks. It's still kind of like I don't fully trust all of their abilities and I don't trust mine.

OK, so it's not coming from a place of like I'm better than you. No, no, no, no, it's just like pure imposter syndrome. Yeah, it's like like massive imposter syndrome. He knows what he's capable of, but he doesn't think it might not be enough, especially if these rumors are true of like, hey, there was another group of ravens and this is the second time the program has been restarted. Kind of like, well, what the hell happened the first time? Yeah, we got very accurate intel on that. Yeah, the world. Yeah, we heard it from. Then even worse, because he would take sort of stories and they just be it would be her lessons replaying the whole time, kind of like in the Sandlot for ever.

Yeah, sort of definitely the type of person's like, OK, let's say a creature's eating your leg off, what you're going to want to do is seven year old tendon to get it off there real quick to try and get away. And what you know, like like that kind of like like trying to be chipper and helpful, but grisly details that will haunt you. So with that in mind, so I don't like it in your bunks or something like that, but yeah, but petrichor is going to I think they probably were pretty close to together. He's going to sort of eagerly be putting his stuff together into his pack, whatever.

And he's going to with it's kind of a smile on his face different than Canon, I think, coming out from a different angle. He's going to turn over and catch his eye, like kind of a little little of a little head nod like, hey, hey, hey, hey, boss, you ready for this? Canon grumbles. He's like, I don't please don't don't call me that. I'm not used to that. Just Canon is fine. And he looks at his pack. I mean, how ready can you be? We don't know what we're going to be doing yet. Well, listen, we we have a saying in the Silver Glade. You don't have to plant a seed with perfection.

You just have to plant the seed. You got to start somewhere. Oh, he kind of thinks about it. You know, that actually makes a lot of sense. OK, yeah. Just plant the seed, just get ready to do whatever they ask. We got this. We got this. He's just going to keep he's going to continue to get his pack together. Could you tell me what Canon looks like? Yes, he is very lanky, olive, complexioned human male. He wears, I would say, kind of like heavy ropes like they're obviously just, you know, cloth. There's nothing special about them, but they're heavy. And he has like a belt with a buckle for his book, a spell book on the side or like a book of mismatched pieces of paper.

You can tell that they've been stuffed in there and attached somehow. And then he has a short sword and a crossbow on his back. Normally when in the field, he would wear his his cowl. But when in the barracks, that section, that part of the attire isn't on. It's probably still in his pack. So it's just like the like a gray tunic on top, traveler's pants and boots. And then like the cloak and the other part are probably on the bed next to his rough sack. Like the cowl and cloak section are still just kind of stationed there. And then he has the long sleeve tunic, but his sleeves are rolled up and you can see that he has tattoos on both of his arms, both of his forearms.

And they're encompassing all around different. They're all from different origins. Each one, like some people could look at them and see, oh, those are from some of the old gods and others could see some of them and say, oh, those are from this different section of the world. Like it's been very it's meticulously put on his arms from almost like different religions or different cultures. If you could if you could try and identify different ones. What about Petrichor? Petrichor is well, in theory, he's he's a venali. They're from the silver glade. They are I guess the description has been that it's almost like nature came to life and sort of became sentient with plants and sort of animal all sort of stuck together, kind of cat like plant like.

But more on the not on the rosemary and thyme and herb side of things, but more on the mushroom and and fungi side of things. So it's there's still mossiness and some mushroominess and that kind of thing. The venali have a head that sort of bifurcates into not horns exactly, but sort of splits off into two. But it kind of becomes a horn like area which end in morals. If you know these type of mushrooms. Also, they have a long tail and it also sort of ends with this sort of moral mushroom. So there's all kind of fungi type shell fungus and all sorts of weirdness.

But all of it's sort of wrapped up into a very shamanistic attire with, you know, with cloth sort of draped across shoulders and a big staff with wires and gems, all sorts of attached to it. And honestly, very, very meager when it comes to clothing and everything that he's putting into his pack. So that's that's petrichor. So kind of traveling light, you know, just. Would would be very used to not just used to traveling light, but would be it would be odd to travel heavy. Everything's taken care of. Nature takes care of everything and and being from nature and coming from the silver glade, taking a lot of stuff that wasn't necessary unless it was mandated as part of this group would feel unnecessary.

It would just simply feel like, no, I'll pick up what I need along the way. What about you? The other two in this in this little barracks here, like getting I imagine like it's this cozy again. Think think summer camp in terms of like it's like heavy wood floors. You can hear people like boom, boom, like kind of walking across like it's very log cavity outside. You know, the doors wide open. You could hear people like, you know, being told it's like, all right, another mile. Let's run. Let's run. That type of thing, like the new fish are coming in real Shawshank style, except you guys aren't, you know, in prison.

So like not that part, but like, you know, you kind of like haze the new kids. So it's their first week. So they're they're they're being made to jog around with like big heavy packs. You know, it's still it's spring like it's the first week of spring, but it's still kind of unseasonably cold. So it's good jogging weather. So I imagine Tamika's sitting on the floor and just haphazardly stuffing stuff into her backpack like papers go crumpled in and like vials. There's no organization, just everything's being stuffed in. And then she'll be like, she'll look up and eight rooms.

Could you grab my bed roll from the top? Top bunk, please. Thank you. Still stuffing things in her bag. As soon as they were told to pack everything up, runes grabbed a small bag and set it in front of him on his bed and then sat down on the bed, cross leg and waited. So when he's given a task, he immediately gets up and goes to do it because he has nothing to pack, essentially. Very much like Petrichor, except less because, oh, we live off the land and all that. He just doesn't have stuff. So you're not rejecting worldly goods, you just don't have any worldly goods.

This is really important, but could you tell? I want to find out what you guys look like, but let's start with runes, because it's pretty important. Yeah. So imagine, if you will, as this man stands up, he kind of gets off the bed and unfurls and he's this six foot tall, lanky, almost creepy pasta like creature. And that like he has these very live muscular limbs, are kind of a slinish gray, if anyone knows the kind of a purplish gray. Did you just did you just quote a citadel paint as your wow. Warhammer guys, if you want to sponsor an episode, I'll tell you all the colors, baby.

I'll give you the shadows. I'll give you the highlights. Let's go. But off of his limbs and chest are these bony protrusions. Protrusions, protrusions. Yeah, you got it. You got it. So those kind of stick out and they kind of conform to the shape of his body. And once you reach his head, more of those start to appear and his entire face is covered with that bone, except for some horns sticking straight out of his head. And the bone shape of his face means that he does not have a nose or mouth, so you will not hear his voice at all. He doesn't have one. And it's almost shaped and an owl like silhouette like it has a point down at the chin that comes out and kind of gives his whole face kind of an hourly look to it.

And he has two blue dots in his skull eyes that never blink and that do not move. So when he looks at you, he's always looking at you straight on. He can't turn his it's very Batman. You know, when he has the big hat on, he has to move his like he can move. Did you just call it a hat? It's a cowl. Pretrusion. Bye, everybody. That's Alfred. I mean, that sounds pretty cool. That's as much respect as he gets from me. So, yes, he's a very frightening looking figure. He carries a white birch bo staff and he wears all white, though, because he wants to be welcoming.

It just doesn't work. So that's runes. Did I do good? You did. You did fantastic, except for hat. But we'll ignore that. I feel like I tripped at the finish line. You were doing great. And it's like so everybody out there, that's what a Thedan looks like. That's not runes, though. Just see it out. It's not runes, but like that is the typical Thedan look. So they look very last thing you see before you die, but like that's not who they are. They just happen to, you know, so their entire race is telepathically linked, which is great. If you're a Thedan, if you're not a Thedan, your brains weren't meant to do that.

So when a Thedan tries to mentally link with another person who isn't part of their race, it at best feels like cold tentacles in your brain. Like it feels like squiggly and weird and like you kind of get dizzy. At worst, it's blinding pain. So you can lose memories. You can like like harsh stuff. The interesting thing is a Thedan, the longer they're linked to somebody, they'll sponge up memories, not steal them, but like they'll just know more things about you. And in their society, everyone knows everything about each other because they're mentally linked all the time.

So it's not weird for them to know sexual habits, sleeping habits, what you like to eat. No one's ever alone in Thedan's society, which is a huge learning curve when you reach the mainland and you're kind of talking to people like this. So, runes will hand the knapsack. He's going to reach up and grab the knapsack for Tamika and then lean down and hand it to her. And he has to lean down because Susan. Well, I was. Yes, because of that. But also, she at this point, Tamika's leaning underneath the bottom bunk and half her body's not underneath trying to reach for something.

And you hear like the sliding of a glass, like a tinker. She keeps trying to reach for it. And all you see reaching out is her clawed hand from the bed and one of her feet and a bunch of unruly hair. And she got it. And then she comes out and you see this short little woman with a lot of hair, which takes up like three fourths of her body. But she is only four ten. She is also a shifter. So she has little wolf ears on the top of her head and very wolfish, but also cute feature. She almost looks like a wolf pup, not like a wolf. She has clawed hands and she has light brown skin and she has yellow eyes with a slit in them.

So she looks sort of intimidating until you get close and see like the cherub like face and she's also little. Man, we are just baiting all those anime boys right now. We're just like, come on in. You know what I would just register to me, Susan, your background is like this dark and dour kind of like saying and my background is like this pink anime bullshit. I feel like we should swap characters. We're going to really elbow into this. Yeah, we got this. Now I love runes. Let's go. Yeah. And she wears just typical adventuring like the knee high boots, the brown pants and white tunic.

But on top of that, she has like this oversized robe, like open robe that looks a little big on her. And when she goes to stand up, she has to keep like pushing up her sleeves because they cover up her hands. Like it's just too big on her, but it signifies that she does magic. That's why she wears it. Thanks, runes. Yeah, I'll just put this in my pack. Are you sure you don't have anything else? We really, really, really need to get you some stuff, runes. He'll look down to his side where he has his satchel and nod to that and then nod to the little tiny, tiny bag on the bed.

And then put out both of his hands like flat and go and then pull them away. He's trying to communicate, but that's what he does. OK, you've been in the city for eight weeks and while you're pretty much kept here, I would imagine you have free weekends and stuff. It's like, hey, yeah, go see the city, have fun, make sure to be back Monday morning, that type of thing. What did you guys do for fun while you were in it? Because Overdale is a huge city, right? Like it's it's got crazy amounts of culture. Some of this stuff has been around for years, these little nooks and crannies that were maybe built by halflings or gnomes.

There's like smaller, kind of tighter streets and stuff that just weren't renovated during the whole wartime thing. So children play them and stuff like that. But now it's kind of been reclaimed and retaken. There's there's whole districts where people are just forging all day, right? There's just the clanging of anvils is so deafening that you kind of hurry past. It's like, oh my God, oh my God. Like that's like. So. Alex, get ready, because this is where this is where we need a leader. Slowly but surely, I think it's kind of, you know, post specifically, it's like, OK, you're my guy.

I guess like you have the most experience out there. I'm going to need you to kind of show these guys the ropes because. Petrichor is super nice, but a little country bumpkin ish, like a little like it comes from an area where, you know, like it's just Vanali. Like they're just the same thing with runes. Runes has got a whole other set of problems. And, you know, Tamika is kind of a wild card. So like, I think I think C'Anan would be like, it's like, all right, you're my guy. So like, hey, take him out on the town. It's a bonding experience. So where would you take them?

Well, I would tell them about big cities first, because I just I just realized now, as you were describing, I'm the only one out of the four of us that's been in a big city before. Tamika is from Brightport. Oh, and then you're good. And so is runes technically, but not from. Brightport's a way grosser city. I feel like C'Anan would lean on Tamika a little more in this instance and be like, look. I need you to be my second pair of eyes when we're running around because I can't keep track of everybody. And he'll look behind him and see petrichor and runes.

And I don't know how people will react to these two just running around or walking around. So, you know, if someone decides to stray off the path, I need you to he's going to motion with his hands, gently guide them back to the group. Don't don't don't worry, boss. I'll keep an eye on him. I got this. You can count on me. I'm used to being in the city. I got this. Good. And he'll think of like, oh, well, what's a good introduction for these people? And then he'll like, of course, food. Food is always a great introduction. Right. And so I guess if this happens during the time where we're there, like maybe a couple of weeks into it.

Yes. I assume we've got some time to explore a little bit when we first got into the city. So he'll take them to whichever district has like the most. Not sought after food, but like one that's the most accepting. So probably one of the non-human districts where they serve probably like vegetarian, something that's that's easy to access for all of us. Which means specifically aiming towards petrichor because I don't know, like he cannot has no idea what the fuck he's going to say. What does a plant eat? The first thing you think is like, all right, plants, bugs, like what would he like?

And then he'll like have a flashback of them in like a like an early training session where he's like eating berries or something. And I think, OK, well, berries, those. Yeah. So someplace that's got like vegetarian ish food or something that's like, you know, not to not aggressive, not a chop house, not a meat chop house. Not we're not looking for like the grill or anything. It might be a little elven. Yeah. Maybe something else. It's kind of it's something light, right? You're not sitting down to like a T-bone. Right. So. So, OK, that's a good first. Like it's a bonding exercise, right?

It's like, OK, so where are you from? And then, you know, runes will do some like shadow puppets or something. And then we'll, you know, give me a flat D20 to see how well this went. Like, yes, this this is on Alex, like as the leader of group Ravens. What? Hey, you know what? Not bad. Ten. Ten. OK, so like service probably wasn't exactly though. It's like, oh, man, it's kind of slow. I guess it gives us more time to talk. That type of thing. The bill was a little larger than you thought it was going to be. It's like 15 gold. We had salad like it's you know what I mean?

Like my main question is, what did petrichor eat? Alex, that is a good question. So petrichor would have ordered it would be very mushroom based. So this is like a mushroom vinaigrette. It's kind of like a to the unsophisticated. It would simply look like a plate of mushrooms, but it's it's actually mushrooms that have been marinated in like a vinaigrette kind of a thing. It's on top of a of some some some really nice type salad, spinach type stuff. It's it's going to be a little more free. And at some point he is going to pick up one of these mushrooms.

And he's going to say, you know, we have a we do have a saying in the Silverglade. The oldest art is a mushroom. He's going to pop it into his mouth. That's when K'naan leans over to Tamika and says, OK, I guessed good. And then Tamika's going to lean over and go, isn't it is that considered cannibalism? K'naan thinks about it and looks at petrichor and says, well, I mean, he's enjoying it, so I don't want to ruin this. No one tell him. Petrichor's his whole attitude, no matter and he'll probably even hear some of this stuff. He's probably very used to it at this point.

His whole attitude is kind of just I'm happy to be here kind of a thing. So he's just going to leave if he even heard a wind of anything like that, like what was the run? He'll just kind of smile at it and be like, I get it. I get it. At the mushroom thing, runes, who, by the way, has a plate in front of him, but oh, yeah, no, this is why I feel like this is where I learn. This is where I learn that runes doesn't eat. This is why the tent is there. Maybe Tamika ordered a to-go box or to-go bag. Oh, that's smart. Yeah, maybe a to-go because he won't eat in front of people.

But you will see him take his weird, long, creepy fingers and go into his bag and there'll be a bit of a click, click, clack sound for a second. And then he is going to hand Petrichor a rock. One second. I need to remember the color blue. This one's the blue one. And it says, please explain. Like it's carved into the rock and he. Right. When you say the mushroom thing, you get that rock. Right. The oldest art is a mushroom and then I get the rock. Oh, OK. All right. Yeah. And you're whispering over there. All right. Yeah. OK. No. Yeah. No, it's it's a rough translation.

What it ultimately means is it's hard to explain how this gets translated. But it means we're only here for an instant. It means that the oldest art is a mushroom. We got to make the most of what we got right now. That's what this means. It might not make complete sense from a language point of view, but that's kind of the point. And he's going to hand that back. OK. And he will nod and then put his hand on his chest and bow his head, which is probably at this like there's shorthand, right? Like shake your head. Like that's just thank you. Generally speaking, the petrichor used to doing it.

He probably just does exactly the same. Yeah. Back at this point, I'll put his rock back in. For those out there wondering, there is a theory, an equivalent of sign language, but Grunz doesn't know it. Yeah, run says you said so you you were OK. You've been to Brightport, but much like a tourist has been to New York, it's like, yeah, I've seen Times Square. It's like, yeah, OK. But like, you know, like if someone went to New York, not knowing what New York was, ended up in a bad place. And then a small wolf girl just grabbed them and saved them. Kind of more like I've seen New York.

I've seen that anime. I watch that one. So you've been on the subway. We're currently in talks with Netflix. We're we're be great show. I'd watch it. I don't say no to anything. So we got this. Oh, man. So. Is there a point where runes does eat? No. That night? No. OK. Probably. If we're alone later and it's just him and Tamika, he might, but he he will not eat. He will not imbibe in front of new people that easily. Like there's got to be some trust there. And so let's say after you guys get back, you know, you have this wonderful little you know, maybe you have a few drinks, you know, whatever you're you're you're you're loosened up.

You're two weeks into this thing. You kind of know what to expect. You get all that that first week of soreness out. It's like, OK, this is going this is going pretty well. You guys are OK. I didn't get paired up with a bunch of weirdos. I mean, you're looking around the room. I mean, there's a bunch of weirdo. Look, Theria has a completely different bar for weird. It's fine. As this unblinking bone man with the bright red tiny dot eyes is just staring. No, no, they're blue. Sorry. I specified my bad. I'm sorry. But I see blue. Very creepy. Could you? Yeah, that's what makes it creepy.

The color. Could you describe what eating is like for rooms? So anyone who's familiar with thetans, this is probably one of the first things you learn about thetans. You know, when you're learning about a new species, there's the fun facts everyone gives you. Thetans, when they eat, kind of have their entire chest and neck area like open up. And correct me if I'm wrong about any of this, Jason. I'm just remembering. So all of their organs are kind of exposed in that moment, which is why you don't do it in front of people, because you are completely vulnerable.

But then you just take whatever food you wanted and just go bleh. And then it closes up and then you eat. Yeah, there's there's almost like it almost looks like a spinal column in front, but it's it's it's teeth and it kind of gnashes. And while you're kind of absorbing that, the body shuts down while it's doing its work. Like you're just. Yeah. So in thetans society, they kind of eat and shift like you're completely vulnerable, but it's fine because like, yeah, we're all we're all eating. It's fine. We got this. Yeah. Look, these other 700 people know I'm eating.

They'll watch my back for a second while I go about it. A thetan on their own. It's much more dangerous, right? Because you could take a pencil and go dead. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's very. You see his like beating black heart. I don't know what color their hearts are. It just felt right to be black. And if they weren't off putting enough, it's so it's it's like, oh, my God, because it's it's it's their body. He's like, I don't know. Yeah. Keenan, Keenan. Sorry, I'm working on it. Can on or petrichor know that fact about thetans or not. But at this point, Tamika, what they've been they traveled together for a really long time.

And she's probably the one who's been watching him during training when he eats. I like to think there's at least one point every day where Tamika and runes just go, hey, we'll be right back. Yeah. Every day. Yeah. Well, I think it wasn't it. He only needs to eat like every four days or something. Wasn't that the kind of it's not like a snake? It's like, yeah, it's like you get like two and a half, three days, three days you get the tummy grumbles. And then like it's like, man, I got to you know, I got to eat. But get those spiny grumbles. I picture I picture real like 80s practical effects type thing, right?

Now part predator's mouth opening part, you know, I could see it in my head that I could see it. That's what you sold me on the thetans. I was like, yeah, I'm going to play one of those fuckers. Yeah. Just very off putting. So. The day of graduation, you guys are packed up here, you're ready to go, and you're going to hear another set of footsteps as Po comes in. And he there's going to be a beat while he's like taking a look around. Everybody packed up for you guys excited. Do I got to salute him? No. Now that shit would have like the first time it's like, no, no, no, don't don't do that.

Like, yeah, no, he's technically he has a rank and he's he's just it's like, no, don't do that. Right. OK, then K'nann just turns around, sees him and nods. I think he looks around. I assume everyone's finishing packing their bags. So, you know, talk to Po and say, yep, I think we're ready to go. It seems everyone's got their gear and just waiting for the assignment, I guess. He's going to kind of have a seat at the at the foot of one of these beds. So he's got to kind of lean forward because like they're bunk beds. So like you don't want, you know, and he's he's it's almost going to be like, OK, gathering gang, that type of thing.

I got to stop the for as soon as he sits down, petrichor's dog is going to to jump up on the bed and kind of jump up on him in a playful way. This would be super common, I would imagine. Po knows this dog very well. This will not be unless Po hates dogs. It won't be out of nowhere. It'll be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, how's it going? How's it going? How's it going? What's the dog look like? The dog is a Therian sheep. And this is a dog that as you know, this as the story will end up maybe unfolding at some point. But petrichor traveling from the Silverglade all the way over into this area of Theria on the mainland, woke up one morning and a few feet away there was this dog.

And from that point forward, they were inseparable. And so this dog has just been there and has been there throughout all of this training as well. And and basically just never leaves petrichor side and petrichor never leaves the dog side. Very nice. So for those of you don't know, a sheep in Theria is basically half sheep, you know, half sheep. So picture a sheep that's big and floofy and their fur is used for for sweaters and they shed like fucking crazy. Like it is when it shakes off, it's kind of this plume, almost like almost like dandelion seeds or something like that.

Just like a like. Yeah. So there are two things. There's there's a a saddlebags, tiny little dog saddlebags that's been packed already and also a like a like a collar made out of twigs and leaves that that that at some point petrichor is made and put together for this. I like that it sounds like the dogs packing more than you are. Pretty much mostly for the dog. It's like treats and stuff. Yeah. Chew toys. So kind of like Post-it's down and absolutely can sheave head up here. It's like, OK, OK. Anyway, that type of thing. And he's going to get serious for a minute.

All right. Eight weeks, guys, this. I know this has been intense. We've taught you everything. That we thought would be relevant out in the field. And I'll tell you right now, it's not enough. There's going to be things that you're going to run across that we couldn't possibly prep you for. That being said, we are incredibly confident in your abilities. You've shown a great aptitude in working as a team. Mentally, I think all of you can handle this and. We're going to be sending you to the city of Donhurst now. You probably heard a couple months back, the place was the site of a demon attack, taken over and abandoned.

The street gang moved in and it turned out that they were all turned into vampires. It was a mess. It's still a mess. That's why you're going there, but it's not quite as bad as it was. Their leader was killed off and. Their new leader is the original leader of this gang. Pretty dumb guy, from what I've heard. His name is Ripley. But he's ready to negotiate the surrender of the city. And we need you to prep everything and get the terms laid out, but. That's not quite it. The reason he's so. Malleable right now is that there's definitely something underneath that city and it's demonic in nature.

Now, there's no way of us to know exactly what's under there, but we have prepped some things for you. We've got the best minds that we could in the city on this. And he's going to he's going to kind of hand over this care package of stuff like another like another like satchel packed. There's a huge book in there just about demons. It's an A to Z. If it's not in there, we didn't know it. So please be sure to just browse through that any time that you're stumped or you think that it can help you. There's a couple of vials of holy water. We're not exactly sure if that's going to be effective against what's there, but we figured it couldn't hurt.

There's one more thing. If you get into trouble at any point, first of all, back off. There's always going to be another day to fight. You don't have to be the last line of defense all the time. Use your best judgment on this. But if you get into a scrape and you don't think you're going to get out of it. There's a scroll that we'd like you to use. It will send out this spiritual raven looking thing, almost like a like a signal flare. And any of us that are in range that can see it, it's quite a few miles. Head in your direction right away. And we'll do everything we can to back you up.

Do you have any questions? Kinan takes the book and the vials of holy water and the scroll and then he'll give the scroll to Petrichor and tell him, you know, just give him kind of a look like not like this is your responsibility. He looks at the book and then looks at Tamika. And he kind of winces a little bit, kind of squints. Are you big into books? As she situates the book on her belt. Yes. OK. And then he gives her the book. How many vials of holy water are there? Two. They're pretty big, though. They're like flasks, basically. OK, then he hands one to to Ruz as his bag is empty, gives him one.

He looks at him and says, when we fight the scary looking baddies, the demons, or if we see any. And he'll take the thing and put it down and then he'll bring both of his fingers up to his face like little fangs. Is that right? Like these ones? He'll like tilt his head, like can not tilt his head, like nodding. Yeah, they count, too. But he puts his hands up, but only if they attack us first. Thumbs up. OK, cool. I was telling you that they're flasks. For some reason, the measurement that I almost gave you was, you know, like a bottle of Mad Dog 2020. I don't know why.

Mad Dog 2020. He hits it to you on a brown paper bag like he's. There you go. There's some holy water. I see a picture of it. I've still never seen this before in my life. I. You don't. Because you never got your check cashed in the liquor store. Correct. Oh, my God. It looks kind of yummy, but I'm betting it's not. No, it isn't. No, I assure you, it is not. It's not meant to be. I mean, it's meant to get you there. Usually when it comes to alcohol, the brighter the color, the less it tastes like alcohol. I feel like this is the opposite of that somehow. No, I mean, you could pour this into a Zippo and it would light a cigarette like it is not.

You could fill up your rubbing alcohol with it and I do the same job. Oh, geez. I'm pretty sure you can pour it into the gas tank of your car and get better miles to the gallon. Shout out to Mad Dog 2020. You are the sponsor of today's show. They're still kicking. They've been around for a long time, man. Good for them. Because who's going to muscle in on that turf? Mickey's. Oh. Petrichor's going to point over at that other flask and say, "Boss, I got an idea real quick. You mind?" He's going to reach out for it. Yeah, he'll give it to them. Yeah, sure. He's going to put it right into one of the saddlebags on the dog.

Say, he's going to reach back and he's going to pat K'naan on the shoulder and he's going to say, "That's going to help us out. You mark my words. Mark my words." I mean, he looks at the dog. He's back at Petrichor. As long as he doesn't break it or drink it or anything, I think, yeah, he should be fine. Petrichor's going to look at the dog. "We good? All right. No, we're all good." I imagine this dog is not built for indoors where it's warm. So it's just like, "Ah, ah, ah." Like just big. Yeah. It's just kind of inching toward the door where there's a cool breeze.

It's like, "Oh, these are field animals." And like, "It's got saddlebags on?" There's one more thing. When you get to Durran Hollow, it's on the way. It's the second town you'll probably visit. We've arranged for them to put you up there free of charge and they're going to re-outfit you too. There's a couple of people there that owe us some favors. So they'll give you something in the way of weapons, armor, something that can aid you. There's a salesman in town. His name's Irving. Try to avoid him. He's annoying. But he's a nice guy. He gave me some free gift for your graduation day.

And try to keep it down because not everybody's getting something like this. But it's this mystery box. So please have at it. I would probably take a look at it sooner rather than later. But I wish you all the luck in the world. You're going to do great out there. So good luck. Kinan shakes Po's hand, if you can. While he has his hand in his clasp, while they're shaking hands, he says, "Hey." He looks at the group. "I'm just going to ask this. What happened before us?" You're still gripping his hand while you're asking? Yeah, I heard things about... One of the instructors told us about a small town.

Well, I forget its name. Lockford and werewolves. He's... The expression just drops on his face, right? He's... Yeah. Some of the rumors you probably heard are exaggerated, but the gist of it is we made mistakes. We sent people out in the field who weren't ready. And that's why we're doing things so different this time. We want to make sure that everyone's on the same page, that people can work well as a team. And you've all proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Try not to think about mistakes I've made in the past, because what we're trying to do is learn from that and move forward.

Though, I would avoid Lockford if you can. Just... Just for safety's sake, you know? There hasn't been anything there in a long time, but why tempt fate? Just leave it alone. I mean, it's south. I looked on the map, so I don't think I need to go there. If you need to take a detour. Before Po leaves, after he lets go of his hand, Kenan's gonna take a piece of silver out of his pouch and say, "One more thing." And he's gonna put the coin up against, I would say, maybe the cheek? He just puts the silver coin on his cheek for a second, and then takes it back.

And then Tamika goes, "Boss, he already disproved it. He told us to stay away from Lockford. The rumor was that he wanted us to go there." Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Just the detail of it being that he was one of the... I'm sorry, Po. He puts the coin back. I'm sorry. I just had to... You're not a werewolf, are you? It's like, are they still saying I'm a fucking werewolf? Like, I'm not a werewolf. Like, I've proven this before. Like, I'll take a test. Like, I've... Kenan puts his hands up. Look, you know, when you eat in the same lunchroom for eight weeks and everyone's got the same story rolling around...

It's hard to not believe it after a while, but I'm glad to know, with this, and he points to his money pouch, that we're good. Okay. And I told you, he doesn't smell like one, so you're good. Oh. Okay. You've probably got an awkward, "Thank you?" And then probably just leave. Like, I'm gonna go now before this gets weirder. Petrichor's gonna grab... Before he leaves, he's gonna grab him and give him just a big ol' hug. Like, just a big hug. He's gonna say, "Remember what I told you on the road? Remember what I told you when we met?" I'm putting you on the spot.

No, you don't remember. Yeah, it was something about mushrooms being art. No. Like you were... No? No. Well, I probably... I say that one a lot. No, live the path or hide your truth. That's what we talked about, and that's what we're doing. And I appreciate that. It's only because of you that this is happening. So, thank you. You can already hear the clacking in the bag, like... Just for the exact same rock. I just picture a lot of his sayings involve mushrooms. Like, it's just... It's like, yeah, you said something... Some do, but some do. But it's gonna be very heartfelt.

Like a portabella somehow, like you said. Can you... What's... What's his texture like? What's Petrichor's, like... Is he kind of brambly? Is he soft? Is he a fur? Like, what's the situation there? What's the hug situation? If you can imagine... So, forget sticks and bark. Think more moss, but not a hairy, hairy, hairy moss. But like... I can't remember. I don't know what you call it. I don't know a lot of people. Oh, like that soft moss that people put on their walls now. Because we're in the future, and that's the thing we do. Somebody gave their kids a couple of Japanese...

They call them Japanese moss balls. I don't know if they are Japanese moss balls. But they're small little balls of moss that live in water, and they grow. It's soft. It's really nice. But also... I know you've never done this, but if you can imagine this, I bet it will make sense. If you pick up a big mushroom and you were to go... Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum on it... I have a thousand percent done that. But that feeling of like rubberiness, but organic-ness... Yeah, yeah, yeah. An unpopped stink bomb also kind of has that kind of like... Oh, yeah. There's a little bit of...

Will give. Yeah. There's a little bit of give to it. It's a little bit of rubberiness, but it doesn't feel false. It feels very natural, and a little bit of that soft moss onto it. Okay. So, okay. Yeah, not an uncomfortable hug. No, no. He would be... texture-wise... Does he smell like soft moss and grass? Yes, he smells as close to a very... Well, yeah. Yes. Honestly, husband goals. He smells very much. When... After it rains and that smell, that's what you get when you get near him. Wow. Damn. How moist is petrichor? Not very. The moisture's caught up in the... in all of the...

The circulatory systems and things. And the mushrooms that are sort of growing on his shoulder and that sort of thing. So, no. He's not moist at all. Not at all. That's good. Like on a scale of one to pippin, how moist? TMI. He's got a moist face. He has really big eyes. That's... Oh, sure. Yeah. Don't be gross with my dog. He's gross enough on his own. I believe you. We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors. Please don't go anywhere. Guys. It's time to get started. What about the box? Yeah. Do you want to learn the box? Yeah, the mystery box. He said to do it.

A mystery box? Let's campfire that. You want to campfire? So here's what I need. Here's... here's what we're going to do. We're going to do something a little different. This arc. Now, traditionally, guys, I ask everybody to give me a flat D20, right? Just... just, you know, generally, how is the day treating them? Travel, you know, you know, what's the weather like? That type of thing. The higher the die roll, the better. The lower the die roll, you know. So what we're going to be doing is something close to that. But first, I'd like to get you through that first day.

You're moving north along the road. You're still well within city limits. And, you know, you break... you break for the day in White Wolf Valley, which is this huge open area. It was... it was home to the largest battle of the war, right? There's still, you know, bits and craters and stuff like that. If you look all the way to the west, there's this streak of burnt, charred land that leads into where a third of the Evergreen Forest used to be. It's just gone. Like, you know, dragon fire wrecked all this. But that evening, I would imagine you guys are... you got your campfire going.

It's been a pretty chilly day. And as the sun sets, it's... it's... it's getting a little cold. What? What are you guys eating today? Are you living off rations? Are you hunting? What are you... what are you doing here? I think Kanan would be OK with rations, but he would, like, pull the group when they get camp set up. Like, which is like nonchalantly as they're setting up their... their... their, I guess, tents or whatever we're setting up, right? Like, if he's starting the fire, whoever's next to him is going to ask them, like, hey, you know, what are you thinking for tonight?

You hungry? Whoever was around. And then he would, like, take... well, except for runes, he knows that if he hasn't seen runes eat, but he knows this. This guy has to eat some time. Something is keeping this alive, but I don't... Yeah, I don't want to try it. Whatever he's... whatever he's doing, he's surviving. I'm not going to pry into it. Is it like... at this point, is it like, do your people eat or like, is it like... basically, what would your first thought be? It's like, oh, do you just not eat often or you got something weird going on there, right?

Like, you know, like... He would probably believe that, like, runes eats through other means than... because they don't have a mouth, right? That's just... it's blank. Yeah, it's complete skull. So he would guess that they eat just by deduction, that they eat in some other manner that they don't want to see, that runes doesn't want to see. So he's going to respect his privacy and be like, all right, this guy doesn't want to share with us, obviously, and I don't want to know. Honestly, I don't want to know because it's probably something gross or something.

His imagination gets the best of him. Now everyone thinks runes eats with his butt and that's not fair. He hasn't seen it. He doesn't know. Whatever it is, it's working. So he's going to leave runes alone and probably ask Tamika and Petrichor if they're around, like, what are you guys thinking as he's getting the fire ready? Well, I mean, you got... we got what we got. We're going to be on the road for here for a little bit. Let's just eat what we've got. I tell you what, I'm going to augment that. I'm going to augment that. I'll be right back. And he's going to travel off a little bit far afield and probably come back with a few berries and some different types of leaves or something like that, something, probably some mint or something and just to make something a little bit nicer, you know, rather than just rations, plus it up a little bit.

Oh, very nice. Nothing too fancy. And when you went to go ask Tamika, Jerky was already hanging out of her mouth. Okay, good to know. What rations? Good to know, yeah. I hate that. Does she... okay. Does she eat like a pippin' too, like it's like... like kind of like gnawing at it, like a pig ear or something? I think she is a little wolfish when eating. Like... I imagine... I saw it in my head. You had the Jerky and then the one canine tooth over it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. So as Petrichor is getting dinner ready, Runez is going to give Tamika's arm a little tug and maybe like kind of lead her away a little bit.

And what he's going to do... I don't know if she says anything to him at first. She's very talkative, so... Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll follow you. Let's go. She takes another bite of Jerky. He will hand you the blue rock that says "Please explain." But then he's going to point to Petrichor and Kinan and then point to the spine on his chest and then point to the rock again. Oh, please explain. Oh, oh, oh, you want... You want me to tell them how you eat? And he'll nod. Are you sure? I mean, we're all traveling together, so he's going to have to eat in front of them eventually.

All right, all right. I'll tell him. As long as you're okay with it, I'll... Do you want to eat tonight too? And he'll nod. Like, it takes him a second and then he'll nod. Oh, okay. I'm sure they'll be cool with it. I mean, it took a little bit to get used to, but you know, it's just you. It's just what you do. There's nothing wrong with you, Rune. So let's go tell him. He's going to give her a hug when she says there's nothing wrong with him. Tamika will hug him back. I imagine he's actually like much more clingy than you'd expect from a creature that looks that way.

Just like, he's always been around people, like who he was talking to all the time and now he feels kind of disconnected. So like he's a cuddle bug. Aw. And Tamika comes from a big family, so she's used to cuddling all the time. So probably this works out for them. Aw man, he's going to be your little backpack when we sleep. So walking back to camp, uh, hey, hey, hey guys, um, uh, uh, Rune wants me to tell you something about him. Oh. I'm sure you've noticed when we go out to eat, I get it to go box for Rune's and then it disappears and we disappear somewhere and then we come back and the food's gone.

Um, Rune's eats a little differently. As you can see, there's like, uh, no, no, no mouth. Uh, he, uh, I can't put this delicately, so I'm just going to say it. His middle opens vertically and he stuffs the food in there and you see everything in there and there's teeth. Um, but it's cool. It's just Rune's. But it's cool. It's cool. He takes a second as he's, I assume the fire's going now, he's sitting like on some sort of stump or something, a log that's been turned. Yeah. And he kind of nods. Okay, so he looks to Rune's. Rune's, I, you know, thank you for sharing, both of you.

Uh, if we're going to be a team, it's very important that we know, uh, things like that, you know, survive things that'll keep us alive. I assume based off the fact that you need Tamika with you, that you're in somewhat of a vulnerable state when you do this or you don't have control or there's some, there's some reason you need someone else there with you. Am I right? He'll nod. Yeah, okay. Well, Rune's, I mean, we can look out for you when you eat now. It's, it's, I've seen, not to say that it's probably a horrible thing, but I've seen plenty of things in my life that are probably worse than the insights that you got in there.

So if you need an extra pair of eyes to watch over you when you eat, I'd gladly help. And he'll do the little thank you sign. I have it on good authority that it's cool. It's cool? I've been told, I've been told that it's cool. I've been told it's cool. It's just runes, from what I understand. All of this happened as, as Petrichor had come back, having forage for some, you know, different types of mushrooms and whatever. And, uh, he's probably holding a bunch of stuff when all this came up. So he's going to look down at his hands and sort of drop it, uh, wherever, wherever it's needed to sort of make food.

And, uh, we got you big guy. We got you big guy. Uh, question. He's going to pick one of those up. He's going to say, do you like these? Oh, you set him up so well because he's going to reach into his little clinky flax. And he's going to take out a light pink rock. And it says, I like this on it. Great. He's Petrichor is going to take it. He's going to sort of flick it like he's flipping a quarter. And he's going to land it back in his hand and toss it back. And he's going to say, I'll be right back. And then he's going to say, come on, dog. And then they're going to head back off and go get a bunch more.

So this dog has no name, right? Like this is just dog? It's dog. He's only ever called it a dog or talked about it like a dog. This dog's so happy, by the way, it's so cold out. It's just this is my environment. That saddlebag comes off. It's going to roll around. Oh, yeah. No. Oh, that's as soon as we get to a camp like it's the saddlebag comes off like this first thing that happens. OK. But yeah, that's he's gone off to go find basically is like now he's got a mission to find more and more and more because that doesn't sound like, oh, runes needs a little snacks every once in a while.

It's like, oh, so you open up your body and eat. I think we're going to need a little bit more than rations right now. And he'll be back in a minute. And that's fair. That's a good assumption. And that might take a little bit of time, but he'll come back with with a load of of whatever he can find. Like I said, it'll be a lot of a lot of mushroomy stuff. Basically, now I want much from so bad. And I want to do the same thing. That's the problem. Whenever we sit down to eat, I I'm not a vegetable guy, but you describe food and I'm just sitting here. It's like, fuck, man, I need dinner.

Like, I'm hungry. This sucks. Before we get to eating. You guys want to do a mystery box? Yeah. Yes. A little mystery box. OK. I need one of you. To roll a d20. We've called on Alex a lot. Yeah, I've been doing a lot. I don't want to do anything. No, I think it's time for someone else to volunteer here. But you give me a d20. The higher the roll, the more valuable and helpful and effective this mystery thing is going to be. The lower the roll. We'll see. Brie. Just playing around because we're all new to Cortex. Sure. runes only has one value currently because I wanted to add some as we went.

His only value is curiosity. So if he were the one to open the mystery box, could I add his d8 curiosity to the roll? Not to the roll, but I'll tell you what, whatever the item is. I'm going to give runes a bonus to using it. OK, cool. So, yeah, we're going to get into the ins and outs of Cortex soon enough. Just experiment. Yeah, I just threw it out there. Most of this is character building stuff. Yeah. Do me a favor. Give me a flat d20. Let's see what. Well. Off it goes. Wow. 17. So you're going to pull out a gun. This. Wow, look at this guy. Put it down, runes.

Freak accident just outside of Overdale. He was so curious. So you remember, you remember, um, Po was telling you about this salesman and what the salesman was doing is trying to get in good. Irving was trying to get in good with the city. So it's like, hey, man, I'm going to donate this this item. I could be making a lot of money off this. But you give this to them as sort of a surprise, a happy graduation thing. And they're going to tell you how awesome it is. And I'm going to get I think he planned on you opening this before you left. So he's probably like he's probably back there.

It's like, fuck, they left. Oh, there was a 17. That was really good, too. So he's going to be, you know, so sorry, Irving. So you're going to pull out this this heavy, um, almost like a cannonball, like a like a like it's a big, heavy object, but it's gold. Like it's this shiny gold and there are two halves to it. And you're going to pull it out of this little like it's kind of sitting in this nondescript like wooden box. But when you open, it's kind of velvet inside. Right. So you're going to pull it out and it's so meticulously like packaged. It's like Apple made it or something like it's it's so you're going to you're going to you're going to take it.

It's got a custom charger. It's a real pain in the ass. So you're going to you're going to pull this out. Really nice to feel guilty as fuck because, you know, it's like strong environment. A lot of Indonesian children had to work real hard to make this box. You know, you don't want to like throw it away. But so you take it out and there's there's these little instructions. Right. And it says that this emits a powerful one time blast. Of radiant light. Wait a minute. This is a panic button. This is a holy shit. Things have not worked out. And essentially all you do is twist the two ends till it lines up and just toss it.

And the second it hits, it hits like an object, it hits ground or whatever fucking cool. It goes off and grenade of any of that. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, Alex, you can take this holy water back. Yeah. We're going to strap this to the dog. Mark my words. She was going to take out a whole city of vampires. Oh, man. That's nice. Yeah. Now I'm about to tell you guys how travel is going to work. This this arc. So in the past, I've had you guys roll a D 20 and we were kind of left to the fates. But I didn't feel like there was enough nervous tension in that. And I really wanted to bring in some stuff from from Cortex.

And I'm going to make Susan roll this one. OK. So here's what we're going to do. This entire arc, every single group gets to choose the die value that they roll. D4, D6, D8, D10, D12. The catch is if you roll below half of the value of that die, something bad is going to happen. Of course, a one being the worst. A D4? That's not going to be so bad. It's a D4. If you roll the higher end, something good is going to happen. A D4? It's like, ah, you know, we found these old shirts. Like, it's kind of cool. Like, you know, you might be able to use those, but the bigger the die value you choose, a D12.

If you roll a 12 on a D12, it's like, holy shit, guys, we found something really cool. It's a second holy hand grenade, like something really useful, really cool. Of course, a one on a D12 nets you something really bad. That being said, Susan. OK. I've been debating in my head, I don't want to roll a D20. I don't think I'm going to start us off with possibly the worst thing that could happen right away. Sure. So I've been debating if we want to go on like incremental steps up and start from D4 or if I should start in the middle. That's a good point. I mean, I will say the the challenge is kind of tailored to your level.

I'm not going to throw dragons at you right now. I want to make that clear. It's the worst thing that can happen in your price range. Let's say it's not, you know. OK, so maybe I should just do a D10. The middle of the road could be, you know, a beefy D10. All right. I like it. OK, my luck has been great tonight, though, so it has been and then she blue screens. Oh, no. OK. Oh, no, you're breaking up. Yeah. Someone else has to roll by. OK, I'm going to go for D10. We go baby D10. So we're looking for hopefully a six or better, right? Let's go. Oh, yeah. OK, a seven.

So a seven on a D10 is pretty decent. Obviously, it's not the highest value, but something good is going to happen. So you guys are settling in for the evening. You've you've got food cooking. It's almost done. You're going to be eating pretty soon and you're going to hear wolves, which is not uncommon. It's White Wolf Valley. OK, you're going to there in the distance. Oh, not like next to you grumbling like they're you know, they're out there out there. So you're going to kind of you're kind of going to get a feel for like it's like, OK, yeah, they're there.

It's not really probably got the fire burning. It's probably cool. And then in the midst of those howls, it's going to be kind of like, oh, God. And then you're going to hear this clattering and pretty close to you. It's going to sound like someone holding an entire pot and pan set fell down the stairs. Oh, no. And I would say this is probably like thirty five, forty yards away from you. So close enough that you're like, what the fuck? Like that type of thing. I think that was enough. Ruins would immediately get up and start moving towards the source of the sound.

He would not hesitate or wait for anyone else. Oh, God. I think Tamika would do the same. You think a torch or anything? Yeah, I guess he would have to. Do I get dark vision? Of course I don't. No, no, no. No Therian original is ever going to get dark vision. That's not true. That's not true. Do the Pippins get dark vision, Jason? Of course the Pippins get dark vision. They have such big eyes. The Pippin. I was like, what does she mean the Pippin? Oh, the Tozath. The Tozath. You know, they have so few things going for them. Let them have dark vision. Fair enough. I mean, honestly, I appreciate that.

Makes sense. So, runes grabs a torch and it's like, OK, let's go check this out silently. Oh, duh. Tamika too. Yeah, I think I would get up. Can I get up and then tap Petrichor? Come on. Petrichor would get up. He'll look immediately at the dogs. See what the dogs do. Dogs is kind of like, err. Like, just kind of, you know, like it's like, I don't like those. I don't like loud noises. And I was comfy like that. He'll follow along and say, come on, let's go. I like to believe that dog had like stage five loli tongue laying on its back in the snow. Oh, it was having the time of its life.

Totally like on its back. It's its own pillow. Like, it's awesome. Like. So, dog has to get up. It's like, fine. I'm coming with you guys. After about 40 yards, your light is going to start to cast light on a person. And this person is like, as you get closer, it's like, oh, like that type of thing. And probably I don't want to put words in your guy's mouth, but probably the first thought is like, oh, man, like this guy probably got attacked by wolves or something like that. But there's nothing around this person like they're there. They they took a tumble, definitely.

And it looks like they may have broken an arm, something like that, because it's bent in a direction that an arm shouldn't bend. Yeah. So. So what was the pots and pans sounds? Do we see what that was? He is in full plate mail. Full plate mail. Imagine he's the dude fell. What it looked like if you if you kind of it's like you're kind of like, where did you come from? So there's this this rocky ridge, not a mountain, but like definitely kind of a steep climb. And he fell and he basically remember when Homer fell down Springfield Gorge? Yeah. A little bit of that, like he's one.

I kind of rewatch The Simpsons, man. Oh, it's yeah. So he's he's kind of laying there. It's like, oh, please. Just very like his little like the little face plate is like kind of like broken on this one side. So it's like he's got one eye kind of cocked. So Petrichole motion to runes to like come with with the light, with the torch. Right. And he's going to bend down. And I gotcha. I gotcha. All right. What's your what's your name? First thing, what's your name? It's Terry. Terry. All right. We got you, Terry. Terry, it looks like you had a little bit of a fall. We're going to take care of you.

Can you feel your feet? Wiggle your toes. I'm doing it. Can you see it? He's wearing metal boots, full plate mail, full plate mail boots. Just like, yep. It's going to look down. You're going to look back. Yep. All good. You seem to be fine. Shouldn't be much of a problem. Let's get you back over. Tell you what, we've got a little bit of a campfire down here. He's going to motion over to K'Nan and and Tamika and he's going to be like, why don't we just help you on over? We're going to help you on over. We're going to take care of you. Everything OK? And he's going to be looking at everybody.

He's saying all these words, but he's looking at everybody like this, like, we good? We good with this? K'Nan will nod and say, yeah, yeah. Hey, traveler. And he'll look at that hand that's obviously bent the wrong way. He says, let me try and take care of that for you real quick or at least make it so it doesn't hurt as much, because I'm pretty sure that doesn't feel good. And he's so OK, he's going to it's like, well, what do you mean? And he's going to look down. It's like, like he like either total shock or whatever, like he didn't hit. He's like, I was looking at my toes, like he's like, just hanging off with that.

Petric was going to tell him. Yeah, he's going to tap him on the forehead and he's going to say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, everybody. This is Terry. Terry, this is everybody. All right. He's just he's distracting him. Nice to meet you, Terry. Oh, Terry. Terry K'Nan goes over to the arm and I'm going to try and apply my healing stuffs. All right. So, guys, this is our first like role in Cortex. This is our first like thing. You're doing stuff, right? If you're if you're using healing magic. Yeah. Yeah. I want to. But it's technically be a magic attack, but it would be, I guess, enchantment or control, because the others are attack, sensory movement defense.

Well, this would be one of your basic skills, too. Like you're trying to this is outside of combat. So you're trying to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not you're not attacking. That's very important. Which one would help first and expert? The excerpt is more like pushing, pulling stuff like that. Like, what are you trained in? Let's see. I'm trained in alchemy, balance, detect, deceive, incite, improvise, leap, lore, streetwise, sneak, search, scare, run and pressure. OK, so it doesn't look like you you're you're trained in like healing, per se, like for outside of combat.

Which is fine. Oh, hold on one second. Which one would it be? If I was. I don't think there's a healing skill, Jason. It's not a straight up healing. No, it's no medicine either. So maybe I guess, you know what, if we want to, if I can stretch it, alchemy of some kind, like maybe I have like I improvise. It's it could be improvised. So I always so improvise and exert cover a lot in our in our thing, because like there's so many things that like, OK, you're in a situation right now. It's like it's not like you've got a medical tent or something like that. So you you can kind of take stuff you have in like, OK, let's take this stick and banish.

So like improvise is probably the closest thing we have in this situation because you're not, you know. And I was thinking of making a split, essentially. That's what I wanted to do. Yeah. OK, cool. So my improvise, if it's if the green was a D6, the yellow one is a D8, I assume on the new sheets. Right. Yes. Yeah, cool. So D8 plus my class. Which is always a D8, what I remember. Yep. Cool. And then that's it. No other cool extra thingamajigs for me. Your your your attribute. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This would be your savvy. My savvy. Oh, good. It's another D8. There you go.

Look at that. Here we go. Oh, nice. Oh, baby. So I'm going to roll a difficulty, but it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of foregone that you've you've pretty much done this. So, OK, so it's a 10. So you're going to beat that and then have a D8 left over. So this is like you've set this now, like you've definitely it's going to be painful, right? Like it's going to be one of those things. I don't know if you yank on his arm, like before taking him out of that plate armor or like whatever. But I probably was careful when I opened the plate armor, like I unhooked the bracer first, very carefully lifting up the arm, kind of depending on his shock to end the distraction by Petrichor to not bring his attention to this.

And just tapping on his forehead. Yeah. And once it's out, Petrichor is doing whatever he can to just it's just nonsense chatting. Just full blown jingle keys right now. Yeah. And then I put the little like maybe a stick from nearby, get some cloth out of my pack and just wrap it around and make it a splint of a brace of some kind. And I tell him, hey, try to move this as much as possible. Try to keep it close to your chest until we get back to the camp. Very interesting how you only broke your arm. That's pretty good, considering you fell from any points up to the ridge up there in all this.

Lucky you didn't break your neck. Yeah, I guess that's pretty lucky. I oh, man, I owe you guys big. I didn't think I. I'm real scared of wolves and. Tamika puts her hands over her ears. I didn't know there'd be so many wolves here. I thought that this was. Where are we exactly? Why wolf? Where are we exactly? OK. Heroes march, if I'm not mistaken. You might be mistaken, kid. Yeah, we're in a wolf valley. So there's going to be wolves here. Terry, do you like food? I. Yeah, but we got some food for you. Like he's he's trying to get to his map like one handed. It's like, oh, no, this is I'm I'm way further west than I thought I was.

We're not we're not near Esterholt, is what you're saying. Oh, no, Terry. No, no, no, no, no. I I come from I'm from Esterholt. And I can tell you right now you missed the mark, my friend. What? By like a mile or two, like what direction is it in? It's I mean, I don't have a map in front of me, but I assume it's south of where we are by a nice margin. Yeah. So from where you are to where that is, where he's off by like 150 miles. Rune's is going to be looking over his shoulder at the map and he's going to point to White Wolf Valley because he can read like he knows that he's going to drag his finger down to Esterholt.

Just to make it very clear, like this is how far away. Yeah. Little indent in the map. Oh, no, that's. That's real far. Yeah, look, let's get back to the camp where there's no wolves and get you warmed up, get some food and you can tell us all about how you seemingly got here and walked, I'm assuming in full plate armor. No, no, no. I caught a ride. I thought they never told me that we were close. I thought they were going to stop when we were close and I guess we just we just didn't and we kept going. I guess I should ask more questions. I was wondering why they charged me so much.

Oh, my God. This is a here. This is an uber. Yeah. Oh, I know a shortcut. And then, you know, well, here's guys here. Hold on. I'm like he's trying to reach into his right hand pouch on his. But he's using his left because his right one's broken and he's trying to get. Could you reach you to get my wallet? Like just like sure. Take out twenty five gold for yourselves. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Look, I'm not look, I'm really well off. I'm fine. Everything's great. I've been told I shouldn't say that to people when I'm alone.

I'm sorry. I'm not that well off. I am doing fine. I'm living comfortably. I mean, the broken arm sucks. But other than that, comfortably can put the pouch back into his hand and push it like his good hand and slowly, gently pushed it to his chest. Look, don't worry about that. Let's just get you to the camp, get you warmed up. Relax for a second. It seems like you're either still in shock or your nerves are fried right now. But you got to sit down for a second. So come on. So you can you're going to get back to the thing. You're going to find out that that's just how he talks eventually.

Like it's not he's just kind of like a. Do you know that feeling? It's like, OK, you go out to the kitchen, you get a drink of water and there was something else you're supposed to do. You're like, oh, that's Terry all the time. All the time. That is Terry Parks. There is always one thing he forgot to do, and he's trying to like. Yeah, just like he just he you know what? They didn't go by the city. So like he's just sitting there just like bobbing back and forth on the back of this like. They'll tell me when we get there, I guess like it's been like a week, but like, oh, God, maybe a hundred gold.

OK, but like, you know, just yeah, I say we get him a nice bowl of the ration and vegetable stew we got cooking in the kitchen, which is beautifully garnished, I assume by Petrichor. Oh, no, no doubt. Petrichor is also going to reach into one of the saddlebags that is not currently on the dog, but one of the saddlebags that would normally be on the dog. He can pull out a little flask. He's going to he's just going to hand it over to Terry when all while all this is happening to just take a take a little nip. I thought you were like the holy water. Yeah, just the I mean, the dried blood and the broken arm, I'm pretty sure are indicators.

Yeah, no, if he's a vampire, he's not a good one. Could be a demon. He he tries to reach for his right. He just forgot that, like, oh, yeah. So like he's going to he's going to grab him and. Oh, man, I really appreciate it, you guys. So, OK, are we near a major city that I could go maybe try to get another ride from? Yeah, we're I mean, we're not that far from Overdale, but and K'Nan looks at him again, kind of just giving him an ocular pat down. I think you need to rest for a little bit. Don't think too much about where you're going to go just yet. I mean, let's slow down here.

You're going to Esterhold through unknown circumstances, and I'm obviously being like super sarcastic. Unknown circumstances. It didn't get there. It brought you here. Don't don't really want to get into your business, but it's kind of tough getting across the mainland these days. Going by cart, not a bad idea, but I mean, you didn't think at any point to ask him how how long the trip would be or, you know, are we there yet or anything like that? They didn't talk that much when we went through the mountains, I started getting a little suspicious and then the weather completely changed.

And then I saw a bunch of stuff I never recognized, but I was like, man, this has got to be just it's seasonal, right? Like it's, you know, the leaves change color and then it's a valley now. Yeah, well, I look at the group for a second and kind of just read everyone's face. I assume we're all just we have that like flabbergasted look on our faces. I assume if we can express that, I don't know how runes would express it, but he can't. He literally has an unreadable face. The only way he can talk is through his hands. Flabber stoic. He's just staring at the guy like he's got eyes like laser pointers.

It's very incredibly disconcerting, like the fact that he didn't scream when I came out of the darkness with a little torch. That could be the shock. Honestly, it's probably like, oh, you're not a wolf. Thank God. And then Tamika comes out four foot tall like Tamika has her hood up, by the way. And runes is not planning on eating anymore until after everyone goes to bed, probably. That's that's fine. That makes sense. Can't wait to continue. Look, we can't go back with you to Overdell, but how about this? We're headed to Durinhollow on our way there. It's another city that's not too far.

I don't think it's still a little bit a ways, but close to the Nestorhold. Come with us. So we at least know you're OK, since you got this broken arm and we can't have someone with broken arm traveling along the road by themselves. Besides, you know, as a great tree man once told me, the more the merrier when it comes to people and plants. And he'll look at Petrichor. Petrichor will say, it wasn't close enough. There was something about the elegance and the... No, that's about translated right. Well, is it real far out of the way? Because the Chordians are going to be real mad.

I kind of had an appointment to train with them after the big bang thing. And they they agreed to take me on, but I might have blown that because I didn't show up for a week. Chordians, the paladins, is that who you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah. In Nestorhold. After the thing in the mountains, like they they they're taking on new people. OK. Yeah. I mean, they're pretty strict when it comes to appointments. So I think by you getting on that cart and them taking you this far, you probably are already going to be late regardless. But tell you what, we get to Durnhollow, I'll send for I'll send a message via, you know, what kind of whatever birds they got at the aviary there if Durnhollow has an aviary.

Let them know that perhaps you helped a group of travelers fight off some wolves and got sidetracked by doing a good deed. That could work. That's good. Do you want me to pay you for that lie? No, no, no, no, no, no. No, there's no payment necessary. Again, I'm pretty well off. Like it's not going to hurt me to pay you money. You might want to stop saying things like that. Cannot get on my when Patrick says this and point my my hip hurts from lugging all of this cash. All of this cash, everyone. So much money. Broken on. Help me. My only weakness is knives. I think when he when he asked when after Patrick or basically tells me he stopped saying that, Canon will point and nod and then say what I think you can do for us is something a little bit more valuable than money.

It's called word of mouth. You see, we're part of this new thing that Overdale's trying to help the world, essentially, or to help the mainland so far. I think it'd be in everyone's benefit if when we write this letter and send it to the accordions. They also mentioned that, you know, there was another group doing good in the land or in the area, another group that you recognize because of the white raven on their gear is going to point to his now leather armor that he's wearing over the robe. It's like this brown, pretty standard issue thing, and it has the white ring on the breast on the breastplate.

And he taps to it. Yeah, I mean, I could do that. They're pretty obsessed with the pilgrimage right now, but I'm sure that they'll be pretty, pretty stoked that someone else is out there and, you know, doing stuff. Good. That's I think that would be payment enough. There will be some clickety clacks and a blue rock will be passed to Terry and it says, please explain. So, OK, I'm going out of my way not to explain why he's doing certain things, because if it doesn't make sense to the characters, that's fine. Right now, and I. OK. Terry's not great at reading.

Oh, no, Terry. So when people hand him things like bills, he just hands over money like a like money. So it's like, well, this cover it. It's like, yeah, it's like, you know what I mean? I'm going to hand you a weight, basically, like he's going to, you know, so he's going to he's going to look and then look at runes. Uh huh. Ruins is going to keep staring at him. He's he's going to after a while, like you like the aha and the smile didn't do it. So he's he's going to kind of like the kind of elbow can on and then wince because he did it with his fucking stupid broken arm because he's.

Yeah, this my my teammate ruins here wants you to explain what this pilgrimage is, if I'm assuming correctly. Runes will nod. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's it's it's all it's all anybody's talking about. And here's March Hunter's Bounty, that whole area that the big the big bang thing in the mountains and blistering peaks, the big temple that appeared and the all these new gods apparently live there. And the accordions are making a pilgrimage up there. They're pretty pissed because the way it was described to them as court is dead and some new is like the new like a whole new.

It's crazy, man. It's crazy. Like he does like it's not. But they will not change the branding. They pretty much dedicated a lot of their lives to this thing, and I I. My application was rejected several times, and then I bought them a new wing. Of their training facility and then met luck, luck would have it, I got in that year like this is the year and I'm going to miss my big break by by by missing it. I see. As luck would have it. He does not put it together like he does. I mean, that's just that's just that's just karma, man. You do good things and good things happen, you know?

Yeah, I think I think you're right, Terry. I think you're absolutely right. Look, Kenana looks he looks the group like, OK, this all makes 100 percent sense. Like he just kind of nods. This equation is adding up. If Nico will lean over in front of Terry and go to grab the rock from his hand, I'll just take that back. That's whenever it goes to a person who's not in the party, we have to clarify that, like, yes, the rock comes back. Yes, he only has one of each. That is a reusable rock. Yes. Yeah, that would be a very heavy bag if they're disposable. It's the heaviest game of Scrabble ever.

And, oh, man, guys, I think it's a good time for us to stop for the evening, but I don't go anywhere because we have a post show that we're doing this arc. So I'm going to be asking you guys some questions because I asked listeners to send some in. So, yeah, we're going to take a quick commercial break and be right back. Don't go anywhere, guys. We played a game. Yeah, we did it. We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors. Please don't go anywhere. Also, I need to I need to I need to apologize if I didn't seem I was listening and I was playing, but the last two minutes were the DoorDash guy basically saying, hey, food's here.

And I'm like, OK, stand in front of the door so I can buzz you in. He's like, food's here. And I'm like, what part of that? Also, looking at what Sam is, she's she's, you know, separating our food now. I ordered two sodas. Oh, they gave us four. Oh, it should be the same thing. They should be the same thing. Right. OK. Because if they gave us somebody else's order, he might come back. Tell Sam I say hi. Dumb dash. Tell her I say hi. Oh, they come with sodas. Oh, when are you going to get extra soda? Also, everyone says hi, Sam. Brianna says hi. Jason says hi. Susan says hi.

Jasper didn't say hi or anything. I didn't say it because I don't know Sam at all. I have no idea who Sam is. Sam is the voice that Alex puts on when he wants us to think he lives with someone. Yes. She's not real. It's chicken chicken. Cup our beef beef. Beef. Sorry. This is all in the after show, right? Like this. That's fine. I'm so happy. I think that went really, really well. That was fun. The new system's great. Yeah. We barely played it, but it's there. It's and that's the point, right? Like we. Yeah, I know it recedes in the background. Yeah. Yeah. We recorded an also.

I love how Terry's like, I don't know why they I finally got in. Fucking. Oh, my God. I'm a wing. Terry. I mean, he's he's he's not stupid. He's not. He is. He's made a himbo. Let's not slap labels on. He's not world weary. He's not a savvy guy. His savvy way low. Yeah. His intelligence isn't very high either. Between him and Theo, I think you have a kink for putting dumb boys into full armor. I don't know why that's a thing that you did twice. Jason wants to protect the dumb boys. You know, I've made like 200 NPCs. You're really honing in. I'm just I thought it was Theo because he fell down and he was in plate armor.

That was I was like, I mean, like every seven years I get one. OK, it's not it's not an insult. I just that's a thing you like. It's fine. Like, I'm not shaming at your kink. I'm just saying kink. I never kink shame. Also, thank you, everyone, for not letting me steamroll as the leader. I really appreciate it. And I was very afraid of doing that. Dude, everything's fine. The balance was really good. I might. I don't want to speak for everybody, but I felt like that was good. Yeah, it was really good. Totally. Like I I was a little worried about you playing a character that can't speak.

You're doing a great job. Yeah. I was going to say everything is good. Major props. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's good. It's hard. I always want to explain why he does like, oh, what he's trying to say is. And it's like, no, you can't do that. That ruins the whole thing. That's like it's like playing charades. You can't like, you know. Yeah. I like that you stop yourself. It's really like I could see it and I'm like, oh, wait, what is she trying to convey? That's the thing. If your character can't get it, then that's part of the interaction is them going, what the fuck do you mean, Rhones?

And then he has to keep going. Well, that's going to happen a lot. We need to get you more rocks or teach you sign language. I did. I literally I I only came up with a certain number of rocks. I'm going to limit myself to 10 probably. But he has less than five right now. So that when like when I notice like, oh, he really needs to be able to say this thing. He'll notice that and put it on a rock. I'm realizing why this is so familiar to me. And it's because we got Mimo, our dog, our relatively new dog. We have those little buttons that you can. So we have Mimo, we have outside, which is the garden, which is like go pee.

We have walk and we have food. So she'll go up and say Mimo food or Mimo outside or Mimo. Oh, it's a Congo. Oh, me friend. So it's it's super simple. But we're you know, now that she's gotten that pretty down, we're going to start adding things. So it's like Mimo play or Mimo sleepy or whatever it might be. Got to figure that out. Now I'm realizing why it's so familiar. This whole concept. Oh, man. Do you guys want to answer some questions? I love it. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. No, dude, it's fine. This is the after show. This is look, the twitch chat is calming down. Or if you're listening to this on a jog like this is the after party.

This is the who you know, it's really going to suck is when people start dying and then we have to do these after shows. And then it's that's us dealing with. Yeah, I'm not going to try like you're going to do happen. Weirdly, you start when people start dying instead of. Yeah. Whoa. I'm saying from this day forward, like someone's eventually that's look, you settle in. Expecting someone to die or just one of us. Someone's going to die. Someone's going to die. The Luna will be the death of me. And congratulations, Bri. Your character didn't die in the very first session of the new arc.

Thank you. Thank you. That's exactly why I didn't choose to roll the D 20. So I don't want to. The rooms just explode. OK, so with my last character, I went for like, oh, man, I want to do the striker. I want to get in close and like tap, tap and then, you know, get away. Now, just a fucking tank like fucking hit me. I want to say that I'm made of bones when I play a lot of League of Legends. I play tank for that specific reason. I just want to live. So the way we did this was I have these are all anonymous questions. Right. So if you're in the Twitch chat right now and you hear your question, raise your hand and we'll.

I don't know. We'll yell at you in the chat unless you want to be anonymous still. You don't have to. Yeah. Like there's a couple of real nasty ones. So like, yeah, if you want to be I'm joking. That's not really our list. How the fuck do you get off? Yeah. Where do you get off? I haven't heard the episode yet, but fuck you. They typed it in the accent. It was weird. How do they get the hands? Sorry. Much like your dog will go MIMO food, Molly will push her plate off of the surface. It's on and make a huge noise if I don't feed her on time. And I saw it happening to go feed her.

Perfect. Yeah. Almost like like a dick. Yeah. No, that's just cats. Come on. Yeah. First question. This one's like this is just dipping our toes in the water. It's just a nice question. How are you guys enjoying cortex so far? How is it different from D and D? Both good and bad in your eyes, basically. Alex, let's go. No, I talked a lot already. God damn it. OK, Jasper. So cortex to me was I had to figure out a new system and that's hard for me. I don't like change. I don't know about you, but I don't like change. But I had to figure out a new system. And, you know, reading what the system was all about, I was like, OK, I get it, I think.

But I don't know why. Like, right. Why you have to do the math you're doing and why you're using the dice the way you're doing it. But we did a couple of practice sessions. We did a couple of things. And I can only learn if I do something a few times. Now it makes complete sense. So it's it's it basically simplifies absolutely everything. I really enjoy the fact that cortex is is what is. I guess is the underpinning for the story, if that makes any sense. So anything that has to happen that is not simply just talking about things. Yeah. It gives a very simple structure for everything to work.

And I love that without it, without us having to bog every conversation down or every fight down or every. Complication or challenge down it. I don't know. I love it. I love it. I think it's great. When we've practiced cortex battles so far. And I don't say this lightly because I'm someone who doesn't really like the battle parts of any fantasy. Save like Lord of the Rings, because that's awesome. But like when I get to it in books, I skip those those paragraphs. It's like, OK, well, who died, though? That kind of thing. I thought that with D&D 5E, that was so strict that like, oh, this makes sense.

And it kind of does. But in a chess sort of way. Whereas when we played combat in Cortex, I could actually kind of picture it like it felt just more. Just more substantial somehow. It felt more battle. It's almost like a Marvel cinema fight sometimes where like there's a give and take, even if you're attacking, you may not be the one who ends up attacking at the end of that attack. Like it's there's stuff going on constantly. And it's because there's so much narrative around it because we're not just reading spells out loud. We have to describe what we're trying to do.

And in doing that, I think it creates much more of a realistic, especially with spells, instead of being like Mortimer's giant plate. It's like my character is going to blank, blank, blankety blank. There's a lot more intention that comes across. Now, I know there's intention as you're playing D&D and 5E and all sorts of any addition. It's all theater of the mind, but the Cortex sort of primes you for, Cortex prime, for intention for what you're doing. And you really have to put that in there so that it makes sense for the roles. Right. And I like that upfront.

And I feel like with D&D, you have to pause to do rules. Like you have to like step back out of play mode, out of story mode and be like, OK, now what do I do? Whereas Cortex, it's like, I want this amazing description of things to happen. And that is part of the story. Instead of step back, look at this piece of paper, go, OK, roll dice. OK, well, let's add in the buffs and oh, I got this extra thing. Not to like crap on D&D because I like D&D, but we've always said that, like, OK, the combat and the rest of the game are two different games. Right. So like when we're in combat and Cortex, it feels like there's like an action and reaction type of thing.

Whereas if I saw one more fucking wall spell in D&D, I was like, it's a 40 foot high wall with a blow. It's like, oh, like I got to be fucking good at carpentry before I can like. And that's kind of what I was going to get to is not to like spoil what Tamika's whole thing is or K-nons. K-nons. Close. There you go. K-non. K-non. It's Kinyun. Don't. Kinoa. We have another spelling-myric-wrong situation. I need to get it right early. K-non. So traumatized. Like both of you guys, when it comes to spells, again, this is mostly magic users. It's so personalized to the character that combat, both for fighters, because I felt this with Petrichor.

Well, Petrichor magic and fighting, but you know what I mean? And runes, who is just melee. It all felt personal to the character. It felt like, oh, this character is doing that because this character is this way. Instead of this character is doing that because it's the spell they chose. And, you know, you try to choose spells that make sense for the character, but like you can only do so much. Right. Like Jadzia had a bunch of spells that didn't really fit her. It was just what was available in the spell book. And I think Cortex leaves so much more room open to like make every character feel different when it comes to their magic and their fighting.

Not to go on too long about that, but I just really I like anything that adds more character. It's a huge change. And like, I'm I'm almost sad we didn't get into a fight for strength. Like, I don't like it didn't fit the story. So don't we kill Terry if you want us to kill. Whoa, whoa. Do nothing to know. That can go right for his throat. We don't know that. No. Then it's like blood all in its food. Like just like it's just like dripping blood. You know what? One more question, because we're we're we're going, you know, usually five was probably lofty, a lofty goal.

OK, this is a weird one, but I like it. What would your last meal be? Like me as a person? Yeah. Don't think about the why. Just think about it. Is it bad that I have a really like I knew immediately and I knew that I was not afraid. That means you know what you're about. OK, what is it? A full, small Papa John's pizza with light sauce and double pineapple. You could have anything you want. You know, Papa John's. I'm ashamed of me. She is. I just it's the first thing came in her mind. You can't blame her for that. And then I immediately went, no, I'm not going to top that lobster roll.

Maybe like a good lobster roll, but like mine was definitely going to be. So one a long, long time ago, another life for Alex. I went to this restaurant for my 22nd or 23rd birthday. And it's a restaurant that only had five seats and you had to reserve like months in advance. Like obviously I knew it was the person I was with reserved it. Sure. I had something I have not had since then. It was basically lobster, right? With some pasta around it and had black truffle shavings over it. And I didn't never had trouble before. It's my first time having it. Hey, Alex, and I asked you something.

Yeah, what is a truffle taste like? It's hard to describe for me. It's like my mouth is watering thinking about it and I can't remember what it tastes like because I haven't had it in so long. Because I'm so poor. So these things are expensive, first of all. So think of it. I relate it closer to like the same family as mushrooms. I'm probably way off, way wrong. Oh, thank God. Just waiting for the chat to catch up. I was waiting. I was looking at Jasper. Jasper's going to come in here and be like, well, actually, or be nice about it. Tell me later on. Not do that.

OK, thank you. I just was super nice. He's told me. No, no, it tastes it's like it's it's nice. It's like, oh, the truffle comes out of the dirt because of pigs. Like that's yeah. It's this amazing like lots of things come out of the dirt, though. Lots of things come out of pigs, too. Mm hmm. Snout intestines. I guess flaky, almost like like not spongy, but like flaky. Soft. It was good. It was good. Mushrooms. It sounds delicious. It was really good. And I would have that I would have the lobster with the black truffle shavings over the pasta and also the guy that had basically the head chef or whatever that restaurant came out and did the shavings on top of the food.

There's only five people. You better come out. And he said, as he's doing it, he said, I can't believe this is this old Asian man, but he's got this very like well put together suit and he's shaving. And he says, I can't believe this thing cost me three hundred dollars as he's as he's shaving it. And I'm like, excuse me. And he's like, yeah, he stops and he's like, yeah, this thing, because before when he came out, it came in a box. It was in a wooden box. And I remember thinking, like, I'm never going to eat anything that's better than this ever in my life again.

He's like, don't worry, I'm charging you more. I'm making. Yeah, yeah. You are to this. And I promise we are charging you more than three hundred dollars to this day. To this day, I do not know how much that meal cost that night. Good. A lot. It was a lot. You never looked it up. You never got curious. You know, I didn't know because I mean, at the time, the person I was in a relationship with at the time, we sure she had just come into money because she had just gotten hired as like a designer for the company where she was starting off as an office administrator.

So she kind of did work her way up. And so she was like, we're going to go all out. I was like the first paycheck she got from the new job. We're going to go all out. And it was my birthday. Oh, hey, hats off. Thanks for that. That was a good memory. Yeah. So I have to tell you, it's so uncomfortable. I mean, let's put it in savings. The worst is too high for us not to monopolize it, but like I wasn't dressed for that place either. Like because she tricked me. Well, you know, it was a secret, you know, like, oh, we're going to go somewhere. Right. And I'm in there with like, even if you were told in advance, you'd have to rent clothes for that kind of fucking place.

Like I would have to probably rent a shirt. Yeah, because I had slacks because I think at the time I was working, I was a traveling salesman. So I had like Bizcad clothing, you know. But anyways, got it. Lobster truffle shavings pasta. And you guys are all going to make me look really bad because I know Jasper is going to come out with something. And I'm like, bajons. He's going to be like a can of chili. He's going to be like real. Actually, it might just be cheese curds. I'm I'm homing my money on cheese curds. Oh, don't eat. Here's the thing. If you go eat with Jasper when it's vacation time, it might be your last meal.

So just get ready. Enjoy it. Yeah. Susan, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. Oh, no. Mine's gonna be real different. So my mom makes two things every year for the family or she did when I lived with her. Two big things that were you loved. It was stuffed peppers, which most of it. They're really good. And then corned beef and cabbage potatoes. And I seriously, even when I was like a like a little kid, it's like a four pound thing of meat. I could eat the whole thing of corned beef. I promise you, you could put one in front of you right now. I eat it all. I could.

So corned beef, cabbage, potatoes. It's so good. I love it. I could eat it for that for Patreon content. We'll just. Right. So that's the corned beef tier. Corned beef mukbang. Let's go. Oh, and a side of fried chicken, just because it's my last meal and I love fried chicken. Oh, I am. So there we go. Jasper, just just suck down a can of cream, a mushroom soup. And I'm good. No, I didn't think so. Heated up just right off the shelf. Chunky me and make sure your tongue touches it. The metal tastes to. Oh, yeah. If if I were to have to be gone tomorrow, if there was a meteor coming or something like that.

Don't think about the why. Don't think about the why. It's like you got to just do something now. You don't have time to figure it out. Sure. It would be Indian food. I honestly I would just get a bunch of a couple of different curries, some naan, some rice. And I would just stuff myself. It's it is the strangest and weirdest comfort food that I found in my life somehow becoming comfort food. But it is it is nice when you when you got there. Was it just like, I'm going to try this or was it something it was a holdover from like San Francisco? Because I don't think you got like good curry in the south.

I don't know. Not. There's not great curry. There's a couple of Carolinas. I doubt that. No, no. In San Francisco is not. It is now, but I don't think it was back when you were there. OK, because now it's got there's a lot. There's a lot more restaurants. It's a little bit. The best place was in the Tenderloin. And I remember it and it was fine. See, now there's now there's more. Now you don't have to go to the T.L. You can go to like any mission now, which is crazy because that's like Mexican town. So you get all the love. So I lived in the UK. I lived in in Cambridge for several years.

And if you want a good British curry, like an Indian curry, curry, curry, curry. That's that's good stuff. Yeah. And I and I found that here in New York. So I'm happy. Of course. I mean, New York is like the Mecca of every food. Yeah. Jason, I. I. OK, so Papa John's. Papa John's. I think better ingredients, better racism. I think. Well, he's not there anymore. He got he got fired. It's like we are tick tocks. They're very strange. Like Jello and Cosby and Jared and Subway. I can't. That's valid. The crust is so thick and chewy. I'm with Brie. It's perfect. I'm with Brie on this.

I'm a Papa John's. It's like it's real like. Sometimes you got to separate the art from the artist. And look, there's there are a few pizza places that store their pineapple away from their fucking onions. Thank you. I think those go together, but they don't go in the trash. No, that's it. It's all garbage. The worst thing in the world is having you and Ian here because then I'm partially outvoted about this pineapple situation. So you're not allowed to come here. And here's the thing. Right now, this is playing right. And I wonder if the chat's still fighting about this, if they ever stopped fighting about it.

I said pineapple. Oh, we'll be fighting about it. You know that there's a poll in the chat right now. Like there's absolutely a poll like. Yeah. And one of us probably started it. I. I would definitely get pizza like East Coast, like Papa John's, like a nice like I'm thinking like a like a nice. South Jersey, Italian sausage, pepperoni bacon situation, maybe. Oh, man. Maybe a New York slice you can fold, maybe just something just just I miss. So I have thought about taking a trip back to the East Coast. Not right now. Not right now. No, no, no. We've got we got a room down here next to next to my office one day.

You know, when the world is on over back in business, I feel you nice warm dog, all warm from the hand warmers. Yes. Just like that. And just just like custard. East Coast. Oh, yeah. Soft serve custard. They don't. Yeah. They don't have that here. Just a big glass of like Mad Dog 2020. Just like there's your last meal and really enjoy it. Exactly. There's a custard place. There's like it's a chain. Read us frozen custard. You can get that in. Well, I'm about up where you there was there was one here, but like the signs all smashed and shit, you know, we live in Crime Alley and narrows in Gotham.

It's fucking it's bad. Guys, that's it. I think I think we're done. Thank you all so much. Obviously, Jasper is going to be doing our outro and letting you know where you can find us and support us. But just thank you for tagging along and and just just helping us out. We really want to spread the word of the show this year. And I will turn you all over to Jasper. Oh, my gosh. Remind me here. So I'm just I'm just I got to make sure I understand. So we got you can watch episodes on Twitch every Saturday. Oh, yeah. Before they're released on Sunday. Oh, no. Well, everything's kind of like, yeah, we're streaming them Saturday and then Sunday it's released into the wild.

Right. Ever. Unless, of course, you're on our Patreon and you get it the same time it's streaming. It's complicated. That's what the I forget. Somebody used to watch or listen to a podcast would do that. I think it was these tomorrow used to do that. But they have to do. Oh, they have like the podcast and they have the show on Showtime. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So do you want me to tell everybody all the places they can find us again? Yeah, again, this is the here's the cool thing. This is the post show. Like, we expect you to be drunk by now. So like, oh, God, I just drove from the start.

Sake! How else can I play Dungeons and Randomness? Thank you for listening to the craziness and the weirdness that Dungeons and Randomness is. And thank you for joining Arc five, which is amazing. Please check us out on all the different places, all the social media, all the Twitters, the Facebooks, the Instagrams. As we've talked about, definitely check out their Patreon, patreon.com/dandr and get on our Discord. You can find the link on the website and on Patreon. And honestly, you've got to watch our episodes live or not live, but streaming on Twitch on Saturdays before everything is released out on Sundays.

And please, please come back every single week. Thanks. Amazing. The smile at the end made it. It was perfect. It was perfect.