Episode 5: You Learn A Name

MEGHAN:

Previously on Quest Laid Plans:

NORIAH:

This didn't just happen out of nowhere.

[theme music begins in background] Someone invited those things here.

PHIL:

I'm gonna like open its mouth and cast Destroy Water on the blood in its stomach.

PORLA:

Wait! Before we get rid of all of the blood in there, let me look at it and determine how it's healing. This could help me.

JESSE:

I want to cast Detect Thoughts on her.

PORLA:

Esther. I thought we were all on better terms than that. I know that we've drifted apart a little bit, but--

ESTHER:

It's not a little bit. It's been 10 years. Things change.

JAMIE:

I would like to mind link with Kit.

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Are you as worried about her as I am?

KIT [MIND LINK]:

I'm not actually worried about her getting hurt, but I'm worried about her making a stupid decision now. Something could take advantage of her. She could make a deal that she doesn't want make.

WINSWIP:

Do you want me to follow her? I can follow her.

NORIAH:

I don't want us to split anymore.

ESTHER:

We meet back at somewhere in an hour.

NORIAH:

We can go back to my brother's house. It's safe and it's close by. And I don't think anyone would come looking.

JAMIE:

While wearing my antler necklace of Admonition, I can use my Wild Shape feature to transform into an avatar of Admonition, the two-horned horse.

MEGHAN:

So you're able to find Porla's office relatively easily. You notice that the desk, the table, is strewn with materials that look like they were left about in a hurry. You see that a couple of them had been obscuring an ID card of some kind. It's of, like, an old man. It's not Porla's ID. It says Primo Krugnale, and in the underneath it says, uh, head of maintenance and grounds.

BREKX:

[sighs] She really wanted me to stay and help her with this memorial. She really had her heart set on this-- this specific statue, and wanting me to be involved in it, and...

KIT:

Did she specify how?

BREKX:

Not really? Like, that's why it was weird to me. I was like, 'shit, I'm terrible at art'. Like, what am I gonna do?

NORIAH:

Should I go talk to Khabriel?

KHABRIEL:

I know how it's supposed to feel when you put your magic into an inanimate object, and it just felt like something was already in there.

NORIAH:

And if someone else was doing magic, it's either someone very powerful, or someone who was here.

PRIMO KRUGNALE:

Yeah, you kids, uh, you should probably get outta here. I've been ordered to evacuate everybody. It's kind of a rough situation right now.

NORIAH:

We are the rough situation. Hi.

NEDA:

Can I do a History check to see if I recognize this man?

MEGHAN:

You remember Primo. Winswip, you take a look at these papers and you have a moment where you start to see some connections forming, and we're going to come back to you.

[QLP theme song plays]

MEGHAN:

Welcome to Quest Laid Plans, the podcast that asks the question: can an old party learn new tricks? I am your dungeonmaster, Meghan Kelleher, and with me are the top five skaters after the short program at the Olympics.

[laughter]

PHIL:

[laughing] Oh no.

MAYA:

Uh, hi, I'm Maya S. Ming, and I play, uh, Winswip Pom, air genasi gnome, um, rune knight, who has no idea what that meant. So. [laughter]

PHIL:

Hi, I'm Phil Arevalo. I play Kit Marpola, water genasi monk. Uh... [laughs] [laughter]

MAYA:

That's fine. That's it.

MAYA:

You know? Sometimes, enough is enough.

JESSE:

That's it.

JESSE:

Hi, I'm Jesse B. Koehler, playing, uh, a human boy, a golden boy-- [in a low voice] The Olympics are rigged. The competition has been set from the beginning. It is all lies. You hear it here now. This is evidence that the Olympics are a total conspiracy-- [in normal voice] Uh, Esther Mifiance, sorcerer. [laughter]

JAMIE:

Hi everyone, I'm Jamie Hathaway, your Yuzuru Hanyu, aka Aveline Javri Skywatcher, Kalashtar circle of wildfire druid.

NEDA:

[laughing] The Nathan Chen to Jamie's Yuzuru Hanyu, I'm Neda Marie Valcheva, and I play Noriah Windsworn, halfling wizard rogue.

MEGHAN:

And I would just like to remind everybody that the opinions of these party members in no way reflect on any of the other intellectual--

NEDA:

Rigged!

MEGHAN:

--properties [laughs] of this studio.

NEDA:

All of it's rigged!

JESSE:

[laughing] Rigged, rigged!

NEDA:

All of it's rigged from the beginning!

MEGHAN:

But you didn't hear me say it, but yes you did. Okay. So we are going to jump back in and we're going to come back to Aveline, who is standing in the Admonition form, very inconspicuously, outside of the main building of the adventurers' guild. Now I will say this is a magical world, and it's an adventuring guild, so it's not crazy that there would be a magical creature here. It would be-- It's a little weird that it's in the form of god.

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

Uh, but also it's dark out and Admonition, I-- I picture Admonition as having like really dark coloration. I think the horns would be fiery, but maybe like a darker-colored horse. I don't know anything about horses, so don't @ me, horse girls.

JAMIE:

As a former horse girl, horses can be black, horses can be dark brown, horses can be a lot of things. Horses can have two magical forms and be in the image of god. Um... [laughter]

MAYA:

That's so-- That's so inspirational.

MEGHAN:

Sometimes a horse is just-- No, I don't know. Okay.

[laughter]

MAYA:

Yes?

MEGHAN:

I was trying to make a, like, 'sometimes a family is just--', but then I just-- I lost my steam on that one. So. All right. Um, Aveline, you are standing outside. What are you getting up to as you are, um, horsing around out here?

MAYA:

Well, I will say, before-- before you answer that, I will say that Winswip is periodically-- If I-- I think they're still in range mentally, right?

JAMIE:

It's um-- What is the range? I think it's like 50 feet?

PHIL:

I thought you had to be in sight.

JAMIE:

Ohhh, yeah.

MAYA:

Uh, mmhmm, yeah.

JAMIE:

Yeah.

MAYA:

Okay.

JAMIE:

You have to be able to see you and be within 70 feet.

PHIL:

Sorry!

JAMIE:

Um, so... We are no longer mind linked, but I guess I'm looking up at the second floor.

MAYA:

Okay.

JAMIE:

I'm trying to see if any lights are coming on, because we don't know if there was a light on already in Porla's office. So I'm just standing there, scanning around.

MAYA:

That's a good point. Would, uh-- would the light have been on? Because Winswip does have-- Winswip has Dark Vision, um, [laughs] and also Blind Sight. Um, so she wouldn't have any problem getting-- seeing anything, but would the light have been on...

MEGHAN:

I don't think the light would've been on.

MAYA:

Okay.

MEGHAN:

Um, and I don't-- Yeah.

MAYA:

She wouldn't have turned it on. Sorry. [laughing]

MEGHAN:

Right, yeah. So it's a matter of whether she would've turned it on. So you are-- As you are kind of, uh, craning your horse neck up to see the, uh-- the second floor of this building, you hear from behind you, a voice kind of echoing through the-- the field, the quad, going,

KHABRIEL:

Oh, cool big horse, cool big horse! Hold on guys, mom and dad, um, just-- just keep going. I'll catch up with you, there's a cool big horse over here I have to see.

MEGHAN:

And they're like,

KHABRIEL'S PARENTS:

Okay! Okay, sweetheart.

JAMIE:

Do I recognize this as Khabriel's voice?

MEGHAN:

Yeah, I think you do. I think you do at this point. I think you know what Khabriel does when he sees a cool animal at this point.

JAMIE:

I think it's probably also maybe not the first time that he's been like, 'Oh, cool big X' about me as an animal. Like he's probably been like, 'Cool, cool, big horse, or--

MEGHAN:

Oh yeah.

JAMIE:

--regular horse without the horns'.

MEGHAN:

Yeah.

JAMIE:

Um, I think once he gets within 70 feet, I-- I mind link with him, given that it's not active, uh, it's not active with Winswip because she's out of sight.

MAYA:

Oh, shit.

MEGHAN:

You link up with Khabriel's mind and you're met with this feeling of vacuousness.

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

Uh, just like a big empty room. Great acoustics, but not a lot in there.

[laughter]

MAYA:

Oh, wow. How are you gonna do him like that?

JAMIE:

Just mind-linking with this absolute himbo with a heart of gold.

PHIL:

Heart of gold.

MEGHAN:

[laughing] Uh, what-- what do you say?

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

What's up, Khabriel? It's Aveline. I'm-- I am horse, right now.

[laughter]

KHABRIEL:

Whoa, Aveline, you're the horse?!

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Yeah.

KHABRIEL:

Of course you are! You can turn into anything. That's so dope! Listen, um, can I-- can I come-- can I come pet you or something?

MAYA:

[laughing] Of course, of course, you're the horse.

JAMIE:

[laughing] I'm just sitting.

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Yeah...?

KHABRIEL:

Alright, cool, I'm gonna do that.

MEGHAN:

So, uh, Khabriel comes up to you and-- and starts sort of like petting your mane, and is like,

KHABRIEL:

You know, apparently we're supposed to leave campus. I mean, you're probably fine, 'cause I feel like you could probably just turn into like an even bigger worm or something, uh, if another one came, but uh, you know, the maintenance guy said we should probably go, 'cause you know, more worms could come and uh, you know... I just want you guys to be safe is all. Where's uh-- where's Winswip?

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Uh, she's just, uh-- she's just inside using the bathroom, and then we're gonna go meet up at Noriah's house. We just, uh, yeah, needed to make a little detour and she really, really needed the bathroom. So I-- I became horse so that we could get here faster. Um, so she's just, uh, yeah, she's just inside, you know?

KHABRIEL:

I hear that, I hear that. Sometimes you gotta go.

AVELINE:

Yeah. You know, when you-- When you're changing between a, you know, tiny to giant--

KHABRIEL:

Listen, um--

AVELINE:

--that can kind of mess with your stomach. So...

MAYA:

Squeezes the-- squeezes the bladder, when you shrink back down a lot, yeah.

JAMIE:

Yeah. [laughs]

KHABRIEL:

Wow. There's so much I just didn't even think about. You all have to consider so much. Wow. The world is big. So listen, um--

[laughter]

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Yeah, man, the world is big...?

KHABRIEL:

I... So I was talking to the others back there, and like, they seem kind of like... I don't know, they seem like, kind of like, they're asking a lot of questions about Porla, and like if there was anything weird with her and like-- like all these questions about her and the statue and everything, and like, I didn't really know how to answer, 'cause I don't know, but as a-- But then, I don't know, I was telling my-- my mom and dad this, and-- like while we were walking back, and then they kind of reminded me of the way Porla was when she was like living with us. And I thought maybe I should like tell you guys about that, if that was helpful. But like, I don't wanna like stir shit, I mean like Porla's great, I don't want-- I don't-- I don't know. I don't-- Maybe this is nothing.

JAMIE:Do, uh, do I know that Porla was living with Khiron's family at one point? Is this when we were younger, or is this like more recently?

MEGHAN:

You--I think that you knew that Porla-- When Porla-- Porla wrote you-- you one of the letters, right?

JAMIE:

Yes, we met up in year eight.

[sweeping music transition]

MEGHAN [FLASHBACK]:

Right. Number eight.

JAMIE [FLASHBACK]:

Three of Cups.

[falling synthesizer notes]

MEGHAN:

So three of Cups is: you reunite with one of the party members that you haven't seen in a while. How does it go? What do you talk about? What do you notice about the other person?

JAMIE:

I think maybe it would be interesting to reconnect with Porla and be like, 'Hey, I do some healing stuff now. I have a new-found, like, respect for you as a cleric. Also like, religion-- fucking wild, right? How's that going for you?' And like, yeah, maybe have a really interesting conversation about like how our respective kind of faith journeys have gone.

MEGHAN:

So I'll tell you-- I think that Porla would probably notice about you that, like, you seem freer, and I think that would be like the biggest one, of just like feeling less tense and like judgey--

JAMIE:

Yeah. [laughs]

MEGHAN:

--and like nervous. Porla, I think you would notice, seems-- So, like in a practical sense, she like went back and just kind of stayed with the adventurers' guild and is sort of like in a-- like a higher up now, like an administrator in that guild. And sort of tells you about, like, they've been making all sorts of changes and you don't really catch all of it, 'cause she kind of mumbles. But when you guys get around to talking about Khiron, I think you get the feeling that if-- You two are probably the two that were closest to her, and it seems like you've done a lot healthier job of handling that than Porla has. Like, Porla just like doesn't wanna talk about it and gets very upset, and like, it's just clear to you that you've kind of done the work in a way that perhaps Porla hasn't.

JAMIE:

Yeah. I mean, I took a whole year off to go like sit by the sea and be fucked up about it. So.

MEGHAN:

Yeah, I think like it's pretty clear that Porla never like let herself do that at all.

JAMIE:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

And it does catch up with you. So.

[sweeping music transition]

MEGHAN:

I think that during that time you would've remembered that Porla grew up in sort of a Axiom faith-based orphanage, and that the reason she joined the adventurers' guild was cuz she had kind of aged out of that and needed somewhere to be. And after the final battle, she couldn't go back there and you knew that, um, Khiron's family had taken her in and you weren't exactly sure the details. You knew she had been there for a while and then she wasn't there anymore.

JAMIE:

Okay. So knowing that that's not a surprise to me, I think while, uh, while Khabriel is stroking my mane, which I think in a horse form, is plaited in the same way as my regular hair, it's in like a bunch of cool braids so it's kind of fun to-- to fiddle with. I think I say,

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

I mean, you know, we just-- We're only asking questions because we care about her and it seemed like maybe she was really stressed. And I-- I saw her a couple of years ago, and we talked a little bit about your sister and how things were going. And I'm just, I think we're all just pretty worried for her, you know, we haven't-- Obviously none of us have come out of the last 10 years unscathed, but she seems to be-- This whole thing with the statue... And I thought it was really cool when you threw the statue into the giant worm to explode it. But she seemed to take that really hard. And I don't think you'd be starting shit to-- to tell me what you remembered.

JAMIE:

And can I maybe make like a Persuasion check? Uh, ooh. It's a 19.

MEGHAN:

Hell yeah. So, yeah, you see, uh, you see Khabriel's features kind of relax and he's just sort of playing with your braid and he's like,

KHABRIEL:

This is a dope hairstyle. Yeah. Um, okay. So I guess-- What do I remember? Um, so I was like 13 when Khiron died, and at that point, Porla didn't have anywhere to go. And she moved in with our family and, um, kinda lived in Khiron's old room and it was like... I guess it was nice, 'cause you know, I went from having an older sister to not having an older sister, but I had Porla. And it was really hard, you know, like you... You lose somebody and it's just a weird time, but you know, over time, I guess it got... It's not that it gets easier, but it-- It's just, you know, you-- You've-- You move on a little bit. And I don't know, Porla... She spent a lot of time at the university. So like, we live-- We live like kind of near this college, and she just spent a lot of time there. Like, I don't know if she was going there or taking classes or just like, like I just-- I don't know, but she just spent a lot of time there and she was talking all the time about her studies and like... I don't know. I-- It all just kind of went over my head, 'cause I was, you know, I wasn't as smart as I am now. I was a kid, you know. And I... I just remember that there was this one New Year's that was like-- Maybe-- Maybe she had been there for like, I guess I was-- How old was I? I was like 16, 'cause I had just lost my virginity for the second time, so...

MAYA:

Um... [laughter]

KHABRIEL:

Okay. So yeah, I was 16.

JAMIE:

Aveline has so many questions, but they feel very inappropriate to ask. So she just-- Her tail just kind of flicks really... Like really-- [laughter]

JAMIE:

--dramatically when he says that.

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Mm-hmm, yep. You know, that well known, uh, second time that you lose your virginity.

MEGHAN:

Sometimes stuff comes outta my mouth and I need a minute to be--

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

--like, 'what did I just say?' Um-- So he's like,

KHABRIEL:

Okay. So yeah, it was-- So I guess the-- I guess she had been here for like, almost like three years or something. And I don't know, I just remember we were like sitting around, and we were like... We were-- we were all sort of talking about things that had happened that year. And I remember that Porla got really upset because like nobody mentioned Khiron and it was like, well, yeah, like she wasn't around this year and we were just talking about like what we did that year, but she ended up getting in this huge fight with my parents. And like, I think she like left pretty soon after that? It just felt like, I don't know, I asked my parents like what happened. And they just said that it just felt like everybody else was getting better and Porla was getting worse. So that's what I remember. I didn't see her again for a long time after that. And I was-- It was always just kind of a weird topic. Like we never really talked about her or if we did, it was like weird vibes. And then, you know, like five years later she gets in contact with us about her armor. And I think we were all just like, 'Yeah, okay'. We all just kind of pretended it didn't happen.

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

That, um, that honestly sounds pretty similar to the-- what we talked about when, uh, when I saw her a couple of years ago. Like we had this whole big conversation about grief and healing and faith and processing stuff and like, yeah, it seems like she was still really stuck in that.

KHABRIEL:

I think that's like her jam, right?

AVELINE:

Hmm.

KHABRIEL:

Like, you know, like I'm really into music and you're really into like being a horse.

[laughter]

KHABRIEL:

And, um, I think Porla's really into death and grieving and like, I-- I don't know, she always had all these like books around that had like sad titles. And I think that's what she maybe studied, was like... dying, or like... death.

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Like funeral care, or like necromancy?

KHABRIEL:

I don't know what either of those are.

[laughter]

KHABRIEL:

I...

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Do you remember anything about what she maybe talked about when she was talking about her studies at the university? Was it like magic stuff, or was it like, biology?

MEGHAN:

He kind of starts laughing and he's like,

KHABRIEL:

You know what's weird? I remember like most of the time, what she was talking about was really sad. And then like one time, I think-- One time I just started laughing so hard because she was talking like in the same-- This like serious, like, [imitates Porla] 'oh, I'm Porla' kind of way. But what she was talking about was like a big old, like-- frog, like a hu-- Like a big frog that died. And I was like, 'What the fuck? What do you-- What?' It was just so random. It was like the funniest thing ever. Like, you should have been there.

PHIL:

[laughing] Oh, god. [laughter]

PHIL: Oh no.

MAYA:

The long pause of-- Mm-hmm.

JAMIE:

I just--

NEDA:

Just-- My notes right now-- Big frog that died, question mark, question mark, question mark.

MAYA:

Yeah.

JAMIE:

Study death, question mark, question mark. Sad shit, question mark. Big frog, question mark. [laughter]

MAYA:

Next bullet: 'you had to be there'.

JAMIE:

You just had to be there. I'm really enjoying imagining that like the way the mind link is working with Khabriel specifically is that it feels like I'm standing in a big, like, empty hole with him. Whereas normally, maybe it feels more like sitting in a library or a living room, and that we're just kind of like standing in an airplane hangar.

MEGHAN:

Yeah! [laughing]

JAMIE:

And then when he says 'big frog', the image of just like a giant-- [laughter]

JAMIE:

--frog appears like on the other side of the airplane hangar. And it's just really jarring.

MEGHAN:

And then it's all of a sudden it flops over dead when he says that it died.

JAMIE: Yeah. [laughing]

[laughter]

MAYA: Oh, no!

MEGHAN:

I love this. Anyway, at this point you hear, uh, Khabriel's parents kind of be like,

KHABRIEL'S PARENTS:

Khabe, are you coming? Khabe?

KHABRIEL:

Uh, yeah. Uh, thanks anyway, um, Aveline, great talking to you and petting you. Uh, I gotta go catch up with my parents, but I might come see you guys later or something. We'll see. We'll see how-- how my parents are doing, but-- Bye! It was good to see you, bye!

MEGHAN:

And he kind of like scampers off, which is weird, 'cause he is like--

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Bye!

MEGHAN:

--kind of a jacked, tall, buff man, but he, you know, he scampers, what can you say?

MAYA:

Incredible. [laughs]

JAMIE:

I-- I have to sit down. [laughter]

JAMIE:

Horses-- horses-- horses don't sit down, um, but given that Aveline is magical,

MEGHAN:

How does a horse sit down?

MAYA:

As a horse.

JAMIE:

I-- I sit, um, I-- Just fully seated, like how a dog will sit, but I'm a horse.

MEGHAN:

I was picturing like crisscross apple sauce.

[laughter]

JAMIE:

Hey, listen. Who's to say that like a druid in wild shape can't change the arrangement of tendons in a horse's legs to be able to sit cross-legged?

PHIL:

Seems legit to me.

MEGHAN:

If anyone can... At this point, we are going to zoom back up slightly and check in on Winswip.

[soft jazzy noir music]

MEGHAN:

Winswip, you have discovered some papers, and what you saw set your mind spinning. All of a sudden, it felt like things were clicking into place, but also creating a lot more questions at the same time. So you rolled, I believe, a dirty 20?

MAYA:

I did. Yep.

MEGHAN:

Okay. So I'm gonna tell you what you see.

MAYA:

It's like those gifs with like algebraic formulas, just like swooping in towards her.

MEGHAN:

I was literally thinking that and trying so hard not to say it.

MAYA:

[laughs]

NEDA:

Math dot gif.

MEGHAN:

Because I'm like, 'I am a DM, and surely I can paint a word picture without referencing memes. Surely!', but--

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

Sometimes.

PHIL:

It's legit.

MAYA:

Well, I'm a player, and I have no shame, so.

MEGHAN:

Good. No, you-- You're allowed. So Winswip, here's what you see.

JESSE:

So many pictures of frogs.

MEGHAN:

You see a book about frogs.

NEDA:

A frog.

JESSE:

So many frogs.

MEGHAN:

No, you--

WINSWIP:

What does it mean?

JAMIE:

You open a drawer, it's full of the corpses of frogs.

WINSWIP:

What does it mean?

JESSE:

It's--

JAMIE:

Ahhh!

MEGHAN:

No, you see-- You-- You see a bunch of paper. A lot of the loose paper that's lying around is lined paper, like notebook paper. It looks like it's been torn out, and very carefully, so it doesn't have any of the fringe on it, it's very much on the perforated line. And you recognize Porla's handwriting. You remember it if, for no other reason than having read the letter that she wrote to you so many times over the years, it's not quite as neat and formal as it was in that letter. It looks a little harried, and you see the first piece of paper has the following scrawled on it.

MAYA:

This is where I should start taking notes.

MEGHAN:

You see the following scrawled in increasingly erratic writing:

[jazzy noir music fades out]

[ominous music]

MEGHAN:

'The death and rebirth of a world is a free-for-all for the gods and the winner takes it all. But no one has lost more times than me, and I'm still here, waiting. You write songs about me. You paint crude likenesses of me on the walls of your caves. You design great wonders from my bones. You cannot kill me. If it was possible to do that, I would already be gone. And if death cannot touch me, then nothing can. I have been known by many names, and a name is such a thin, fragile thing after all'. And then you see a word written underneath. It's Quaris, Q U A R I S. And it's just sort of like underlined and circled a bunch of times at the bottom. It doesn't look like it's necessarily like part of the previous paragraph. It's like a separate thing, like diagonally scrawled, very large.

MAYA:

Yeah. Why did I think it was going to be signed My Chemical Romance at the end? [laughter]

MEGHAN:

It's track one. Track one of many.

PHIL:

Also, um--

MAYA:

Gerard Butler.

JAMIE:

[laughing] Gerard Butler?!

MAYA:

No, without that-- No, Gerard Way, I'm sorry.

MEGHAN:

It's like the New York meme: Gerard Butler?!

PHIL:

Gerard Way! Gerard Way!

MAYA:

I'm so sorry!

JAMIE:

As someone who shares a birthday with Gerard Way--

MAYA:

I'm so-- I'm sorry-- MCR fans, I'm so sorry.

NEDA:

So some things did not survive the apocalypse. And that's the many Gerards who are important.

MAYA:

No, that was fully my mistake.

MAYA:

My roommate who listens to MCR.

PHIL: Uh, and--

MEGHAN:

Gerard Way and Gerard Butler kind of--

NEDA:

That is so offensive to me as a person who hates Gerard Butler, but loves MCR.

MEGHAN:

The side effect of that, though, is that Gerard Way was in Phantom--

MAYA:

So sorry. I was like, wait a minute.

MEGHAN:

--of the Opera in this universe, so...

NEDA:

[laughing] Yeah, it's true.

JAMIE:

Gerard Way could do Phantom Of The Opera, but Gerard Butler--

MEGHAN:

Gerard Butler--

JAMIE: --couldn't do Thank You For The Venom.

MEGHAN:

-- could NOT do Black Parade.

NEDA:

Not do My Chemical Romance!

MAYA:

Of course.

MAYA:

No question.

PHIL:

That's very-- That's legit.

MAYA:

I am so sorry.

PHIL:

That's a hundred percent correct.

MAYA:

The wrong last name came out.

PHIL:

And also Meghan, when you said, uh, when you said increasingly erratic writing, I heard increasingly erotic writing, and I was confused for a second. [laughter]

JAMIE:

Oh, yeah, really sexy cursive.

MAYA:

Yeah.

PHIL:

Just gonna throw that out there.

MEGHAN:

Why is this paper soggy? Uh, um...

JAMIE:

It's in like a fountain pen and you can just--

MEGHAN:

We took-- We-- We took that in different directions. Okay.

[laughter]

NEDA:

We're all coping with this lore dump in vastly different ways.

MAYA:

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MEGHAN:

Sometimes you need to take it in pieces.

PHIL:

[laughs]

MEGHAN:

So you have that-- That piece of paper. You see a bunch of notebooks and folders and books, and the books--

[soft jazzy noir music resumes]

MEGHAN:

--are all-- They don't look like the kind of books you would own-- the ones out on the table, anyway. They are like laminated the way that library books are. And as you flip through them, you see that they're all stamped with 'property of Lasper University'. So it seems like a lot of the stuff belonged to that university or something.

MAYA:

Is that the university where Porla attended?

JAMIE:

Where she studied sad shit?

NEDA:

Funeral care and/or necromancy.

MEGHAN:

You're not sure what that university was called, honestly.

MAYA:

Okay.

MEGHAN:

There are a few and like, it's just hard to keep track of what's where, when you didn't like go to one of them. So the dirty 20 goes for everything. The books, as you flip through them are predominantly-- A lot of them are in languages that you don't really recognize. You-- You think they're probably all-- a lot of them anyway-- are old-world languages, like pre-Great Waking, pre-apocalypse. You see illustrations, you see lists of things that you recognize as spell ingredient-- Like not-- What is the word I'm looking for? Like, not recipes, but like spell, scroll, instructions, components, things like that. Uh, one particular book that you re-- that you look at appears to have several dog-eared pages. And the dog-eared pages, from what you can make out, it appears that they have a lot of ingredients that involve blood, that involve consecrated relics. And you see a lot of-- kind of like nested instructions, like sidebar graphics within pages, and you get the feeling that these are kind of multi-level, complex spells, where you're doing a spell to create a component that you then use in another spell.

WINSWIP:

Why does she have all this here? Who the hell is Quaris?

MAYA:

Oh, man. Winswip is disturbed. Obviously, this is not what she thought she was gonna get when she quickly skimmed over these. And now she feels like she's stumbled into something way deeper than she meant to. But I think she's going to look out the window and see if she can see Aveline down below.

MEGHAN:

Yeah, you see Aveline down below getting, um, petted by Khabriel.

MAYA:

Oh, okay. All right. So she backs off because Khabriel's there and doesn't wanna get Aveline's attention at that moment. And she really struggles with herself here. I think she's gonna try-- I think she's afraid of-- of bringing any of this out of the office. I think she's still scared about, um, you know, Porla finding out that a thief has made off with her important documents and whatever might happen there. So I think she's gonna try to memorize as much as she can. And, uh, I don't know if you want me to make a roll for that, or just like narratively say that she-- how much she might memorize. But, uh, she tries to just kind of like take a mental picture of these ingredients and this lit-- and this-- this, uh, archaic, uh, poem or-- or ritual or chant or whatever it is.

MEGHAN:

Is it the kind of thing where-- I mean, 'cause I feel like it would be-- Not to like put actions or words in your mouth, but like, there is-- There's enough, like, office supplies around if you wanted to like, copy something, you could, if that was easier.

MAYA:

Okay. Yeah. Or that. That-- that seems like a simpler solution, actually.

JESSE:

[laughs]

MAYA:

Yep. Yeah.

JAMIE:

You're-- you're standing there, like staring really hard at this like erratic--

MAYA:

Actually, yes. [laughing] Yeah.

JAMIE:

--handwriting, and then you realize that there's like just a big block of-- not printer paper, 'cause we don't have printers I guess, but just a big stack of paper and pencils and you're like, 'Oh! Just-- can just write this out.'

MAYA:

Yeah. Yep.

PHIL:

Thank god printers didn't survive.

MAYA:

It's definitely--

MEGHAN:

The written word exists! I'll say...Yeah, you-- You look around a little bit and you find, you know, a writing implement and, uh, some paper and you... Give me a Perception check again. Just one more.

MAYA:

[rolls] Uh, 16.

MEGHAN:

You-- As you-- As you sort of are going through the-- the shelves and everything, it's not too hard to find pencils in paper, because you-- everything is very well organized, but you do notice you're sort of thumbing through various boxes and stuff. And you find the pencils and paper in a shelf, where you can't help but notice that all of the books are a little bit different than the ones that you had seen on the table and that you had seen elsewhere in the offices you were kind of rifling around. And you, Winswip, have this weird moment where you think back to excavating old sites with your mom and her crew, and sort of digging around and--

[soft jazzy noir music fades out]

MEGHAN:

--trying to find pre-apocalypse things.

[voice echoes as memories arise]

MEGHAN:

And, uh, you remember this specific day when it was otherwise kind of normal--

[numinous spacey synth music]

MEGHAN:

--and you hadn't really been finding much. And then, um, your mom ran up to you and was like,

WINSWIP'S MOTHER:

This is incredible! Winswip come here, look at this! This is-- Oh my goodness!

MEGHAN:

And you-- She-- She beckons you over and what you see is this-- It's cracked in half, but she was kind of holding it together. And you see this, like-- It's about the size of-- Well, you're very small. She's-- She's larger than you, so it's like a little bigger than *her* hand. But you see-- It looks like a weird footprint in hard mud. And she's like,

WINSWIP'S MOTHER:

Winswip, did they ever teach you in school about dinosaurs?

WINSWIP:

Um, are those..? Okay, yeah, I think so. The big-- They're like big birds, big old birds?

WINSWIP'S MOTHER:

Some of them were big birds, yeah, that's true. Probably not this one, but yeah.

WINSWIP:

Okay.

WINSWIP'S MOTHER:

I mean, they were-- They were around and gone before the people before us were around and gone. This is unfathomably old, Winswip, I cannot believe this is still intact. This is-- This is wild.

MEGHAN:

And-- And as you-- As you remember this, Winswip, back in the present, you--

[music and echoes fade out]

MEGHAN:

--realize that a lot of these books are about like prehistoric creatures, and you recognize like dinosaur footprints that look like the ones you saw back then,

[soft jazzy noir music fades in]

MEGHAN:

--and you see a bunch of illustrations of these like massive creatures. Some of them are skeletons, some of them have skin, some of them have feathers. It's just kind of a weird-- a weird little like nook in the-- And then you find the paper and pencils.

MAYA:

Okay. Yeah. Um, she's gonna make notes of all of this, and-- and maybe not directly copy every single word from every single paper, but certainly the highlights of everything. The-- the words, um, that she thinks is most important. And then yeah, at the end, just a big question mark around 'anicent dinosaurs?' And kind of circles that and connects it back to, like, there was a mention of bones in that creepy poem. And again, just more question marks, like she's just kind of grasping at everything here. Just like, 'what could it all mean? Is it all connected or is it just like'-- A part of her is also like, 'maybe Porla just sort of developed passing interest in ancient history, like prehistoric history. That would be cool'.

MEGHAN:

'What a quaint hyperfixation of my friend'.

MAYA:

Just still holding out hope that like, not all of this has to be really creepy and-- and disturbing. And yeah, just sort of scrambles to do that. And as soon as she feels like she has the most important stuff down on paper, she just stuffs it in her armor. And then, uh, hurries outta the office, she'll kind of like open the door very slowly and just like quickly glance around to make sure no one's watching her.

MEGHAN:

Okay, great. Um, you make it out of the office and you find your way back to Aveline, who is once again alone.

JAMIE:

Sitting in a way that a horse should not be sitting.

PHIL:

[laughing] Sitting down.

MAYA:

[laughing] Yeah.

[jazzy music stops]

MEGHAN:

Yes. Sitting in a way that a horse shouldn't be sitting.

MAYA:

Uh, Winswip runs up, got like some papers and notices that, and-- and is like,

WINSWIP:

Um, oh, Aveline, are you-- are you okay? I saw you with Khabriel. Did he do something to your back legs? Are you like hurt?

JAMIE:

I reestablish the mind link.

WINSWIP:

I have a lot to tell you, but I wanna make sure you're okay.

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

Oh, legs, fine. I just needed to sit down. Yeah, Khabriel told me some stuff about Porla, that it kind of ties in with some of what I already knew and, yeah, it's a lot. What did you find out? Was she there?

WINSWIP:

No, she wasn't there. Um, and I wanna circle back to what you were talking to Khabriel about, but first--

MAYA: And then I think she just opens her brain and just like mentally shows Aveline everything that she had just like-- It just, yeah, just slams her with 'there's this poem and this list of ingredients and these books' and all that. And, you know, just sort of catches her up as quickly as possible. And, you know, kind of also wrestling with papers like,

WINSWIP:

I wrote it down for the others, but now it occurs to me that now that you know, you can probably just share it with everyone mentally when we catch up with them. But I'm really, really worried, Aveline, this is not good. She-- she really did want that blood, didn't she?

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

I'm really glad I was already sitting down for that. Um, I need to sit down again.

[laughter]

JAMIE:

Um, I think-- I think I-- I think I stand up, I stand up and then I like--

MAYA:

Front legs go down.

MEGHAN:

The front legs go down and you're like a horse loaf.

JAMIE:

--sit down again with-- with emphasis.

MEGHAN:

This time with feeling.

JAMIE:

Yeah. Um...

MEGHAN:

Uh, at this ti-- At this point, I think I'm going to just sort of ask you what the two of you wanna do next.

MAYA:

I think Winswip would suggest hurrying to catch up with the others at Noriah's, uh, brother's house?

JAMIE:

Yeah, I feel like it's probably been enough time now. And also I-- I would relay to Winswip that Khabriel said that a maintenance guy said that everyone needs to evacuate. So it would maybe be more difficult to-- I think we had talked before about maybe going and trying to check the fence, and it sounds like maybe the maintenance people are already on fence duties. So as worried as-- as we are about Porla, I think now we're worried about Porla in a different way. We're worried about her rather than worried FOR her.

MAYA:

Yeah.

JAMIE:

And, uh, it would be good to get some other eyes and ears on this stuff and--

MAYA:

Yeah, I think, I think that's--

JAMIE:

--talk in private sooner rather than later.

MAYA:

But Winswip does also wanna talk to Aveline on the way over, a little more privately.

MEGHAN:

Okay, great. So as you're galloping through the streets, uh, the cobblestone-- the-- the streets back to Noriah's brother's house, you guys have a chance to catch up a little more.

MAYA:

Would you have shared what Khabriel said?

JAMIE:

Yeah, I think so. And I think that kind of what Khabriel was talking about is also what I telepathically talked to Kit about, Porla not really having grieved. And I think that this kind of adds-- is more evidence to the pile of like, Porla's not doing so great. And now we have, uh, some-- some-- some more worrying evidence towards the-- some bad magic. 'Cause we don't-- we don't know a lot about necromancy as like a school of magic, but we do know that it is a thing within the world, right?

MEGHAN:

Yeah. I mean, I honestly think that the way that we, the players, think about mysticism, like, you know, like tarot and witchcraft and, you know, it's the kind of thing that like, some people are really into, and some people don't believe in, but it's-- It's-- It's not mainstream science. Uh, it's-- It's kind of like that, but to magic. It's not that it couldn't exist. It could, but like, there's just no proof, so it's like a matter of, um, some people being more into it than others.

MAYA:

Okay. So receiving all this, Winswip-- And Aveline, you'll kind of feel her emotions in real time and you feel her worry, her concern, and you also feel a little bit of guilt. And she says to you in the mind link, um,

WINSWIP:

Aveline, do you remember... There was a letter I wrote to you several years ago and I-- I think I talked about some stuff that maybe I-- maybe I shouldn't have said at that point. Um, but I think I was still-- I think I was still reeling and processing and I-- I didn't know how to talk about it. Um, or who was appropriate to talk about it to. But do you remember how Porla and Khiron were in love? Together, and dating. And it wasn't-- no one else was supposed to know at the time that they were doing that.

[sweeping music transition]

MAYA [FLASHBACK]:

Okay. Seven of Swords for year three.

[falling synthesizer notes]

MEGHAN [FLASHBACK]:

Seven of Swords. Your character betrays someone. Why, what happens?

MAYA:

My goodness. She's still mostly on her own. It would have to be either her mom or I'm thinking like a more low level betrayal. Like she exposes the secret of-- of one of the party members to another party member. Would that count as like a betrayal?

MEGHAN:

Yes. I love that. I love this injection of drama.

MAYA:

I obviously don't know what the-- what such a secret would be, but...

MEGHAN:

I can tell you a secret that would make sense to me.

MAYA:

Okay. If you wanna get real with it.

MEGHAN:

Yeah. Which would be that Porla, in her letter to you, I don't think she got super specific, but I think that she said something that made you think that she and Khiron had their own weird dynamic going on. Like they-- were they dating or sleeping together or just like had a weird, close friendship. Like Porla said something like 'we were closer than you maybe realized', or I don't know, something like that, where you weren't like you weren't given a specific thing, but there was tea there.

MAYA:

That's an awesome secret. I love that. Would she have said that to maybe somebody who--

MEGHAN:

I'm trying to think of like who it would make sense for you to have run into at any point. I don't know if anybody else is around at this point.

MAYA:

It's less of a-- of a faux pas and more of a 'Wow, you really didn't like proofread this or get anyone to edit this. This should have stayed in the drafts' kind of letters. She could actually like have written a letter to somebody and included that in there.

MEGHAN:

Oh yeah. Totally. If-- Yeah. Well then in that case, like anybody that you think--

MAYA:

Okay.

MEGHAN:

--you would've confided in.

MAYA:

Yeah. Is there anyone like that, like talked about being particularly close to Porla or Khiron yet?

MEGHAN:

Hmm, Aveline, I think, was really close with Khiron.

MAYA:

Okay. And we'll-- we'll say that she-- that she exposes that secret to Aveline through a letter. Through a thoughtless letter.

MEGHAN:

I love this drama that's happening. That makes a lot of sense.

MAYA:

Probably, if was in a letter then probably Winswip like made it-- Like, so she took the interpretation from Porla's letter and it's been percolating in her head, in the back of her head, for a couple of years. She's probably misremembering what the original text was at this point. And so she's probably just like, 'Yeah, they were totally like in love,' and, you know, has really like made it to be like a bigger thing, um, in her misremembering of it as she's writing to Aveline.

MEGHAN:

All right. I'll tell Jamie that that is something that Aveline now also has.

[sweeping music transition]

WINSWIP:

I just-- I-- What if all of this is just-- all of this is just to bring Khiron back? What if it's just an obsession? It sounds like it's an obsession. And-- and-- But what-- How-- It just seems like there's so many darker things that could happen, that she believes would happen, just to bring Khiron back.

AVELINE [MIND LINK]:

It-- yeah, it does seem like an obsession. And there's a lot of weird stuff going on. We've got the blood, how distressed she was about the statue, knowing that the statue had some of Khiron's real armor in it... And now these notes about 'if death cannot touch me, then nothing can', then 'the death and rebirth of the world is a free-for-all for the gods', and all of this stuff about like blood and consecrated relics. I'm-- Honestly, since we saw her again, I haven't been-- Since I saw her again two years ago and-- and continuing now, I haven't been filled with optimism about her mental state. And like, I... I know we all loved Khiron. I think maybe I felt about her a little bit closer to the way Porla feels about her, but I spent a year doing nothing except feeling my feelings and sitting in that. And, uh, feels like maybe instead of accepting that death is a natural part of life and some things just can't ever be, and you know, that druid stuff. Sometimes you need the fire to scorch things so that new, better things can grow, that-- Maybe, yeah, Porla has kind of thrown herself into the idea that somehow Khiron can be brought back.

MEGHAN:

At this point, you guys arrive at the house. I think even in real time, it probably-- That's like about the length of the commute. It's not too far away from campus. And, uh, before long in this incredibly distressing conversation, you find yourselves past the bakery green door and at the door of Noriah's home, where you see the lights on. Noriah, Kit, Esther, and Brekx have already arrived back safely. Noriah, I'm gonna ask you now to describe, I guess, uh, sort of more in depth, what the house looks like. And maybe like, if there's like a living room that you're all hanging out in, or like what's the first thing that you do as-- as the host, uh, when your-- when your friends arrive.

NEDA:

Yeah. Okay. So first of all, my brother's name is Tefan, it's T E F A N. It's like Stefan without the S.

MAYA:

Oh.

JAMIE:

[laughs]

NEDA:

All of y'all would know that 'cause he very much was like the cool older brother when we were like teens. And his house-- You walk into-- There is no like hallway or anything. You walk into this living room space, and it's very like cabin-like. It's very wooden and dark, but not dark in like a deep mystical way. It's just like dark, wooden furniture and wooden slats on the walls and all of that, but it's very cozy. It's lived in and nice. He's kind of lived there since he first like, started living on his own. Um, he's a ranger, so there's like ranger shit around, like bows and arrows and knives and stuff. And the first thing I do, just the second that we walk in, is I put on just a massive kettle of tea. And also maybe raid his liquor cabinet. If anyone's down, Esther is down.

MAYA:

Esther's signaling.

NEDA:

So we are doing that.

KIT:

Noriah, you know, what's-- You know what's really great at times like these is some hot sake.

NORIAH:

Ooh.

ESTHER:

Oh, my god, you fucking suck.

NORIAH:

I've--

[laughter]

NORIAH:

No. We're-- Well...

NEDA:

Is this where the girls walk in?

MEGHAN:

Yeah, absolutely. They get there not too far after you. So quick question about the house. Is it more like one of those big open plan cabins where like it's all like the kitchen's in one-- You know, or is it like small little rooms?

NEDA:

I think there's like the living room space and the kitchen are one, but then there is just-- like it branches off into like living quarters and stuff.

MEGHAN:

Yeah, like I think we had established that bedrooms are upstairs--

NEDA:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

--where you were like changing.

NEDA:

There's like bedrooms upstairs, and a bathroom maybe, and other rooms, but there's like this big space where you can like, kind of walk around. I'm imagining it like L-shaped, so you like walk in and it's the living room,

MEGHAN:

Cool.

NEDA:

--and then like you turn a little corner and you're in the kitchen, but you can still be a part of the conversation.

MEGHAN:

I love that. I am obsessed with cabins, and so I'm just like indulging my fucking cabin-core fantasy by making you tell me about this house. So, uh--

NEDA:

I have such a clear image of this house in my head.

MEGHAN:

Good.

NEDA:

It's-- it's very, very clear to me what Tefan's cabin looks like.

MEGHAN:

Uh, I'm glad.

JAMIE:

Uh, you have to-- Neda, you have to draw a floor plan, and then we will--

MEGHAN:

Very good.

MAYA:

I was gonna say, floor plan when?

JAMIE:

--put this up on the Patreon, 50-- $50 a month tier you get Neda's floor plans--

MAYA:

Wow.

JAMIE:

--for all of the buildings in the game.

MAYA:

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

NEDA:

Oh god, no.

MEGHAN:

Beautiful. I'll make them in Animal Crossing. It'll be great.

JAMIE:

A mood board of cabin decor.

NEDA:

I was thinking I will probably do a mood board, so anyway.

MEGHAN:

Do a Pinterest.

MAYA:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

So anyway, this is-- Yeah. So the hot sake is, uh, the cue for, uh, Aveline and Winswip to enter. Aveline, this is a home that is-- that belongs to a man who is presumably rather small. And you are a horse.

[laughter]

JAMIE:

I--

NEDA:

Yeah. My brother is very much also a halfling. We are, uh, blood related.

JAMIE:

I-- was thinking that probably-- Like it-- it seems likely that when we arrived at the front door, I would stop being a horse, just because stairs seems a little bit difficult, so, um... And I can only mind link with one person at once, so being able to actually speak with my human voice might be, uh, might be easier. So I think I am probably no longer horse at this point.

MEGHAN:

What does it look like when you turn back into a human, or a Kalashtar?

MAYA:

Winswip is still on her shoulders.

MEGHAN:

Maybe we just-- It's like a chicken fight.

JAMIE:

Yeah. [laughter]

JAMIE:

I-- I probably ask Winswip to dismount, so she doesn't fall to the ground--

NEDA:

Aww.

JAMIE:

--from like a significant height. It's kind of a similar thing to the initial transformation that I kind of-- The antlers, the horns, kind of glow fiery. And I kind of burn up. I-- I imagine that if turning from a human into an animal is like fiery that turning from an animal back into a human is more like a kind of extinguishing. Yeah.

JESSE:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

JAMIE:

Um, that it kind of like glows, like the way embers do when a fire--

MAYA:

Yes.

JAMIE:

--is dying and there's kind of a little sort of smokey stuff and--

[crackling fire sounds and glowing music]

JAMIE:

--I kind of shrink back down and...

MEGHAN:

Yeah. You see like magical-- magical bits of like ash and embers, just sort of flying and dissipating into the night as you turn back into a humanoid person and the two of you, I'm assuming, enter the home.

JAMIE:

And I take my, uh, I take my antler necklace back off my head and put it around my neck again.

PHIL:

[laughs]

MEGHAN:

Now, I am going to butt in here and be a DM and do a little bit of housekeeping stuff. So I'm gonna say, I think at this point, rather than have everybody roleplay through information swapping, I'm gonna just say that you all exchange the information that you have. We're also going to take a rest, and you don't have to be sleeping during it. I'm going to assume-- I'm kind of fudging it a little bit and making it like a medium rest, where it's not like eight hours of sleep, but because you leveled up in everything, I'm gonna say that you get restored back to full and assume that it's, you know, a good chunk of hours over which time you are hanging out and exchanging information. And I'll ask you guys also what you guys wanna do during this downtime, but that's sort of what's coming up. And I just, um, for time's sake, we don't need to roleplay through like the exchange of information, unless there's anything really specific you wanna hit on.

JAMIE:

As a medium rest, are we doing like short rest, we have to roll hit dice? Or are we just gonna be back up to full?

MEGHAN:

I think that it's gonna be back up to full. I think it's gonna be-- Treat it like a long rest.

NEDA:

God bless you.

JAMIE:

Okay. It's a long rest, but we're vibing rather than sleeping?

MEGHAN:

Yeah. It's a long rest, but you're vibing rather than sleeping and it's probably not a full eight hours, and I'm allowed to do that because it's my show.

JESSE:

That's how it works.

NEDA:

Amazing.

MAYA:

All right.

PHIL:

Legit.

MEGHAN:

Yeah!

JESSE:

And-- and spell slots too?

MEGHAN:

Yep. Everything.

NEDA:

Everything.

PHIL:

Ahhh.

NEDA:

Ooh! Uh, do people who have to choose and prepare spells get to choose and prepare new spells?

MEGHAN:

I'm gonna say yes, but that would be like your activity that you do during downtime is like...

NEDA:

Shite.

MEGHAN:

I mean, I think talking and having conversations is free and then you're gonna get like an extra thing. So like Winswip is probably gonna have to like do physio or something, and everybody else is gonna like do whatever. And I think if you wanna change out your spells, that's gonna be your thing.

NEDA:

Yeah. I mean, realistically, if we've been exchanging all of this information, I'm assuming the casters among us might be wanting to like prepare for any morning where we may or may not need to do more shit.

MEGHAN:

I'm picturing everybody on the floor with their binders, pulling their cards out, trading them, swapping them around. It's like a full Pokémon meet.

[laughter]

NEDA:

Yes.

MEGHAN:

At this point, we are all in one place again, we're going to do the following:

[bright chiptune music]

MEGHAN:

First of all, I told you guys to level up from level five to level seven at this point. Two levels at once make sense for me, based on both the pacing and length of this arc. And also the fact that I think when you're regaining old skills, they come back a little faster than if you're learning them the first time. So that being said, um, I think it would be fun if we all went around and said what goodies we picked up between five and seven. Standard order, I guess we'll start with Maya and work our way around.

MAYA:

Sure. Yeah. So Winswip is tankier, but also, um, I-- I went with the ASI to increase her Strength and Intelligence.

MEGHAN:

Hmm!

MAYA:

So she's now at +4 Strength and +3 Intelligence. She's very-- she's still very low Wisdom and Charisma though, in case anyone was picking up on that.

[laughter]

MAYA:

And she also gets a goody called... Oh, she gets a couple of-- of class features. So her runes, which give her certain abilities, she added one. I picked the Storm rune, which kind of is connected to her mother as a divination wizard. This one kind of gives like sort of slightly prophetic power, in that she-- she can't be surprised. She gets advantage on Arcana checks, and, uh, in-- in battle, um, she can go into like a prophetic state for it, that allows her to like, uh, use her reaction to make rolls have advantage for her friends or disadvantage for her enemies. So she can just kind of do that, you know, as a reaction anytime. So just kind of anticipating what's about to happen and helping out.

MEGHAN:

Neda is full like Robert Redford satisfyingly nodding dot gif right now, because they are obsessed with anything Divination.

[laughter]

NEDA:

Because I-- All of my characters either have Portent or have some other feature that lets them fuck with my DM's rolls. And I've only stopped doing this to Meghan because she knows I would do it. So this is delightful to me.

MAYA:

[laughing] Yeah. Um, yes. And I also had mentioned to Meghan specifically that she can't be surprised with this-- as long as she has this rune on her.

MEGHAN:

Must be no fun to watch scary movies.

MAYA:

Yes. Um, no jumps-- cannot-- cannot be jumpscared.

[laughter]

MAYA:

Um...

MEGHAN:

I wish-- god, I wish I had that.

JAMIE:

Winswip has leveled up to horror movie buff.

MAYA:

[laughing] Yeah.

[laughter]

MAYA:

Um, uh, yeah, and then the other-- the other class feature, um, is that she gets a runic shield, um, which is another reaction. She has a lot of reaction-based stuff. And this is if a creature in 60 feet of her is hit by an attack, she can use her reaction to make that attack, or re-roll and use whatever roll comes up. So chances of potentially nullifying attacks, um, in a sort of runic shield that may show up.

MEGHAN:

Cool.

MAYA:

So lots of fun stuff, looking forward to using maybe some of them.

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

Amazing. Kit, what's new in Marpola town?

PHIL:

Oh, yeah, Marpola town. So I think Kit figured out, uh, in that battle, he was starting to remember some of his old-- some of his old tricks. So he's a little bit faster now. Uh, so I think his speed has increased. He now has ki-empowered strikes. Good monk feature. So unarmed strikes are now magical, which is great. And Kit is a kensei monk, so that's the way that specializes in weapons. And he gets another-- he gets to specify another weapon as a kensei weapon, which is his whip, which he's carried around with him. But, you know, during that battle, he didn't use it 'cause he, you know, he wasn't comfortable with it. Uh, but I think he's-- he's uh-- he's got-- he's got the-- he's got the whip back now and that's uh, that's great. And uh, some other-- What's the other big thing? Yeah. And other monk features, like evasion. So take less damage on, uh, anything that involves a Dex save, which is excellent. And yeah, I think that's-- those are the-- those are the big things. Oh, I guess I also picked up some stuff from-- Some optional monk features from Tasha's including ki-fueled attack, which basically lets-- If I use ki on an action, I can make a weapon attack as a bonus action. And... one more thing. Oh yeah. Deft Strike, which is-- Wait.

MAYA:

Oh, yeah.

PHIL:

No, that's not it.

MAYA:

Nope.

PHIL:

Anyway.

MEGHAN:

Deft or death?

PHIL:

Deft.

MAYA:

Oh.

MEGHAN:

Oh.

JESSE:

Oh.

PHIL:

Deft Strike.

[laughter]

PHIL:

Not-- not death strike. That would be a, that would be kind of OP.

JAMIE:

Death strike!

MAYA:

Oh yeah, and then I could just kill people in a single blow.

JESSE:

Oh, uh, just this casual thing.

PHIL:

No.

MEGHAN:

And he has a nuke now!

PHIL:

No. It's-- it's not that, it's-- it's focused aim, was the other optional one I got. So I can like spend ki points to add to a hit roll.

MEGHAN:

Cool. You love to see it. Esther, what's new with you?

JESSE:

So, yeah, Esther is-- I think his connection with his, um, draconic ancestry has gotten a bit stronger, um, in these leveling up of two levels. So Esther is-- Dragon is the brass, uh, dragon, but, uh, the gold is-- So brass and gold are both fire. That's this like, uh, damage type. And I think that Esther's-- so Esther's like eyes, uh, have just become a slight-- like the tint has just like leveled up a little more of that like gold. Like it's just like a little more like sparkly, like, uh, chromatic, and what that, uh, means mechanically is that now at sixth level, um, I can add my Charisma modifier, which is, uh, +4 to any fire damage, um, that I do on any of my spells. Yeah. And that's-- that's pretty much it. And then I got a-- a handful of more sorcery points to, uh, keep those Quicken spells going.

NEDA:

Amazing.

MEGHAN:

All right. Aveline.

JAMIE:

So druids only get cool shit every other level, but I get a lot of things at those levels. So I now have, uh, I have some more spell slots and at sixth level, um, I get a new druid circle feature, which is an enhanced bond with Addie. So now when I cast a spell that deals fire damage or restores hit points while my wildfire spirit is summoned, um, I get to roll a d8 and add that as a bonus to either the healing or the damage. And it also means that I can now cast spells-- If they have a range other than self, I can have them originate either from me or from Addie. So if we were on like different sides of the battlefield, I--

MEGHAN:

Cool.

JAMIE:

--could originate a spell from her. Um, I get a bunch of stuff at level eight.

MEGHAN:

Very cool.

JAMIE:

Um, I get like four new things at level eight.

MEGHAN:

'I'll be so cool next time guys, I promise'.

JAMIE:

Yeah...

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

I love the howling dogs. I think it's-- I think I'm gonna keep it and like maybe add more howling dogs, like just double down--

PHIL:

It's good flavor.

MEGHAN:

--just add them in the background as sound effects.

JAMIE:

If you-- If you want me to-- If you want me to just go outside and record howling dogs and like send you the MP3s, you can just layer it in every time I talk. Just really loud, howling dogs. Just make it a really difficult audio experience.

MEGHAN:

It's your Leitmotif.

PHIL:

Just really going full method on this character.

MEGHAN:

Uh, it's just howling dogs.

NEDA:

This is a nightmare.

MEGHAN:

All right, Noriah. What'd you get?

NEDA:

So Noriah is-- As you know, I have multi-class, she is a rogue, but also a wizard. And I only leveled up two wizard levels. So now she's a fifth level wizard and only two levels rogue. So I just basically get some more spells. I get third-level spells now, which is fun. I also picked up a feat for my ASI or feat. I now have the Second Chance feat, which means that when a creature hits me with an attack roll, I can just use my reaction to force them to re-roll. And I can use that once before a short rest, or if we roll initiative again for a different thing, I can use it one more time. Uh, which is nice, 'cause I'm squishy. And that also lets me, uh, bump my Constitution up by one. So Noriah is like getting more comfy with doing magic in combat, but also she's extremely aware of how little armor she's wearing while doing that. And she's trying to not die.

MEGHAN:

That's a good idea. I leveled up Brekx and I don't--

NEDA:

Ooh!

JESSE:

Nice.

JAMIE:

She's like, 'I, Meghan, as the DM. I leveled up'

NEDA:

Have leveled up.

JESSE:

Have leveled up.

JAMIE:

I R L.

MEGHAN:

I'm just better at it now. I'm try-- I don't believe he got an awful lot of stuff.

NEDA:

Everyone at home, please notice that Porla has not leveled up. It's because she is a level 20 necromancer.

MEGHAN:

I didn't say she didn't level up, I just didn't say she leveled up.

NEDA:

Yeah. Yeah. It's because she has leveled up from 18 to 20 and she is now a level 20 necromancer.

PHIL:

Very sus, all around.

MEGHAN:

Brekx has a thing that is called Bolstering Magic.

NEDA:

Ooh.

PHIL:

Cool.

MEGHAN:

As an action, you can touch one creature or yourself and confer one of the following benefits of your choice to that creature: for 10 minutes, the creature can roll a d3 whenever making an attack roll or ability check and add the number rolled to the d20 roll.

JAMIE:

A d3? Is that a thing?

MEGHAN:

It says three.

NEDA:

Let me look this up. I'm just curious now. What is a d3?

MEGHAN:

What are you doing, D&D Beyond?

PHIL:

What? [laughs] I guess like you could-- you, you could get a--

JAMIE:

Brekx has leveled up to-- to find a new--

MEGHAN:

He's leveled up to a non-Euclidean level.

JAMIE:

Yeah. [laughs]

PHIL:

I mean-- Just use a d6, I guess, but like--

NEDA:

Yo, it is a d3 and there's people on the internet who are like--

MEGHAN:

Well, I guess you can roll it online.

NEDA:

I mean, yeah, but like...

JESSE:

Dice are not fun.

MEGHAN:

Uh, I think it probably levels up as Brekx levels up. And so like, it becomes a not-stupid number eventually. But anyway, you can roll-- uh, you could also roll a d3, the creature regains one expended spell slot, the level of which equals the number rolled or lower. Creature's choice, creature receives benefits. Creature can't receive it again until after long rest. And this can happen three times per long rest. And I think that's like pretty much it for Brekx. And so, yeah, Brekx is a helper now.

JAMIE:

A d3 is a real thing. They look super weird. They have like soft sides.

NEDA:

I don't have one of those and I-- My--

JAMIE:

No, I don't think they're standard.

MEGHAN:

Now I have to get one. Geez.

NEDA:

Yeah, my massive dice collection feels incomplete now.

MEGHAN:

Okay. So I'm sorry. This is-- Okay. So, jumping back into the game now that we all know how slightly more powerful we are, now that we are feeling our oats, having vanquished some, uh, gross mosquitoes and a big worm and a devil. No, not-- I guess it wasn't a devil. What was it, like a grim reaper?

[bright chiptune music fades out]

MEGHAN:

Anyway, it's my-- it's my world and I forget. That's the title of this show, is 'It's My World And I Forget', by Meghan Kelleher. So you all find yourselves in Tefan's cabin, which as Neda--

JESSE:

That's solid.

MEGHAN:

--let us know, is like this lovely L-shaped kind of open plan area. It's very woody. There is tons of tea. Um, what kind of tea? You got Sleepytime?

NEDA:

No, it's like-- it's like a very nice--

MEGHAN:

Did the Sleepytime bear survive the apocalypse?

NEDA:

Uh, the Sleepytime bear did survive the apocalypse and is a minor deity, but also no...

MEGHAN:

[laughing] That's the bear. That's the-- that's the god, is-- It's the Sleepytime bear.

JAMIE:

Yeah.

NEDA:

Yep.

JESSE:

Um, a major cult figure now.

NEDA:

Correct.

PHIL:

Just-- Yeah, no, I was gonna say-- this-- The-- the guy who owns Celestial gives a ton of money to this cult.

MEGHAN:

Celestial Seasonings?

[crackling fire sounds in background]

NEDA:

Yep.

PHIL:

He's like the major--

JAMIE:

So the- the bear is called Affirmation, and I do think that that checks out with the Sleepytime, like little-- the little-- on the labels, giving you like--

NEDA:

Wait, Sleepytime?

MAYA:

Yeah.

JESSE:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JAMIE:

--positive words before you go to sleep.

NEDA:

Soft affirmations.

JAMIE:

Um, the, the god of that which is, and what is, is sleepy.

MEGHAN:

Which is delicious.

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

So, okay. What kind of tea do you have though, if not that?

NEDA:

It's like a nice herbal blend, but it's very much-- It's probably the sort of--

MEGHAN:

I'm-- If not that...

NEDA:

--tea you wanna be having in the morning, but Tefan is just kind of feral, so he doesn't believe in Sleepytime. So we're just having like some black and green teas past midnight.

MEGHAN:

Just full caffeination?

NEDA:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

Amazing. That's one way to achieve a rest.

JESSE:

Mm-hmm.

MEGHAN:

Um--

NEDA:

I never said he's smart.

MEGHAN:

Yeah, I wanna say, Winswip-- So you, during your downtime, you have to, uh, dedicate at least a little bit of time to, uh, some sort of self-care or else your pain dice goes down in size. So what do you wanna do?

MAYA:

Yeah. Um, well, I was gonna-- [laughs] This-- this is stupid. Um, before-- before all that, you know, as she's catching everyone up to what she and Aveline had discovered, as she's holding, you know, this, uh, green tea in her hand, she just kind of like stumbles, just like,

WINSWIP:

Oh no, I spilled the tea!

[laughter]

JAMIE:

Maya!

MAYA:

I just wanted to get that in. I just wanted to get that in, um...

MEGHAN:

And it landed on a pair of ice skates that were there for some reason.

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

And she's like, 'Oh no, I spilled the tea on figure skating?'

NEDA:

Boo!

MEGHAN:

[singing] The extended universe!

[laughter]

NEDA:

Tefan is very much, uh, he's proficient in ice skating.

JAMIE:

I enjoy the-- the two-- um, the two genders of Tefan here are, um, the-- the Stéphane Lambiel and then Stefan from SNL, because every--

NEDA:

Oh, Stéphane Lambiel and Stefan from SNL were the same person.

MEGHAN:

Yeah, they're not different genders.

MAYA:

Yeah.

JAMIE:

Okay.

NEDA:

It's-- It's the same gender.

MEGHAN:

They're not different genders at all.

JAMIE:

Because my brain is just going, 'This cabin has everything'.

[laughter]

JAMIE:

Yeah.

PHIL:

Oh my god.

JAMIE:

Sleepytime tea. Accidentally outing your friends. A horse?!

[laughter]

PHIL:

Oh god.

NEDA:

Kill this bit.

MEGHAN:

Yeah. Let's um, keep doing bits 'cause it's a funny show, but let's get through like what we do.

NEDA:

This is not a comedy show. Everyone fucking focus.

MAYA:

Yes.

MEGHAN:

I've never done a comedy show in my life. So Winswip uh...

MAYA:

So I'm sorry for derailing again, but, uh, yeah. Winswip is just doing her stretches, some kind of particularly focused on kind of a leg day type stuff, but light-- keeping it light, you know, not actual like lifting weights or anything, but just like lower body type exercises. And, you know, she'll kind of do them in one of the kind of kitty-corner rooms that Neda was describing earlier, where she can still like, hear part of the conversation that's going on, but is kind of like-- doesn't wanna be in the middle of the room, like, [laughs] um, doing yoga or anything.

MEGHAN:

You're still able to count to the, you know, 30 seconds on one--

MAYA:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

--side, 30 seconds on the other.

MAYA:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

MEGHAN:

Yeah. You find yourself a room where there's, you know, pillows and stuff you can use to prop up whatever.

MAYA:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

Yeah. You, you have a nice, uh, quiet time and you are able to-- It's a good stretch. It's a good stretch. You find yourself kind of like releasing some soreness. You've done your exercises, so your die gets to stay a d20 and, uh, yeah. I'm gonna say, in addition to lore-dumping, catching up, resting, everybody else gets to do one thing during this time.

NEDA:

I'm prepping spells.

JAMIE:

I am also prepping spells.

PHIL:

So Kit really likes maps. He-- Throughout the journey, he was like draw-- he was drawing maps of wherever they sort of went and, uh, copied any map that he would see of-- like from the-- from before, uh, from the before times. And with all this new information, uh, I think Kit wants to spend some time kind of looking at the maps of their past adventures to see if there's any, I guess, places that might sort of fit in with like this weird frog narrative and where Porla might be drawn to going.

MAYA:

Could I-- I know that Winswip's already doing her one thing, but like whenever she finishes that, could she come over and also help by pointing out the like sites where she had visited with her mom, where they had found like the dinosaur stuff?

PHIL:

Oh, yeah.

MEGHAN:

I'll allow it. Yeah. Cool. So I'm gonna say... What kind of-- what kind of check do you think this would be? Do you think it would be more focused on, uh, History, or Arcana, or, um...

PHIL:

I think it's more History, 'cause it's sort of thinking about the journey that we already took.

MEGHAN:

Sure. Yeah. Um, gimme a History roll.

MAYA:

And can Winswip give him advantage by also talking about those?

MEGHAN:

Sure.

PHIL:

Uh, so with advantage that is a 21.

MEGHAN:

All right. So here's what I'll tell you. You know that the planet that you exist on is much bigger than the area which you have traveled and you've traveled quite a bit. But you-- It's not-- It wasn't the kind of adventure where you-- it took you all over the globe. It was, you know, fairly regional, maybe the equivalent of like a medium-sized country to our-- the way we would frame things. When you are looking, you specifically notice that-- How do I wanna phrase this? The university that had its stamp on the books that Winswip had found in the office, Lasper University, you're able to confirm that it is in the town where Khiron is from. And you had all passed through there at one point during your journeys and sort of met Khiron's family. And that's-- you know, Khabriel remembers you from this, right? You remember him being this like skinny little preteen kid. And that adventure involved, I think, probably not directly that university, like you weren't on the campus, but, um, you were having to tail and investigate somebody who was an employee of the university. And so you remember like, oh yeah, that's definitely the place. And you remember that that person that you were tailing was a powerful witch who was bolstering the Dreadnought by taking advantage of the fact that there was something special about this place geographically, and it had a very powerful, magical signature to it.

PHIL:

Okay.

MEGHAN:

So, you know that there-- that through that adventure, you learned that there are certain places in the world where there's more magic in the air, so to speak. It's not fully known why, but geography matters when you're casting.

PHIL:

Okay. Wow.

MEGHAN:

And as far as... I think, Winswip, your journeys took you a little bit further south, like southwest, and you never found any other dinosaur prints or anything like that in your travels. You really did mostly find relics from like what we would know as like the 20th, 21st century. So I think that, rather than having specific like insights that help Kit, I almost wanna say that, like, just having a second pair of eyes like allows you guys to maybe reminisce a little bit and like talk through some of those memories.

PHIL:

Yeah. So I can imagine it, like, we're like literally retracing our journey and talking about what we encountered along the way and trying to connect that with everything that's happened in the last 24 hours.

MAYA:

Yeah, totally.

MEGHAN:

All right.

MAYA:

Just a good old stroll down memory lane.

PHIL:

Yeah. Not awkward at all.

MAYA:

No, no, not, uh, avoiding eye contact.

MEGHAN:

Yeah, just focused very, very intensely on the map, but the heads are kind of like maybe close together, but it's just 'cause you're both trying to share the map.

MAYA:

[laughing] Oh no.

JESSE:

[awkward laugh]

MAYA:

Yep.

MEGHAN:

Esther, what are you up to during this time?

JESSE:

There's a bottle of, um, gin that Tefan has had for years that Esther has like eyed. Uh, and just because like idol-- like idolizing just like that cool older kid. So Esther has gone up to Noriah already holding the bottle. And...

ESTHER:

So, uh...?

NORIAH:

Yeah.

ESTHER:

Oh, great.

NORIAH:

Yeah.

JESSE:

And immediately walked--

NORIAH:

Yeah, he won't care.

JESSE:

Uh, Esther-- Yeah. Esther is a bit uncomfortable. I-- It's been a while since he's like, been around this amount of people. Um, like there's a lot of like... Like, it is just in a point of like, 'Okay, now I need some time', like his version of, uh, recharging doesn't occur around other people. So I think he finds somewhere a little hidden away, has a-- some of this, uh, gin and is-- Writes out this, um, scripture, this text, and is just really, uh, reflecting on it. Because I think it's the sort of text that, like, not that it has-- he has seen it before, but you know how, like-- I don't, like-- I feel like a lot of like Wall Street, like bros, or just like that finance world, like uses, you know, like Prometheus or like these like Odysseus things as like-- you know?

MEGHAN:

Oh, god. Yeah.

PHIL:

Yeah.

JESSE:

So I feel like he's like seen that sort of like jargon before and is just like trying to reflect on that and see if it like stirs up anything.

MEGHAN:

Is Esther Kendall Roy?

[laughter]

JESSE:

There-- Yes. Yeah. I think so.

MAYA:

Little bit.

JESSE:

There is definitely, um, Succession vibes, uh, coming into this world.

MEGHAN:

But can he rap?

JESSE:

Uh, no, I can-- I can never be him.

MEGHAN:

So, yeah, he's Kendall Roy.

MEGHAN:

'Sorry, I can't be him'.

JESSE:

So yeah. So I think Esther's doing that. And then, uh, a true coincidence, one of the spells that I did-- I mean, I'm still a little lost on the-- like a sorceror just has-- like I just learned, like, I don't have a book that I can go to. Like, there's just spells that I now...

NEDA:

Yeah, you just-- Your soul just knows things.

JESSE:

So one of the spells that I picked is a fourth-level necromancy spell by coincidence.

JAMIE:

Ooh!

JESSE:

Um...

MEGHAN:

Talk me through that actually, because I-- I might veto that and I-- I feel really bad about it, but it didn't-- I didn't know any-- that any of you guys were gonna--

JESSE:

Okay.

MEGHAN:

--have access to necromancy spells, but basically in keeping with the fact that necromancy is like less of a developed art, uh, in this world, I had-- I had been planning on saying like certain spells just don't exist and some of them do, and it just depends on the spell. So which one is it?

JESSE:

Blight.

MEGHAN:

Blight's fine. You can use Blight.

JESSE:

Great.

NEDA:

Thank fucking goodness. I might also have-- I need to go through my spell book, but I might also have some necromancy, and I'll just, off mic, talk you through it.

MEGHAN:

My general rule of thumb, if it's helpful, is if it allows you to imbue life to dead things, it doesn't exist. But if it allows you to hurt living things with necromantic energy, that it does exist.

NEDA:

Amazing.

JAMIE:

Um, Revivify?

NEDA:

Cool. [laughs]

MEGHAN:

Nope. There would be no story. [laughs]

NEDA:

Revivify is hard and expensive! There can still be--

JAMIE:

Also, it only works for like a minute after someone has died.

NEDA:

Nevermind. Nevermind. I did not-- I-- Okay. Cool.

MEGHAN:

I think in general, really high level magic has yet to be discovered. You guys reaching, however, whatever level you were at before, what did I have you guys at, like 13 or something?

JAMIE:

12.

MEGHAN:

12. That's not high on the scale of like level 1 to level 20, but you have to remember that magic is still kind of being explored and discovered in this world. So I mean, people who are casting at levels that would correspond with higher than maybe 15 or 16 are like legends, did they even really exist? Has that anything like that even happened yet? So...

NEDA:

Amazing. Cool.

JAMIE:

So I can't stock Revivify.

MEGHAN:

Correct.

JAMIE:

Okay. I will change that for something else.

JESSE:

So--

MEGHAN:

I'm sorry that I forgot to tell you guys that.

JESSE:

No, you're fine.

JAMIE:

Oh, it's um-- It's-- It's always prepared for me.

MEGHAN:

I didn't-- Really? Um, let's talk about that and find something to replace that with.

JAMIE:

Yeah.

JESSE:

So I would like to do, if possible, like an Insight, um, or History check, like on this, uh, poem.

MEGHAN:

Um, Insight check on that. Sure. Yeah. Gimme an Insight check.

JESSE:

Uh, that is gonna be an 18.

MEGHAN:

Okay. So it's very clear to you that this is Porla writing out someone else's words. It's not, Porla like doing a free write. This is just-- you can tell with your insight check that this is-- this did not come from Porla, this-- You don't know how you know, but it was Porla being dictated to.

JESSE:

Mm.

MEGHAN:

Or copying something that somebody wrote, but not coming from her.

JESSE:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

MEGHAN:

And you feel-- Like your just first gut instinct, when you read it, was you assumed that Quaris was like the name, because the end of the-- of the poem, or whatever you wanna call it, talks about names. And then there was a word that was like capitalized and you don't know the word and it just-- Your brain just said like, 'that's a name'. So you don't know a hundred percent for sure, but you have a strong feeling that this is a name, and potentially the name of the person speaking these words. But you're not a hundred percent sure, it's just like a gut feeling that you feel very strongly.

JESSE:

Okay. And then Esther is like, is looking at this, these words and just kind of like blinks, and his eyes just do like a flash and they go all brass for a second, just fully-- they go, and then it comes back, and that's, uh, like Blight has now, you know, become-- like he has out gained that ability.

MEGHAN:

Hell yeah.

MAYA:

That's-- that's cool.

MEGHAN:

Cool. I would also like you to give me a DC 14 Constitution saving throw.

JESSE:

Uh-oh. Mm-hmm.

PHIL:

Oh boy.

MEGHAN:

Because this gin was way stronger than you thought.

MAYA:

Oh.

JESSE:

Okay.

[laughter]

NEDA:

I got so scared for a second, 'cause I've--

JESSE:

I know. I thought I was like, I've read the devil's language and...

NEDA:

Yeah.

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

What is drinking old gin, if not reading the devil's language?

JESSE:

Whoa! That's-- that's great sponsorship.

NEDA:

That's a good euphemism.

MAYA:

Wow.

NEDA:

Don't mind me, I was just reading the devil's language.

JESSE:

I rolled a 19 and I have a +7 to Constitution, so...

MAYA:

Oh my god.

MEGHAN:

Okay, so you are a tank. You're like, 'This is...

PHIL:

Drinks like a champion.

JESSE:

Yeah, Esther goes, uh, he goes, uh,

MEGHAN:

--This is delicious'.

ESTHER:

Kit, I am finally ready for the sake!

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

You're like-- It's like the alcohol version of Lorde being like, [imitates Lorde] 'this is a delicious wing'.

JESSE:

Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, exactly.

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

Alright. And I-- Is that everybody or Jamie, did we not--

JAMIE:

I'm just-- I'm preparing spells. Aveline, now at level 7, has access to level 4 spells. So one of the things that she is preparing is, uh, is Locate Creature, in case we want to try and track Porla down. And also Pass Without Trace, in case we need to be stealthy at some point tomorrow.

MEGHAN:

Cool.

NEDA:

I think-- I think Aveline and Noriah are just having like floor time, thinking--

JAMIE:

Yeah.

NEDA:

--about spells, watching the boys engage in reading the devil's language.

JAMIE: I

think we're also kind of--

MEGHAN:

That would be a good line when we write our tavern-core bop, like [singing in gravelly voice] 'written in the devil's language'.

[laughter]

NEDA:

God, I love tavern bops. [laughs]

MEGHAN:

A lot of stomp, clap, hey.

JAMIE:

Really heavy banjo. Um, I-- I think also, um, Aveline and Noriah haven't really hung out a lot. Like we didn't really talk at the dinner. So I think while we're having like floor spell time, we're just kind of maybe catching up a little bit. I'm asking about Tefan and, uh, the apartment and stuff. We're just having a little bit of, yeah, catching up.

NEDA:

I think it's very like-- It's so late in the day, and we've done so much that it's not like any of the like heavy, heavy catching up, but we're just like falling into this rhythm of just like, 'we're doing a thing and we're hanging out'.

JAMIE:

And a little bit, I think, like talking about the spells being like, 'Oh, I didn't know you knew, like, this' or like--

NORIAH:

Yeah, 'cause I've-- Since we last talked, I went to wizard school, for wizards!

AVELINE:

Yeah, you're not just a rogue anymore, so that's--

NORIAH:

No, I-- I--

AVELINE:

--that's exciting and...

JAMIE:

I think we probably have some--

NEDA:

Yeah, we're like showing off [laughs] like our wizard shit.

JAMIE:

Yeah! Like being like, 'Okay, this is what it looks like when I cast like Produce Flame'.

NEDA:

Our spell shit.

JAMIE:

'Like what does it look like when you do that?' And--

NEDA:

We burn all of our spell slots before we go to bed.

JAMIE:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

It's literally just like, um, that book about wizard school by Stephen King.

JAMIE:

Yeah.

NEDA:

Yep.

[laughter]

NEDA:

Yep. The one book--The one book where-- The one book with the, uh, endless, endless amounts of trans wizards, yeah.

JAMIE:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. Oh, you know, Trans Wizards, the book by Stephen King.

[laughter]

JESSE:

I-- I really like that Stephen King has like, become like Shakespeare--

JAMIE:

Yeah.

JESSE:

--where it's just like, he's just, he's the author of all of the books.

JAMIE:

Yeah.

MAYA:

Yes.

JESSE:

And we're like, 'How-- how did he do it?'

MEGHAN:

Um-- Yeah, like middle schoolers will just put a quote in their yearbook and attribute it to Stephen King, just 'cause it just seems right.

JESSE:

Yeah.

NEDA:

I feel like people do that now, pre-apocalypse.

[laughs]

PHIL:

Has the-- has the, uh-- Is Stephen--

JAMIE:

It's always either Stephen King or Hozier. Um, the musical version is Hozier.

PHIL:

Right. Oh!

JESSE:

Yeah.

PHIL:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

Hozier really is the Stephen King of music.

[laughter]

MAYA:

Wow.

MEGHAN:

Let's-- let's--

MAYA:

That's so profound.

JESSE:

Ohhhh.

PHIL:

Wow.

MEGHAN:

All right. Let's-- let's move on.

JESSE:

Wow.

MEGHAN:

So at this point, I'm gonna say that as you are doing all these activities, the hours pass, the night ticks down, and, you know, whether or not your character manages to like actually find a nice comfy spot and cuddle up or just sort of catch a few winks on the floor, you do find some time to rest and become more refreshed. So everybody is back to full everything and leveled up. And it's one of those things where you don't realize that you've fallen asleep until you wake up and you realize that the sky is a different color, but kind of in a ma-- en masse, that you don't realize-- you don't remember everybody falling asleep. You don't remember everybody kind of nodding off. But you awake to the-- You awake to see that the light coming through the windows is light blue, and you see the-- the sunrise starting to...

[faint sound of wind and birds]

MEGHAN:

Well, yeah, you see the sun, like half-risen through the east-facing windows and you hear birds chirping. You hear the world outside starting to wake up and there's always like that one really insistent bird that just won't shut the fuck up even though you'd like to get a couple hours more sleep.

[bird calls]

MEGHAN:

And at first you feel that familiar, 'Oh, that bird. Shut up. Why is there always a bird'. And then you realize that in addition to the cawing and hooting and bird songs, as birds are wont to do, there's also this persistent tapping. It's this clink sound, rhythmically, and Noriah, you wake first and feeling sort of the hostly instinct of 'I'm embarrassed that this is happening at my home. It should-- I want this to be a comfy place'. You look out the window and you see a bird repeatedly flying into the-- into your window and just hitting it with its beak. It's like ramming itself. And it's-- it's-- it's also making this sound.

NEDA:

It's one of those windows that slides up to open, so I just slide it up and let it-- I slide it up as it's about to hit the window again and just let it come inside, like,

NORIAH:

What, what do you want?

MEGHAN:

Noriah, as you open the window, you expect the bird to fly inside.

NEDA:

Yeah.

MEGHAN:

What you don't expect is dozens and dozens more birds to follow--

JESSE:

Oh god.

MEGHAN:

--suit as in a giant swarm.

NORIAH:

Ummm, everyone?

JESSE:

Oh god.

PHIL:

God damn it. Oh god, oh god, oh god.

MEGHAN:

And I need everybody to roll initiative.

JESSE:

Oh God.

PHIL:

Ahhh.

JAMIE:

My favorite--

NORIAH:

Everyone wake the fuck up it's The Birds!

PHIL:

Son of a bitch.

NORIAH:

It's The Birds, like that film that Stephen King wrote!

[laughter]

MEGHAN:

Stephen King's gonna sue us.

PHIL:

Wow.

ESTHER:

I'm never drinking sake again.

[theme music plays]

MEGHAN:

Hey Questies, it's me, Meghan. I just wanted to thank you once again so, so, so much for listening. And if you like what we're doing here and you wanna help us keep doing it, um, please let your friends know about the show. Tweet about us, write about us on Facebook, put a thing in your Slack about us at work, uh, whatever you wanna do. Leaving us a great review on whatever podcast platform you listen on helps so much. And if you wanna be even more helpful, we have a Patreon, which is patreon.com/questlaidplans, and our newest Patreon episode, which should be freshly out when this uh, episode of Quest Laid Plans drops, is another episode of Neda's new show, Pitch A Bitch. And this time I am the guest, and I am telling them all about my very first original character, my first OC from when I was like 15 and freshly into Final Fantasy, and didn't even know what the word cringe meant. So I think that's gonna be a lot of fun. Check that out, patreon.com/questlaidplans to support us a little bit and get some awesome bonus content that will make you laugh at me, which is the goal. Uh, thank you so, so, so much. Everybody follow us on Twitter at Quest Laid Plans, and we will see you next time.

[theme song plays] [end of episode]