Deep Dive
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Rotatoes! It is Friday, which means we are back with another episode and you know what time it is. It's time for a brand new arc, which means you get the full episode today. So, so excited for you to listen to arc 7, one of the funniest arcs of Rotating Heroes. I mean, the cast for this is just unreal. But before I let you get into that, I have two really cool things to say, which is that very soon...
merchandise will be coming to Rotating Heroes! But if you want to get your hands on it, you need to make sure that you are at least on the free membership tier on our Patreon, because that's where all of the updates will be
We are going to be able to make masses and masses of the merch. So if you're going to stand any chance of getting your hands on some, then the only way you're going to do it is to get on the Patreon. Even if you just sign up as a free member on there, that's where you'll get the updates because we'll be posting and we'll make it like a free, like a public post, but only if you like actually signed up on the Patreon. So if you're interested,
It's a great time to sign up on the Patreon, even if you just do it as a free member. And the second cool thing is that today, today, we will be announcing the cast. In fact, by the time you're listening to this, the cast of the new arc of arc 12 will be announced today.
And if you want to hear that, of course, the only place to be is the rotating heroes Patreon, where if you sign up as a free member, you will get access to the post, which will tell you all about arc 12 and the rotators. And let me tell you, it is three brand new rotators never before seen in the rotating heroes universe. And oh my goodness, at least two of them dimension 20 stars that have not yet been on the show. That's right.
So, I mean, come on. You gotta go and check it out. So...
head over to the Patreon link that's in the description below, and all you have to do is sign up on there on Patreon. You're probably already a member on Patreon. You just sign up as a free member. You don't have to pay a single thing, and then you'll get all of the updates on there as and when they come out. Thanks so much. I hope you enjoy listening to Arc 7 of Rotating Heroes. Take it away, past Zach. That was me transitioning.
Welcome back to the Rotating Heroes podcast. We're here at the start of the seventh arc, clockwise from me. We'll start with the person carrying on from the last adventure. You know him as the world famous, or at least regionally famous, food reviewer who saved Solonport from the clutches of the evil...
uh evil volks family uh we have sago gleg aka dan lippard thank you wow thank you happy to be back dan we're gonna let's just you know the listener will now know as i say it right now we had to cut out a lengthy portion of the intro where i just rambled on and forgot what i was talking about yeah this episode will probably be significantly shorter because you've eaten up a lot of time just 20 minutes sweating yeah
Then you had to like leave and get some fresh air, you said. I walked outside going, fuck! Then you got like in a fight with your wife. Ex-wife now, I think? Yeah. Or back to fiancé. It's gonna... The warning was actually where your wife... I'll say it now.
I'm on thin ice, man. Dan, how are you? I'm good. I'm so happy to be back. Love this crew, I gotta say. It's gonna be great. And I'm excited to be in this... We're in a physically new space to record. Yes, physically new space. I'm looking at what you have here. It looks like you have learned how to write a movie in 21 days based off of your books. Oh, yeah. I definitely learned how to do it. Oh.
Definitely have that book and definitely know how to do that and definitely have done that. All of these things are true. You like outliers? You like Malcolm Gladwell? 10,000 hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you'll understand about this room, it's filled with books, books that you might say that I haven't read. I was thinking about this with my space. My books and my posters do not represent who I am.
No. But they're just what I have. And it's like, I got to redo this. You got a big Bob Marley poster above your bed, Farrah Fawcett, you know, beer helping white guys dance since 1842 or whatever. Yeah. Well, I live in a dorm still. And those are mostly my boys' posters. He got there first. He took up the whole space, right? He took up the whole space. He got bottom bunk. Yeah.
Fuck, that's cool. Well, thanks for joining us. Going around second, you know, clockwise for me, we know him from the second arc. We know him from the third arc. Returning for the third time, we have the Loxodon Druid, Gribb, a.k.a.
Jacob Wysocki. Waza. Oh, it feels good to hear that wasa again. It feels good to say it. We're live in color, baby. Broader than a Zoom screen. In person. The last two arcs you were on, Jacob famously loved Zoom, correct? My favorite. My favorite. Sometimes I just sit on Zoom alone and I'll just wait to get Zoom bombed.
Yeah, I just hope that somebody types in the right combo. It's happened, right? It has to happen. Yeah, of course, of course. Jacob, it feels so much better to be here in person. I also hated doing this over Zoom. Things about that were fine and good and
I'm glad we did it that way. We managed well. We managed. Yeah. We persevered. But here we are not having to persevere in the flesh. It's very exciting. I was late because I remembered that I could roll real dice and I turned around and went and got my real dice. You had to get them. So sorry, everybody. Oh, that's fine. That's the exciting part of it. It's like we can actually do it. We're doing it. Jacob could honestly throw something and hit me right now.
now i wouldn't dare i wouldn't dare well it's good to have thanks for having me sweet boy back let's continue on to our third and uh new person to this arc with the character that you will eventually meet you know with a name that you will eventually know uh we have the real named person uh
This is awesome. Rekha Shankar. Rekha, how are you? I'm so good. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. I think we have a, you know, as they say, a murderer's row of participants this this arc.
Is he calling us crows? I was just thinking. I murder his crow. Does Jack think I'm a crow? Hi. What the hell? Did you see on Reddit yesterday there's a video of a bear saving a crow from drowning? No. That's really cool. One of the great videos of all time, I would say. The crow was drowning.
A crow fell into the bear's enclosure, and it was drowning, and the bear worked really hard, got it out by the wing, and then the bear just went about its day, and the camera person did a great job of zooming in on the crow, who was like, shell-shocked. Whoa. The crow goes, that just happened. And this crow just thought it could swim? Yeah.
Oh, that sounds heartwarming. I think I really need to watch that later today. I'll send it. Animals are friends and they do love. Yeah. It's scientifically proven. Is that true? Yes. They love different. Who do they love? I think they can choose to love. Like they can choose to love, I guess, interspecies or whatever. Wow. Science. I read a thing once that was like a bear broke into somebody's house and then the people came home and it got scared, but it saw a teddy bear on the couch and took it. No. Is that serious? I heard.
that. You heard that. I love the sound of that. And that's why I'm never looking for it. Well, because we know a woman that broke into a bear's house and all she did was eat their porridge and sleep in their beds. Exactly. So maybe bears are a little better than us. They turn the cheek. You know? Yeah. The big old Charmin crested butt cheek. Yeah.
Yeah, they were recording this right after that big Charmin Super Bowl commercial where they really accentuated the crust. Yeah, if you're listening to this close-up. Just an extreme close-up of just graphic bear butthole. Bear, bear, butthole. Ooh, new Cartoon Network show. We bear, bear, butthole. Bear, bear, butthole.
Wow. Disgusting. Let's get going with the episode, shall we? Cool. We shall. Well, with that, let's get started with, as Dan puts it, the seventh arc? Don't put this on me. No way to know.
Zooming over the East Sapphire Lakes into the beautiful gaslit city of Solonport, we find almost a Gatsby-like mansion where a once evil man lived, but now is occupied by the grumbling stomach of a lion-shaped man.
In your new dig, Sogogleg, you have now taken over this house of the Vulk's family. The family that we now know was tremendously evil and tried to bring about some sort of hellish apocalypse to the city of Solonport. After you, Nance, and John Daffodil were able to best this monstrosity, you found yourself in a town that was very thankful, and they, of course, gave you the three mansions they owned.
While getting used to this house of yours now, it may be just more of a vacation home or a pit stop kind of where you stop by when you're
in between your food reviews. You, of course, are thankful of the townsfolk who are very appreciative of you saving them, but it's gotten kind of wild. Like, you can barely go outside at this point. You are mobbed by fans wherever you go, of course. And so you've taken to be kind of solitary the last few days. It's probably, it's before sunrise, like early one day,
When you are sleeping, Fiona is there. She's sleeping as well. But you just, in the night, begin to hear a strange noise. You just hear a... Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man. Honey, Fiona is fully asleep in the bed next to you. Your beautiful hippopotamus wife. She's like, please just figure it out. Is it your...
Is it my CPAP? Is it my CPAP? You look over at your massive CPAP machine sitting next to you in the bed. It's, you know, honestly makes a lot of noise, but it's become more of a white noise situation for you. They're not, it's more like... Ah, someone on the...
The ninja blender down there? It's not. I don't know. I mean, do you have the ninja blender on a timer? I don't know. I couldn't figure out the smart home stuff we got. So it might accidentally be on a timer. I get up. I put on my robe made out of like the most vibrant Aurochocra feathers. It's like glistening. And that's all. That's all I can say about the robe. Okay.
and you know don't bother me about it five more minutes on the road i guess already uh and um walk under the uh beautiful oil painting of myself and fiona like feeding each other grapes it's like almost the size of the wall itself one of the local artisans out of appreciation for their hero sago glag uh
whipped up this portrait and you know like that was at the beginning of it before things got a little too crazy you're like i mean obviously everyone's intentions are great but it's just a little too much at times it's too much i'm just trying to sleep and i follow this i follow the sound i take out my earplugs i take off my like sleep mask which i should have done before the rub and your
And I grab, from under the bed, I grab a big wooden bat that I keep for protection. You find just basically like a Louisville slugger from under your bed. You got your Aarakocra robot and you descend the stairs into the main level of the house.
into this area. This is like truly the house where you just had this climactic battle. There's this like great hall where, uh, where that dinner was, where the, um, everyone was sort of, yeah, the, yeah, I forgot. Yeah. Literally the rock was there, which is a connection to this arc that I completely forgot about. It did not acknowledge in that arc. Uh,
yeah the rock was there of course um uh you know all the townsfolk were under this sort of trance while this feast was happening and you've cleared all this out like john daffodil obviously a horrible man but uh uh still a paladin was able to cleanse that sort of the evils that were present in this room and so it looks just sort of like an empty hall like you've kind of put some stuff in there but like that beeping that you heard and continue to hear here doesn't seem to be on this level
The Fook. Okay. What is going on here? Hey, if there's like some sort of machine person in here, announce yourself. You're down here, you say? All right. Make a perception roll. All right. 18. 18. Okay. So you don't hear like footsteps or anything. It doesn't seem like it's a like beam, but you do continue to hear these beeps and you realize that they're coming from sort of the basement level.
There are kind of these weird passageways that like, you know, you snuck in from one of the neighboring houses because this is sort of this like front for this big operation. But there are just like a regular basement and it dawns on you that like as John Daffodil cleansed this like room with his holy theatrical powers,
he was able to remove the like corrupted nature of that gate, rectangular piece of metal that, that was the source of this like, uh, disturbing magic that you saw. Um, it dawns on you that that metal frame that was sort of the source of the portal, uh,
that had this sort of like almost like flesh-like growth on it was like... That was all removed, but y'all just stored it in the basement without much of a plan for what to do with it. And you hear the beeps coming from down there. Oh, man, it's the frame. Well, I could use a little electrolyte drink anyway. I'll go down to the basement and grab myself one. Great. See what this noise is. Yeah, you...
You head down into the basement. You walk past, you know, other posters that people have made of you, some busts of you. There's like just a weird amount of fan art. Is there the one that's like the...
the like bust of what was it? There was one of like Rinaldo that looked really bad. And there's that one, the one that that woman redid of Jesus. Oh yeah. Just like, yeah, there is like, was that? Yeah. Yeah. There's like a classic looking painting that looks like a, you know, a grandmother found that's never drawn in her life decided to fix. Um, and, uh, yeah, it's not exactly the most, um, complimentary portrait you've ever seen. Um,
You see your downstairs basement fridge and then right next to it the frame sits. So I've had every night before bed to get to sleep I'll get through a couple bottles of wine or a little whiskey so I'm a little dried out right now. So I'll hit the fridge first real quick and I'll just look at my situation there as far as electrolyte drinks. Yeah, make a perception check. No.
15 plus 4, 19. You correctly identify the fridge from the... Nice. Nice. They're pretty similar. You open it. The soft glow of the fridge hits you in this dark basement. You see you got arctic ice. You got some sort of thunder flavored. A lot of elements in a bottle form. Uh...
Yeah. Pull out the strawberry tornado and crack it open. I drink it almost in one gulp. This Gatorade hits the spot. You feel like you've been brought back to life. It's like a commercial. I go, a basketball looks to me and I take a shot. Yeah.
Swish. Then I look at the thing next to the refrigerator, the frame that held the portal to demons from earlier. Yeah, you're looking at it. It doesn't have the sort of demonic energy that it had earlier. It looks actually pretty unadorned. It's just very basic. It's not polished, sort of like a matte finish metal. There's little streaks
of like bronze in it, like almost like veins of bronze in it. But outside of that, the only thing you notice is that there is this beep continuing. You can find the source of that into the bottom left corner of it. There's just like a little light beeping and making a noise. Just to myself for a moment, I say, well, I'm glad I have streaks of bronze on the frame instead of streaks of brown in my undies. And I kind of chuckle to myself.
how long does he chuckle about this okay and then i look at the beeping uh the beeping thing and i inspect it okay great yeah it's um yeah it's just this little like kind of golden light beeping on the frame uh
I try to push it like I think it's a button or something like that. You push it, and as you touch it, you feel kind of a little static shock. It hits your finger. Fuck! As you scream fuck, you hear, Back to power activated. And you feel the thing start to rumble in its place. You see cracks of electricity shock towards the center of it and create sort of a focal point in the center. As this thing starts to...
flash more and more uh you look into it and notice that as the lightning is sort of creating what appears to be a tunnel in front of you uh as this happens you see all the electricity sort of fill up the frame entirely until it's just like a blue light in front of you make a dexterity and an intelligence saving throw deck saving throw is eight intelligence is the other one
Intelligence is at 21. Amazing. Yeah, like, as this is happening, you know what's going on by making that saving throw. You know that something is happening here, and it is sucking you in. You make the intelligent saving throw, but at this point, there's nothing you can do. You feel yourself. The feathers of your robe just start flying off towards it, and then you get sucked into this hole. Yeah!
As the yowls echoes through Solon port, we're going to cut over to somewhere else. On a makeshift raft floating down a river, sort of a dark, it's still early pre-sunrise where you are. A sort of solemn, contemplative figure, completely alone, guides himself along a river with a long pole, completely by himself. Jacob. Jacob.
Will you reintroduce your character and tell us what he looks like after what can only be considered sort of a downbeat? A little bit of moonlight crests beyond the trees illuminating. I'm at minimum seven foot tall. Elephant man.
named Grib. Each stroke of the pole you see his glistening biceps. Stronger than before because he's been working harder and harder to get bigger and bigger so he never makes the mistakes that he's made in his past. Almost ripping through his Aladdin-esque linens. The moon shines off his small gem on his forehead and he wisps down the wivvah.
Jacob, once again, what is your strength score? 12. Plus one. Described as if you were the strongest man in the world. Jacob, if you roll a nat 20 right now, I will give you one more into your strength score. Yeah, cool. Considering you're straight. What if he rolls a nat one? I will take one away. 15. It's a no-go.
Equally strong. Yeah, probably. Yeah, maybe glistening more, but as far as your character sheet goes, equally strong. Gribb continues down this lonely path. It's been some time since we last saw Gribb. He was...
journeying across the forest with his companions Rufus and Freya to save the soldiers of Fort Cutler. Upon doing so, they unfortunately lost Freya deep between some sort of mountain collapse into some cavern deep below the mountain. And then from there, a yet-to-be-specified falling out with Rufus, Grib is now by himself seeking what he saw in a dream.
Uh, along the journey, entering the forest for the first time in his adult life, or the first time he can remember grip, what had a sort of a vision in the night where he, with the small flame seed in his pocket, uh, touched it to the ground and saw the sort of, um,
root system spread across the ground and finding one fiery tree with sort of an elephant face on the side of it telling him to come home and that's where you are heading now you know geographically what that looked like you were sort of like had a bird's eye view of of uh of the forest itself and though it's far you've been journeying several days up this river by yourself i
Grib, you are completely alone? The current is kind of taking the boat and maybe Grib takes a second to sit down on a little makeshift like tweed chair and he takes a deep breath and you kind of see his silhouette and there's like a little desk he pulls out a book. Wow, he's made a pretty... This raft. Describe the raft if you don't know.
So, you know, Grib's a gardener. So Grib made this raft out of like bamboo and gourd vines and he grew it together in one piece. Oh, so you like use your druidic powers to sort of create this. Yeah, to sort of like enrich, you know, enrich the earth and create like a sort of like
bionic piece raft and there's just a chair. Gorgeous. There's a built-in desk chair. Yeah. Is it sort of a standing desk? You know, like the like the like the the like lo-fi music poster? Yeah, it's like a little workstation. Yeah, it's like just like a little workstation with like a slight view. So it's just, you know, you can chill and study here. You're just sitting there to...
Some royalty-free music plays. Really chill, almost meditative. Yeah, you of course have, you feel your seed continuing to guide you. When you feel like you're not sure where to go, it kind of seems to hint at a direction almost.
And you continue up this river for a little while. As you continue down the river, around a bend, suddenly visible, leaning over the river itself, you see the top of what appears to be some sort of metallic obelisk. It is, once again, this sort of dull metal. Not once again, because you don't know this, but once again to someone else, this sort of dull metal with these sort of light bronze veins going through it.
It's kind of like Leaning Tower of Pisa, like hanging over the river itself. And as you get closer to it, it seems to like kind of glow and charge up. And then suddenly you hear out of an opening at the top of it, you hear a voice screaming. Ah!
And out of nowhere, what appears to be a straight up lion man falls 30 feet out of the sky. You are now traveling underneath this as this happens. Make a dexterity saving throw. 10. 10. Yeah. As you were standing there, this lion-like form just continues to fall from the sky and slams into you. You take...
You take four points of damage. And Sago Gleg, you take one point of damage as you land on Gribb falling 30 feet out of the sky. So this giant lion or tiger? Lion? Lion. Lion man falls on me? Well, it's kind of confusing because he has his feathers. Yeah. But it seems like maybe a chimera. So I get punched in and I take a second to take him in. I go, and I thought I was a strange fellow.
Oh, dearie, dearie. Just got to pause for a second. Rekha, open mouth, gasping. I didn't expect that. Because you're like, it's hard to maintain the voice. I was picturing something really gruff that hurts your throat. And it's like, oh, he's so mad. Wait, let me think about what he sounds like. Ha ha.
Simply shocking. Yeah, Sago, you have landed. You were in your basement and now you are in what appears to be the early morning light of, I don't know, a forest? It seems like there you hear like kind of
kind of hitting these trees, breezes hitting these trees. You hear the flow of this water you are on. You feel these sort of like rocky, you know, not rocky, these hard branches underneath you and just the full form of this creature. Oh, what the fuck?
Hello? Get off of me, you giant lug. Excuse me, who are you? Get off of me. Grib kind of points his staff towards him just defensively, not threateningly. You see this sort of gnarled staff with sort of a burnt end pointed at you in your face. It's like hard to kind of make out what's going on. I think, yeah, you see the full form of the seven foot tall ripped.
I'll put man in front of you. Okay, I know what happened. Let's just take a beat here. Let's take a beat here. My CPAP stopped working. I lost breath and now I'm having a night hallucination. That's what's happening.
You think you're having a hallucination? Well, yeah. I mean, look at you. Excuse me. Look at you. I must have conjured you. I must have conjured you. Can I poke him a little bit with the stick? Yeah. Yeah. Go for it. Yeah. I poke him with the stick. And I'm like naked under my robe. So he's poking my naked body. It's because we're real. Ow. Ow. Okay. Stop it. Who are you, portal man? You don't know me? No. No.
Okay, well this must not be a dream. Uh, cause I don't... In my dreams everyone knows me, cause I'm famous in my dreams. Really, in real life. I'm Sago Gleng of the famous town-to-town dining show Taverns, Spits, and Dives. Keep eatin'! Keep eatin', baby! You never heard my catchphrase? Drib's really taking a second to be like, Taverns...
And he's like looking at him and spits. Doesn't ring a bell. Oh. Sorry. Well, what... Thalgo? What? Thalgo Glag. Oh, dear. What are you doing out here? Where are we? We are in the forest. We're in the deep forest on a river, my brav. Oh, look. You are...
First of all, I am almost speechless because you look astonishing. Thank you. You are gorgeous. Oh, wow. Stop, I'm blushing. I know, well, I'm a little, I'm just awestruck. Oh, wow. I used to look kind of like you and I've gained some weight because of my show. And, you know, I just, you know, it's not where I ideally want to be because I was so cut and muscular. Oh.
I'll put this up to you, Dan. Make a persuasion or deception roll. Let's do persuasion. Uh-oh. Three plus... I don't think that plus is going to help. Plus 13. Oh, nine. So 12. Make an insight roll. Great. 25. 25.
I do not. You're not, you don't quite believe, uh, you know what, uh, if, if you're not telling, I think I might, my baby did that wrong. Uh, with that insight role, like, do you think he actually, actually was ripped at a point where you, uh, saga? Yeah. Uh,
I think he saw himself that way. You're able to see the whole picture here. You know exactly what's going on. And he's currently kind of soft and flabby and stuff, like not the biggest threat. He's maybe not as fit as he was once. Cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why'd you let yourself go? Unhappiness. I lost the woman of my dreams. I've realized that. Oh, you're one of those people just opening it up immediately. Yeah.
It's just been a tough few days. I'm unloading all of your baggage immediately. I don't know if you're a drinker, but you know when you're drinking, you're hungover and your emotions are a little raw. That's where I am right now. Everything's kind of hitting me. Feeling a tad fragile. Even the beauty of everything around here is really something. Where are we?
We're in the deep forest. I don't know what that means. Is that the name of the location we're in, or are we just in a forest and we're deep into it? Both. So we're deep in the deep forest. Yes. Well, I actually don't know the proper name.
Okay, I don't know how I got here. I was in my basement. Okay. It was a somewhat new location, and there was a beeping sound. I pushed a button on my second fridge, I guess, my fridge-adjacent metal frame, and it sucked me into here. So you posed no... You're not hunting me?
You're not posing some sort of immediate threat. You're not here to stop my journey. I'd never dare to hunt a gorgeous creature like yourself. I mean, look at this. Grip just flexes every time he gets a little compliment. Under the moonlight slash rising sun. You see this gorgeous glistening frame. Wow, you must be strong. Oh, yeah.
Sounds like a sniper. His forearm reflex. His forearm is... Oh, yeah! Guilt confirmed. Yeah.
Okay. This guy's awesome. Yeah, I think Gribb kind of realizes this guy's telling the truth and it's not terribly... He's not a big threat. Friend, I'm looking for my people. And I need to assure that you're not a threat in that journey. The only thing I'm a threat to is a plate of chicken wings and a side of mashed potatoes. Okay.
You feel within you the fiery tattoo of Zwom glow, and Zwom pops out. I'll kill him. I'll kill him right now. Calm down, Zwom. Calm down, Zwom. I'm going to kill him. Zwom is like a molten, he looks like a molten mushroom man. Who eats mashed potatoes and chicken wings? Calm down, my friend. You'll have to excuse my companion here. This is Zwom.
Okay. Is he a part of you? We are soulbound. He's a projection of my soul, I suppose. Oh. Very youngin'. What? Oh, yes. It's like your darker side. Yes, yes, yes. My shadow self. What? I'm not a youngin'.
I ordered in you in many ways. Swamp, this is a tiger man. I don't think he's a tiger. This is a lion man. Okay. That sounds more like it. Sorry, I'll get it. Look.
Look, I have just reunited with my beautiful, lovely, wonderful woman, Fiona, and she is going to be worried sick. She's going to think I walked out on her. There's a lot of relational trauma there, and she's going to think that I've once again stepped out on her, which I have not. I need to get home. This just triggers grip.
The sentiment of missing woman love just completely... He just starts sobbing. I don't care about your story. I have my own story. Well, look, I'm not trying to say that mine's more important than yours. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to trigger you. I'm in a barrel of grief and I've not been able to process it at all. Well, you're doing all the right stuff here. Being alone, writing...
I keep telling him to bottle it up. What? To bottle it up? Bottle it up like me. I'm bottled up in his leg tattoo next to the Ragnaros. So does he eat stuff or what? Like, do you have to feel it? What do you mean? Like, do I keep eating? Yeah. No, I don't keep eating. Okay. We got nothing to talk about, brother.
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I don't know if I can get up there to the thing that I fell out of or... Where are you from? Well, I'm a bit of a wanderer. Jesus Christ. Just say a place, man.
Oh, currently I was living in a new mansion in Solonport. In Solonport. Ah, yes, I'm familiar. Are we near Solonport? How far have I been transported? We couldn't be further away. We couldn't be further away? We could not be further away. Jesus. You know the big lake? The far big lake? The Sapphire Lake. Oh, sorry. The East Sapphire Lake.
Fire Lake. Yes, yes. Yeah, what's further than that? Oh, gosh. How long has Grib been alone? Grib, you've been alone? Do we not want to sign a timeline? I think it's been several days. I don't know how many. Like, all of this has been pretty immediate, all the different arcs. Like, the last arc started with Nance just getting back into town from crossing the lake. Got it. Okay. So it's only been, gosh, I want to say you've been alone for, you know, like...
Maybe a week. And how long was I looking and searching before the fallout? I think that happened pretty closely after losing Freya. Cool. Yeah, it's been about a week by yourself. Yeah. That measurement alone means that you've been journeying so far that for him to have just appeared here from Solonport is...
Really, really, really like there was some powerful magic or something involved. Yeah, you definitely see this like obelisk hanging out where it like over the lake. Yeah, you've heard of turbine talk about things like this. Like this one doesn't seem quite as large.
At least like what is appearing on the surface as what he described. But it does seem like a similar thing to like even that ship that y'all found when the Red Rust Clan was kind of excavating something. It's like made out of the same material. Yeah. It's been a week. You know, I used to go from town to town.
eating food and chilling and partying with people. That sounds very nice. It is nice. And then all of a sudden, I run into a woman with a bunch of dogs who wanted to make a chili and a little theater man. You dirty dog. I'm a lion. You dirty dog. You don't know
Oh, yes. Nancy Reagan. Yes. Oh, a friend of Nancy's a friend of mine. Put her there. Well, you know her? Yes, I know the old guy. Black brother. Yes. Why didn't you say so? Why didn't you fucking... Why didn't you say so? I mean, even the fact that I brought it up right now is... Always lead with that. Always lead with that. Lead with what, Mushroom Dude? Nancy. Nancy.
Alright, alright, I guess I'll try that strategy. You can't understand how easy that puts my heart. Oh, how do you know Nance? We chat, we're old pals. We traveled together. Nance and I partied together. You kept her with the garden once? Yeah, I used to attend her garden. We traveled together. I think she spoke with you. Yeah, she was with me the first time I killed a man. Oh my gosh. Wow. You okay?
No, not at all. Yeah, yeah, this is a pretty... It's not the violence of it all. I do tend to really push that down and only access it when I'm being more violent. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's like with me with eating and drinking. You're a glutton, aren't you, my friend? Hey, it's just how I'm known. I'm a party dude, you know, and it makes people feel good.
Do you think y'all would investigate the Ophelos or just keep going down? I think I'd probably ask him about... Do you know anything about this thing? And I probably would do a perception check. Yeah, just make a perception check. On a 16, that's pretty good. Like,
Even that being pretty good, you're looking at it and you're like, this is so foreign to what you know about. Like, you're just, you can't really make heads or tails of it. It seemed like this sort of opening that Saga came out of even closed back up and it doesn't seem like there is even a, like, you can't even see the seam of what even opened up.
I've seen this material before, but I've never seen it do something like what it did to you. In this moment, I'm catching up to myself, and I'm like, I just trusted right away that this guy randomly knew a woman that I named, and I'm feeling like that's a little too convenient, and so I'm going to see if I trust him. Cool. Make an insight check, or if you have any other spells or anything you want to do. Yeah, I might have a spell for it, but I think I'll just do an insight check. I'm hungover and tired.
15. He seems to be telling the truth. I mean, as far as you can tell, like it is, you know, the coincidence of this is, you know, absolutely absurd. Wow. But he doesn't seem to be lying about everything that he knows. And I'll also perception check the obelisk. Nine.
Yeah, similar to Gribb, it doesn't seem like there's any clear, like, you're, like, hitting the sides of it, like, tapping on things, and it's just not reacting. In fact, it feels very dull, and, like, it, like, kind of squashes the noise of anything you do when you, like, hit it. But outside that, like, nothing really happens. I have to ask you one thing. Are you a man of magic? Excuse me? Are you a man of magic?
A man of magic. Amanda Magic. Are you Amanda Magic? I think he's wrong. Who is Amanda Magic? I'm feeling like two different questions from you guys here. It's simple. Only one thing. I am Amanda Magic. Are you Amanda Magic? I could do... I could conjure some magic spells, yes. If there is someone you're looking for who is named Amanda...
magic that is not my name so i don't know which question to answer exactly you answered both okay i guess sorry grib we'll have to keep looking for amanda magic this is off oh whoa dude edit that out edit out that mistake dude okay we'll have to keep looking for amanda one day
I think if then it's kind of like, I would just be like, do you want to, do you want to press forward? I don't know how much more investigating I can do on this strange rock. I mean, yeah. It's like being locked out of your house, kind of like a little helpless and you don't have your, you're just literally in a robe. You don't have your stuff. You have that bat still. Yeah.
Should I try to hit the thing with the bat? Yeah, make an attack roll. Hmm.
What's the attack modifier? Provision supplies? Yeah, I'll give you, like, plus four on this. Yeah, 23. Yeah, you hit it fucking hard, but nothing really... It just, like, surprisingly deadens to you. Like, the material it's made of, like, is built to, like, absorb impacts, it seems like. What a wallop. Thank you. I'm sure you could really give this thing a go. If I wanted to. Like that.
I'll say you guys take about 30 minutes just whacking. Thank you, thank you. Listen, friend, you will certainly die if you try to trick back the way in which I came. Wow, that was that challenging for you to get here. It's been a hell of a trip. Snakes, bugs, vines. What was the last one? Vines? Vines. Oh my gosh. Snakes, bugs, vines.
Very scary. Okay, yeah. Scary stuff? I mean, I'm not prepared for any of this. If I get like a leech or something like that, I just wouldn't. I'd freak. Make a perception roll. 18. Okay. Yeah, you don't have a leech on you. Yes, let's check forward, I suppose. Do you have anything nourishing? I could use something in my stomach right now. I pick like a fresh gourd off the...
of a vine or something. Yeah. Maybe there's on the boat itself. It's like grown. Like, yeah, you see this like amazing raft that you're on is like grown together. And there is a tree that is seemingly sprouting fruit. Cause you have that staff that can make food, right. Or something like that. Uh,
Well, I have like all sorts of like entanglement spells and like I can. I'll say that somehow through your magic, that is not too difficult for you. And I have, what is that? The staff of the woodlands. Yeah. A like modified version of the staff of the woodlands. Yes. Yeah. So I would say that there's like a little food thing and I hand them what appears to be a very small but sweet pumpkin.
You have a weird little pumpkin. These are my favorite. Okay, how do you eat these? Well, for me, you just kind of tuck it back and chomp them down. He eats them in one bite. I am a luck the donut for all. Yeah, look at you.
Well, thank you, I suppose. I'm actually going to cast Detect Thoughts on him. Okay. And that lets you read surface-level thoughts. Yeah, exactly. Does he make a saving throw, or does it just work? Wisdom 14, I think, maybe. Okay, make a wisdom save. Or maybe it's if I probe deeper into his mind.
I learn his service thoughts, and if I probe deeper, he has to do what he says. Okay, so what do you think you would do? Just like, if I can eat this, and if there's anything malicious in his brain. Yeah, what is Grib thinking of in this moment? He's jealous that he doesn't get to eat this pumpkin. He's like, I really... There's only so many pumpkins that are going to harvest. Yeah, you hear that. So I break the pumpkin in half, and I go, oh man.
Very kind. As this Loxodon and Leonid share a pumpkin and continue down the river, you see the sun start to come up over the hills. As the sun becomes fully in view and it becomes day, you feel the terrain kind of change on the river. You see that you're now in almost like
what feels like the high Sierra is like Sequoia esque kind of arid forest looking area. Uh, the trees begin to get larger and larger, uh, and have these big sort of like, um,
red redwood like trunks but you notice that um as you get into this area they also start to like sort of the the needles on the trees go from like regular like to us like deep foresty kind of green to eventually they start to get a little redder uh and as this happens you sort of somehow within you make a uh i won't make you make an inside check something about this feels familiar
As you continue through this area, you notice that you are starting to see small signs of life, like of civilized life. Like there is like a fence, like the edge of a fence to your right. As you keep going further in, you begin to see these rolling hills kind of blocking anything else from view because they're kind of closer. And on these hills, you start to see what seems like plowed farmlands. Oh, wow. Eventually...
You get to an area where you see what seems to be like a thriving farm filled with pumpkins. I just start, my trunk is just like, just sniffing it and it smells so sweet and my mouth watering a little bit. This is feeling very good to me. From a distance, you see the form of like what looks like a humanoid creature tilling the soil. Okay. Civilization. All right.
So have you told, do you think you would have told him the deal with like, you're like, just truly the nature of your journey? Yeah. I feel like once we kind of got going and as the sun was coming up, I was like telling him about the journey and like the grief of losing my friends and the, the fallout fight. But mostly that, like I, I made these friends and I felt welcomed and then they're no longer here. And I looked and looked and.
They're nowhere to be found, so I decided to go home. To your place, to the place that you basically have never been before. Yes, yeah, yeah. And I guess I... Yeah. So you're seeking your home now, or this is your home here? I don't know if this is my home, but this is... According to my dream, there are some very similar vibes here. Wow. I feel...
Embarrassed, you know. When I was sharing myself, I just talked about how I found the rock suit from Ballers and threw it on, and then the rock was naked. The rock? The rock, yeah. My middle name? Your middle name's The Rock. My full name's Grib Dwayne The Rock Johnson. I just met Dwayne The Rock Johnson. What do you mean, Dwayne The Rock? I'm Dwayne The Rock. I met him. That's me. You're saying that you met me before? Your middle name is...
Dwayne the Rock Johnson. My full name is Grib Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Your last name's, your name's Grib Johnson and your middle name's Dwayne the Rock? Yeah, I mean, however you want to break it down. You're being insensitive.
How is that insensitive? Amanda, cut it out. I'm not Amanda. When Grib picks a nickname, I mean, gosh darn it. When Swamp picks a nickname, it really sticks. Are you going to be calling me Amanda this whole time? Why? I mean, it's your name. I flick him. Ow! It just does that kind of weird thump, that hollow mushroom. Spores shoot out of the top.
Well, I guess I'm embarrassed to be on this part of your journey with you looking so ragged and unkempt and having gone by main in days and here you are. I'm sorry, you know, I feel. Oh, no, please. The call to adventure is not a fashion statement. It's a state of being, a state of mind. Oh, thank you. I call out to the person tilling the farm and I go,
Ho, you there! Where are we? So you're like pretty far away. Form kind of looks up and does like a hand gesture and motions you forward. Yell.
paddle the boat slowly, slowly forward. And I'm paddling with my bat also. I don't know if I'm being helpful. You're just kind of, it's not doing really anything at all. You should still remain a tad cautious. Uh, yes. Always on guard. Uh, yeah, you kind of dock this, uh, this raft on the side and are able to, uh, journey up this sort of farmland towards this figure. Yeah. Uh, this creature, as you get closer, you notice that it does have a similar silhouette to yours. Hmm.
Grib's heart starting to pound quite fast, a little clammy in the palms, perhaps. It pulls out like a flask. Clearly this creature's been working for a while. Drinking some water and motions you forward. Oh, yeah. Oh, I couldn't... Could you imagine any bit of it? Stumbling words as you continue up the cell to your face-to-face with...
An older Loxodon elephant person, very same race as you, standing in front of you, looking at you with kind of these wizened eyes, kind of like not quite understanding what the deal is here. Like this creature doesn't seem to know what's weird about this. Yeah. They like take another sip of their water, clear their throat and go, What's up? I just, I never thought I'd be in this position before.
And he hands, puts out his hand. And maybe that's weird to him. He looks at your hand and shrugs. Does shake your hand, but goes, Sorry, I don't know what's going on. What's going on? Only been me until now. Your name? I'm Grib. I'm so sorry. Oh. I'm Grib. I've never seen...
Another Luxadon before. What? I grew up an orphan in a city. Oh. Sorry, I'm... No, that's all right. You have no idea what this is like. Hi, my name is Trip. Hi, I'm just a farmer. Your name's Trip? Trip. Trip. It's so nice to hear a name like that. Oh, wow. Nice to meet you. Got a cool accent. I love it.
I think you, I suppose. Um... Yeah. Can I meet everybody else? Oh, this is just sort of the farmlands. Um... Introduce me to everybody! Yeah, please! Uh, Pompapumpa's up that way. Who? Pompapumpa. Pompapumpa! It's our life! The city, Pompapumpa. But, uh, we're just in the farmlands outside of the city, you know, um...
Um, I mean, that's amazing. Well, welcome. Thank you. This is a new compatriot of mine. Sago Glag. Hey, how are you? A little discombobulated. You see no recognition in this man's face. It's Sago Glag.
Oh, yeah, that's your name? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, did I offend you in some way? I'm feeling, like, conflicted because I've been craving anonymity for the past few days. This guy Carl's been following me around everywhere asking if I need an intern. Make a perception check. Well, actually, first make a luck check. A luck check? That's just a nine. Make a new luck check. And let's just say... What'd you get? Eighteen.
You don't see Carl, do you? I do miss him. This man's like, this locks out in front of me. He's like, I don't know. I'm not sure what's going on, but nice to meet you. I'm sorry if I offended you. No, no. And I'm like, maybe I could see how it feels to be anonymous here. I kind of feel okay about this. Okay. Wow. Well, yeah. Welcome. We give tours, actually. Someone's about to run a tour of the
Of the farm, if you want to check out one of the patches, pumpkin patches. Absolutely. Just come this way. You can meet the only other person or, you know, there's a couple people nearby, but most people are in town, you know. How many people are there? I don't know. Like whatever is in a city, you know, like a...
You know, it's one of those measurements that I don't have on hand. Got it. Yeah. And it's just been here the whole time. Yeah, it's been here for a long time. It's pretty old. You're so chill. And I'm just having a fucking meltdown, man. Hey, let it out. Man, I'm lit up. It's like, hey, oh.
There's more of these guys in town, too, so just watch out for that. Oh, more swams? He points to swam, yeah. He's like, don't listen to these things. What do you mean? They're dumb. He's my best friend. That's fine. Can't tell you how to look. I'm not going to say it can't be your best friend, but I'm not going to say that it's advice is worth taking. It is beautiful insight. I smell the soil that he's growing on.
deep, rich, volcanic, almost soil. Like it's like got this sort of like feels extremely nutrient rich. Like you're looking around at all the plants and stuff and all the farmland. And it's like, I think somewhere outside of Sawnport, there are like farmlands and stuff. And you saw some outside of Fort Cutler. Yeah. And those were all fine.
But this is something else. This is something like truly, truly good farm soil. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, this is... I look at it. Your microbiome is complete. My microbiome? If the soil. Oh, thank you. I do my best out here. I'm not a druid or anything, but I'm out here doing what I can. You've got me fooled. Oh, I like you. Take a pumpkin and it ends here.
He just fucking palms it, just sheds the whole thing back. Saga, you look over and see Grib's jaw on him as a basketball-sized pumpkin grows. And I like the way you eat. I guarantee it.
What does that mean? It's like, here it is! As you guys are talking, you hear what sounds like someone starting up a tour nearby. Thank you so much for... This is a welcome that I could not... I could never imagine. I really gave you a pumpkin and I appreciate that. But yeah, just head that way and you'll find the start of what you're looking for.
and i need a bathroom and maybe uh just some pants or something what's a bathroom i don't have any pants for you sorry there's probably a big pumpkin you could put your legs through if you want hey thanks for thinking i need a pumpkin just for your waist yeah i understood what you meant
We can all see how big your penis is. You're not wearing any Jim Jones. And I'm saying things with a compliment. He could have said, like, a little gherkin. Yeah.
I gotta keep tilling the soil. I don't know what's happening. Uh, you guys head over, you head over, um, you come over the hill and you see the rest of this farm. Things about it are familiar to the farms that you've seen before, but also different. Like they have like different, uh, there's these pumpkins, but then there's also like a giant boars. There's, uh, there's an enclosure with a bunch of fucking huge toads. Um,
And then there's like some of the other animals and stuff. Like there's like a Loxodon doing something with a branch and like there's this huge ass sloth in the tree. So they sort of appear like things are a little larger than what we're used to in the city. On this farm, just specifically the farm animals they have are larger. Like you do see like birds and things. It's not like everything here is giant. Yeah, yeah.
But as you continue into this area, you see what seems like a sort of a tour group surrounding a person. And as you get closer, Rekha, would you mind introducing us to your character? Yeah, this is Uh-Oh. She's a tour guide in the Pompapumpa area, but also in this little farm. I think, you know, she's strong, but she kind of walks like a little noodle. Like she's got no bones a little bit.
Yeah, she kind of looks frazzled. She doesn't look like she brushes her hair, takes much care of herself. She's really knowledgeable, really peppy on the tour. It seems like one of those things where someone got a Groupon or an Airbnb tour, an experience or whatever. Are they all on little...
Segways. Yeah, yeah. They're all in little segways. And she's not. So she's catching up to people. They're like, oh, faster than I. She's shouting behind people as they're going. Please wait! As this sort of family tears it up in little circles on segways, you approach. Are the people on the tour all Luxadons? They're all Luxadons. And she's a Luxadon as well? Yeah. Okay, cool.
So you see all these elephant people. You see this like shitty kid like, I don't want to do this, mom and dad. And then the mom and dad are just like, it's going to be fun. We have to get out of the city and see what the rest of the life is like near the forest. You know, like sort of like this tense family beat. Yeah. As you'll be nice. Wow. What an amazing accent. Yeah. Excuse me.
I hear you're, I mean, basically everyone here sounds like how they want to sound, but... Yeah, I'm glad that you like the way that I sound. I wish it wasn't so obvious that I don't fit in. Well, you fit in in a way if everyone sounds different, right? Huh. I'll need to think about that. Oh, hi! Are you here for the tour? Yes, yes! I've never been more...
one in my life. Oh, good. How about one of the segues? Don't go too fast. You see that there's one segue. Yeah, I'll ride shotgun if you want to drive. I don't trust these things, to be honest. Yeah, I feel like I'm always a little top heavy for these. You see Swam get on one and...
Yeah, Zom is actually handling it pretty well, even though he's like reaching straight up to hold the handlebars. He takes a glove. Was that the last one? Yeah. Well, I guess we're walking. You're not with me either. The tour group just takes off ahead of you. The three of you are by yourself. So how's the tour guide? I'm the tour guide.
So you know everything there is to know about this area? Yes. Do you have questions? I'm brand new, and I'm, as far as emotionally, I'm high as hell. Oh, that's nice. What's your name? My name's Grib. Hello. Hello. Enchanted. And yours? Your name?
What? Yeah, I misspoke a bit. Oh, your name's Uh-Oh. Oh, I thought you were calling out that I misspoke. Gotcha. She gotcha. She did. Genuinely did. You look familiar. Amanda Magic Girl, that's called Missy. What on earth? I look like a girl named Amanda Magic to you all. Did she look like, was she a lioness?
No, my name is Greg Slogg, and I'm a graphic designer. What a lucrative career. 17. 17, yeah. Seems like that's his name. And I kind of shoot a look to...
Uh, Grib. Grib just sort of like nods back. Tips a big hat. What a perfect name. Good for you. What brings you guys to this little farm? Well, I've ostensibly lived in a world where I've been the only type of myself and I had to come home. This is, I guess you could say, my
Aw, how about you? I'm sorry. I just got suddenly nauseous just watching everybody on these segues. Little kids doing donuts. Please stop doing that.
I'm a little lost, I guess you could say. I'm just looking to get some clothes on and find my way back home. Well, we can get you set up. We've got all sorts of pumpkins here. We've got regular sugar pumpkins. We've got scary pumpkins for scary holidays. We've got bumpy pumpkins, if you want those. And we do have big enough pumpkins to be pants, if you need that. Oh, wow. I'd love that. I'm kind of trying to figure out...
Are pumpkins here different than what I think pumpkins are in my life? No. No. On the contrary. Everyone around you is just like crushing pumpkins. It's very much a staple. You guys really like pumpkins. I mean, not to generalize, but around here pumpkins are popular, I guess.
Grim for the first time gets to look at another Luxodon after he's been like slightly slightly slightly slighted and he's like can you believe you just said that? Kind of a microaggression. Whoa. And it feels nice to connect. I like pumpkins too. I like pumpkins too. Yeah, I'm sure your friends have lots of pumpkins.
You see that to the point of like what people are wearing, like a lot there are different things, but a lot of people are wearing these like togas. Like that is a weirdly staple of whatever the clothing is that the people wear around here. In my travels, have I like experienced like Luxedon cuisine and met Luxedons and been to almost not at all. OK, this it is very, very rare to this and to your parts of the world that you've been
Then I am... You're in, as Anthony Dwardane would put, parts unknown. Wow! Wow. Well, I... Once I get maybe some pants on, I would love to try your cuisine here and see what type of things you all have to offer. Some of your proudest bites. Yes, pumpkins! Yes, right, right. Maybe there are different ways that they're cooked or... No. Okay. No.
Follow me. I'll show you Taurus of Pants pumpkins. These are just our larger pumpkins. You can pick up a little hole in the top and make them into pants. And then I'll take a nice...
picture of you in it and your first pair of pumpkin bands. Okay, wow. Do we hollow them out? And is there like a layer between the pumpkin and my... You watch that dad just cut open the top of the pumpkin and just put it on. There's no scooping out of anything. You just hear this. Maybe I'll take one of the like wraps that you're wearing. Are those anywhere? Oh, the togas. You can find that in the city. Okay, wow.
So you're a tour guide here. Do you know by any chance how far we are from Solonport? It's not a figure I have offhand or anything. Is that like a catchphrase around here? You basically, like he says Solonport and it's like he said, like, I don't know. It's like nothing to you. I've never heard of that place, so I assume it's really far away. Oh, fudge. Okay. All right.
All right. Well, yeah, I'd love to get a toga on, but I guess I'll try a pumpkin for now and hope that it doesn't get into my... These are good. They're extra squishy. Oh, God. I think you'll like this one, sir. And I look at this guy, and he's clearly pretty proud of his wife, but she's ignoring him. The kid has no control over his kids. My name's Tom. Oh.
Oh, hey. Shakes her hand pretty hard. He's like, what business are you in? Jesus. Hey, man. We're kind of catching up over here. See my wife. Tom. Gross. Oh, sorry. He gets over there and he's like, got to get back to my happy family. They're nowhere near. That seems nice.
Let me get you set up. I pull out one of the squattest, widest pumpkins, and I cut a hole for you. So it's kind of like pumpkin shorts a little bit. Step right in. Okay. Yeah, all right. Good as new. That's exactly what I thought it was going to feel like. Good? I don't know. All right.
as you put on these pumpkin pants, you realize in this new area, like the sort of the clouds part, sun is fully out now. You see in the distance kind of shrouded by mist and
In the distance, there is a very large mountain range. In the shadow of it, as the sun comes out, you see sort of glinting off of what appears to be a city. From a distance, you see the spires of different buildings and things. It seems like a pretty grand city from where you are. Bigger than Sollentport? Yeah, bigger than Sollentport.
This city is in the shadow and sort of a valley beneath what appears to be the biggest mountain you've ever seen. It is not a mountain, though, as you see, like the top of it has sort of a little bit of smoke coming out of the top of it. That appears to be Pompapumpa. As you're looking out, though, as you notice that it is, in fact, some sort of volcano, the ground beneath you begins to rumble.
and you feel everything start to shake. You're looking around. Pumpkins are falling over everywhere. Very scary. That guy goes, "Aah!" The top just falls off of the Segway. You hear his elbow, he like, he like, holds his elbow and he hit pretty hard. As the ground shakes, these birds start flying. All the animals start to go a little nuts. You see a giant orb burst out of its pen, breaking the entryway. Armhands are everywhere trying to handle things.
But one boar gets out, a toad pops out over its enclosure and starts running at the family next to you. A sloth falls out of a tree and grabs the mom and son, freaking out. All these animals, it's sort of like when there's like a natural disaster and animals freak out. That's what's happening right now. Craig.
As this happens, you see this boar running at you. Make a DC 13 strength saving throw. 11. 11? You take six points of damage as a boar tackles you to the ground. Everybody just roll initiative as these animals, you see these three animals around you, are like inconsolable.
Yeah. Seven. Ten. The first thing you see as these animals freak out while the ground is rumbling beneath you, you see smoke starting to, like, billow out of that volcano. You see this one giant toad, like, and, like, hop away out of its enclosure. Like, there's all these farmhands that are, like, managing the bulk of the animals, but this one gets out and goes right towards that farmer trip that you saw earlier, and...
bites him. And you see him just like get swallowed and the frog leaps onto the roof of the farmhouse nearby. Uh-oh's frazzled calling out the names of these animals to simmer down. Ginger, Posh, Baby,
Syrano, please, please. What's the last one? Was Syrano the last one? No, baby. Ginger Posh Baby and Syrano. Ginger Posh Baby and Syrano.
That's the sloth, yeah. And speaking of Serna, you look over and you see in this sort of bush nearby, you see these long sloth arms holding the mother and child of that family and they're screaming like, help! And like, as he's just kind of reflexively pulling them into him. No, Serna!
See this sloth's eerie smile? Because who knows what a sloth sounds like? He's screaming!
Oh my god, it's blood cartilage! After Cyrano- Greg, it is your turn. Okay, am I prone or anything from this knock from the boar? You are knocked prone currently, as this boar is- I was like asking if I had any homework. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do have homework, and it is a boar standing atop you. Oh my god. Okay, I get up.
Is that an action or a bonus action? It is half your movement. Half my movement. And is the boar like, we are next to each other now? Yes. It's like, and I take my bat and I take a swing at the boar's head. Ginger, no! Oh, wait. Oh, yeah. I've heard that she likes these animals, right? Yeah, yeah. Make an insight check if you want. Okay, yeah. I'll do an insight check. Insight check nine.
It maybe doesn't feel great to beat him up, but also like it is a boar that charged you. So either way, it kind of makes sense for you. Yeah. I'm kind of pissed that this happened. If I can be frank. So I do take a big swing at the boar and it's a natural one. Uh, yeah, you throw the bat.
Just into the sky. Where am I? You get feathers covering your eyes. You're crotch fully wet with pumpkin. Do you do anything with your bonus action? I guess I... How far away is my bat?
Uh, it's, it's nearby. You just grab it. Okay. You get your, you get your bat back. I guess I just try to perceive if possible, like if the, if there's, this has something to do with the volcano or the steaming mountain. I mean, I think yes. Spoilers. It's a steaming mountain. It's not a volcano. Uh,
It definitely has to have been triggered by that. You can tell that these animals are really riled up because of the natural occurrences. Okay, so it's not like... I'm not perceiving that there's some sort of magic connection.
No, it's more just that they're spooked. Yeah. Cool. So that is Greg's turn, after which it is Grib. Can I look at O and then ask, is this normal? Yes. Okay. Then I'm going to pull out my staff and I click it on the ground and the staff will cast Speak with Animals. And then...
i guess like i don't know how it works like would i have to i would give you them yeah like say what you would say to the animals and then we'll like maybe give you depending on how that goes like a animal handling with advantage or something like that yeah yeah i think i would just like smack it and then speak with the animals and just try and be like like calm down back to your pens cool uh you uh do you understand them when that happens when you use uh i can read it if that's
You gain the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for the duration. Cool. So I'll say you have to pick one specific one for this to be most effective. I guess the one that's being the most violent, which is the one fighting. The toad, probably. Yeah, the toad. Toad has a full farmer in his mouth. Calm down. Everything will be fine. Is that ginger? That's posh.
Posh looks up at you and it's like, you hear in your mind and it's like, I got scared. It's okay. I'm scared too. I'm very scared right now. Me too. I have to eat anything that jumps at me. Now put him down. It's going to be over soon. Are you sure? I promise. Make an animal handling with advantage. A 20 and a 22.
Uh, you see Posh daintily just spit out an entire laxadon farmer and, uh, and he goes, okay, I'm trusting you. And just goes back to the pen with the other toads, uh, safely back into their pen. Uh, it seems like they are no longer going to be a problem. The toads are all animals. Uh, just the toad at this point. I guess that's it for my action. Uh, Zwom is technically out. Can I just position him like towards a, like, I guess if there's like a,
Is there a major exit that these things are trying to like sort of farmland? They're just kind of going in different directions. Like the sloth is sort of just nearby, not moving, just grabbing people. Yeah. I guess I'll just kind of plop Zwan like a little bit away to kind of like, you know how people try and stop people from like leaving a door or something. Yeah. So I'm just on one side of the boar that is charged Saga, but I'm not going to make them attack or anything. Cause I understand that they're scared. Cool. Just yeah. So I'm just like,
Next to the boar like, leave Amanda alone. Yeah. Uh...
After Grib, uh-oh, it is your turn. Yes. Can I try to, like, I don't have a great animal handling score, but talk to Cyrano, the sloth, to try to talk him out of strangling this animal. Yeah. You definitely don't think he's, like, going anywhere. But, yeah, you can get in there and try to, like, persuade him with the animal handling or if you have any other abilities that feel right to you. Yeah. Let's see. I have plus zero persuasion, so it's good.
cool uh plus one animal handling let's see you can like physically rest the people from them if you oh okay yeah yeah yeah i'll do that so not that just for people at home that don't know what to do uh i should what role would i be doing um you can make an athletics check okay so i rolled a two but i have plus six athletics uh let's do an opposed athletics for okay uh he's pretty strong
Yeah, he's just looking at like, like holding the person. You are not able to get this little shitty kid out of there. Okay. But you have two attacks, so I'll let you make one more check. Can I do? Yeah. Can I use like a history check? Sure. Yeah. Because I know him and his family. Okay. I rolled off here. 16 and then plus two.
What do you say as you roll this history check? Sarah, no. You know me. It's uh-oh. Uh-oh. Okay? I've toured you on this. I've toured people on this pumpkin farm since you were a baby. Do you remember that? I fed you your first little bottle because your mom was busy. She was at work and I fed you your first little bottle. Do you remember that?
There's a sloth over in the corner crushing pumpkins. Your mom was so busy working hard and she needed me to be there and I was there for you, Cyrano. And I love you so much and I don't want you to be scared. I will say because of that history check, he's going to roll an insight check, which is...
natural 20 he knows you are saving wow uh you see sarah no okay let go of this family set them down and just sort of like go to be picked up by you but it is a giant sloth so you just sort of like if an eight foot tall man tried to like be carried by you yeah okay great i i put a little pumpkin diaper on him
Because he probably shot himself one of those giant logs at Sloth's ship. Yeah, yeah, he's shit everywhere, so... Okay, great. Do I have any more of my... Yeah, I'll say with that roll, you can just set him back into... Okay, in his pad. You throw him back into his tree, and he just hangs on. Great. So that Sloth is no longer a problem. The only problem left is the boar, whose turn it is right now. The boar is going to charge at Sion again. Okay.
actually it cannot charge because it has to take uh its movement back to it has to have 20 feet of a straight line to charge so you see it backing up uh you have an attack of opportunity if you would like as it backs up away from you to undoubtedly charge you again i i have seen my colleagues now both talk down animals so i'm like okay maybe this isn't
the full battle I was kind of prepared for. Your baseball bat at 30 feet away. Yeah.
So I... Now, let me read a suggestion to you. Okay. You suggest a course of activity and magically influence a creature you can see within that range that can hear and understand you. Creatures that cannot be charmed are immune to this effect. The suggestion must be worded in such a manner to make the course sound reasonable. Yeah, you could definitely cast that on this. Normally with attack of opportunities, it's just a physical attack. Oh, that's right. It's opportunity. For this situation, I think you can... Let's just let you go for it. All right, cool.
So as I see him backing up, I look at him and I grab my swollen head. I hug over her head and I go, I try to like telepathically communicate and I go, you want to just go lay down back in your pen. Spore's like, like looking at you frothing and then looks at its pen and still eyeing you kind of angrily, but then just starts walking back towards its pen.
Rolled a 13, has negative two as a modifier, so the boar just goes back into its pen. Time for bed. Sleepy. Mud time. It's like shaking its head at you too. It's mud time, B. It's mud time, Ginger. And the boar goes to lay down. You have successfully quelled these raging beasts. Oh, no.
You look around. This trip comes up to you, just head to toe covered in toad spit. Thank you for helping with that. Sometimes Mount Trunkish gets a little annoying and goes a little wild, and we have to keep the animals at bay. How often does that happen? God. Pretty often? It's getting more and more often. Could I recommend...
bigger pens or ways to keep them kind of... Can I recommend pants? Tripp? Hey, Tripp? Nice. How long do you think I've had this farm? How long do you think I've had this farm?
I don't know, man. Three generations. Okay, yeah. Bigger pens can't stop spooks. Oh, they can't? A toad can jump 20 feet straight in the air. Where do you think I'm going to get that lumber? I don't know. I don't know, yeah. But it just feels like three generations is a pretty long time to figure out how to solve a problem. I don't know what to do, okay? I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.
Quit roasting me. Quit roasting me, everybody. I'm covered in toad spit. You never look bad. Tour's over. Oh, thank you. You're the one that cancels the tours? I own the... It's my farm. Unfortunately, yeah. He decides if I get paid. Oopsie.
He's like, all right, I'll pee out. O's catchphrase is oopsie? Huh? No, that's my sister's name. But, you know, it could also mean oopsie. So it's hard. That was lowercase. Were you both accidents? Is that what the idea is? Yeah. Oh, man, that's mean parents. Why would you ask that question? It's an absolutely devilish line of inquiry. That's so rude.
Amanda, come on. You show up on my tour, no pants, no pumpkin even. I had to give you one of our best squat pumpkins. I didn't know this was one of your best pumpkins. I wouldn't have put it on his pants. And then you went and fell on it just because a pig
I guess I'll cut you a deal. I'll charge you 500 gold for the pumpkin. What? Pumpkin pants. It's the best pumpkin we have. And you saw you paid me for the tour. We were told that this was a pro bono sort of tour. Pro bono? How do
pumpkin. I need to pay for that pumpkin. Pumpkins don't grow on trees, okay? They grow in the ground. I can only offer my services as I assume our currency is not interchangeable. Okay, well, let's call it even. I saved your life.
That's good by me as far as currency. Look, there's some truth to that. I've never seen anybody get saved and immediately try to shill money out of the person. 500. You see this man just sort of just wiped the spit off his head. He was like, I'm embarrassed. Yes, it's quite strange. You should be more welcoming to your gaze. Speaking of gaze. Glossier a while.
stay here on the farm while? I don't know. I mean, of course we'll press forward, but it might be nice to just have a home base if I needed one. I guess if you come, I just, I was seconds away from kicking you out of here. It's fair. It's fair. Maybe O could put us on the farm. Make a persuasion check. I live in one room. 17. I don't have room for you two big people. What do you mean? Do you have your own house that is one room? I don't have like a... It's not a house. It's a room. You live in a room. I live in one room.
You can sleep in the farmhouse if you want to. Goodbye me. Some of the hay on the ground. I don't feel incredibly welcome here, but I do like that nobody knows me.
Ultimately, I'm trying to get home. Are you Amanda? No, I'm not Amanda Magic. Who is Amanda Magic? It sounds like maybe it's someone who wanted to disappear. She's gone missing. We haven't seen her. Amanda Magic? You've never heard tale of Amanda Magic? Well, I've heard mention of Amanda Magic, but I haven't heard tale of Amanda Magic. He does like, he looks around.
Some say that Amanda Magic comes when you say her name three times under the moonlight. Okay. So she's missing or she's not missing? She never appears. And in that way, she's sort of missing. So what makes you think I would be Amanda Magic? It is daytime. Well, it would be crazy, right? That's why I asked. Maybe we're looking at the wrong time. Maybe the thing that people say is wrong. Yeah.
I'm not Amanda Magic. Maybe Amanda Magic is a lion man and appears during the day and you don't need to say her name. So the whole story would have been wrong. It could be. Stories are often wrong. I just need to use the bathroom and find a toga or some sort of covering that will not get inside my genitals and butt crack. Okay, you know what? You did help the farm, so Trip is going to help you out. He takes you inside to his little farm, quaint farmhouse. It is like...
You start to notice that the actual buildings here, and you can see them in the distance, but they're very far away. There is sort of this Greco-Roman vibe to it. They're more like column-y in nature and concrete. You see he goes in the back and he comes out and he gives you what appears to be just like a little toga that says Trips Pumpkins. He's like, call it square. This is the biggest one you had? I don't have a...
Jesus. I'll be right back. There is a, he comes back out like a little while later with like a, like a purple toga that still says Trimms Pumpkins, but it's like a XXL. Okay. Thank you. There you go. And I put it on and it fits me just as well as the rocks suit from Ballers that I wore. This suit is perfect. The fit is perfect. Wow.
See, you're squared away. Yeah. I must say, I'm very excited to, I don't know, romp around, see the town, just kind of, I don't know, get my feet into some of this soil. I've quite, I mean, quite the smash introduction already. I can't wait to see what happens. When I'm in a new town, I like to try the local greasy spood. Do you have like a...
I guess a diner, somewhere we could get a bite and kind of see where the townsfolk hang out in the morn. We have a gorgeous little pumpkin place. There's lots of little types of pumpkins. Yeah, I could take you there. Yeah, so I'm curious to see what a breakfast pumpkin is like. I could eat a breakfast pumpkin. You know what I'd love to talk to you about over breakfast pumpkin? Yes. This little idea I've been thinking about.
Big reveal. And you won't know until the next episode. An idea. Wow, I'm on the edge of my seat. That's the big reveal. It's an idea. I was like, are you going to pick a screenplay? It's an idea. No, it's not just an idea. It's this little idea Grib's been kicking around.
Screenplay, book, invention. It sounds like Gribb has some sort of side hustle that he's figuring out. As you discuss this newfound big idea, or little idea for Gribb, you look out in the city. It seems like the literal shaking of the earth is quelled. There is a plume of smoke. It seems like it's not continuous. It seems like whatever happened just was for a moment in time and then stopped.
uh you see the city ahead of you and your path for you and and that's where we'll in the episode today wow gorgeous gorgeous that was uh very cool uh that was the first episode of arc seven as dan would put it um it's what you call them still yet to be determined i'm not sure how could i know uh
Thank you to Rake, Jacob, and Dan for taking part in this arc. Do you guys have anything you want to plug before we wrap it up? Dan? Yes. I can take out the silences. Or do you want to...
I can follow up as well. Yeah. What do you have? I'll plug big grande website.com where you could get a podcasts, uh, all a cart from the, from my group, big grande animated stuff. And probably sometime around now we, we, we taped a four live in,
improv shows that we're putting on the website too. Went to one of them. It was extremely funny and I cannot wait to watch the rest of them. Thank you, Zach. Thanks for coming. Oh, thanks for having me too. I'm sure you're laughing, but you can hear Jacob's laugh pretty prominently in one of them. I'll edit that out, please. I prefer to not be featured. Okay, we'll dig your laugh out. We're going to pay you, but...
Jacob, outside of your laugh, is there anything else you're... You can just follow me on the socials at Jacob Wysocki. Anything interesting that I'm promoting or thrusting into consumerism will be found there. Great. Rekha, do you have anything you're trying to thrust into consumerism? Yes, so many things. But the main one, check out Grand Crew on NBC. Hell yeah. Which I wrote for. And if it's not playing on NBC and you don't have cable, also it's on Hulu. Check it out. Amazing.
Check it out. A great, a great crew and a grand crew. I'm sure no one's ever said that. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening. And we'll be back next week with the arc bark. Thanks. Bye. Bye.
Woohoo! Thank you, PastZak. And thank you for listening to this Arc 7 of the Rotating Heroes podcast. And if you're ever curious as to why at the end of every episode, Zak says, we'll be back next week with the Arc Bark, and then there isn't an Arc Bark, it's just like the next episode, that's because these were, well, previously recorded old episodes. And actually, these are episodes that we put out on the Patreon in their full and glorious form. And then the week after they come out, we release...
the arc box so if you want to hear those arc box the only place to get those is on the patreon uh so head over to there there's a link in the description below but until then i want to say thank you so much for listening to arc seven with your rotas of this arc which are jacob waisaki dan lippert and reika shanka with your dm zack oyama and this episode has been edited and produced by zack oyama and me jasper william car right
Until then, we will catch you next week. Bye.