Arc 2 Ep. 1 : Docks, "Doctors" and Dachsunds PART 1
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This season, Instacart has your back to school. As in, they've got your back to school lunch favorites, like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies, like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow.

Let's face it, we were all that kid. So first call your parents to say I'm sorry, and then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order. Additional terms apply. Welcome back to the Rotating Heroes podcast. I'm Zach Oyama, and I am joined by Jasper William Cartwright as we introduce the second arc.

Jasper, how you doing? I'm very, very good. Thank you. Someone pointed out something quite amazing, which somehow I didn't clock correctly.

before this. Someone pointed out today that Rotating Heroes is basically the MCU of the TTRPG universe. It is the place where all of the biggest and baddest people get together and fight bad guys. And I was like, that's so true. We truly are crossing the streams like no one else out here. This is the Avengers. This is the MCU of TTRPG podcasts.

It was my sell for it. This is my original pitch or my original ad for it. I say this. You said it's an original ad. I was like, you know, it's like what the kids love these days. One of those Marvel movies is what I said. I said it as much of an old man as I could be. What Avenger would you be? Oh, God. Good question.

I would be probably Doctor Strange. No, I would be... You being a Doctor Strange? Fuck, Spider-Man? I don't know. What would you be? Okay, that's like... You sold me on Doctor Strange and then you pivoted to the coolest superhero? I mean... I tried to downplay it like it's not a big deal. I think it's a pretty big deal calling yourself Spider-Man. You know what I'm saying? It's a pretty big deal, dude. I don't know if you get it. He's just kind of... He's silly, but he's also very cool...

There's a reason everyone loves Spider-Man. I think you'd actually be a pretty good Spider-Man, honestly. Well, look at me. I'm hanging from the ceiling. This is true. You are upside down. And it's a lot to behold. My toes are breaking through the drywall. I guess that makes me Beast. Oh, that would be fun. I could see you being Beast.

Do you think you could, like, Hulk out enough, though, for it? Do you think you could get angry, you know? Dude, I get pretty pissed off. Okay, okay. You're doing a face right now, which I'm scared of. You've never seen me mad, dude. Oh, okay. I'm pretty scary. Who would you be? I truly, I don't know. You gotta pick. You gotta pick, man. Probably...

Probably someone pretty low. I'll just be like Hawkeye or something. It's fine. I'll just be here. That's kind of cool. No, it's not. It's not a show. He's got arrows and stuff. Bad, right? It was not good. I think...

I think of you as you have a mustache right now, so it makes me think of Tony Stark. I would love, yeah, maybe. I think I would quite enjoy a Tony Stark, but I think I'd have to kind of exist in my, I'd have to exist in a slightly more arrogant place than I do now. But I think it's possible. I think I could get there. He's got some wild facial hair. I always kind of forget that that's his facial hair until he's like...

comes up from the sides, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's a choice. It's definitely a choice.

But yeah, okay, fine. I'll go with Tony. Tony and Spider-Man. There we go. Beautiful. There we are. You're my mentor in the MCU. But enough about the MCU. Let's join our own characters back in Arc 2 as Turbine sets off to start a new adventure with new friends. New friends. Very exciting. Take it away, Possack. Possack's so good.

Better than me. Better than I'll ever be. Absolutely. And now presenting the Rotating Heroes. Welcome back to the Rotating Heroes podcast. We're joined with the crew for the second arc today. As we finally get that started, I'm joined by Mike Trapp. Hello. Allie Beardsley. Hello. And Jacob Wysocki. We're back.

-Sort of the bad boy of the group, I can tell already. -Wow. -Me, I'm the sensitive one. -I'm the jock. -You might break my heart if I get too close. -Oh, no. -Be careful.

-I don't want to hurt you. -Well, you might. -A trap to remember. -Wow. It's so interesting to see this slightly altered group from the previous arc. How's everyone feeling today? Everyone feeling good? -I'm feeling like the Siobhan of this group. -Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to you?

- Oh, you know, you can just tell I've had a crumpet already today. I'm ready to play. - Oh dang, dude. - Oh, shit. - Dang. - Dang, calm down. - Whoa, voice reveal. Oh my God, already.

We were promised a big voice reveal in here. Wow. You guys pigeonholed me. You forced me to do that voice. Yeah. Yeah. In that session zero where we talked about what our, you know, a little bit about, you know, the initial thoughts coming into this arc, we...

We heard from Jacob there's going to be a big voice reveal. -Here we go. -Huge. -I don't want to build it up too much, but-- -It's going to be trending on Twitter once this finally drops. We'll be like, "Oh, big Jacob voice reveal." -Hashtag grid voice. -GameStop and then grid voice. -You know what they say, keep them waiting. -Everyone says that. -Leave them wanting more. -We're looking forward to that big voice reveal, but in the meantime, let's get started with the episode.

Episode 1 of Arc 2. Shall we begin? I'll keep stalling. A book slams down. The cover opens. A hand turns the page. The page reads, Voice Reveal. Oh, do you want me to do it now? No, not at all.

Why do you want to? Keep them waiting. Jacob, I think it's going to be more killer when we get to your character. It won't make any sense right now. Yeah, that's why I haven't, but I'm double checking because everybody's just kind of sitting around in silence like they're waiting for me to do it. Whatever your voice is, we just want you to say Aflac.

I'm not going to do the commercial Aflac read. I'm sorry. Do the Aflac. Look, Aflac can't sue us because they're not a company anymore, right? They're a company, I think. They're a company. Just Gilbert Gottfried isn't their spokes duck anymore. Not a company to me anymore. Whoa. Yeah.

-You drop Gil, I'm a friend of Gil. -I'm going to open this big old chapter book to the chapter marked Arc 2. We're going to zoom in on a little page as we begin this very story. On a dirt road flanked by the rolling green hills of Aberdeen with the obelisk firmly behind them, a slightly more grown-up turbine hits the open road.

It's been a few weeks since the events of the previous arc. Astrid is now successfully ruling the dwarves of Birdam. They're working diligently to move back into their ancestral home, but it's taking a little bit of time. Astrid is doing a lot of quote-unquote supervising. Brenda Elizabeth has still not been heard from since she rocketed north on her beautiful, majestic horse, Dazzle Raz. With some money from Astrid, her grandparents move north on a journey of their own to find their granddaughter, and

While all this has happened, Turbine has continued to work with Tradix and the Modrons to see if there's any way to stabilize the deteriorating obelisk. Turbine, now that you're a sorcerer of the Clockwork Soul, everything research-oriented has come a lot more naturally to you than it had before. That said, there's a long road ahead here. It's like you were a guy who's built a computer before, and now you're in charge of NASA. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

uh, through the research over the last couple of weeks, it's felt like some systems have maintained the ability to operate with like basic lights and doors and that kind of thing working. But anything that, that needs to tap into like a larger well of power, like the ability to move the obelisk, any like what seems like major functions of it doesn't,

really work right now it's like it's almost in like a power save mode but with one exception a few days ago you noticed that one of the systems came online in a way you hadn't seen before you found like a cerebro-esque helmet from x-men and put it on and with sort of a whooshing noise you looked down at the world below you and saw aberdeen in a smaller scale like you were like flying above it

From there, you were able to cross over to the East Sapphire Lakes and follow, just like flying faster and faster and faster over the ocean-like huge lakes there, all the way to the Sapphire Lakes. And at the very edge of the Sapphire Lakes, closer to where you've never seen before, where the Endless Hole lies in the distance, you saw that there was this sort of blinking beacon with sort of a similar energy to the obelisk itself.

Something was on the other side of the lakes that could be an answer to what's going on with the obelisk now. Rip off the helmet and just drooling from my floating through, I guess, cyberspace. Mop is just mopping up your drool on the ground. Oh, guys. Oh, you have to try it. I throw it through the helmet on Mop.

As you put it on mop, it has shut down itself. For whatever reason, like the other power saving mechanisms in place, this no longer works. So that brings us back to present day. Turbine, for the first time in your life, you're out on the open road. Full two days into being on your own. This is sort of a dream for a little adventurer like yourself to finally get out of the house. You're kind of sauntering as you...

You sway back and forth while riding a little tiny van. I'm sorry, I'm riding a van? Riding a little tiny van. I'm riding Mop. It's Mop. Mop is, of course, your new friend, the war-forged monk, who was unfortunately completely changed by the more nefarious operations in the obelisk earlier in the first arc. But that said, he's not...

He's a simple guy. Being suddenly turned into a war-forged monk hasn't really changed his life that much, and he's happy to be your kind of sidekick ward who is accompanying you on this journey. Just to be clear, I can visualize this correctly. When Mop turns into a van, this is a... Mop is a full-size human, but when he turns into a van, it is a small enough van that I can just... I sit astride it and just sort of like...

ride it or is it like a full-size van that I'm like on the roof of when you say riding a van I'm just trying to get that so this is essentially like a power wheel like you know how when like oh I know a power wheel yeah oh yeah

So it's like the proportions of those are always all off. Like it doesn't make any, you know, like it's like you're a giant sitting in a little tiny car. Yeah. It's that. Great. It's like a sort of like a West Folly van with like a big cutout at the top and you're holding a big steering wheel. He's not going that much faster than you would be on foot. It's the loud, loud battery hum of that. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm just doing my best, and I'm just trying to get us on the road. Yeah, no, it's great. Honestly, I'm kind of glad to be... You know, there's a lot of pressure to fix up that obelisk now that everyone's kind of looking to me to expect me to know all the answers. It's kind of nice to just get out a little bit, you know? Yeah, that must be weird for a 13-year-old to have that much responsibility. Thank you so much for saying that. It is really weird. It's a really weird thing to have happened, and I'm glad to just sort of hit the open road a little bit, you know? Just not have people asking me questions around the world.

You know, the open road contains a lot of secrets. Mop is, of course, a little hippie van life guy, so he understands that very well. You can find yourself on the open road. You can experience what they call wanderlust. You ever heard of wanderlust? Tell me about it, Mop. No one's ever asked me to define it, so I had to guess. It's like moving around to different places, and that's...

I guess, a good thing? Yeah, that's what we're doing, Mop. We're doing it. So yeah, you continue on Mop's back. It takes you about two days to get there. This is...

a place that you've been a few times in your life, but this is definitely the furthest you've ever been from home. As you get closer to your destination, you smell like the saltiness in the air, the trail itself gets like a little muddier and the grass kind of dissipates into sort of like, you know, it's a little nasty. I try to shift gears on Mops so we can like, you know, get through the mud okay. Downshift? You're gonna want a downshift? Lower gears are better for when the ground's looser? Yeah, no, I got it, I got it, I got it.

From this muddy trail, you arrive to the outskirts of the biggest city you've ever been in. You see Salonport ahead of you. It's the largest city you've ever seen. It's like this large, sprawling metropolis from your point of view with these crisscrossing wooden buildings everywhere. It's really dense looking from where you're seeing, like all the way closer to the port. Like it's clearly grown out from there over the many years that it's been here.

For context, like Aberdeen feels like a little town compared to this place, which is much more of a bustling city. Like different trade routes on land and water all meet here, and this is just sort of a crossroads of sorts. It's also bigger in that as you are getting closer, you see that all the buildings are sized for humans rather than the city that you're from, where it's all halflings, gnomes, dwarves. Everyone can clear a four foot eight door frame. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

As you get closer, Mob says to you, like, wow, this must be nice to get to, like, a big city like this. Like, you know, I'm actually from places like this. There's so many smells, Mob. Yeah, so that's kind of a sensitive subject for me because now I don't really have so much of a sense of smell. Right, no, I'm sorry. You know what? That was on me. I'm sorry I shouldn't have brought that up. Okay.

I'm going to do my best to remember all the senses you've lost. We don't need to talk about that. It's a lovely city, Mom. He gives sort of like a far-off glance. He's suddenly for the first time thinking about the fact that he...

You can't really smell anything. So should we get going and meet your mom's friend already? Yeah, yeah. I think we should probably do that. Yeah, as you were leaving town, your mom made you promise to visit her friend, Nance. This is like one of those things your parents tell you to do, and you're like, I don't... Just because I'm going to be in the same city as your friend...

Like I get, I get that mom and Nance are like, we're like real close back in the day. And like, I kind of remember Nance, but it was like when I was real little and it's like, I don't really. You haven't seen Nance in 10 years. Yeah. I'm skeptical that she even remembers who I am. And it seems very weird to have to show up like on her doorstep. Yeah. It wouldn't take that long. I mean, you're on the outskirts of town and she, and from what you remember, she lives on kind of the outer edges of the town, like in,

I would say more of a like newer cookie cutter suburb area. Like, you know, maybe not cookie cutter, but like it's just a newer area with like more space. It's a little more suburb. So I guess you had that way. The beacon signal is coming from the far side of the lake, right? It's not coming from the city where I am right now.

Yeah, it's really far away. So you guys are on the East Sapphire Lakes, which is sort of the runoff of the Sapphire Lakes, which are closer to the endless hole, that giant forest to the west. Cool. So it kind of goes the forest...

then the beacon, then the Sapphire lakes, then the East Sapphire lakes. Yeah. I think I'll like, I'll head my way that way, but it's, it's, you know, I know how awkward this is. So I'm going to like swing by like a bodega or something and like pick up a bottle of wine. Um,

something just like I'm not showing up empty handed and because I also I assume I probably don't really have a place to stay for the night or anything like I don't like I may actually need some like at least like a bite to eat or something as we continue our journey so like I'll pick up something a nice little offering and then you know swing around yeah you find like a little corner store like really far out of town and get a little bottle of wine and really trying hard to remember Nance and like what I think she likes like what her taste is

But your mom did say Nance would help you. Okay. And help you like on your journey to get across the lake. So yeah, you get that stuff and you head over, you get to Nance's address. You can tell from where you are that like you're looking kind of down and

uh, downhill towards the town where it's like the lower sea level. It's really dense over there out here. There's plenty of room. Like you find this house, it's got a like chicken wire fence that goes around the outer edges on like, maybe like an acre of land. As you approach, it's like this, like a little yellow stucco house with, um,

with that fence around it uh it's this huge lawn that honestly has like a pretty great view it feels like it's the kind of place that would be like deeply gentrified in 20 years when people get it there's this like big warning sign with a barking little flat wiener dog on it that says my dachshund can get to the fence in two minutes 30 seconds flat can you i don't know if that's really a threat but all right uh there's there's also a big bell like this sort of big dinner bell that sort of

I think being repurposed as a doorbell. I give Mop a quick embarrassed look, and then I very gingerly clang the bell. It's like, I'm a little embarrassed to do this, but it seems like this is what I have to do. Give it that half-hearted clang. As you ring that bell, we're going to cut over to somewhere else. Nancy, you're inside your house.

For lack of a better word, there are a lot of smells happening here. It's early, but not too early. You've had a full, luxurious nine and a half hours of sleep. You're just getting your morning routine started. So if you could, could you just describe your character and describe your morning routine? Yeah, definitely. So Nancy...

really seems like she has it all together. Okay, so she wakes up in the morning. She clicks on talk radio. She's listening to a politics podcast and she's frying an egg. She opens up a can of dog food and she puts it in a bowl on the ground and she pets each of her dogs. She sits down, has a little French press coffee,

is so excited to bite into this lovely meal. Says a prayer. Says a prayer to God. And then she hears the bell ring. And she hits a button. A shotgun falls from the sky, from the roof into her hands. And she says, go time! And she sprints out. And she sprints out of the house. Wow.

Very different than what I was assuming would happen. Yeah. Shotguns, a rarity in this fantasy world. Clearly. No, it's a, it's a short sword. It's a, it's a short sword. I I'm, I'm equipping a short double barreled short sword. Sorry. Like I got short sword falls from the ceiling into Nancy's arms. Uh,

Dangerous setup. Go time. Turbine, you look up to see... What's this? The front door of this house kick open. And a lady who's, I think... How tall did you say you were in our first episode? 6'3". This 6'3 human woman kicks open this door. I think you're looking out and you see... I scream so loud and...

Again, at such a high pitch that the only people who could hear it are the however many dachshunds are on the property. Just a loud dog whistle of a scream that makes the dogs just go fucking nuts. At that point, you know, you're of the clockwork soul. You have like an understanding of the machinations of the universe. You can do math pretty well.

You look out and it's got a... You would have to guess. You see this 6'3 woman running at you and anywhere between two dozen and 20,000 dachshunds running at you out of the different crevices of this yard. So I like stop screaming and pull myself together. I just start going, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. It's her. Under my breath, I'm just going, go time, go time, go time. It's Gale Spizzlesink's son. It's Gale Spizzlesink's son. What? What?

Gale spizzles in some turbine. It's turbine. It's turbine. You used to be friends. You used to go on long hikes with my mom, Gale. And then you would come back and you'd drink weird teas. Oh, yes. Tulsi and Gabondo.

Are those the tea flippers? Those are the teas that we used to have. I am so, oh my gosh, I am so embarrassed. I'm so sorry. I thought, you know, people around heard that I have a batch of brindles.

And everybody is trying to get those. I'm sorry, you have a what? Brindles. Very rare wiener dog coat. They could sell for quite a bit of gold each. And I'm raising them under a heat lamp as we speak. I noticed you have a lot of wiener dogs. Yeah. I'm sorry. My name's Mop. Oh, sorry. Did you say that you're raising your dachshunds under heat lamps? Mm-hmm.

It's a little bit too cold. Their coats haven't come in yet. So I provide what some might call a reptilian-looking heat lamp, and I put it above them. Any further questions about how I raise my prize weenies? Well, I was just popping into... I'm sort of...

I'm on my way to check out this thing on the other side of the lake, and I thought I'd just swing in and say hi, but we don't have to stick around or anything. No, you need a place to stay. You need a place to stay. I mean, this seems like really crowded and...

Mop, plug your ears for a second. A lot of smells, which is great, but I don't have to stick around for that long if you don't want me to. Listen, I just made an egg, and times are a little tough around here, so you and I can split that, no problem. You know what? You can keep that whole egg for yourself. Get inside! I pulled the two of them inside, and I run just as fast back inside. I know.

I'm springing to keep up, but my legs are so short compared to hers. Turban, make a DC 30 dexterity check. All right. Dexterity saving throw. Not with advantage. You're nowhere near any sort of metal object that you can use. Very good. That is a... That's not bad, actually. It's an 18. Yeah, so this is DC 30. You get decked by about 14 dachshunds if you're...

Mop, take the wine! Mop, take the wine! Mop dives over your head and does a cartwheel grabbing this bottle of wine to hop out of the way. Sort of backhand springing towards the door. Leave me! Leave me! Just drowning in like a sea of toxins.

Eventually, a now way nastier and smellier turbine and mop make their way inside. Nancy, your home, please describe the way the inside of your house would look. Yeah, totally. So, I mean, there's definitely something here. You know, if you couldn't hear...

how Nancy kind of, like, talks and holds herself and her interests and stuff, you would be like, where the hell am I? This is a shithole. So, you know, there's, like, leaky ceilings, just kind of like... It's like you said, like, a stucco house, but it's like, it doesn't look that good. Chicken wire fence house. Dogs fucking everywhere. You know, she tries her best, but you just can't stay up on top of all of that shit. So...

You know, it's kind of gross. Let me be clear, when you say dogs fucking everywhere, are you using fuck as an intensifier, or are you saying that there are dogs who are fucking everywhere? There are fucking dogs fucking everywhere. I don't know if that clarified it, but I got it. Is there a number of dogs? Do we have a number of dogs? 104. 104.

-Yes, it's 104. Sometimes it feels like five, but sometimes it feels like 50,000. -Okay. -Yes. They each, although I will say Nancy Rae has a gorgeous little space for each of the dogs. You know what I mean? They each have a little crate or a little bed or it's all stacked on top of each other. -Little pigeon holes. -These winter dogs run up little ramps to get into their little holes that are there. -You have an office mailbox. -There's cat shelves.

Pneumatic tubes. Do you want to wash your hands? I pour some malt liquor on your mind. Thank you. As you pour the malt liquor, your roommates open their door and they come out and they're a little hungover. It's Rhonda and Shasta, two 45-year-old ladies that had a bit of a night. Whoa. Hey. Rhondy, Shastie.

Hey, Nancy. Yeah, we went out kind of hard last night. So we're trying to look for a little bit of a hair of the dog situation. Not these dogs. Not the dogs. No, no, no. We have plenty of that hair too, though, if you ever want. Oh, my God. I was thinking about making some sort of a quilt. You want to... I mean, we left you after dinner and we went down to the... We went to Bumper Street. Oh.

Bumper Street. What did you guys get into? Where did you go? We had a bit of a crawl. We went to the ship show, and then we went to Hurricane O'Clock and Ronda.

Rhonda's too hungover to talk. She's trying to look for a glass of water, but Shasta continues on. We went to, it's beer o'clock somewhere. We went to fucking Danny's. We went to Lord Dugan's. You fucking went to fucking Danny's? We fucking went to fucking Danny's, yeah. And I got in a fight there, and we had to run. We went back to the ship show, and then we did it again, and we forgot, and we went back to fucking Danny's, and I got thrown out.

No! No! I passed the bottle of

of beer to them and I'm like, "Oh, please." I was gonna have my friend wash, I was gonna have my friend bathe in this, but instead I think that you should drink it. - She gives you a deep, long hug and then is just very thankful of it. Turbine, you're just watching them hug for a little bit. - Sure. - We're just swaying and hugging. - We're swaying.

Hugging and swaying side to side. I'm making notes to myself of the bars that they mention in case I want to check them out later. As you hug, Turbine, a little 13-year-old, writes down bar names. LAUGHTER

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Beer o'clock somewhere. Fucking Danny's. I bat it out of his hand. Okay, nice to meet you, little boy. We're going to take off. And they go back to their rooms. Do they each take a dog with them? Yeah, Shasta finally got a glass of water. And so she's like, come here, come here. Picks up the dachshund with the longest hair there is and just holds it tightly to her chest. It's just dragging. It's like a gown.

She's tripping over it a little bit. I'm imagining like... Almost like hamster tunnels, but big enough for dachshunds just like weaving like along the ceiling. That's great. Just like a full network of... Pneumatic tubes for dachshunds. That is so cute. At this point, Mott pipes up and is like, yeah, so...

Turbine, I thought you were ideally trying to get on a boat today. Do you know? Yeah, we're trying to get to the other side of the lake. We figured we'd just stop in, say hi, maybe grab some provisions if you have any to spare. If you know of any reputable... Anyone who would charter a boat for us at a reasonable price. You clearly know this city.

You know at least the bars. Not only does every dog in this house know how to swim, and I made sure of that myself.

I have a lot of friends with boats. Oh, okay. Well, I was looking for like a license. Are these just like friends with boats or are these like licensed like, you know? Oh, no, no. They all carry some sort of license. I promise you that. Okay. I promise you that. It continues to be pretty vague, but all right. Okay. As far as provisions, no, I don't. And in fact, can I get a buck? I give Dan some buck. Thank you.

Well, you know. Let me hold it, darling. Let me hold up for you. You know, I have someone in mind if we're talking about

chartering some sort of setting sail wanderlust. I mean, I can see it in your eyes. I'm sorry, did you say wanderlust? Okay, we've... I don't know if it's really a wanderlust. We do have a specific goal. It's not just like a vague wandering. You are dripping in wanderlust. Okay. Do you hear me? Look, all right, I guess... And I roll up a sleeve and I have a tattoo that says wanderlust.

I guess I just want to stress that like what, because you just sort of, you keep being really vague about like the licenses and stuff. What I just, what I really want more than anything else is just like as normal a boat, as normal a guy as we can get. We can just get like a nice, just like a simple boat. That's all we're looking for. All right. Look, I've got two choices for you, okay? One, he's a doctor. He sells fake tuna to Subway. Or two...

I got a guy who's honestly a little bit boring. You know, he's just a normal guy. He does work. He has all the permits that you need to charter a boat. Nance, that sounds great. He's extremely nice. Now the doctor with the fake tuna. Okay. He is also drunk.

Okay. Four tabs deep by noon every day. I guess. And I think you're really going to like him. So I'm going to call him up right now. I guess what concerns me is that he is a doctor, but also feels that he has to sell fake tuna to Subway. It calls into question both his doctor expertise and his tuna expertise. And I don't really know where the boat factors in here. So actually guy number two. Shasta comes in and is like, that's my brother. Okay.

And if you're going to talk about my brother like that, I don't know you. He's a therapist and he's taking care of number one.

Okay? And you're a child? Yeah. But I don't want you to come into my house and talk about my brother like that. Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't know him. I also, I don't know you either. I'm sorry, I guess, if I offended anyone is what I'm saying. Let me paint a picture for you, okay? This guy has the smallest boat. None of us could fit in it. He shaves his complete head, burns the hair, buries it. This is all part of a spell. Next thing you know, I'm wasted.

Next thing you know, I thought you were describing a boat. This is a story? What is happening? I'm face down on the flag and I wake up and I say, I'm sure we went somewhere on that boat. And that, you know, I can offer you that. I can promise you that exact experience or we can go with this other boat. No, and Shasta?

I love the way your brother sounds. This is sounding great. Just so I can be, you know, be perfectly fair, tell me more about the other guy. Just in case, you know, because the first one's sounding pretty good. It's sounding pretty good. It's not like definitely yes, but it's like, wow. But yeah, maybe we hear a little bit about the second guy. The second guy is wonderful. Um...

You know what I mean? He's just a normal guy. You know, all right, let's go meet both of them. I'll give them both a call. Whoever texts me back first, whoever messages me back first, we'll go check them out. Okay. I actually kind of like the odds on that. I think that seems fair.

- Awesome, phones don't exist in this world. - Good to know, really good to know. - All right, I'll use-- - Messages, no, message spell. The first person to message, tell me that. - I'll use a short sword to text him and-- - Great. - Yeah. - Well, with that in mind-- - Okay, I throw a feather in the air, depending on where it lands, that's who we go to talk to. - Yeah, you throw a feather in the air and it just sort of drifts lazily back and forth and hits the ground.

Okay. I know what to do. Let's go. Okay. Now, listen, I need to, just to explain to you, I have been through some changes lately where I have almost complete understanding of the universe. I have no idea what's going on, but I'm going to follow you. I'm with you, Nance. Amazing. Complete understanding, like, I did shrooms for the first time on a camping trip? Or a little bit...

It's kind of like that. It's this sort of like, you know, cosmic feeling of connectedness, but I can kind of like see what all the connections are. I guess the point is it's been a couple of days, a couple of weeks now where I've been like feeling like nothing is surprising and everything is predictable. And I kind of know what's coming down the bend. And these past few minutes have been a real ride for me. So it's kind of fun, actually.

That's incredible. You know, in this house, we believe in science and we believe in miracles like the one that you're describing. No person is illegal and let's go. I'm sorry. I just wanted to say quickly before we go, I'm going to keep my hood up because I'm sort of like a robot man and like most people around here aren't familiar with that. I'm surprised you haven't asked any questions to me about me and I honestly appreciate it.

- You know, yeah, when I heard wanderlust, I just thought, cool, you must come from somewhere else. - What does wanderlust mean? - It's like, you just can't help but wander. - That's what I was thinking, but I was pushed for a definition earlier and I was struggling. - Yeah, that's what I've always heard. - Horny for wandering was your definition?

You just place after place, hornier by the minute. All right, let's go meet my friend. Okay. You guys continue on deeper into the city of Solonport itself. You head from the outskirts where, again, it's a little more spread out. Getting into denser and older buildings, you pass these nice little...

boutique sandwich shops and little coffee places and you pass the bumper street that Shasta and Rhonda mentioned earlier. It's a bunch of two-story tall buildings in this long stretch that have balconies that people hang out on. It's a

It's like just a walking street. No like horses or anything on that area at all. A lot of open containers and it seems fine. Definitely a lot of drunk people on the street. As you continue on towards the harbor and port area, you pass a street sign that says Aurora Avenue. This is old like wrought iron fence post that like...

arches over the entire street. The street itself has these like really extremely old oak trees that are like bending and like they kind of go in all like

rather than going straight up they're kind of they they fan out to like sort of these wider patterns they have all this this like moss hanging from them they look uh very twisted but they offer this sort of like wide shady canopy area that um with the sunlight coming through it makes the whole street look really like mysterious and kind of otherworldly on the street also you see like

It's lined with mansions. Nance, either of you, I guess, can make a history check if you'd like. Sure. Nance, you can do that. I'll give Nance advantage because you're from this area. Okay, cool. I've never seen houses this big before. I got an 11. Oh, baby, 21. Turbine, yeah, you've never really been to this area or maybe you walked through it when you were visiting this area as a little kid, but from what you can tell, it's just like,

Yeah, really nice mansions built for humans. Yeah, I feel like there's that there's definitely that thing where like, when you visit a place, you go like a family vacation as a kid, and you go someplace, it's like, this is super cool. Like, when you're a kid, everything's new anyway, that like, really incredible things don't really impact you. Because it's like, yeah, everything like, I remember as a kid's going to see like Old Faithful and being like, cool, everything's weird, though. Like, why is this more weird than everything else in the world?

And now it's like, oh yeah, that is a truly incredible geological feature. I feel like they're very much something like that where it's like family vacation as a young kid seeing this thing and be like, cool, they're buildings? All buildings are weird. What's up? Yeah, you've been inside an otherworldly obelisk that you are the one person who may be able to control. So these are just some houses to you. Cool.

I go trick-or-treating here every year. Oh, Nance, yeah, this is where you go trick-or-treating. They give the full-size candy bars. Yeah, exactly. It's less because they want to give it to you and more of a one-upsmanship between the different families who live here. With a 21...

Even though this is not your scene specifically, this is like the old money of this city of Sollin Park. These are the richer families that almost exclusively immigrated for business purposes over from Malgos, this sort of lost city in the forest. When this emerald flash created the forest to the west, it like kind of knocked out every major city as far as people from the outside can tell. And so...

all these people came from that area and had really, really extensive debts with that city. And so while that is like a huge natural disaster to some, all of these people had their debt wiped out when this city disappeared. And so these rich assholes just like took over the city essentially.

Or rich assholes is strong. Some of them maybe aren't assholes, but... Was Solonport before the Emerald Flash, was it just like, was it like a sleepy village? Or like, did it grow as a result of that disaster? Or was it always kind of a big city? It was like an up and coming city that like...

these families were coming for business purposes like they thought there was like a mark you know like they could be the the like fishing conglomerate here or the restaurant tour here like it was kind of uh that was the vibe the the loss of all of the civilization basically west of here really catalyzed that though and made this city much much bigger much faster than uh

than anyone really anticipated. A bunch of fucking ghouls just like, oh, wow, he could really capitalize on it. You know, this could be an opportunity. Like a lot of people died, but this could be an opportunity. Yeah. So these are there's really questionable motives over here. Nance, I think you've sold like, yeah, like I said, there's a bit of a range here. Like these families are all like kind of twist and tie together a little bit, but there are

The families that you would know are like the Delschamp family, where Dan Delschamp is a restaurateur. He's sort of a nice guy. You sold him this beautiful long-haired dachshund with silver hair. Aren't all of Nancy's dachshunds beautiful? Sorry, what makes dachshunds beautiful? I said, aren't all of Nancy's dachshunds beautiful? Some of them are real pigs. Ha ha ha!

Some of them are little baby boars. There's some fucked up people who are like, I want your most fucked up, like the breeding mistakes. That's what I want. Give me the belly flops from the Jelly Belly Factory. I'll tell you right now, some of them just aren't symmetrical. We got a droopy eye over here. We got a snaggle tooth over there. And I love them.

They'll be around forever here, but I'm not selling them to these people. I'm hoping to put a brindle in each of these homes by the end of the month. Wow. As Nance looks on at these rich assholes' homes,

dreaming of taking advantage of them by giving them beautiful dogs. It's going to be me one day. After a beat of taking it in, you continue on towards the harbor area and we're going to cut over to somewhere else. We're going to cut over a little closer to the water in a little boathouse at the Salonport Docks.

It's a small room filled to the brim with plants. It smells deeply of rich soil and just like fresh oxygen. The sun shines through a window and seagulls squawk outside and causing a large figure to kind of stir in its bed. Jacob, would you please describe your character and your morning routine? As Grip wakes up, he...

He sits up from his bed and he takes a big inhale through his long, long, long nose. And he exhales it gently through his mouth. And he puts on his garb. He puts on his purple vest while his giant pecs protrude beyond them. And he puts on his swashbuckling white pants, which has been described as an Aladdin outfit. He gets his watering can. He picks it up with his trunk.

And he begins to water his plants in his room and tills the soil with his hands. And he looks at his plants and he says, Good morning, little ones. Another day with my best friend. You have it there, folks. A huge voice reveal. Oh. Oh.

Cut to, like, stock exchange. Sell, sell, sell. It was British. Those that voted Southern were wrong. British is up. Southern's wrong. New Zealand's out of the race.

Grib wakes up, stretches out. He starts watering the little plants in his home that isn't actually that small. It's just that Grib is that big of a person. The sun glints off the crystal on his forehead, kind of reflects on the walls and kind of a fun sort of like stained glass looking pattern. Grib, you go about watering your plants. You are...

What would you say your race and class are? Oh, great. Yes. As I'm wandering, it becomes very apparent that this brooding figure inside of the small box is a Luxodon.

He's about seven foot nine. He's on the taller side of his Luxedon stature. He has two protruding tusks, one that is slightly cricked and one that has a nice point on it that scoop up towards him. They don't go straight out. And as you mentioned, he has some ornate jewelry from his... It's kind of the only thing that he was given specifically.

From his Luxedon bloodline are these jewels that run down his face that are triangles that start big and work smaller as they head down, each with a sapphire, a purple, deep sapphire gem in them.

And we see that his fingers, as they till the soil, are sort of glowing with some green energy. And you get the sense that this is a druid. He knows his way around nature and he knows his way within the soil. The plants almost like open and close as you come near. Like it's, you have this connection to the natural world that lets them sort of almost respond to you. Grip, as you're watering these plants, Grip,

You notice that there's a little handwritten note on the table nearby that is sort of near the kitchen area. To you, says Scribd on the top. Great. I sort of lumber over to the note and pick it up with my... I don't wash my hands or anything. Just pick it up with my dirt hands. It says, if you touch me with your dirty little hands... No. LAUGHTER

You're cursed forever. You have been cursed. Only the clean hands. No. Yeah, you're going about your routine. You find this note and you find it says Grimm. It's truly abysmal handwriting. And it says Grimm.

We've had a few changes down at the ship today, and I feel like it might be a sign that you're ready to join for your first charter. If this is something you'd be interested in, please pack your things and join us at the Seagrass. This note's from Yareth. This note brings me great excitement because Grib lives this sort of boring, menial life where he gets up, he works on this boat, he knows this boat,

He scrapes barnacles off of it. He lifts things in and out of it, but he's never gotten to go where the boat goes. He's always just sort of had to stay docked. So he's very excited and he's a modest man, so there's not much of a bag to pack. He just picks up his garb, his vest and his pants, and he kisses all of his plants goodbye. And as he leaves, there's one little thing he grabs and it's

It's in a silk envelope and he grabs it and he puts it in his pocket and he heads out the door. Ooh, a silk. It's like a silk pouch. Sorry. Yeah. Like a silk pouch. Yeah. Oh, okay. I like a silk envelope. It's very fun to imagine like a mailing envelope that is silk. Gorgeous. Um,

It's like when you buy a really expensive piece of tech or something. You know when you buy a new Mac or something and there's always the wiping cloth and stuff like that? Exactly. If you folded that up... It's a little poncho. He cleans his glasses. And I close the door and I go, I knew it was going to be a good day. Huge voice reveal. There you have it. A second reveal of the voice. So gentle! Yeah, it's...

Gribb, as you continue on, the harbor is, of course, filled with boats. Closer to where your boathouse is, there's more fishing vessels that are all dirtier and a little more just functional use stuff. But as you go to the north side of the harbor...

closer to where like the Aurora Avenue is, you start to get into like the nicer sailboats. And as you walk down one of these piers, you hit the boat you're looking for, the seagrass. It's about 70 feet long. It has two large masts. The sails are down at the moment, but you can tell like even though they're closed, they look like very vibrant and green. The mast head of the boat is a big ornately carved duck.

Uh, some might say that looks like Gilbert Gottfried. Oh, not really. It doesn't look like it. So you get to the ship and on the ship, you can see on the bow of the ship, uh, you see this ancient looking turtle meditating, sitting there just quietly reflecting on the ocean water or the, the lake water in front of him. Um, as I approach, I sort of scan the boat, uh,

To see if there's any barnacles or anything out of place that I've made missed from yesterday's work. It's spotless. You did an incredible job yesterday. Great. It's good to take another peek at it, but I think you killed it last time. I approach quietly as to not disturb...

The meditation. Great. He meditates for another two and a half hours. Takes a few more minutes to meditate. And he eventually like opens his eyes and looks back at you and smiles with this old kind of witty,

leathery turtle smile uh his little beady eyes look at you fondly he touches uh the side of his face with my trunk okay that's enough no thank you good morning old friend hello um

Welcome to the seagrass. I thank you for cleaning it so thoroughly yesterday. I see that you got my note. Can you see that I'm beaming with excitement? You know how below deck there we have a...

Sort of an interchanging series of crew members who are all in their 20s and there's all sorts of drama. They do this for a summer job. Yes, I understand. Sometimes they hook up or whatever. Very rambunctious. And then sometimes it doesn't work out. Yes, yes. Intertwined drama, all of that. Thalassia, sexual relationship, thalassia.

So much going on. It's really hard for me to keep up. Yes, it's much like a Bravo television show, whatever that may be. But to that end, we've had a couple of people...

not to pursue their careers further on the boating industry. And I know I've kept you out of this world for too long, but I feel that you may benefit from an experience on the open water. So I was just seeing if you would like to be... If you'd like to come aboard, so to speak. I couldn't say no. I must say I've been waiting for this day for quite some time. Grib, I'm sorry to say that I...

Listening to you talk has morphed my accent to being almost British. I did not mean for that, but it's the way it goes. It is his. The gravitational pull of British is strong. I feel like this is a scene from like a BBC show that aired four years ago and just finally got to Netflix in the US. And now everyone's getting super. It's like, have you watched the Yachtsman of Downey? It's like, no, but should I? I heard good things.

Dude, it's perfect that it's only three seasons. It's perfect. Yeah, it's like, you know, it wraps up everything. It's a great quarantine watch. It's two seasons and a Christmas special, and everything wraps up. It's perfect. Grib, you know, yeah, this has been sort of a dream for a minute to get on the water. You've been great at taking care of the boathouse and all the stuff ashore, but yeah, it's been a long time coming. Yeah, and if it's not obvious, you know, this is an area that has not seen many Luxodons, and there's a little bit of

glimmering of to be able to step beyond this place might be able to step beyond the people he sees regularly yes um yarith is sort of grib's uh captain slash father figure he's like one of the few people who took uh grib in at a young age uh grib you you've never seen a loxodon before is that correct yeah i've he's never said of yourself other than himself correct

uh having a similar vibe of an outsider uh you know Yareth is like one of the like there it's not like there's one tortle but there are rare around these parts and so yeah maybe saw a little bit of a similar situation there and wanted to look out for you and and it seems like Rib's a sweet boy as you guys are are talking Yareth brings up like uh we are we're getting uh

things together for the next charter and the remaining crew members are packing the bags of the family who will be setting out on our pleasure cruise. We're supposed to go all the way down to

to the shores of the Sapphire Lakes, which is quite far for people to want to go, actually. Most people kind of cut short at the edge of the East Sapphire Lakes or maybe even venture up to the beginning of the Sapphire Lakes. But this is going to be sort of a longer and, you know, I'm not so motivated by money, but sort of a nicer chunk of change, if you will. What is his family...

Why are they feeling the need to go so far away from home? Oh, I don't... I guess they wanted to see those shores closer to the Endless Hold. I did not ask any specific questions. As he says this, the other crew members are loading up large boxes and things of supplies and the actual...

you know, the actual bags and things from the family that is taking this cruise. Well, I shouldn't spend too much time chatting with you, old chap. Perhaps I should get these muscles to work.

Thank you for listening to arc two of the rotating heroes podcast. I hope that you've enjoyed it. If you have, and you want more rotating heroes in your life, you can listen to the rotating heroes podcast over our Patreon, where you'll get access to episodes months early. That's patreon.com forward slash rotating heroes. You'll also be able to hear the exclusive arc box, which is where this crew talks about what has happened in the last episode.

In this arc we have Jacob Wysocki playing Grib, Mike Trapp playing Turbine Spizzle Zinc, and Ali Beardsley playing Nancy Ray Gann. Your DM was Zakoyama, and this episode was produced and edited by Zakoyama and Jasper William Cartwright. That's me. Bye!