Perpetua 23: Aquatic Ambush! 01
Transcriber: robotchangeling
Opening Narration        1
Introduction        2
Leveling Up [0:08:50]        9
Beach [0:21:13]        23
Rest [0:32:37]        34
Veile [0:35:24]        37
Elena [0:38:57]        39
Nicky [0:41:20]        41
Jonathan [0:43:38]        44
Conflict [0:51:14]        54
Initiative [0:54:18]        57
Round One [0:56:47]        60
Round Two [1:10:55]        74
Round Three [1:21:55]        84
Round Four [1:31:09]        93
After Conflict [1:37:18]        99
Travel [1:48:28]        111
Opening Narration
[“Startup” by Jack de Quidt plays]
[“Perpetua” by Jack de Quidt begins playing]
Austin: Before he departed from Calstega Bay, the man named Onyx, Commodore of the Valte Empire and member of the mysterious group known as the Luminaries, gave the crew of the Little Snail some words of advice: Take a boat east, to Spillaway Peaks, and find an ally there under the Shining Star. Thus do Veile, Elena, Nicky, and Jonathan head towards the shoreline, towards new adventures—and for one of them, old haunts.
You may not know Spillaway Peaks. Indeed, places like that are too easily overlooked. Many would tell you a history of Tidaline, Perpetua’s Western Continent, focused only on its greatest kingdom, its most powerful church, and the invading armada that scourges its shores. And while Grand Sonnerie, the Holy Protectorate, and the Valte Empire have tried as hard as they can to control the chronicling of time, take it from this old historian: The smallest gust can usher in a hurricane. So please, learn these names: 
Belowave. Geseis. Nezt. Invernal. Salann. Burgton. Stitchscore. Spillaway Peaks.
Cities hidden under the waves or behind the hills. Places which turned away warships with simple ribbons, or confounded pillagers with puzzles. One village of games, one village of spies, one village where soldiers refused to be soldiers anymore. 
Call them parochial or call them provincial if you must, but understand this. Perpetua is not the territory of territory alone. It is not a battlefield made by battalions. It is a world where heroes move history, and where heroes have homes. Some such heroes may even get to return to them.
Introduction
Austin: Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical world building, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. I am your host, Austin Walker. And joining me today, for the first time in a long time—it’s been a minute since we’ve recorded—Ali Acampora. 
Ali: Hi, my name is Ali. I would like to personally thank you for listening to Friends at the Table. Also, I think this is the first time that we've recorded since I've become a regular cast member on Media Club Plus, [Austin: True.] Friends at the Table’s side, uh, media watching along podcast. [laughs] In our second season—a mini season that is six months long, so that’s not mini—we're going through the creative works of M. Night Shyamalan, and we all just watched a movie that I really like, and nobody liked it. [laughs] 
Jack: Oh no!
Ali: So I encourage you to watch and listen.
Austin: Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. Yeah, I've been worried about this one, Ali, I gotta tell you.
Ali: No, no.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: I know it’s a bad movie. 
Austin: Oh!
Ali: That’s the important thing. [laughs] 
Dre: Mm.
Austin: I see. That’s good.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: It’s good that you know that, I guess.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Also joining us, Art Martinez-Tebble. 
Art: Hi. I'm also on Media Club Plus, and while I didn't love the experience of watching that particular movie, I did get to read a whole book about it, and the book was amazing. [Ali laughs quietly] So, listen to Media Club Plus. Find out about the book. See if you want to read the book. Join me in the wonderful world of having read this book. [Ali laughs] Oh, and go to friendsatthetable.shop and buy a t-shirt or something.
Austin: Buy a t-shirt. Friendsatthetable.shop. Jack de Quidt.
Jack: Hi, I'm Jack. You can get any of the music featured on the show at notquitereal.bandcamp.com. I'm not in this season of Media Club Plus, but I am on an episode that will almost certainly have come out by this point, and I had a great time.
Ali: Yippee.
Austin: And Andrew Lee Swan.
Dre: Hey. I think we've— have we plugged everything? Have we plugged all of everything?
Austin: I think, at this point, yeah.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: I think so.
Art: Patreon. Plug the Patreon.
Dre: Then hi, it’s me. Happy to be here. Oh, Patreon. Friendsatthetable.cash. There you go.
Austin: Friendsatthetable.cash. There it is. That’s the big one. you can go support us there. We’d love to have your support. We try our best to give you incredible things for that support. Right now, we have our Realis campaign running, and that is taking an incredible turn, as we speak. And we also have our Outward let’s play going. That’s at the $10 level, and that is also taking a really fun turn as we speak. [Jack and Dre chuckle] And we have been putting out a bunch of Clapcasts.
Ali: Indeed.
Austin: Ali, you have been doing that.
Ali: Indeed.
Austin: And go birds. The Eagles just won on a blocked field goal.
Dre: Hell yeah.
Ali: Yippee!
Austin: Shoutouts. All right. 
Art: We were slandering you before you came here, that coincidentally you were ready to… [laughs]  
Austin: Well, the good news is— here’s what happened, is I turned the game off about 30 minutes before we were supposed to start playing, because we were playing so bad I couldn't even have it on in the background. 
Ali: Aww!
Art: Aww!
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: And then I immediately had huge technical trouble, trying to get the character importer to work, and then spent an hour trying to get that to work and then putting all the information in by hand. And then, right before we started, I was like, “Oh, I should check to see how bad we got blown out by,” [laughs quietly] and it turns out that something happened and the game got turned around—I'll have to look into what happened after—and I turned it on, and they blocked a field goal and ran it back for a touchdown, which is very fun.
Ali: Yippee.
Jack: This is what happens when you don't watch the game.
Austin: That’s right. Well, that’s how it always feels.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Jack: Historically, every single time.
Austin: Right? You're the reason.
Jack: And then, when you do watch, you get absolutely destroyed 3-nil by Chelsea.
Austin: [laughs quietly] That’s right. 100%, yes.
Art: It was so weird when the Eagles lost 3-nil to Chelsea.
Austin: [laughs quietly] Destroyed by Chelsea.
Jack: I know. Really extraordinary.
Austin: [laughing] They didn't know any of the rules. They were kind of— they kept trying to pick the ball up. [Dre laughs]
Jack: Frankly amazing that it was only 3-nil.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Kind of remarkable. Well, they all just stood around in front of the net and, no, you're not— they're very big, so.
Dre: Yeah, they just put the defensive line in front of the keeper net, yeah.
Art: Oh, I thought we were going the other way. I thought Chelsea beat them 3-nil in American football.
Austin: Oh, you thought they kicked a field goal. I see.
Art: Yeah. They'd be great at that, right?
Austin: They do that. They'd be great at that. The rest of it I think they'd be really bad at, though.
Jack: I think if Chelsea tried to play the Eagles, every Chelsea player would, like, be broken in half. They would be destroyed.
Austin: They would do the tush push once and then end the team.
Jack: They're just dead.
Austin: It would be over. Yeah.
Ali: What’s the tush push?
Austin: Oh, Ali.
Art: We don't have time. [Ali and Jack laugh]
Ali: Okay, I'm sorry.
Austin: The Eagles are playing football right, and everyone’s mad at them about it. That’s what I'll say.
Ali: I see. I see. No, I completely believe you.
Art: I am a tush push believer, [Austin: Yeah.] but I do think that they are sort of breaking the rules, because I do think the guards are false starting on every play, but they're using the fact that they can't see the ball so you can't flag it.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Art: And I think that might be morally wrong.
Austin: It might be morally wrong. We'll see. I don't know.
Dre: Eh.
Austin: I think that this is the last year of it. There's no way they— it’s very clear the knives are out, you know? So, anyway. We'll do a Clapcast about this at some point.
Art: Yeah, I love that it’s always the Packers that suggest banning it, because they don't have an owner, so they can't be blamed.
Austin: That’s right. That’s really good. That’s actually very fun. Anyway. 
Art: Yeah. This is one of my favorite pastimes: coming up with sports conspiracy theory. [Jack laughs]
Austin: For people who don't know, the Packers are, like, publicly owned, which is very cool.
Jack: Oh!
Dre: Like, barely.
Austin: Yeah, but, you know, compared—
Dre: Yeah, but moreso than any other team, absolutely. 
Austin: That’s the thing.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: [laughs quietly] In the context, you know? Anyway.
Dre: Yeah, but this is not like Germany, where it’s like, [Austin: Correct.] no soccer club can be owned, you know, [Austin: Yes.] more than 50% by one person.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: Yeah, it’s not publicly owned, like, owned by the people of the state. It’s publicly owned—
Jack: A cooperative.
Austin: Yeah, yeah. It’s publicly owned like it’s a publicly traded thing that you can buy into. Anyway. It’s not traded, I don't think, actually.
Art: Yeah, you can't sell your share.
Austin: You can't. You very explicitly, I've looked into this. Anyway. 
Ali: Uh—
Austin: Yes?
Ali: [laughs quietly] Also it’s publicly owned because everybody gets to say, “We won today.” [Ali and Jack laugh]
Austin: That’s 100% true. That’s right.
Dre: Mm, yeah, mm-hmm.
Art: That’s the only team it’s true for.
Austin: Right.
Dre: Yeah, fair.
Art: If you own a share of the Packers, I think you can say, “We won today.”
Austin: I think that’s right.
Ali: Mm.
Art: And god bless them.
Leveling Up [0:08:50]
Austin: Today, we are continuing our game of Fabula Ultima by Emanuele Galletto. It is our first time playing in a little bit, so if we are a little rusty, please, in advance, grant us some grace. As always, our goals are to breathe life into the world and its characters; to play as heroes; to play to change and evolve; to ask questions and build on the answers; and to play to find out what happens!
Jack: Woo!
Art: Woo!
Dre: Woohoo!
Jack: We love to say that.
Austin: We left off inside of Calstega Bay, right?
Jack: We did.
Ali: Yes.
Austin: Y'all had defeated Genuine Sincere, who had disappeared into a shadowy portal, leaving behind some goons.
Art: That’s probably fine.
Austin: Probably fine.
Dre: Probably fine.
Austin: Your contact in the Valte military and also in a mysterious group called the Luminaries, Commodore Onyx, gave you a final note, being like, “Hey, I have to get out of here, actually.”
Ali: Mm…
Austin: “But here’s a pair of tickets to two potential destinations for you. Pick one, and send back the other one. We can get a refund.” [Dre chuckles] And I think that that’s kind of where we left off. Y'all have, you know, run of the town. No one’s trying to fight you anymore. You know, you have your travel pass and stuff. And I think, without Sincere there, and with the Cheetahs in disarray, the Valte are not— you're not wanted people, in the way that you were when you first got here. But yeah, so that is, I think, where we left off. Any questions or thoughts about our situation?
Jack: We sort of heard about Spillaway Peaks from Genuine Sincere. We heard about it from the goons, who said…
Austin: Oh, right, you're right. You did, yes, yes.
Jack: You know, he sort of had, like, a weird begrudging respect for the Terrapine. He kept saying, like, “Oh, the Terrapine are doing the right thing, you know, as much as you can.”
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jack: And so that’s part of what has drawn us there. Do we have any sort of sense of why we might also be interested in Stitchscore, or is it just Onyx’s letter at this point? 
Austin: I think it was just Onyx’s letter. I mean, Stitchscore is a town famous for its games and contests. It’s a new part of the world. It’s pretty far north from you. You could take the train up there. And it’s close to the Grand Academy of the Collapse, so it would be a sort of nice rest stop there, towards there, which is a place where you could theoretically, you know, do some research about the Perpetuan Cycle or about, you know, the what the “collapse,” quote, unquote, is. 
Jack: [cross] Right, 'cause it’s also worth saying: we don't know—
Austin: [cross] So yeah, I think those are the big things. Also, you could maybe sell that piece that you wanted to get rid of, or I guess you wanted to trade it to Onyx, [Jack: Yeah.] but I think that ended up not happening quite yet, huh?
Jack: No, at the end of his letter, he was like, “Hold onto that piece. Next time we see you, let’s make a deal.”
Austin: Right. Right. That’s right.
Jack: Yeah, it’s worth saying: we don't know where White Lectern is, at this point.
Austin: You sure don't.
Jack: Veile’s goal.
Austin: That’s right.
Jack: Cool. 
Dre: Mm.
Austin: Uh huh.
Jack: Cool. Great. We all leveled.
Austin: Did everybody level?
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Dre: Yes.
Austin: Everybody pick some new stuff up?
Art: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Love that.
Jack: I think there might be some value in, you know, briefly going over what we’ve got, so that it inform our play.
Austin: Yeah, this is the type of game where that is actually very useful, even though…
Jack: I think, in the past, we've said, “We'll know about it when it comes up.”
Austin: “Oh, we'll see it in play,” but there's a lot of strategy in this game.
Ali: Mm.
Jack: There is.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I will start— oh.
Art: All right. It’s most funny if I go first or last, unless…
Jack: I think you should go last. [laughs quietly] 
Art: Okay, great.
Jack: I have a new spell, an offensive spell. It is called Glacies, or— let’s say “glace-eez.” G-L-A-C-I-E-S. “Glace-ee-ays”? I don't know.
Austin: Mm, mm-hmm.
Jack: Remember how Elena just drops an iceberg on everybody, but she can do it, like, one at a time?
Austin: I do know this.
Jack: Glacies lets her do a slightly weaker version of that on up to three people.
Austin: Mm.
Jack: “You coat your foes under a thick layer of frost. Each target hit by this spell suffers high roll plus 15 ice damage, and on an Opportunity, each target hit by this spell suffers slow.”
Austin: Hmm. Okay.
Art: Sick.
Austin: Really good.
Ali: I also got a new offensive spell. I have Omega.
Jack: Uh oh. 
Art: Ooh.
Ali: “You invoke doom on your foe, [Austin: Oh!] turning their strength into frailty. The target loses an amount of Hit Points equal to 20 plus half the target's level.”
Jack: Whoa.
Austin: Wow.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Ali: So, yeah, I think it’s going to be funny the amount of things that I do where that’s going to be, like, 5, until the day that it’s, like, 15, [Jack: Yeah.] and I'm going to be glad to have that spell. [laughs] 
Austin: I mean, even 20 is kind of a lot of damage.
Dre: Yeah.
Ali: I know. That’s why I really wanted to—
Austin: This is the first direct attack damage, right?
Ali: Uh, sort of. Yeah, I have Drain Vigor, and that’s…
Austin: Oh, right, right. You steal health.
Ali: But that’s HR plus 15, which is, yeah.
Austin: That’s also pretty good, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're right.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: This is going to get really strong [Ali: Mm-hmm.] as you level up. This is really fun.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: JRPGs.
Jack: Does the book talk about what doom is, or is that sort of flavor at this point?
Austin: No, that’s…go ahead.
Ali: It’s lowercase D doom, [Jack: Okay.] so I have to think about that myself. [Ali and Dre laugh]
Austin: Yeah. Yeah.
Ali: Can I just read what I said in chat, please?
Austin: Yes.
Ali: Which is, right before we started recording, I said, “I'm torn between evoking doom onto my foe or altering the very nature of my target,” so that’s kind of the world I'm playing with. [Jack chuckles]
Austin: Mm. Mm-hmm. You're the good guys.
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: Mm-hmm!
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Cool.
Art: What are you implying? [Ali laughs]
Austin: Dre.
Dre: Yeah. I didn't take a new skill. I just took my fifth and final level in the Tinkerer skill, Visionary, which is my project boosting skill.
Austin: Mm.
Ali: Ooh.
Dre: So now, whenever I start a new Project, I get 500…what are we calling our money, again?
Ali: [cross] Asta?
Austin: [cross] Asta.
Dre: I get 500 asta of material for free, basically. [Ali gasps]
Austin: That’s great.
Dre: And now I make, instead of one progress a day, I make six progress a day.
Jack: Holy fuck.
Ali: Whoa!
Austin: That’s a lot. Wait, instead of one, you make six?
Dre: Yeah. So, it’s one to start, and then every level of Visionary gives you…
Austin: Oh. Okay.
Dre: It’s basically your base plus SL progress.
Austin: That’s great. 
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Damn. Visionary.
Dre: What this really means for me, play-wise, and a thing we should keep in mind—and I would be curious to get feedback from you all—is that I could basically make stuff for free every time we rest somewhere, [Austin: Mm-hmm.] as long as it’s not too intense.
Ali: I see.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, because, like, 500 SL is a lot for a project.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Or is a big part of a lot of types of projects. You know, you're not going to build an airship for free, but. But…
Dre: No. I looked into that earlier. It’s very expensive. [Jack and Ali chuckle]
Austin: It’s very expensive. It’s very expensive.
Dre: It costs 6000 asta and 60 turns worth of progress.
Ali: Damn!
Austin: Right. But you could build a jetpack.
Art: We have a truck! [Jack chuckles]
Dre: We do have a truck. 
Austin: Right, yeah, put some wings on it.
Ali: I want the truck to fly.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Art: You can't put wings on—
Austin: Okay, well.
Dre: Well.
Art: Where’s the stuff going to go?
Austin: I mean, as an example, a thing you could do is make a one-time-use jetpack for free.
Dre: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Ali: We've discussed this. [laughs] 
Austin: Oh.
Art: Uh huh. And how many one-time-use jetpacks does it take to get the Snail off the ground? [Dre laughs]
Austin: I'm just saying. [Jack chuckles]
Ali: Oh, what if you— instead of making a whole airship, you just made, like, a flying bowl that we, like, drove the Little Snail onto, and then it would be fine, right?
Austin: Ohh. Like in Zeta Gundam, where they have, like, the little [Dre: Mm.] one-use wings that they put the mechs on and fly around on. [Ali laughs]
Dre: I had actually thought about making, like, a one-use hot air balloon attachment.
Austin: That’s great.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: See, these are good thoughts. Consider it.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: All right.
Jack: A bowl that flies that we drive the Little Snail into is me, four hours into Tears of the Kingdom, [Austin: Uh huh.] trying to come up with, like, a flying machine. [Dre laughs]
Austin: That is exactly right. That leaves us with Nicky.
Art: Okay, so. Here’s my new move.
Austin: So, wait, so far. I want to make sure I get everything right, from the lead in.
Art: Yeah, uh huh.
Austin: I just want to make sure we— because we've just talked a little bit.
Art: I think we should. Yeah.
Austin: I just want to make sure we're all on the same page with everything else.
Art: I think that’s the right choice.
Austin: Thank you. I appreciate it. So, just again, we'll work backwards here.
Art: Uh huh, yeah. Have to.
Austin: Jonathan, you are a Visionary. You can make stuff for free. You can make jetpacks for free.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Art: Inspiring.
Austin: Every time you rest, you can make a free one-time-use jetpack. Visionary. 
Dre: That’s what the skill says in the book, yes. [laughs] 
Austin: I mean, I just did, like, a quick little thing.
Dre: [laughing] No, I know. 
Art: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Austin: Elena, you can coat your foes under a thick layer of frost.
Art: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Austin: Which does a ton of ice damage. And on a crit, you slow them.
Art: Yeah, and the other choice was doom.
Austin: Veile is doom. Veile is doom. Yeah.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Art: Oh, yeah, Veile is doom, yeah.
Austin: Uh huh, you doom someone, and the stronger they are, the more damage you do to them.
Ali: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Art: Mm-hmm, yeah.
Austin: Which brings us to you, Nicky.
Art: Okay. You know how when we travel, [Austin: Yeah.] and we make a travel roll, and I used to get two ingredients?
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: Now I get four ingredients.
Jack: Whoa!
Ali: Whoa.
Austin: That’s twice as many.
Ali: Yeah.
Dre: That is twice as many.
Austin: That’s pretty good.
Art: It’s never going to be that good again, because it’s level times two, so if I do it again, it’s only 6. That’s only 50% more.
Jack: It’s never going to be this good again?
Austin: Wait, what do you mean it’s level times two? Oh. So, in other words—
Art: Skill level times two, yeah.
Austin: In terms of the increase, you’re going from two to four, but next time, you'll just go from 4 to—
Art: So that’s double. Next time, it’ll only be a 50% increase, and after that, it’s sort of…
Austin: Four to six.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Six to eight is nothing, effectively. They're basically the same number.
Art: I'm not even sure it goes up that high.
Austin: Oh, I see.
Art: It might cap at six.
Austin: Damn.
Ali: Wait, but it’s skill level times three, so if you go…wait.
Art: Times two.
Austin: Right. So it’s like a bigger— like, you know how the move from the Super Nintendo to the Playstation was huge? [Ali laughs] Or the move from the PS2 to the—
Art: Uh huh.
Ali: But the skill level is 1 right now, or is it 2?
Art: I upped it to 2.
Ali: So when it’s 3, you'll get six.
Austin: Right, but six is only—
Art: Right, but six is not double four.
Ali: Oh, it’s not six plus the two you would have gotten?
Art: No.
Austin: Mm-mm.
Ali: Oh. Okay. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah! Yeah, just to really drive the point home. [Art laughs] What Ali just described is the version—
Ali: Two per upgrade is still great.
Austin: It’s great. You know. But it’s like, if you imagine this is allowance you're getting, you know, and you're like a 10-year-old, and you've gone from a $2 a week allowance to a $4 a week allowance: amazing. A $4 a week allowance to a $6 a week allowance? Okay. A $6 to an $8? I need more money. I need more money.
Ali: I'm an adult. I'll take $8. [Austin and Ali laugh]
Art: Yeah, if you're listening to this, and you're 10 years old, and you're only getting $2 a week, you gotta be doing better. Just tell your parents the guy from the podcast says you need more money.
Austin: Yeah. 
Ali: I'm not complaining.
Austin: I just, you know. I just think, yeah.
Ali: You only have to put a skill point into the machine, and you get two things. Come on, man.
Austin: Yeah, easy to say when you're dooming people. [Ali laughs] All right.
Art: Well, the cooking contest really wiped me out on ingredients, so I need to…
Ali: Mm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Austin: I see. You gotta restock. That’s a good idea. Can you—? You can't buy ingredients, can you? That’s not a skill you have? [laughs] 
Art: I don't think that exists.
Austin: That’s kind of funny, isn't it? That’s like a…
Art: I mean, does it count if you buy them? 
Austin: Well, that's what I'm saying, is it makes the Gourmet feel like there's an ideological component here. Oh! You get them when you rest inside a settlement. Have you rested inside a settlement?
Art: Yeah, but it’s only— that’s not very many. 
Austin: It’s SL ingredients. I see.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Gotcha.
Art: That’s probably buying.
Austin: That is buying, but it’s, like, buying at a rate that’s so easy to get that they don't even count the money. You're not spending money to do it. That’s very funny.
Art: Well, I'm getting it wholesale.
Austin: That makes sense. Yeah. [amused] Okay.
Beach [0:21:13]
Austin: What’s up? Where are we at? What’s the play? What are y'all up to today? Where do we come in on the Little Snail? Is it a beautiful bright morning? Is it an evening dinner service? Are you out shopping? Are you catching up with a friend? Like, what’s the vibe?
Ali: Yeah, I'm kind of curious, because it feels like, we go back into the city, we're probably not going back to that hotel, right? The jail hotel that the government gave us is probably not where we're going. [laughs]
Austin: You're probably not.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: You’d previously been staying with the Balustrade family.
Ali: Right.
Austin: But Nicky seems to know some people here too.
Ali: Right. I feel like my vision of where we are is we probably, like, immediately went back to the Little Snail, made sure it wasn't, like, tagged or robbed or anything. [laughs] 
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ali: And then, like, drove it a little bit outside of the city to do, like, a camping on the beach sort of situation?
Austin: Oh, that’s fun. I like that.
Dre: Mm.
Ali: Do people like that?
Dre: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: I like that also because I bet there's different people at the outside beach than the inside beach.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: You know, Roseshore is kind of, like, a little fancy, and also the Buzzard Black is right there, and so I had already imagined this was, like, a beach tag style beach. Do y'all know what beach tags are?
Jack: No.
Dre: No.
Austin: Have you ever dealt with beach tags?
Dre: No.
Ali: Oh, where you have to, like, show your ID or get, like, a little permission slip?
Austin: Yeah. The way that worked for the beaches near me growing up was they were like little… [sighs] almost like, you know a bread, the little thing that goes on the end of a bag of bread to keep it closed, like the little plastic clip?
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: Imagine them about that shape but, like, a little bit bigger, that has like a safety pin back on it, like a pin back that you'd pin to, like, your trunks or your shirt or your towel or something, to prove— 
Dre: Oh.
Austin: It would have, like, a stamp on it that had, like, dates. Like, okay, this is for the summer of 2025. It would have, like, an ID code on it. And you had to, like, pay the city however many dollars to get the tag so that you could go use their beaches, basically. And I imagine—
Art: Horseshit! The beach belongs to the people.
Austin: You know, as Pokémon Dark Rising said, the garden is for everyone, and I believe that with my whole heart, and I think it’s fucked up.
Jack: It’s grotesque.
Austin: It’s grotesque. And so I think the beach just outside of the city [Jack chuckles] is probably for the people who are like, “Hey, fuck off. [laughs quietly] We are not spending money to go to the beach. We're going to the free beach where regular people go.” And I bet those are the people who— and I bet you're camping out closer to that type of beach, and so maybe you're getting, like, some people are coming by just for some, like, late night hot dogs.
Ali: Ohh.
Austin: You know what I mean? Or some, like, on the way out, you're getting a like dessert treat or whatever. Way less pompous visitors.
Ali: Do we have an ice cream machine? How do you make that in this world? [laughs quietly] Elena!
Austin: Well, ice cream exists.
Jack: Glacies.
Ali: Elena!
Austin: Oh, right, Elena! [Ali and Austin laugh]
Dre: That’s true.
Austin: Yeah, wait, what’s that move say, again? Can you make ice cream with it?
Jack: Uh, yeah, it says, “One delicious gelato created by your skillful spellcraft.” [Ali laughs]
Austin: Ohh.
Dre: Ohh.
Jack: No. It says I can coat people under a thick layer of frost. So I think I can absolutely make gelato.
Austin: Yeah. At least you can do shaved ice or, like, Italian water ice or something.
Ali: Yeah!
Jack: Well, this is like a Rillspur delicacy, right?
Austin: Right, right, yeah. Also, we know ice cream exists, because Jimmy Cone and Johnny Cakes exist from the other side of the game.
Ali: Okay, man. [Ali and Jack laugh]
Austin: The dessert empire that they had to deal with. 
Jack: Every time I hear about what is going on on the other side of the game, [Austin laughs quietly] it’s either they've gotten stuck in Honey and Darling’s minigame emporium or they're, like, deep in existential terror because they looked into a mirror for one and a half seconds.
Austin: I mean, it’s sort of like that, yeah.
Ali: It’s incredible.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: Are we purposely doing a backwards Realis? [Jack laughs]
Austin: A little bit. You know, I haven't said it explicitly. This is actually not a backwards Realis, but like, Realis, I really wanted the two sides to feel very distinct and different.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: And that’s true here, but I'm also thinking a lot about these two campaigns as being two different discs or two different campaigns that you might play in a PS1 or Dreamcast era JRPG.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: In the way that, like, you could play the Chris or the Jill Resident Evil 1 campaign or the Claire or the Leon Resident Evil 2 scenario.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: And so I have, like, very— like, you are at the beach at the same time on purpose, you know?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: You've dealt with a lot of, like similar…similar in vibe, or similar on paper but different in vibe things. You've both dealt with, like, weird fire around the same time. That’s, like, a very conscious thing happening.
Jack: There's a bit of the “playing The Shining backwards at the same time as you play it forwards.”
Austin: That’s right. 
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh. Yeah.
Ali: My touchstone for this would the Threads of Fate, where you're playing as Rue and Mint.
Austin: Right. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Ali: In one of those, you're, like, trying to get your throne back, and you're like a bratty girl, and the other one, you're like a mysterious guy, and your friend died, and you have to investigate it, and you meet like a wolf guy.
Austin: This is the vibe.
Ali: Great game.
Austin: Great game. [Ali laughs] All right. So, you're out on the beach. You're serving shaved ice. You're serving Rillspur shaved ice, a delicacy in this time. It’s very funny; I think when we first got to Calstega Bay, it was not yet the summer in real life, and now we've probably moved through ice cream time in real life, and—
Ali: Ohh.
Dre: Never. [Ali giggles]
Austin: You know, the— well, yeah, good. That’s true.
Art: Yeah. Hey, Austin, fuck off.
Austin: You live in LA! You live in the place where it’s always nice and hot.
Art: It’s always ice cream time. That’s what we say over here. [Dre and Austin chuckle]
Austin: That’s right. So, yeah. Any— what are y'all talking about? What are you getting up to here?
Dre: Oh. I mean, I'm doing training exercises with my new mechanical friend.
Austin: Oh. Fuck. I forgot about FLEGbot.
Dre: About the FLEGbot? Yeah. It’s real. It’s here.
Austin: What type of training are you doing?
Dre: Um…hmm. I'm teaching it only to steal when I tell it to. So I'm doing, like, a weird Simon Says game.
Austin: Okay, well, what’s that look like?
Dre: Um…hmm.
Austin: Do you have a hand signal?
Dre: Oh, yeah, that’s good. Maybe it’s also like what you can steal, so like…
Austin: That’s great.
Dre: Actually, I'm having it watch an instructional video on how shops work.
Austin: Wait, y'all have a video, a VHS in there? I guess so.
Dre: You know, I probably have some sort of overhead projector or something.
Austin: A projector. Yeah, that makes sense. With like a running, like a film projector.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Has that great film projector [imitates film spinning] sound.
Dre: Yeah, totally. Mm-hmm.
Austin: What type of thing? Give me one thing that it’s allowed to steal.
Dre: Oh, good question. Um…secret books.
Austin (as FLEGbot): [robotic] Square things. I steal square things.
Dre (as Jonathan): What?
Austin (as FLEGbot): Squares. All square things.
Dre (as Jonathan): No. 
Austin (as FLEGbot): Paper. Paper paper paper.
Dre (as Jonathan): Okay, you're getting better. But you gotta be careful, because if you steal the wax paper out of the kitchen…
Austin (as FLEGbot): The Constitution!
Dre (as Jonathan): Okay. well, now you're getting somewhere. Okay, okay! You're learning.
Austin: And so on. [Dre laughs quietly] That’s—
Dre: Is there a constitution? [laughs] 
Austin: Uh, there's probably some sort of—
Dre: Somewhere has a constitution, yeah.
Austin: I mean, in Calstega Bay, there probably is, right? Explicitly a republic, explicitly. There's probably some sort of founding document from after they kicked the Sonnerian government out, so. They had something in there.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: So, that’s what you're up to. Presumably Elena is helping make ices. Veile and Jonathan? Or, sorry, Veile and Nicky?
Ali: I think I'm serving the ice, the icees.
Austin: The icees, yeah.
Art: Yeah, and I think that Nicky is making the syrup?
Austin: Oh, it’s like ice with syrup on them.
Art: What makes it…? I don't know how to make this in real life, so it’s a little tricky, but.
Austin: It is sounding a little like kakigōri, which is really good, which is like a Japanese ice with a syrup and condensed milk.
Art: Sure.
Austin: Which is really good.
Art: Nicky condensing the milk over here. 
Austin: [chuckles] That’s right.
Art: Taking some milk and pushing it real hard.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Art: That’s how that is made.
Austin: Totally. All right, well, you know, I'm not interrupting this. This is a safe moment. This is a hangout moment. No one’s going to come up and try to rob you or anything, so.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: Happy to just give you the space here, and if not, if you don't need to do anything, then we can advance and see about getting going towards one of these destinations.
Jack: We're picking up with all our— except IP, we're picking up with all our stuff better.
Austin: No.
Jack: We've not had a chance to heal?
Austin: That’s an action that you take, remember? You have to, like, do a Rest action.
Dre: Yeah, you have to do a Rest.
Jack: Oh, right, sorry. I didn't know if that was, like, implied between arcs.
Austin: Never.
Jack: Okay. [laughs quietly] 
Austin: No, we haven't done— like, you know. Arcs don't exist in most games. We do arcs. [Dre chuckles] And games where they do exist, kind of like heists or jobs in something like Forged in the Dark games, they have an explicit downtime, you know, phase.
Jack: Right. 
Austin: This game doesn't have that.
Jack: Yeah, once you get out of downtime, you…
Austin: Right. Or the closest thing to it is, like, do you want to rest? You know. 
Jack: Yeah. I mean, would we be interested in resting before we depart? I think it would be a good idea, given that I have 20 health, which is at Crisis, [Dre: Yeah.] because I think I got shot in the head. [Austin chuckles] 
Dre: Yeah, we should probably rest, then.
Austin: You should probably rest. Yeah.
Art: Yes. Now that you mention it, do I have 7 HP? Is that…?
Jack: I think you do, yes. [Austin sighs]
Dre: That seems bad. 
Jack: [chuckles] I'm glad I checked.
Austin: I'm glad everybody leveled up but did not look and see if they were dying or not.
Jack: Oh, I knew I was dying. I thought we’d begin and be like, “Off we go.”
Austin: Mm, mm-hmm. 
Jack: “Time to heal up.” [Dre and Jack laugh]
Ali: I have all my things restored, 'cause god loves me, still, sort of. [Jack laughs]
Dre: Sort of. Enough.
Austin: Wait, is that true? Wait, what’s that from?
Ali: “You acted in accordance to the prophecy.”
Austin: Right.
Ali: “Fully restore your Hit Points and Mind Points and recover all status effects.”
Austin: It’s pretty good.
Jack: Jesus christ. Wow.
Austin: Y'all should get that.
Ali: [laughs quietly] You should get a glorious fate.
Austin: You should get a glorious fate.
Jack: We should get a glorious fate.
Art: No. That's a trap. I'm not doing it. [Ali and Jack laugh]
Austin: Mm, mm-hmm.
Art: That’s going to be bad, and I'm going to be…
Ali: Isn't it debatable that we all have a glorious fate?
Austin: Ah. It’s so funny.
Ali: Isn't that, like, one of the big discussions in the Luminaries?
Dre: Mm.
Austin: Well, I will tell you. [Ali laughs] I will tell you. There are fates, and there are fates, and there are differences in where that comes from and who has chosen you for what.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: I think that you— that is a thing worth narratively investigating.
Ali: Hey, can I [mumbles]?
Jack: How can I get all my health?
Austin: Sorry, say that again? 
Ali: [laughs quietly] I was going to say, “Hey, can I get some doom real quick?”
Austin: I, you know. [Ali and Jack laugh] Okay.
Rest [0:32:37]
Jack: Big bonfire. Big beach bonfire.
Austin: Yeah, I love it. And you're resting in the bonfire. I think this is…
Art: We're not resting in the bonfire. I'm not falling for that trick.
Austin: [laughs] Gotcha!
Art: Gotcha! You all burn to death.
Austin: We're playing Outward; when we try to rest too close to the fire to, like, stay warm, but it’s like, “No, you will melt if you try to sleep for eight hours next to this campfire.” [Jack laughs] I think this is technically resting in the wilderness, but one, you're close enough. You know, the text of the book says, “when far away from the safety of cities and villages, traveling on the road, or exploring a ruin.” You're technically traveling on the road, but you're not far away from the safety of cities and villages. And I would say that you're probably in what the book describes as an armored transport. I don't think this is actually an armored transport. I think actually on the road, the Little Snail is not that, but in conjunction with the proximity to the town, you know, at the very least, you could go park somewhere and rest in front of guards, you know?
Jack: Right.
Austin: I think that you'd be okay. So. All right. Let’s do a rest. When you do a rest, you recover all of your Hit Points and Mind Points. You recover from all status effects. And, as always, you get to do both a Camp Action and also you can do the Bond and Resting scenes. Create a new Bond towards—
Art: Oh, and I have all my silly junk.
Austin: You have all your silly junk. You can create a new Bond towards someone or something. You can add a new emotion to an existing Bond. You can erase an emotion from an existing Bond and replace it with a different one. And then, yes, you all have, somewhere in your sheets, your Camping Actions, I believe is what they're called. Something like that, right?
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I was looking for them in the handouts.
Austin: No, that’s not— they're on your sheets, 'cause you have them.
Ali: Yeah.
Art: Is it? Are you sure it’s not in the book?
Austin: If you didn't write them down, then they're just in the book, but.
Ali: You might have written them down in your Journal or in Extra?
Austin: I would suggest Journal or Extra.
Jack: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dre: Yeah, I put them in my journal. Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, 'cause they're not— they're per character. You've picked some special ones out.
Art: Okay.
Austin: Yes.
Art: Well, I have them. I didn't define them.
Jack: Yep. I got them.
Austin: And I believe you each get— I'll double check the Natural Fantasy atlas, but I believe you each get to do one of them.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Art: I get to do two.
Austin: And I think you can do that— okay, right, yes.
Art: Because of Big Bro.
Austin: That’s right.
Art: And I also get a third one, and I didn't write them down. I mean, I have them, but I don't have what they do.
Austin: And I think it’s either the Bond thing— no. Whether they perform a Camp Activity or not, you may still use it to adjust their Bonds. So you can do one of these and adjust your Bond. Bonds. Who wants to do one?
Veile [0:35:24]
Ali: I think mine is pretty straightforward. I am going to Daydream, which is: “Once before the next rest, when you lose Hit Points for whatever reason, you may choose to halve that HP loss.”
Austin: Love it.
Ali: We're on a beach. I can wistfully stare at the waves for a little bit. This is… [laughs quietly] 
Austin: Hell yeah.
Ali: People do this everyday, you know?
Austin: What are you daydreaming about?
Ali: You know…
Austin: Is this the first time you've been at the ocean since— I mean, obviously you were briefly there and above it and stuff inside of Calstega, but since leaving your home village?
Ali: I think so, probably.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: It’s been a lot of, like, inland stuff going on.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: It’s probably nice.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Probably thinking about being alone on a boat somewhere. [laughs] 
Austin: It’s a calmer waters here, is what I'll say.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: You know, Salann is off the western shore of Tidaline, and it has that kind of rapid— you know, the immediate shore isn't so bad, but like, off in the distance, it gets bad. Whereas, here, because you're at the bay across from Spillaway Peaks, that kind of northern part, if I bring you back over to the actual world map.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: That sort of, like, going north is not as— it’s kind of a pretty quiet little bit there, so.
Ali: Yeah, that tracks, 'cause I've been thinking of Salann as, like, cliffier.
Austin: Yeah. I think that makes perfect sense to me.
Ali: Than, like, sitting on the beach and it’s a beautiful day and, like, daydreaming. [laughs quietly] 
Austin: Yeah. Totally. 
Ali: And then, I think for my Bonds…let me actually go to my Bonds. Is that under Meta or—? No. Yes.
Austin: What do you currently have for Bonds?
Ali: My current Bonds. I have four Bonds, which I think is my max. I still have a Bond of inferiority with Vinnor Jekk.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Ali: The semi-late Vinnor Jekk. [laughs] 
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Ali: I have a Bond of admiration with Jonathan. I also have a Bond of inferiority with Nicky, and I have a Bond of admiration with Elena. And our options are admiration…
Austin: Sorry, I was checking to see if there is a max, but yeah, it’s either…there’s like a trio of them, right? It’s not superiority and inferiority. It’s…
Ali: Inferiority and admiration, [Austin: Right.] loyalty and mistrust, and affection and hatred.
Austin: There we go. And you can add some additional ones to any of those. As a reminder, one of the ways that you use this is that you can spend a Fabula Point to immediately add that number to a roll, basically. You can invoke a Bond to just add a 1—or, once you do this, a 2—to a roll that’s related to that person, you know?
Ali: Uh huh. I think I'm going to add—
Austin: Or you can adjust, is the other one. You can switch the thing.
Ali: Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that I'm going to add a Bond of loyalty with my relationship with Jonathan?
Austin: Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Admiration and loyalty.
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like in most situations, especially the one last time when Veile was like, “We're not going to kill this guy, right?” [laughs] 
Austin: Sure. Right.
Ali: Jonathan has both, like, been willing to, like, reason with her about it [Austin: Mm-hmm.] and also has sort of been, like, the de facto leader.
Austin: I like it.
Ali: So.
Austin: Yeah. All right. Who’s next?
Elena [0:38:57]
Jack: I am also daydreaming.
Austin: Same place? Different place?
Jack: Different place, further down the beach.
Austin: Mm.
Jack: Standing on, like, tide pools, like the rocks with tide pools around. And like, crouching down and looking into the tide pool but kind of idly.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: You know, I think I was probably there to be like, “I'm going to see if I can find some cool crabs and anemones,” but what I'm actually doing is just poking my finger into the water while I'm actually thinking about what I'm thinking about, which is, like, the destruction of my enemies. [laughs] [Ali snorts]
Austin: Right. Right, yeah, of course.
Jack: This is, like, vindictive angry daydreaming. You know, where you're like, “And then, one day, they'll all say that I was right, or I'll be proved right. Even better. They won't just say I'm right. The sort of facts of the world will come out and show that I'm right. [Austin chuckles] You know, people like Genuine are so ready to give up. Not only are they ready to give up, they're actively telling people, you know, not to fight this, you know? But they'll all see.” You know.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jack: “You gotta fight for it.” Me, looking down at four crabs. [Ali and Jack laugh quietly]
Austin: The crabs are fighting for life everyday. They never give up. You know?
Ali: True, yeah.
Jack: But also, it’s like, I think that thing where she’s looking at the beaty of a tide pool, and she’s thinking, “What a beautiful little universe in and of itself, [Austin: Mm.] and it manages to stay protected when the water comes in,” and there's a kind of poetry to it, but the thing she’s feeling in her heart is like, “I'm going to fucking show them,” you know? [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah. And then what are you doing with your Bonds?
Jack: I would like to take a Bond of admiration for Nicky, the way he stood up to Genuine, the way he kind of had, like, it felt like— I think Elena realizes that there's something kind of pathetic in her, like, flopping and flailing angrily. And I think when she looks at Nicky, she can be like, “Now, that’s someone who feels what he feels strongly and has values.” [Jack and Austin laugh] 
Austin: All right. That’s two different admiration/loyalty Bonds with Nicky now, I think, right? Or, Veile, are you—
Ali: Mine is with Jonathan.
Austin: Oh, yours is Jonathan. Right, right, right. Yes, okay. 
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Interesting. An interesting split, then.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: All right. Jonathan or Nicky.
Art: I can go.
Dre: Yeah, go ahead. I'm looking through things right now.
Nicky [0:41:20]
Art: I will start. I get two, and I will start with Gathering.
Austin: Oh, okay. How’s that work?
Jack: Here we go! [Dre chuckles]
Art: I get to roll 1d6.
Austin: Uh huh. What happens?
Art: And I either get some ingredients [Austin: Yeah?] or something bad happens, like last time.
Austin: Like last time. At least this time we're not in a place where it’s weird that it would happen here. 
Art: Uh huh.
Austin: Oh my god!
Art: Fucking son of a fucking—! [laughter] 
Dre: Oh boy.
Art: Oh my god!
Dre: Oh boy. [someone claps]
Austin: All right, well, let’s pause on that one. That’s a 1.
Ali: Wait.
Austin: Uh huh?
Art: Yeah, 'cause it says, “At the end of this rest, the entire group will be caught in an easy Conflict.”
Austin: Yes.
Ali: Can I—?
Austin: Uh huh? 
Ali: [dismayed] Oh, it says the entire group.
Austin: You can't, 'cause it’s not a skill roll. You can't do it. We went through this already once!
Ali: I was like, I was going to be like, “This might be a rude suggestion, but I had a conversation with Austin on Gathering Information—friendsatthetable.cash, by the way—where combat is scaled to how many people are in the fight, and like, wouldn't it be great if Nicky could just have this one-on-one, like a side quest.”
Austin: He would lose!
Ali: But it says the entire group! I think he wouldn't lose.
Austin: He might. One-on-one? It’s always so risky in this game. You're right; an easy conflict, maybe not, you know? But.
Ali: Yeah, 'cause wouldn't the fight be scaled to one person? I don't know.
Austin: It would. It would. It would. But this is not that. This is the entire group. It literally does say: [Ali groans, laughs] entire group; level is equal to the group level. Wild. Okay. Let’s wrap back around.
Jack: Beach bonfire outside the town.
Art: Well, and I'm going to use my other one to sleep soundly.
Ali: Hell yeah, brother. [laughter] 
Austin: Hell yeah, brother! What’s that do?
Dre: Makes sense. Makes sense.
Art: “Once before the next rest, you may perform an additional action on your turn during a Conflict Scene.” [Ali laughs quietly] 
Austin: [quietly] Oh my god.
Art: “This action must be used to perform Equipment, Hinder, or Inventory action.”
Austin: Okay. Cool.
Jack: Do you dream?
Austin: Yeah, what do you dream about?
Art: No, I sleep soundly.
Austin: Or do you sleep so soundly you're not dreaming? Not even happy dreams, huh?
Art: No, I'm sleeping soundly.
Austin: Huh. Interesting.
Jack: “That’s how it’s done,” thinks Elena, looking down at her admiration bond. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah. Great.
Art: You know, I am also taking admiration with Elena, [Austin: Hmm.] because I really liked the ice making.
Jack: Oh.
Austin: I love that.
Art: That was very fun, [Austin: Yeah.] and I admire that skill.
Jack: Wow.
Austin: That’s good. That's good. Okay. Jonathan.
Jonathan [0:43:38]
Dre: Yes. So, first I wanted to ask: is this a place where I could count this as end of day and I could start a project going?
Austin: You sure could.
Dre: Okay. I would like to pitch a project that I'm calling the Horn of Honesty.
Austin: [confused] Okay.
Dre: By “horn,” I mean like an instrument.
Austin: Sure.
Dre: I'm thinking— well, I'll just tell you what it does, and then we can work through it.
Austin: Yeah, let’s talk through it.
Dre: If someone blows this horn, the next time they lie in the horn’s presence, it will play one note.
Austin: Is it—
Jack: Wait, so—
Art: That note is: bwaaaah. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack: The next time the person who blew the horn lies?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Ali: Wait.
Jack: Well, how do we get our foes to blow the horn?
Dre: Well, yeah, that’s the tricky part, isn't it?
Jack: So, let— okay, can you describe a use case? 
Art: “Hey, you wanna blow this horn?” [Dre and Jack laugh]
Jack: Dre is inventing Nen Conditions here.
Dre: Yeah. [laughs] 
Austin: A little bit.
Ali: Wait, are you not able to do it the other way?
Austin: Wait, what’s the other way?
Ali: Where you blow it, and then if you hear a lie, it toots?
Dre: Mm. [Jack chuckles]
Art: That doesn't make any sense. [Ali laughs]
Ali: [sarcastic] Okay, yeah, it totally makes more sense the other way. [Ali and Art laugh]
Austin: I need to know— okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. First of all, I need to understand how this even functions.
Dre: Like, mechanically?
Austin: Literally.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: Because that, to me, sounds like what you're talking about is…
Dre: I guess is that more enchantment than…?
Austin: Enchantment.
Dre: Yeah, okay.
Austin: I mean, I don't know that the Tinkerer can't do that, but so far, what are the things that you've made so far?
Dre: Just the FLEGbot, actually.
Austin: Not true. Not true, 'cause you make guns and grenades.
Dre: Oh, that’s true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: And the Little Snail. But across all of those things, they seem pretty mechanical.
Dre: Yeah, you're right. You're right.
Ali: Didn't you also make a giant Bloodborne weapon? Like, that’s…
Austin: That was with a person.
Dre: Yeah, somebody else helped me.
Austin: Somebody else did that.
Ali: Okay. Okay, nevermind. 
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: But that’s my point. Even that is similar, in that it’s a mechanism, [Dre: Mm.] not a Zone of Truth spell.
Dre: That’s true.
Austin: I guess here’s— the thing that I would say is: whatever you make, someone else who’s a Tinkerer should be able to make it in this world.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: And maybe that’s true about Tinkerers. We just need to make that decision.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: You know, certainly the Calstega Bay, the Manakin are a blend of magic and technology, as explicitly described in their, you know, strategy guide description or whatever. So, maybe it is possible, but I'd like to know what that is, to some degree.
Dre: Sure.
Austin: And also, we could also bracket that until we work out exactly what it is doing mechanically.
Dre: Yeah, let’s bracket it for now.
Austin: Okay. So, is it a truth—
Dre: Let’s do this.
Austin: Yes.
Dre: Let’s scrap that for now.
Austin: Okay. I gotcha.
Dre: Just 'cause I don't want to spend a lot of time working through it. 
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: And this will still be fun anyway. I'm going to just— hey, why don't I build a prototype jetpack?
Jack: Oh my god, yes!
Ali: Mm.
Austin: There it is. There it is.
Dre: Except I'm calling these Leafwings.
Austin: I love it. Oh, and you got those sort of, temporarily. Remember that? From the Valte. 
Dre: Oh!
Austin: So you had recent experience with winged, you know, flyers and gliders.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: But those, I think, could only glide you…the ones that you were given helped glide, could glide you down or across a place, but you didn't get to, like, self-propel the way [Dre: Yeah.] I think Genuine or one of the Cheetahs was able to do that for a little bit. So you had, like, firsthand experience with someone building stuff or seeing this stuff.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: I love it. So this is a project.
Dre: Yes. They are going to be one time use. The, like, flavor text reason for that is that the leaves get blown off from the branches while you use it.
Austin: That’s very fun. Do you just have, like…? [laughs quietly] Do you go get leaves, or do you have, like, a collection of materials including some leaves nearby?
Dre: I mean, I definitely have, like, a collection of materials.
Austin: That's very funny.
Dre: I'm thinking, lorewise, that’s what it looks like as Jonathan levels up the Tinkerer skill that gives you, like, the free materials.
Austin: [sighs] That’s good.
Dre: I'm just imagining that, like, his pile of, ah, leftover materials just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Austin: I love it. All right, so, area, potency, uses. Area is— or I guess potency is listed first here.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: It’s major. 
Dre: Yeah, it’s major. Yep.
Austin: Fly is the first thing listed under major. Area: individual, so it’s only a 1x multiplier. And uses is consumable, so that’s a one time.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: So that’s 400 zenit is the cost. You pay that immediately for free, using Visionary.
Dre: Yep. Mm-hmm.
Austin: Right?
Dre: Yep.
Austin: You don't need a terrible flaw.
Dre: No.
Austin: You must reach an amount of progress equal to one for every 100 zenit of material cost, so that’s four you need, because it’s 400 zenit or 400 asta, but that’s covered by your plus six per day?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: So you just get it overnight. You just make one free consumable jetpack.
Ali: Damn, you're locked in.
Austin: Sorry, leafwing.
Dre: Leafwings, yeah.
Austin: Free leafwings. And that gives you the ability to fly, we're going to say, once, and once means one scene of flight.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Which I think can mean both combat scenes, could give you the flying trait, [Ali gasps] or narratively, or both, you know?
Ali: Whoa.
Austin: That make sense?
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: All right. I love it.
Ali: Flying just seems OP as fuck, so. [laughs] 
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Ali: You can keep making those.
Austin: It’s pretty good. All right.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: And your Bond.
Dre: Yeah. I'm going to add a…I think I'm also going to add a Bond of affection for Veile.
Ali: Aww.
Austin: Love it.
Jack: It’s very difficult to target flying enemies, right?
Austin: You just used a ranged attack. Or a spell.
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: Okay, but if you don't have a ranged attack, if enemies come…
Ali: Yeah.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: That’s right.
Ali: We've run into that, yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Austin: Yes. Totally.
Jack: Okay. Okay. Good.
Austin: I will say: probably worth saying, many/most enemies seem to have a ranged attack.
Jack: Okay. [Ali chuckles]
Austin: When you make an enemy in this game, it doesn't cost you anything to add basic attacks of either type. So, generally speaking, with rare exception but some exception, enemies often have, like, Throw Rock or something, you know?
Jack: Right, right, right.
Austin: So.
Jack: But if we found a spell down the line that was something like, “disable enemy’s ranged attacks.”
Austin: 100%.
Jack: We could position Elena in the sky like a cheating engineer’s turret in Team Fortress 2, and…
Austin: That’s right. Yes.
Ali: Correct me on this if I'm wrong, but spells don't count as ranged attacks.
Austin: Spells can hit flying targets.
Ali: Oh. Okay.
Austin: Flying targets cannot be hit by melee attacks.
Ali: Okay. I probably just never had offensive spells at the time.
Art: Flying enemies cannot be hit by me.
Ali: Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. [Dre laughs]
Austin: That’s exactly right, yeah.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Yes. So, yes.
Ali: We should get you a second hand weapon, Nicky.
Art: Sure, yeah.
Ali: Your ranged off hand.
Jack: Did Jonathan take a campfire action as well?
Dre: Oh, you know what? No, I didn't. My campfire action is actually not something I do here. It’s the next time we make a— let me find it. It’s the next time we make a travel roll, I can reroll it, basically. 
Austin: Oh.
Dre: Cartographer: “Once before [Austin: Gotcha.] the next rest, after your group makes a travel roll, you may reroll the die and keep the new result.
Austin: Cool.
Ali: Ooh.
Austin: That’s a good one. 
Conflict [0:51:14]
Austin: All right, well, where are you getting your— are you fishing out here? 
Art: Yeah, I was imagining, like, a fishing situation, or like a looking for…what do you call those? Like shellfish, like clams and stuff in the sand? Stuff like that.
Austin: Like a cage? Like a— oh, yeah, sure, like you're digging stuff up. Sure. 
Art: Whatever fits with what you've got here.
Austin: I think fishing. I think fishing is fun. You know.
Art: All right.
Austin: Or, like, spear fishing. You have that spear, right?
Art: Uh huh, yeah.
Austin: So maybe, like, tossing the spear into the water and, you know, hauling stuff out. And I think you get a few things. Wait, do you not get to even get ingredients?
Art: I do not get ingredients with a 1, no.
Austin: Oh my god. [Ali gasps] All right. The insult to injury.
Art: I feel pretty insulted.
Austin: Yeah. You feel something pulling you forward, almost. You know, it’s like, there's a strong pull in the other direction. And not wanting to lose your spear, you give it all you got, and you yank out what looks like a pair of floating jellyfish that are tied up with some, like, kelp or some seaweed, basically. And they, you know, turn from looking kind of bluish to looking kind of glowy with an orange-yellow light, indicating that they are very angry. And they want to eat you. That is their intention.
Jack: Eat?
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Or kill?
Austin: Eat.
Jack: Okay.
Austin: You thought you were fishing. They were fishing.
Dre: Mm.
Jack: For man.
Austin: That’s right.
Ali: Life’s like that, man.
Austin: Life is like that, man. [laughter] All right. Conflict scenes.
Art: Well. They want to eat the whole, all of…?
Austin: Just you.
Ali: They'll take a chomp out of whoever’s here, right?
Art: Well, can we like, negotia—? It’s like, take a big chomp?
Austin: They are not a negotia— no. They want to eat all of you, but they don't want to eat all of the group. They want to eat all of Nicky.
Ali: Oh.
Art: I got you, yeah.
Austin: Okay. I want to make sure. All of you, not all of you. You know?
Art: Oh, yeah.
Austin: But, like, most of you. Maybe they— no, I think that they would even take the bones, you know?
Dre: Hmm.
Ali: [laughs quietly] [makes gnawing sound]
Austin: Yeah, exactly. [laughs quietly] I think it’s more of like a dissolving in the gross gut biome of these floating jellyfish.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: All right. We need a— what is your goal? Your goal is here to…win the fight, but discuss the goals of each participant. They want to eat you. What are your goals?
Ali: Query.
Austin: Yes.
Ali: [laughs quietly] Can we— because we get loot after fights, right?
Austin: True. Yeah.
Ali: So can Jonathan still get ingredients out of these guys if we kill them?
Austin: You mean Nicky? Yeah. Yes.
Ali: Yeah, sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Austin: Listen, I can't blame you. I do it all the time. [Ali laughs] Yeah, Nicky could totally get ingredients out of. Each of these guys would be an ingredient, absolutely.
Ali: Okay. Okay, okay.
Austin: Is that your goal?
Art: Fish jelly.
Austin: Fish jelly. Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah.
Art: Yeah, get some fish jelly.
Austin: All right. 
Initiative [0:54:18]
Austin: Player characters perform a DEX plus Insight Initiative Group Check to determine which side acts first. The difficulty is, of course, their highest Initiative, so. And their highest Initiative is 9.
Ali: [laughing] Jesus christ.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: That’s not that high.
Art: Yeah, that’s not that high.
Ali: Is it?
Austin: No. You're good.
Ali: I thought our highest over here was a +1.
Austin: Yeah, but you're rolling a bunch of dice. You're doing a Group Check.
Dre: Yeah.
Ali: Oh, we have to get above 9. Okay.
Austin: That’s right. 9 or above.
Ali: I'm playing this game again. Yep.
Austin: Yeah. [Ali laughs] Yeah, it’s been a minute. It’s fair. It’s fair.
Jack: Okay. I'm going to roll to support. I should not lead, because my Initiative is -2.
Austin: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Dre: Yeah. Same for me. Mine’s -4.
Ali: [laughs quietly] Jesus.
Art: Mine’s -1.
Ali: I'm a +1, so I'll…
Austin: You'll be leading.
Art: All right.
Ali (as Veile): Everyone!
Austin: Everybody else goes first. Everyone else goes first.
Jack: I rolled a 7.
Art: This is DEX and Insight, right?
Dre: Oh, I rolled a 2.
Austin: It is DEX and Insight. You need a 10 to succeed, right? All right, so no one’s giving a plus here. [laughs quietly] 
Ali: Let’s just…
Art: Oh, is that supposed to be with the minus?
Austin: Ayy!
Ali: 10, baby.
Austin: Yeah, it’s supposed to be with the minus, but it doesn't matter, because you wouldn't have gotten it.
Art: Well, then mine was a 7. It doesn't… [Ali laughs quietly]
Austin: Anyway, Veile, you have secured Initiative for the crew. 
[“To Arms! (Fields Combat Begins)” by Jack de Quidt plays]
Ali (as Veile): Everyone, get back! They're dangerous.
Art (as Nicky): Ohhh. [Ali and Austin laugh]
Austin: Wow! Damn.
Jack: Bonfire visible through the jellyfish. [Ali laughs] People eating their gelato with a little, you know, wooden spoon at a safe distance; watching like, “Are they going to get eaten by jellyfish?”
Austin: Oh yeah, those people all fucking flee at this point, I think.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: Anyone who is left behind at the point in which you—
Art: Oh, so these jellyfish are also costing us money.
Austin: That’s right. Yes. [Ali laughs] All right. So, yeah. You have a pair of jellyfish caught up in some seaweed, floating around. It’s almost like they're linked by the seaweed, you know what I mean? Like, they're floating around, but the seaweed is dangling between them.
Ali: And we get first hit. 
Austin: You get first move, yeah.
Ali: And there's how many?
Austin: There are two jellyfish.
Ali: Okay. Okay. So, we get two moves at the end.
Austin: There are two jellyfish. [Art laughs quietly] 
Ali: [defensively] I'm just reminding everybody.
Jack: All the information’s on the task. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Yeah, well, also sometimes some enemies get more than one move, right?
Austin: This is true.
Ali: Uh huh.
Dre: Yeah.
Jack: Okay.
Round One [0:56:47]
Austin: So, who goes first?
Jack: I'm going to put Barrier on everybody.
Austin: I love that. 
Ali: Whoa.
Art: Great.
Jack: This is so repetitive that it almost seems dull, but it is tactically useful.
Austin: Yes.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I am going to target me, Veile, and Jonathan, right?
Art: I think that’s right.
Dre: Sure.
Jack: And this means that we treat our Defense score as 12. This costs me 15 mana.
Austin: All right.
Art: Oh, wait. No, you should definitely include me.
Austin: Something changed.
Jack: Jonathan, what’s your Defense?
Art: My Defenses are 9 and 7, because I'm now wearing this Inventor’s Garb.
Austin: That’s right.
Jack: Okay.
Dre: You also don't have to get me, because my Defense is already 12.
Ali: Oh.
Jack: Okay, so it is the other way around. Right. Nicky, your regular Defense is now 12. Jonathan, yours is the same. Veile, 12. Me, 12.
Austin: One of them, I think, immediately heads towards you, Nicky, the one who was trying to get ‘em, and so tries to—
Art: Rude.
Austin: Very rude. Slap you with one of its stinging tentacles. It kind of, like— it doesn't even have to get close to you. This is a ranged attack, actually. 
Art: That's gross to think about.
Austin: Yeah. Your Defense is a 12, right?
Art: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Austin: That is a miss. Stinging Tentacle rolls an 8. It would have done 9 bolt damage and given you enraged, but it misses you with the Stinging Tentacle. You're back up.
Jack: I do bolt damage.
Art: And I misheard you and heard “singing tentacle,” [Austin: Oh.] and was like, this fight’s going to get interesting. [laughter] 
Austin: No, this is going to be a very— I am pulling these from the book. This is from the book’s bestiary. These are Hydrazoas.
Art: The tentacle that makes you sing.
Austin: That’s right. Yeah, it might go bad for them, honestly. [Jack chuckles] Given that you have a Chanter in your party, so. All right, back to y'all.
Art: It could go both ways.
Austin: Mm.
Ali: I am going to cast a quick Mirror on Nicky.
Austin: Ooh.
Dre: Ooh.
Ali: “You twist the laws of magic. Until the spell ends, if an offensive spell—” Oh, wait. These things aren't going to be casting spells, right? Fuck. Okay, I'm not going to do that. Instead, I am going to do—
Art: Who knows, frankly. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Mm.
Ali: I'm going to do a quick Drain Vigor? I'm going to do a swat. I'm going to do a swat with my staff. [laughs quietly] I'm going to swat one of these guys.
Austin: All right.
Ali: What’s my staff do, again? It does Willpower + Willpower, HR + 6.
Austin: All right. And that’s just you're just rolling up and trying to hit it. That hits physical, right? Or it does physical damage. It’s aiming at…
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: It’s not a spell. It’s not doing Magic Defense. All right.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Their Physical Defense is 9, so you're looking for a 9.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: I don't think so.
Ali: [laughing] That’s a 4.
Austin: Ooh, that is a 4. A 1 and a 3. Swing and—
Ali: A 1 and a 3. I can turn this into a 9.
Austin: You could turn this into a 9, which would be a hit.
Ali: I can turn this into a 10.
Austin: Sure. 
Ali: Okay. I'm going to do that.
Austin: All right. And then Willpower + Willpower. What’s the damage it does? It does just HR?
Ali: HR plus…HR plus 6. 4. 6, 6. 
Austin: Plus 6, so that is…
Ali: Yeah, 6.
Austin: So it is 7 plus 6 is 13 damage.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: All right. You whack it in the head. Well, it’s kind of all head, 'cause it’s a big jellyfish. [Dre laughs quietly] And it scuttles away higher up into the air as it kind of, like, you know, droplets of water bounce off of it as you hit it, and it goes waaht! [Ali laughs quietly] and then kind of, like, pushes itself away higher up into the air. And now, seeing you do that, I think the second one is going to try to close in on you and, like, not headbutt you, because it’s going kind of acidic mouth first. You also have a 12 on your Defense, right, because of the barrier?
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: All right. That just misses you at an 11. It rolled a 9 and a 1, a 9 plus 1 plus 1, and that just misses you. But you can now see that it can do poison damage, and that poison can disintegrate Inventory Points from you, so now you know what both of them, two of their attacks are. Oh! Oh, sorry.
Art: That sucks.
Austin: We have to rewind. They are flying. You cannot hit them with your staff.
Dre: Oh.
Ali: What? How are they flying? They're sea creatures.
Austin: I described them as flying into the air as soon as they appeared on the stage, actually.
Ali: Okay, then…
Austin: And even did so as you hit them, so.
Ali: I understand.
Austin: So let’s sort of rewind there and let you do something that isn't a melee attack. I will commit to the missed counterattack that they did as their action, so.
Ali: Okay. And I'll just edit this.
Austin: Yep.
Ali: Okay. So, I think what I am going to do is I'm probably going to cast Drain Vigor.
Austin: That makes sense.
Ali: I don't want to doom anybody quite yet.
Austin: Fair enough.
Dre: Sure, yeah.
Ali: So I’m just going to be draining some vigor.
Austin: And that targets its Magic Defense, right?
Ali: I believe so. It’s a spell.
Austin: That is a miss. Its Magic Defense is a 10.
Ali: [quietly] Jesus christ.
Austin: You rolled an 8 and a 1.
Ali: Wait, I can turn it into a 15.
Austin: You can turn it into a 15. That’s a hit.
Ali: Okay. [laughs] 
Austin: And then it’s HR plus 15, so that would be…
Ali: 8 plus 15, which is…
Austin: 8 plus 15. Right. Damn.
Ali: 23.
Austin: 23 damage. Good hit. I think that one—not in Crisis yet—is going to turn its attention to you and is going to try to zoom forward at you with its, like, drippy acidic mouth to try to, like, bite you.
Ali: Mm…
Austin: That is only an 11. That misses your 12. It’s a physical attack, so it misses your 12. It would have done 19 poison damage and eaten one of your Inventory Points, but it misses. So, back to y'all.
Jack: Oh, what a little shit. [Dre chuckles] What does Veile doing Drain Vigor look like?
Austin: Great question.
Jack: Because that’s dark damage, right?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: We've seen it before, but I'm curious again. It’s been a minute.
Ali: And I think that this is kind of fun for a jellyfish attack, because the way that I described it is that she kind of, like, squeezes her staff and kind of steels herself, gritting her teeth, and then the ribbon that she has attached to the, like, top base of it sort of wiggles in the air and does like a [wiggly sound] and kind of drains the vigor. 
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: You know what I mean? Like a [wiggly sound].
Art: I'm sorry…
Austin: Yeah, one more time? [Ali laughs]
Art: Can you make that sound one more time?
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah, like a little spell effect comes on, and it goes [wiggly sound]. [Austin laughs quietly]
Art: Oh. [Ali laughs quietly]
Austin: And is it, like, dark energy feeding into you, healing you?
Ali: Yeah, uh huh.
Austin: Okay, good. Which I guess you didn't need in this.
Ali: I feel really vigorous. It makes me feel really good, you know?
Austin: Right, even though you had max health, you stole life from this thing. 
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: So it’s kind of like net deleting life from the cycle of life. That’s good.
Ali: Mm…eh, when you put it like that…
Austin: Yeah. [Ali laughs] It’s like what if you killed and ate a creature, and it didn't even fill you up. Yeah, I got you.
Ali: Mm.
Dre: Mm.
Ali: Mm-hmm. I don't really think about that very often. That’s weird.
Austin: Yeah. [Ali laughs] It’s impossible, is the thing. In real life, you can't obliterate matter such that it doesn't produce energy, in some format, so.
Ali: Oh, sure.
Jack: That’s what they say.
Austin: Yeah, Veile said otherwise.
Ali: It went somewhere. It’s just I don't need the HP.
Art: Welcome to the fantasy season.
Austin: That’s right. Yeah, I got it. All right. Back to y'all.
Dre: It’s either me or Jack, right?
Jack: No, I've gone.
Austin: You or Nicky.
Jack: You or Nicky.
Art: It’s one of us.
Dre: Okay. Okay. I think I want to try to do something that we haven't done a lot of.
Austin: Ohoho.
Dre: I want to try to use the Hinder action.
Austin: Yeah! Okay.
Dre: Which was the one that was going after Veile? The second one?
Austin: That was Hydrazoa #2. Yeah.
Dre: Yeah. So, let’s see. What does this look like? Because what I would like to do is inflict weakness, because that lowers its Might.
Austin: It does, and its Might is clearly pretty good.
Dre: Yeah. I'm trying to think what I could do to inflict weakness on a jellyfish.
Austin: [chuckles] Oh, the places roleplaying games bring us to.
Dre: Yeah, these are the questions we ask ourselves, yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: Um…boy.
Austin: Yeah, and you get to decide what the check is, I believe, or we together can. You know, you're going to describe your action.
Dre: Oh! I know what this is.
Austin: Okay. Yeah.
Dre: Can I throw the FLEGbot at it, and then the FLEGbot lands on it [Austin: Yeah.] and just starts pulling on its tentacles and annoying it?
Austin: Yeah. Absolutely, you can do this.
Dre: Perfect. Hell yeah.
Art: The Revenge of the Sith.
Austin: Right. What is it? It’s like the little bots on Anakin’s ship.
Art: The little bots that are trying to, like, disassemble their ship.
Ali: Oh, yeah.
Dre: Ohh.
Austin: Totally. An all time moment.
Dre: Nice. Hell yeah.
Austin: All right. I think this sounds like DEX. You're, like, football tossing it. [laughs quietly] 
Dre: Mm-hmm. 
Austin: It’s egg-shaped, like a football.
Dre: Yeah. So just a double DEX?
Austin: Yeah. I think it’s double DEX.
Art: It’s Flegg-shaped, like an eggball.
Austin: Like an egg ball. That’s the version of football in Fabula or in Perpetua, is eggball.
Art: Fyootball.
Austin: All right. Give me the double DEX. You just need a 10, right? All right. That hits.
Dre: That’s a 12, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, that’s a 12. That is a— you're making it weak, right?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: That’s well hindered. There you go. And as the Flegg starts pulling things apart or kind of, like, pulling its tentacles and bruising it? [laughs quietly] Like, I don't know. It’s, like, holding its tentacles back. That’s what it’s doing.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: One of the things it tries to do is, like, wrap its tentacles in the big seaweed, the kind of long seaweed strand that’s kind of tied these two jellyfish together, and as it does, the seaweed comes loose, and you see that it is floating by itself also and is a third creature in the fight. Seeing you do this, it reaches for you to try to, like, grasp you. What is your Defense? It’s 12?
Dre: 12, yep.
Austin: All right. That is only an 11. It misses you by 1.
Dre: Phew!
Austin: With its Corrupting Grasp, which would have done 13 physical damage and given you weak, but it doesn't do that. So, it just misses you. The seaweed, floating in the air, has like a cursed kind of aura to it, now that it’s been freed from the tangle of these two other creatures. 
Dre: Mm.
Austin: And now, over finally to Nicky.
Art: All right. I don't have any ranged attacks, so who wants a snack?
Austin: This one is not— now that it’s freed from the two flying things, the Living Seaweed is now, like, on the ground and moving around like a plant. So it is physical.
Art: Oh, okay.
Austin: It is hittable to you.
Art: Then I'll hit that, because that seems more…
Austin: All right. What are you hitting it with?
Art: The Flaming Skewer.
Austin: Well, that’s a 4, so that’s going to miss.
Art: That doesn't hit? 4?
Austin: 1 plus 2 plus 1 does not hit.
Art: 4?
Austin: You were looking for a 10. You're looking for a 10 here.
Art: 4.
Austin: Yeah, no.
Jack: You got a Fabula Point?
Austin: You could Fabula it.
Art: I do have…
Austin: [laughing] Yeah, how many Fabula Points do you have, these days?
Art: I don't think it’s anyone’s business, but I'm down to 2, thank you.
Austin: Oh, okay. All right, what are you— what Trait are you going to call on here?
Art: I think I'm calling on Theme. I'm very upset that I didn't get any ingredients, for this, the second time. [Jack laughs quietly]
Austin: Your Theme is anger, I believe, right?
Art: Yes.
Austin: All right. So, give me a reroll. Which dice are you rerolling? Both of them or just one?
Art: I'll reroll both of them, yeah.
Austin: You’ve Fabula Pointed and written, “Raaa!” Love that. Hey! 
Dre: Hohoho!
Art: Hey.
Austin: That’s a 17. That’s a crit, because it’s 8 plus 8 plus 1. You rolled two 8s. That does 20 fire damage and gives you an opportunity, because it was a crit. I also have to look up something, because it does— you know, right now you would be doing 20 fire damage, which is HR plus 12. However, it is resistant to fire damage; well scouted, earlier. So it’s only going to take 10.
Art: Oh. I thought the seaweed would be a plant. [laughs quietly] 
Austin: It is a plant, but it’s resistant to fire.
Dre: It’s a wet plant.
Austin: It’s a wet plant.
Art: That’s not what Pokémon says. I'm just going to…
Austin: It’s a living— well, a water/fire type would not take extra damage from fire, certainly. It might not be resistant, though.
Art: No one knows if that’s true.
Austin: Mm, okay. Unfortunately, you're talking to a guy who’s watched, like, a hundred hours of Pokémon videos this year of his stupid life.
Art: That’s a lot.
Austin: Yeah. Well, they're long videos, you know? Anyway.
Art: That doesn't change the amount of time.
Austin: No. No, it doesn't. What Opportunity are you taking with your crit?
Art: What are my choices?
Jack: You got a bunch of them. Faux Pas is really good, but it’s not applicable.
Austin: Bonding, Faux Pas, Favor, Information, Lost Item, Progress, Plot Twist, Scan, Unmask, or something of your own choice.
Art: See, I get bonuses if I have a Bond of hatred towards something.
Austin: True.
Art: But it feels like a waste for this jellyfish. [Jack laughs]
Austin: This isn't even the jellyfish. This is the Living Seaweed.
Art: Well, I can hate anything.
Austin: Oh, you could— right, I see. Right, right, right. Yes. 
Art: I think that we should make these jellyfish commit a faux pas, but instead, I will just take advantage. The next check performed by you or an ally will receive +4 bonus.
Austin: There we go. I love that. All right. And that—
Art: Because, contrary to what Pokémon says, this seaweed thing is a little on fire.
Austin: Oh, okay.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: Right. It’s not taking extra damage—
Art: The smoke is helping us.
Austin: That’s great. The smoke— like, the dead parts of the plant are on fire, which don't hurt it, because it’s not those parts of the plant. Those parts are dead. But the smoke is very annoying for it. [laughs quietly] 
Art: Yeah, smoke gets in your eyes.
Austin: That’s right, which it has. Which is creepy. All right. Back around to y'all. There's not a fourth one. There's only three.
Round Two [1:10:55]
Jack: We don't have to go in the order we did before, but I am going to try my new ice spell on these people.
Austin: All right.
Jack: This spell is called Glacies! I can target up to three creatures, which is great, because that’s how many there are.
Austin: That’s how many there are.
Jack: It’s an offensive spell, so I have to perform a check.
Austin: Yep. You'll get +4 to it because of the advantage that Nicky just produced.
Jack: Yes, which is tremendous. And this is going to cost me 30 MP.
Austin: Phew! 
Jack: I know.
Austin: And you're looking for an 8 and a pair of 10s. Those are the Magic Defenses on these creatures.
Jack: Okay. Here we go. Glacies! Plus 4.
Austin: Plus 4. Hey, that’s an 18. 
Dre: Phew!
Austin: It’s an easy clear. You would have cleared it without the +4. That is 25 ice damage, huh? All right. You do 25 damage to the Living Seaweed, bringing it into Crisis. However, you only do half that—which means that you round down in this game, I believe—to both of the Hydrazoas. They are resistant to ice damage.
Art: Oh my god. Have they considered not?
Austin: They did, and then they said, “No. Let’s stay resistant to ice.”
Art: I think we should revisit the topic.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: Mm.
Ali: I'm pissed off. [laughs quietly] 
Austin: Why are you pissed off?
Ali: Because the other spell that I was going to take would make people weak to their resistances.
Austin: Oh.
Jack: No! [laughs] 
Austin: That seems pretty useful.
Ali: [groans] And I didn't take it. 
Jack: That’s a good spell, though.
Austin: That’s a pretty good spell. Maybe next time. Well.
Jack: Glacies looks like someone dropping a stone into a pond and, like, circular ripples coming rushing out of it. 
Austin: Oh.
Jack: Except instead of ripples of water, they are like ripples of ice or rhime. You know when—
Austin: Where does the drop happen? Is it in the air above you?
Jack: It is as though it’s emitting from Elena.
Austin: I see.
Jack: Just, like, pinging out from her.
Austin: Yes.
Jack: And I think it’s like, you ever see like a frozen lake that I still moving? It’s that, like, level of frost where it still has fluid dynamics, but it’s frozen?
Austin: Yeah. And are you— is this another, there's a sort of high pitched or a sort of aharmonic sound?
Jack: No, this is an Elementalist skill.
Austin: Oh, this is Elementalist! Right, I see. No chant.
Jack: There's no music happening here.
Austin: Okay. Cool.
Jack: But there are, like, four little crabs in the tide pool that are like, “What the fuck?” and go scuttling away.
Austin: Scurry, scurry, scurry. Yeah, uh huh. I love it. All right. The Hydrazoa that is clearly hurt more, right on the edge of Crisis. I'm going to roll 1d4 to decide who they hit. I don't do a lot of that, but that’s what the book says we should do and the targeting thing should be a little more limited.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: And I think this is a good case for it, so. I'm going to use the order of people on the bottom left. So, Jack is a 1. Ali is a 2. Or, sorry; Elena is a 1, Veile is a 2, Nicky is a 3, and Jonathan is a 4. It looks like it’s coming for you, Veile! Let’s see. I think it’s just going to try to hit you with the old Acid Touch. I think that’s probably what it should do.
Ali: The classic. We've all been there.
Austin: That’s a miss, at a 6. These guys just can't roll well, so unfortunately, they aren't much of a threat. Back to you.
Ali: Mm… [sighs] Do I want to invoke some doom?
Art: Don't sound so sad about it. [Ali laughs]
Ali: Yeah. I mean, I haven't taken any hits. I don't really need to be draining vigor. Do I have other stuff to do? I have…
Austin: You could now use your staff against the Living Seaweed, since it’s on the ground.
Ali: Yeah. It’s tough, because I have that knife that’s better against plant people, [Austin: Oh.] and I resent that I can't switch it, [laughs] because it would take too long in the combat, and it would just, it’s already in Crisis. It’s fine.
Austin: Well. You could do…is that not a…? Switch Gear is its own thing, right?
Ali: I think it’s a turn. It would use a turn, yeah.
Austin: “You may switch any number of equipped items with any number of items in your backpack.” Yeah, mm-hmm.
Ali: Hmm…cleansing magic isn't really something that I can do. Yeah, I think that, like, and this is so weird, but I think I can… [laughs] Which of them just targeted me?
Austin: The Hydrazoa #2.
Ali: Hydrazoa #1?
Austin: Or I hit the 1 attack, but it was the 2 that attacked you.
Ali: Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Austin: Yeah, my bad.
Ali: I think in kind of an indignant sort of, like, 
(as Veile): Hmph!
Ali: And Veile sort of tapping her staff against the rock that’s underneath her, if we're standing in the bay or whatever where the tide pool is.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: I think that I am going to do my first casting of Omega.
Austin: Ooh.
Ali: “You invoke doom upon your foe, turning strength into frailty. The opponent loses the amount of Hit Points equal to 20 plus half the target’s level.”
Dre: Phew!
Austin: What’s that look like as you cast it? Besides the indignity. 
Ali: [laughs] Yeah.
Austin: Oh, that’s a hit. 16 is a hit.
Ali: Okay, well, there we go. Yeah. What would this look like? It’s like, when I think about doom—or I guess this is called Omega, not Doom, but it is doom—when I think about Omega, I guess I think about, you know, a spell where a bunch of rocks come out of the sky, and they go rehh. So, I feel like… [laughs] 
Austin: Mm.
Dre: Mm, mm-hmm.
Ali: I feel like what she does is she hits the staff against the floor, and it’s almost like a bubble of, like, dark purple essence [Austin: Mm-hmm.] rises from the top of her staff. But I think—
Art: Has anyone ever noticed that Veile is terrifying? [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yep!
Dre: No, it seems cool.
Austin: Yep.
Ali: I think that I even described her staff as having a little hollow loop in it, because it has that bell, [Austin: Yeah.] so I think that it’s almost like one of those things that you blow bubbles out of. It’s just like, rehhh.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: And then it just like—
Art: Just real awful. [Ali laughs] Well.
Ali: And I think that it floats over on top of that jellyfish and then just, like, drops onto it, as if the magic is, like, engulfing it.
Austin: Yeah. Life seems to drain from the jellyfish. It sort of, like, withers a little bit. It’s not dead yet, but it is well into Crisis, and it moves a little slower. It doesn't literally move a little slower, but it, like, takes a second maybe to start moving again.
Ali: What’s its level? Just so I have a sense of—
Austin: It is level 10. They are all level 10.
Ali: Oh, okay. Okay.
Austin: An easy fight. Again, you know this explicitly, because Nicky’s thing says, “an easy fight against creatures equal to your level.” So, and that's— I guess I could have made them level 11, which would have given them a little more HP, but I just used the premade 10 ones that I'd already put into the system, so. So, actually, you're getting a very easy fight, now that I think about it, because y'all are all level 12 at this point, right? 
Ali: Mm.
Austin: So. I'm not going to go back and give them more HP.
Dre: Wait.
Ali: Oh, did I not change that part of it? I added my spell, but it should change automatically when…
Austin: It should. So you're level 11? What are you?
Dre: Yeah, I'm 11 too.
Austin: Okay. Then you should be 11.
Jack: Yeah, I think we're at 11.
Austin: I said 12, but. That was the beginning of a new round. Is that right?
Jack: Uh, no. Elena has gone, then the creature, then Veile went. So, now…
Austin: So the other creature goes.
Jack: And then the creature went.
Austin: Yes, I see. All right. I'll roll the d4 again; see who it hits. [typing] [laughs] Oh, they are locked in on Veile! 
Jack: I think that’s a real, like, “kill the medic” type thing [Ali and Dre laugh] but for kill the person who is casting doom on my other jellyfish.
Austin: That makes sense, yeah. 
Art: Yeah.
Austin: And it is, in fact, the other jellyfish that’s going to try it here. Let’s see. Yeah, I think—
Art: Hey, you notice the fabric of reality’s getting real fucked up over there?
Austin: It is. And that’s anther miss; a 7. 1 plus 5. They just don't roll well, you know? And yeah, I think this one, again— I think this one actually was already on its way in toward Veile but then saw the spell cast and, like, got afraid for a second and, you know, effectively—can a thing stumble while it flies?—it kind of stumbles and pulls away and misses. Back to y'all.
Jack: So now it’s Jonathan or Nicky.
Austin: Yep.
Dre: Mm-hmm. I can go. The only thing that’s in melee range is the weird seaweed creature?
Austin: The Living Seaweed, yeah.
Dre: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to go bonk it with my big hammer.
Austin: Hell yeah. It’s in big hammer mode right now?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Great. All right, that is a hit. 11 is a hit against its 10 Defense, and it does 11 bolt damage.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Which is just regular damage to this thing. This thing, again, was already in Crisis, but now it is even deeper into it. Does it do anything special? 
Dre: Um…
Austin: It’s just a bonk.
Dre: It’s just a bonk. I mean, it’s bolt, right?
Austin: Yeah, it’s bolt damage. Yeah.
Dre: So it probably has, like, electricity arcing off of it while I swing it through the air.
Austin: Yeah! Cool. Yeah, and it goes zap! and it hits this thing. This thing doesn't seem to be weak or strong to bolt damage.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: So, yeah. All right. It now goes, and I think it’s just going to, you know, you're in a melee with it now. You know, you're in a classic 1v1 Final Destination type situation.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: And it’s going to try to grasp you. And that hits. 16. Finally they've hit you once.
Dre: Oof. Yeah.
Austin: It is going to do 13 physical damage, and you are going to be weak, and you cannot perform the Guard action so long as you remain weak.
Dre: Well, that sucks.
Austin: It does.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: And it’s, like, wrapped all around you and squeezing, you know?
Dre: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Austin: And now it is Nicky’s turn.
Art: All right. I'm going to also try to hit that seaweed again.
Austin: Smart. Oh. Sorry. The one jellyfish, it is available to be melee attacked. I was wrong about that a second ago, because you put it into Crisis. When flying things hit Crisis, they go to the ground.
Dre: Ohh! Okay. 
Austin: So.
Art: Oh, I'm going to hit that thing, then.
Austin: Okay. That is an 11. That is going to be a hit. You're hitting it with your spear, your fire spear?
Art: Yeah, so it’s half…
Austin: No, because the jellyfish are not the ones that are strong to fire. They are, in fact, normal to fire and take regular damage.
Art: Weird.
Austin: Yeah, well. 
Art: [sarcastic] If only there was an action we could take to figure these things out.
Austin: It would be great if there were. [Dre laughs] And that is enough. You skewer it. You skewer the Hydrazoa #2, bringing it to the ground, where it will become ingredients for you momentarily. All right. Back around to y'all. Getting three actions in a row. Or no you're not, because the Living Seaweed went, but yeah, you're getting two actions in a row.
Round Three [1:21:55]
Dre: I can hit the other jellyfish, the one that’s on the ground.
Austin: That’s the one that just got killed by…
Dre: Oh! Okay, I'm sorry.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: I saw Living Seaweed above Art’s thing and mixed the two up in my head.
Austin: Yeah, I gotcha.
Dre: Yep, yep.
Austin: Yeah, you could try to knock out the Living Seaweed.
Dre: I could.
Austin: We could stay zoomed in on y'all.
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll go ahead and do that again. Ugh. Nope, that’s a 6.
Austin: Not with a 6. All right. Let’s go to the other Hydrazoa that’s flying around. I will again give it a— [typing] let’s see who it goes after. This time it’s going after Elena, and it, again, is going to try to— you know, it’s going to try to Stinging Tentacle Elena. I think that it is a little afraid of both of these spellcasters and is starting to keep its distance. But with an 8, that is not going to hit, so, oh well.
Jack: Oh, that’s very exciting, because I am vulnerable to electricity.
Dre: Ooh.
Austin: [chuckles] Oh.
Jack: And I think there's like, you know, Elena leaps backwards as the stinging thing comes towards her.
Austin: [imitates flying tentacle sound] Yeah.
Jack: But just goes, like, 
(as Elena): Ha!
Jack: And it misses.
Austin: All right. Back to y'all.
Jack: I would like to retaliate, please.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I would like to sing a horrible song. [laughs quietly]
Austin: Oh!
Jack: I would like to sing with a frantic tone. “Each target suffers key type damage equal to twice your current Willpower die size.” I'm going to target the Hydrazoa that targeted me, [Austin: Yep.] which means this only costs me 10.
Austin: Okay. What’s that leave you with for MP, these days?
Jack: 21.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: And the key that I am singing in is…I’m going to sing this in the radiance key, so this is going to be light damage.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: So they are going to suffer—my Willpower is 10—they're going to suffer 20 light damage.
Austin: And that just happens. 
Jack: Yes.
Austin: There's no check.
Jack: No.
Austin: Right. I know I say this every time, but, you know, it’s free damage, or it’s MP equals damage, so.
Jack: Yes. Elena says, “Ha!” and then opens her mouth and just, like, light streams out of her mouth and eyes, and there's a sort of atonal, you know, like, aleatory shriek as she attacks this thing sonically.
Austin: And your Willpower is 10.
Jack: My Willpower is 10.
Austin: So it does 20 damage. All right.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: All right. That brings it…nope, still not in Crisis. 
Jack: Fuck!
Austin: So it is still flying. And the Living Seaweed is going to try its best to finish off Jonathan? I don't think it— it doesn't understand how much HP you have. Don't worry.
Dre: No, yeah. 
Austin: I'm guessing you're doing just fine.
Dre: I'm doing all right, yeah.
Austin: You're doing all right. But, all right. Your Defense is…?
Dre: It’s actually 14. I've been forgetting to count my shield.
Austin: Yeah, your melee weapon is a single-handed thing, right? It’s one-handed?
Dre: Well, no. My weapon has, like, a shield built on it.
Austin: Ohh! I see. Right. Defense bonus +2. That’s when you're in your hammer mode, it has— I see. Yes.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: I gotcha. Well, this misses regardless.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: A 6 is not going to hit you. So. It tries to get you with a dark powered sting. It’s already kind of wrapped you around, but then you see that it has these certain, like every sixth little bit of the seaweed, I guess, leaf or strand is, like, a darker color, and those start to glow dark and try to get you, but you manage to block them with your Riotous— what’s it called? The Riotous…
Dre: Switchsledge.
Austin: Switchsledge? Yeah. All right. Back over.
Jack: Okay. So, Jonathan has taken two turns now.
Dre: Well, I went at the end of the last round and the start of this round, yeah.
Austin: Right.
Jack: Oh, right, yes. Sorry, I forgot that the Switchsledge was the thing blocking this Hydrazoa. Okay.
Austin: Right, so I think Veile and Nicky are left?
Jack: Veile or Nicky, yeah.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Ali: I was thinking of doing my move that I can't find completely right now, where like, I give someone an extra move, and then, Art, you can just go twice to finish out the fight, maybe?
Art: I can't hit the flying one.
Ali: [gasps] Oh. Okay. Okay.
Austin: Yeah. So, yeah. Living Seaweed. Give it a shot with your cool spear. 
Art: Doesn't hit.
Austin: That does not hit. Do you want to Fabula Point it?
Art: No, it’s my last Fabula Point.
Austin: Okay. Well, then. All right. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It does hit, because that attacks Magic Defense, remember? Unless—
Art: Does it?
Austin: Look at the chat.
Ali: It says, “attacks Magical Defense,” right there.
Art: Uh…yeah, that is what it says. [Ali laughs]
Austin: That’s what it says. So it does, in fact, hit, and even though it resists— no, it does not. Because it resists fire damage, you're not going to kill it with this thing. You only do 9 damage instead of doing 18, and so it is nearing death but not quite there yet. But you have gained its attention. I think it stops grasping at Jonathan—though Jonathan remains weak—and begins to turn its attention towards you. Not this round, though, because it already went, which means, Veile, it’s your turn.
Ali: I think that I could probably cast a doom again on the remaining jellyfish?
Austin: Definitely could.
Ali: How’s that sound? That sounds like a great idea. Or, oh my god. I'm invoking doom, I'm sorry.
Austin: Yeah. You're invoking doom. You're casting Omega. [Ali laughs]
Ali: And I know we are saying that this is bad and scary and that I shouldn't be doing it.
Austin: Well, it missed anyway, but.
Ali: And I sure did just roll a 7, and I only have a 1. Can't change that 1 for a 1.
Austin: How many Fabula Points you have left?
Ali: Oh, I have the one Fabula Point.
Austin: You do.
Ali: And I'll just get one next time, and we're going to be done in 15 minutes, so I'll use that. [Austin chuckles] Yeah. Invoke a Trait. Invoke a Trait. I can invoke a Trait. Yeah, okay. I was just going to say this.
Austin: Which Trait?
Ali: I think this is great. I'm invoking my Identity, chosen priestess.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: Because I think, despite the fact that…
Austin: Right.
Ali: [snorts] We keep being like, “Isn't Veile really scary, and shouldn't she not be doing this?” I think there's some, you know, there's something that feels good to her [Austin: It does.] about invoking the power of darkness to…
Dre: Mm.
Austin: It does. [Ali laughs] It feels familiar. It feels like, you know, yeah. Yes. 
Ali: [laughs] And I think, for her, you know, it’s just the big bubble coming out of her staff or whatever, and she’s like, “It’s like the ocean! You know? It’s all fine.”
Austin: That’s exactly right.
Ali: She’s learning magic. What’s wrong with learning magic?
Austin: Nothing is wrong.
Ali: I'm going to hit this button again?
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Or, no, I just reroll one of them, right? So I roll a—
Austin: Well, you pick which one you want to reroll or you do both.
Ali: And this is a Willpower + Willpower anyway, and my Willpower is…
Austin: 10?
Ali: So this is just rolling a d10?
Austin: If that’s what you want. You could reroll them both. You could choose one to reroll. You're looking for a 10, so.
Ali: And I have a 6, so I'm just going to reroll one.
Austin: Oh, actually, it’s a Willpower + Insight is what it is, so what’s your Insight?
Ali: Is it?
Austin: That’s what the text says.
Ali: Okay, but it says rolling Willpower + Willpower.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Now, remember, that’s because you're doing the mouseover. The mouseover is fake.
Dre: Oh!
Ali: Okay, the mouseover is fake. Okay.
Austin: Look at the to the left of the mouseover.
Ali: They're both a d10 anyway, so it is what it is.
Austin: Okay. It doesn't matter. So the question really is: do you want to reroll the 6, or do you want to keep the 6?
Ali: I'm keeping the 6. I'm rerolling the 1.
Austin: That makes sense.
Ali: Because I just need to get a 4 to hit.
Austin: Yep.
Ali: And that’s a 1. [laughs] 
Dre: Oof.
Austin: You don't. You roll another 1. But it feels really good.
Ali: It feels so good to do it.
Austin: It feels a little bit like…yeah. Yeah. It feels a little bit like— yeah, I'm going to say this because you invoked that. It feels a little bit like this should feel natural to you, and it should come to you easily, but it feels like there's just something getting in the way, you know? Like, something’s jamming up the tube. Something’s, like, stuck in the conduit.
Ali: Hmm.
Austin: It should be flowing. You know, you gotta, like, unclog the drain, you know?
Ali: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Austin: Yeah. Unfortunately, I think that you summon the bubble, and the bubble just misses. You know, it moves away. It saw you do this. The bubble doesn't come as quickly as it’s supposed to.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: And I do think now it will respond directly to you and miss you again, with another 9. [Ali laughs] The thing that’s hard about getting these, like, random easy fights is, like, they're not going to hit you. Barrier is so strong. [laughs quietly] 
Dre: Mm.
Austin: So, you know, even though they're rolling pretty good. I want to be clear: it’s rolling d10 + d10. It’s rolling two d10 to try to hit 12, and they just aren't hitting it, so.
Ali: Damn.
Austin: Oh well, you know?
Ali: Owned.
Jack: These jellyfish can't roll for shit.
Austin: They cannot.
Ali: I don't think I've even taken any damage.
Austin: No. They've only hit one person once, and it was Jonathan. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: I believe, so. Anyway. 
Dre: The person with the best armor. RIP.
Austin: That’s right. [laughs quietly] Yeah, yes. Ironically, yes. All right, back to y'all.
Round Four [1:31:09]
Jack: I mean, should we just try and close this out with another Glacies?
Dre: Yeah, if you've got the MP to use.
Ali: If you think so, yeah.
Jack: Yeah. I can target two of them, but then I'm kind of essentially done, MP-wise.
Art: I can get you some more MP.
Jack: Yeah. I can also use a potion. I'm just saying that, like, at that point, I'm starting to think about how to recover MP rather than how to spend it. I spent that last whole turn completely panicking, because I was like, “Oh my god. Have I been misunderstanding how the Chanter works?” Austin, you saying, “There doesn't have to be a roll for this, does there?” caused me to go into a spiral, and I was googling, like, “Chanter roll?” and a lot of people online are like, “The Chanter is OP,” and then they break down ways that the Chanter is, [Austin: Right.] and then other people break down ways the Chanter isn't.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: And the thing that really scared me for one second was: chants are skills; they're not spells.
Austin: Oh, interesting.
Jack: And so I initially had this, like, panic of, like, “Oh, does that mean I can't hit ranged targets?” but not only does the book not talk about that at all, [Austin: Okay.] the book explicitly says, “Anybody you can see who can hear you.”
Austin: Right. Yes.
Jack: So that is, you know. I think it’s pretty clear that I can target. The thing that it targets is anybody who can hear.
Austin: Let me be clear: flying very explicitly says melee attacks can't hit it.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: So it is not…yeah.
Ali: Ohh.
Jack: These are not melee attacks.
Austin: That’s right.
Jack: They're just not spells.
Austin: That’s right.
Jack: And the reason they're not spells is important, because there are certain [Austin: That’s right.] kinds of spells that boost other sorts of spells.
Austin: And skills that do that. This comes up a lot on the other side of the game with Brontë, who has dances. Dances are not spells either. Yes.
Jack: Right. Yes.
Ali: Oh, that’s right. Yeah.
Jack: Okay. With that being said, I'm going to spend 20 MP, bringing me down to 1 MP.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jack: To target, with Glacies, the two remaining jellyfish.
Austin: All right, you're looking for a 10 and an 8. Or, you know. Yeah, you're looking for a 10 to hit both; an 8 to hit one, to hit the seaweed.
Jack: Okay. And I get no advance on these?
Austin: As far as I know. Yeah.
Jack: Yep. 
Austin: Hey, that’s a 10. That hits them both. That does 22 ice damage. It means it does 11 ice damage to the Hydrazoa, who resists, but it does bring it into Crisis and down to the ground or down hovering low enough to be hit by melee attacks. And the 22 absolutely destroys the Living Seaweed, knocking it out, because it’s actually vulnerable to it and does double damage, so.
Jack: With 1 mana remaining, [Austin: That’s right.] and her, like, hair and eyebrows kind of rhimed over with the frost of her attack… [Austin chuckles] You know when you suddenly, like, realize that you're really hungry, and you suddenly feel this wave of, like, nausea and shakiness?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I think that that is what, you know, passes over Elena, with 1 MP.
Austin: Phew. Yeah, you have flash frozen the Living Seaweed.
Jack: Oh, sick. That’s going to be a cool ingredient.
Austin: Yum. Yeah.
Jack: Yum. 
Austin: Put that right in the ramen, you know? All right. Who’s left on your side, at this point? It is…Jonathan?
Ali: Nicky, Jonathan?
Austin: Nicky, Jonathan. Yeah.
Dre: Sure.
Austin: This is the fourth round? Yeah.
Ali: Oh, that was the first move. We all go.
Austin: Oh, you all go. You all get to go.
Art: Do you want 40 MP?
Ali: I think we should finish this instead of doing that. [laughs] 
Art: All right.
Jack: Yeah, I'm broadly in agreement. I can get MP again.
Dre: Mm.
Ali: Do we want to rest again after this? [laughs] 
Austin: Uh… [Jack laughs] What are you doing?
Ali: Elena, did you hit them?
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah, I hit them. I killed one of them. I flash froze one of them.
Ali: Oh, okay, okay, okay. I just wasn't…
Austin: Yeah, and the other one’s in Crisis. It’s on the ground.
Art: And the other one’s on the ground.
Dre: Oh, we can hit it on the ground.
Art: So I'll hit the newly grounded, not-resistant-to-fire Hydrazoa.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Hey, that’s a hit. That’s 17 damage. You stab it with the spear? You slashing? What’s this look like?
Art: It’s a stab. It’s a flaming stab.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Art: You know, like trying to shish kebab it.
Austin: Yeah. It is considering fleeing, at this point, but it already…
Art: No! My jellyfish!
Austin: Yeah, well. Wait, did it go this round yet? Only Elena went this round.
Art: What round is this one?
Austin: So it actually should have gone before you.
Art: Oh. Whoops.
Austin: I got confused because of how good Elena did. [Ali laughs] That’s fine. You didn't kill it, so.
Dre: Yeah, it can just go now.
Austin: Yeah. And it is going to target…wow, look at that. It’s going to target Nicky, so that works out just fine. It is going to try to bite you. Oh!
Dre: Whoa!
Austin: And it does. It does, with 17. With a 17, it does 20 poison damage. You are not poisoned, but you do lose an Inventory Point, as its acid bites into your stores.
Jack: Shit. This is Nicky or me?
Dre: Nicky.
Austin: Nicky.
Jack: Nicky. Okay, good.
Austin: Yeah. That’s what the d4 was for. Or, sorry, I said Nicky. Jonathan is actually. Sorry, Jonathan, not Nicky.
Dre: No!
Austin: Yeah. Dre was four. One, two, three, four.
Dre: Well, I'm in Crisis now.
Austin: Phew!
Ali: [laughing] You can't catch a break.
Austin: Phew!
Ali: Okay. It went, Nicky just went, and it’s just us now.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Ali: Jonathan, do you want to get a counterattack in, before I try to…?
Dre: Yeah, I would love to. Yeah, I think I'm just, like, as it’s wrapping its tentacles around me, I'm just trying to, like, flail my hammer, trying to hit it away from me.
Austin: All right. That is enough. That is a 12. That will hit it, and it will do 13 bolt damage, to which it is vulnerable.
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [Ali gasps]
Austin: And it is zapped and falls to the ground, fried by bolt damage. You've done it. You beat the surprise attack from the unfortunate fishing venture. [Jack laughs]
[“A Job Well Done (Fields Combat Ends)” by Jack de Quidt plays]
After Conflict [1:37:18]
Dre (as Jonathan): Dammit, Nicky. We're just taking you to a grocery store next time. [Austin chuckles]
Austin: Take three ingredients! [Jack and Ali laugh] What do you think these things are?
Art: I don't think we have grocery stores.
Austin: Hmm…
Art: I already have some seaweed, but I would be happy to x2 that.
Austin: Yeah, x2 that. And then what do you get from the jellyfish?
Art: Well…do people eat jellyfish?
Ali: Yeah, man.
Dre: They can, yeah.
Art: Hold on. [typing] “Can you eat jellyfish?”
Austin: Yeah. Cold salad with vegetables and sauces. Jellyfish as food.
Art: Well, I want to see what it looks like, so I can try to describe it. Oh.
Austin: It’s, I guess, chili sauce. Sesame, yeah, sure.
Art: Ooh. It looks like calamari.
Austin: Yeah. It does.
Art: Where all the jelly part go? You think this is probably a salty tasting food?
Ali: Yeah. I think it’s got a lot of chew to it. You can kind of cut them up and make them look like glass noodles.
Dre: Ooh.
Austin: Yeah, that’s kind of what that looks like, doesn't it? Yeah.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Mildly salty neutral flavor.
Art: All right, I'm going to…
Ali: Jellyfish as food.
Austin: Whatever the sauce is in this seems to be the…yeah, crunch isn't one of the things, right? 'Cause you can fry it to crunchy.
Art: No, I'm seeing that they're salty.
Austin: Yeah. 
Art: Mild salty flavor. I'll put jellyfish.
Austin: “Pauly says he’s reminded of cucumbers. Others think of salty rubber bands.”
Ali: [hesitant] Mmm.
Dre: Mmm.
Austin: Thank you, Smithsonian Magazine.
Ali: Yummy.
Jack: No, not yummy. Yucky. 
Art: So I'll do jellyfish x2.
Austin: Wow. All that for three ingredients. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Jack: Well, now, hold on, Austin.
Ali: What happens if you succeed on that roll? What’s the best result you can get on that roll? Wait, we said it was four, right?
Art: Three ingredients.
Austin: Oh my god, it is. It’s three ingredients.
Art: It’s three ingredients. [Ali laughs quietly]
Austin: Well, it’s three ingredients with a taste of your choice. A 3 to a 5—
Art: Yeah, which is honestly huge.
Ali: I see, I see, I see.
Austin: Yeah. You get what you want.
Ali: Then how do you get six? Was that travel rolls?
Austin: That’s right.
Art: That’s if I take another level in the travel one, then it would be six. Now it’s four.
Ali: I see.
Art: But this is supposed to be free, [Ali laughs quietly] and I'm not supposed to roll 1 two times in a row and mess up the whole thing.
Ali: Yeah, we've all been there.
Austin: Mm.
Jack: So we did that in four rounds?
Austin: You did, so you get 1 XP!
Dre: Yeah!
Ali: Yeah!
Jack: So we get 1 XP?
Ali: We're up to 8.
Art: You're welcome.
Jack: Oh christ. [Austin sighs] Can I, like, roll Study to see if they ate any gems or something? 
Austin: No, they didn't. 
Jack: Any treasures of the mermaids in their…?
Austin: No. No. You got three ingredients. And your lives. [Ali laughs]
Art: One of which is part of the MP recovery recipe.
Austin: That’s true.
Art: If you want some peach preserves and seaweed, I can get you 40 MP real quick.
Jack: I would love some peach preserves and seaweed.
Dre: I would love whatever the 40 HP equivalent is. [laughs] [Austin sighs]
Ali: Yeah.
Art: I haven't discovered that one yet.
Ali: How many peaches you got?
Art: I have one peach and two seaweed. That’s my only sweet.
Ali: Come on, man.
Art: When we travel, I can get some more stuff.
Ali: Give me some IP, man. [Ali and Dre laugh quietly]
Austin: Uh huh.
Art: I don't have that either. What food would give you more Inventory Points? [Jack chuckles]
Ali: I just want…
Dre: Protein powder.
Ali: I'm only down to 20 magic points. We're supposed to be rested. [laughs] 
Jack: God. I feel this way regularly.
Austin: In real life? Yeah, yeah. [Ali laughs]
Jack: Yes. I was supposed to be rested!
Austin: Mm.
Jack: All right. Art, give me that delicious meal.
Art: All right. It’s not a roll. You can just have it.
Jack: Oh, okay. So I'm going to add 30 MP?
Art: 40.
Jack: 40. Delicious. And that’s, what, peach and seaweed?
Art: Peach and seaweed.
Jack: That’s not so bad. I like that.
Ali: Yeah, that sounds good as fuck. [Dre laughs quietly] 
Jack: Sitting by the embers of the bonfire, eating peach and seaweed. [Ali laughs]
Art: Peach preserves and seaweed.
Ali: Veile, with no MP, just kind of like, [quietly] “God, that looks good as hell. Fuck.” [Dre laughs] She doesn't say that.
Jack: [laughs quietly] I want to offer you some, but I can't offer you any mechanically, but I want to offer you some spiritually. So I think the only way I can do it—
Art: Well, you can offer some. It just doesn't do it.
Ali: Yeah, I can eat it. I just won't get anything back. [laughs] 
Art: You can have some.
Jack (as Elena): You want some of this, Veile?
Ali (as Veile): Oh, I couldn't. You know, I'm not really feeling well.
Jack (as Elena): Oh, no, really. Peach and seaweed settles the stomach.
Ali (as Veile): Does it? [quiet laughter] 
Jack: Looking at Nicky.
(as Elena): Does it?
Art (as Nicky): How’s your stomach feel?
Jack (as Elena): Pretty settled.
Art (as Nicky): There you go.
Ali (as Veile): Well, I suppose.
Jack: [laughs quietly] Just, like, the little gelato wooden spoon. [Ali laughs] Scooping it over into her bowl.
Austin: Okay. I'm going to give you some rewards.
Ali: Wow.
Austin: I'm going to give you three gems [Ali gasps] of 500 asta each. They were caught up in the seaweed. And I'm going to give you one 1000 asta worth dragon scale.
Ali: Ooh. Just a single scale is worth that much?
Austin: One scale.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: Yeah. It’s big. It’s a big scale. It’s bigger than your hand.
Art: Well, then, if we run into a sea dragon today, we should definitely kill it for its scales. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah, for sure.
Dre: Sure, yeah.
Jack: Okay. I'm going to take one of the 500 asta gems.
Art: I don't know if that’s going to make any sense.
Jack: I'm just going to take that, and I'm adding it here, so I now have 610 asta. I would also like to say that I'm a little suspicious that we went from, “No, of course you don't find mermaids’ gems,” to… [laughs quietly] 
Austin: Eh, I felt bad. I felt bad, 'cause it took so long, and like, the three ingredients just aren't a good enough reward for the time spent fighting that thing, you know?
Jack: Mm, mm-hmm.
Austin: Yeah. Even though it’s an easy fight, [Jack: Good.] you know, let me give you a little juice.
Jack: Okay. I didn't know if it was, you know, finding the health packs in the room before the boss encounter. [Ali and Jack laugh quietly]
Austin: You know, I think partly…no, no, no. Partly it’s rewards are supposed to come, like, once per session, and a session is supposed to be four to five hours. And so I was like, “Oh, well, we'll get to the other fight,” and that’s just not going to happen, and so, let me give you a little— you know, sometimes you just want to give people a little extra.
Dre: Mm.
Art: But you're welcome, audience, for this wonderful episode of…
Dre: The beach episode?
Austin: The beach episode. Yeah.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Art: The beach episode where it was just fighting some jellyfish. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Uh huh. Sometimes that’s the game. That’s how it goes, you know?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Ali: That’s life, man.
Jack: That really is sometimes how the game goes. And we're all wearing unique custom beach outfits.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: You downloaded the beach DLC, because it’s…
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: No, it’s actually, it’s a Dreamcast game, so you didn't download shit. You're just in the beach outfits.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: They put the beach outfits in the game.
Jack: Also, you didn't buy this game.
Austin: That’s right. [laughs quietly] 
Jack: Like, Karen gave it to you on a DVD-ROM.
Austin: Let me tell you what happened is, you know, your friend Andy gave it to you on a burned disc at lunch, [Ali laughs] because the Dreamcast had terrible copy protection.
Dre: That’s true. Yeah.
Jack: Before I owned a Dreamcast—
Austin: And he downloaded it from an IRC channel that you will soon join and will open up the world of the internet to you. [Dre and Jack laugh quietly] 
Jack: Before I got a Dreamcast, y'all said to me, “The Dreamcast has very very bad copy protection,” and I did not appreciate how bad the Dreamcast’s copy protection is.
Austin: It’s unbelievable.
Jack: All consoles should be like this. Me, pointing at the Sega Dreamcast. [quiet laughter] 
Art: The Sega Dreamcast, where no one had to pay for games.
Austin: That’s right.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Jack: Yes.
Art: And, coincidentally, they didn't make it.
Austin: Uh uh.
Dre: Mm-mm. [Jack laughs]
Jack: Who’s taking the dragon scale?
Dre: Can I take it? Because I might use it for project stuff later.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Oh, yeah. 
Austin: Yeah, buddy.
Jack: Great shout.
Dre: Yeah.
Jack: So Veile and Nicky both also get 500 asta.
Ali: Oh, sure. I'm going to take the gem. I don't know that I'm selling this.
Austin: Yeah, take the gem. Yeah, you can keep it. Maybe you can do something cool with it.
Jack: Oh, I see. Right, yeah, okay. [Ali laughs]
Austin: It’s worth 500 asta.
Jack: Right, right, right, right. Ali, what color is your beautiful gem?
Ali: Ooh. I think my beautiful gem is, like, a deep sort of teal color.
Austin: Write this down.
Ali: Like, you look into it, and it looks like you're looking into the ocean. Beautiful gem.
Jack: Whoa.
Art: Oh. Nicky will just be fencing this as soon as possible. I'm not even… [Ali laughs]
Austin: Okay.
Jack: [typing] One beautiful gem.
Art: Nicky doesn't remember.
Austin: Pick a color. Pick a color.
Art: Um, yellow.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: Ooh.
Jack: My beautiful gem is, like, the most perfect pale amethyst you've ever seen.
Austin: Pale amethyst. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dre: Ooh.
Jack: Pale purple.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: There's so much shit in my Inventory.
Austin: Now, I heard someone say we should do another rest. [Ali laughs]
Ali: [meekly] That was me.
Art: Oh, time to do some gathering! [Ali laughs]
Austin: Now, I will say: the book is like, listen. I'll just read you what the book says. Rests and Pacing: “While the rules for rests are very generous, spending too much time wrapped in the warm blankets of an inn will allow whatever danger is approaching to make the first move undisturbed.” Bolded: “Inactivity should never be without consequence. The Game Master may use Clocks to keep the Players on their toes and foreshadow incoming threats, filling a section at the end of each rest.”
Dre: Mm.
Austin: I haven't drawn such a—
Art: What, did you write this?
Austin: This book! [quiet laughter] No, there's been a decade, 15 year long, you know, scene that has learned, you know, things happen, even when you're not moving. That’s, like, one of the hallmarks of contemporary indie campaign-based games.
Jack: We're being shown the barrel of a gun. With that being said, what is our—
Austin: If you want to rest, you could rest. I know exactly what happens if you rest, so.
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: I don't need it. I'll just go down to 0 IP. Or I can say that staring into the ocean and feeling satisfied at the feeling of casting doom is acting in accordance to the prophecy, but I don't think that it is. [Dre and Ali laugh]
Austin: I don't think it is. I am pretty generous with that stuff, but I don't think it is.
Ali: Yeah. I gotta…
Jack: Here’s what we could do. You could go down to low IP. Similar, Jonathan healing after he got poisoned magnificently there at the end.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Jack: We get on the road to Spillaway Peaks. We will have to do travel business, so there's some risk there, but the IP will, like, buffer that. And then when we arrive in Spillaway Peaks—assuming it’s not, like, on fire or something—we go to the shop, we buy more IP, we get all that stuff sorted.
Ali: I was about to do the stupidest— I'm so playing a video game when I play this, which is crazy, but I was about to see if I could My Trust In You myself to recover the 10 Mind Points. [Ali and Dre laugh]
Austin: What's it say?
Ali: But I don't think that I can.
Jack: Oh, wow.
Ali: Because it is also after a Check, so I would have had to do it.
Austin: Oh, I see. You would have had to have done it.
Ali: And I need a Fabula Point, which I'm not going to get until the next session, and yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: I am just going to chug this…just sitting down on the rock that she was on to look at the ocean again after that fight, and just being like, “Phew!”
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Ali: Chugging down this elixir. [laughs] Alas.
Travel [1:48:28]
Austin: All right. Y'all are going to hit the road.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: I would love to do this Travel roll before we wrap. Does that sound okay, or do you have to go?
Dre: Yeah, sure.
Jack: Yeah, that’s fine.
Austin: Okay. We have started to use the Alternative Travel Rules. I said they were by one person. I was wrong last time. They are, in fact, by— I think that the, like, layout or something was by the person who I shouted out, which was piccolo_24. But the actual rules are not by that. They are by…I had it earlier. Here they are. By TailsPr. Shoutouts to TailsPr. These are available for free, or they're actually available for Name Your Own Price over on itch.io. Do a search for “Alternative Travel Rules.” I love that it is written up as a Fabula Ultima mod. I think that’s a very fun way to refer to this. [Dre chuckles]
Jack: Oh, that’s great.
Austin: We've modded the game. I'm guessing, so, you're driving the Little Snail onto the ferry. Is that what’s happening here?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: You're not leaving it behind, presumably.
Dre: No. God, no.
Austin: It’s a ferry big enough for the Little Snail. The ferry is called the Crystal Conch. Conch? Consch. Consch shell. Conch shell?
Dre: Conch shell, I think.
Austin: Conch shell.
Ali: It’s conch.
Jack: I think we say consch in Europe.
Austin: Interesting.
Jack: But, I mean, maybe I said it wrong and everyone around me also said it wrong.
Austin: Interesting. Conch. Yeah, conch shell. It is called the Crystal Conch Express, [Ali: Ooh.] and there is a captain who runs it, a Manakin captain named Hornbeam Hypostyle, who is the most, like, stereotypical sea captain you can imagine. Has a double wide Manakin body; has a big ol' hat. It’s like a…I think he’s, like, very proud of this. It’s like a stolen Valte admiral hat that he has redecorated. 
Jack: Oh hell yeah.
Austin: And he has a— the reason it’s called the Crystal Conch Express is because the hull of the ship is a big seashell. It’s a giant seashell that has been converted and, at some point, was painted to have a sort of shiny exterior, but that paint has all faded at this point. He obviously, like, waves you all aboard. He takes your ticket. I think there's just enough room for your truck, not much else. This is a multi-day trip, and there is a sort of guest cabin, so it’s actually, like, it’s more of a boat. It’s a ferry in that it goes back and forth between these two places, but it’s a boat, you know? This is like a big…what’s the actual word for this? Where it’s like a bay that goes…like a bay that is…
Jack: Like an inlet?
Austin: Like an inlet, I guess, yeah. And it’s like a fairly large one. As you may remember from the Prelude, it is home to a strange sea dragon, and it is one of the only areas in the western continent where the sea is, you know, kind of stable enough, quiet enough for a vessel this size to safely travel. It will not be torn apart by the tides that tend to kind of surround this continent. 
So. Looking at these rules, “These new rules for traveling form a slower paced, more chill and contemplative game, where stakes take longer to get higher and the characters can appreciate a journey with memorable and special little moments. The dice used for Travel rolls remain the same, but the results of the rolls and the discoveries will receive some small changes. Discoveries are now divided between Minor and Major Discoveries. Minor Discoveries don't give any significant reward, but they do provide some extra worldbuilding or character development and may also allow for a safe place to rest,” which would be great, wouldn't it? “These Discoveries may also remind a Player Character of a particular moment in their life, allowing them to share stories about themselves or the world itself with the rest of the group. Major Discoveries remain the same as regular Discoveries from the core rulebook, which are always useful and may provide rewards. Note that despite the “major” in the name, it doesn't mean it must be something grandiose, like a secret ancient dungeon, but something that may be useful, like lost backpack that replenishes some IP.” 
All right. So, let’s think about the basic rules for travel. Where did I put them? Oh, they're in the sidebar, aren't they? Because you are on a vessel. You are on a boat. And I can't remember if boats go further or the same as…aquatic is…yeah, it’s the same. It’s the same as your thing, which is two tiles per day. Twice as far as you can on foot. All right, so. To get from Calstega Bay to Spillaway Peaks is six hexes. I think that’s probably the closest we can draw it.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: So, that is three days on this boat; three travel rolls. And, as always, Travel works with you roll the highest difficulty that you go through that day, I believe. Is that right? Yes.
Jack: Uh…yes. If more than a single threat level is present, only apply the highest. 
Austin: That’s right. Okay. The first day: the highest roll is an 8. Who wants to roll these?
Jack: In the past, it’s been Jonathan, and I think that’s good.
Dre: Sure.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: As the, like, pilot of the…
Austin: Of the Little Snail. 
Jack: Of the Little Snail.
Austin: Even though, at this point, you're just kind of on the boat.
Ali: Did somebody recently get a Travel benefit thing? No, I think it was different things.
Dre: I mean, I have my…
Austin: Nicky is— oh, you did.
Dre: My campfire skill, yeah, lets me reroll one Travel roll.
Austin: There you go.
Ali: Okay. 
Austin: Love it.
Ali: That was what I was thinking of, yeah.
Dre: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: All right, well, give me your 8.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: Or your d8. That is a 6, which would be a Danger. Do you want to reroll it?
Dre: Yes. Sure.
Austin: Okay. Give me a reroll.
Dre: It’s low, right? We want low numbers?
Austin: You want low, yeah. 
Dre: Okay.
Austin: Hey! There's a 3. Look at that. On a 3, you get a Minor Discovery on these new rolls.
Dre: Ooh.
Austin: Minor Discoveries always, again, are something— they don't have, like, a mechanical benefit here, but they give you an opportunity to talk about, you know, something exciting. There's some examples here. Give me a d12. Let’s play from their book of Minor Discoveries.
Dre: That’s a 10.
Austin: On a 10…oh, we find… You see it off of the northern side of the ship. You're going west to east, and you're about a third of the way through the trip. I think, you know, it’s probably around— or maybe you're about half the way— sorry, not half. You're about a quarter of the way through the trip, because it’s sunset on the first day out on the sea. You see a statue of an old forgotten hero. This is getting towards Spillaway Peaks. Maybe this is a Terrapine hero. Jonathan, who’s the statue of out here in the middle of the sea? The middle of the bay.
Dre: Hmm. This is, uh…
Austin: You don't need a name necessarily, but like, what’s the…
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, if you have one, you can have one, but.
Dre: The name I'm going to go with is Clay. [Austin chuckles] Why, what’s wrong with that?
Austin: Don't worry about it.
Dre: Okay. Great. Perfect. [Austin laughs] Love it when a plan comes together.
Austin: Uh, uh…
Dre: Do I need to pick a different one?
Austin: No, it’s funny. It’s funny, it’s funny, it’s funny.
Dre: Okay. All right.
Austin: It’s funny, actually.
Ali: I'm laughing.
Dre: Let’s see. What did he do? What was his, like, legendary thing that got him a statue in the ocean?
Austin: He was an inventor, Dre.
Dre: Oh, okay.
Austin: He was an inventor. His name was Kaderius Klaye.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: He’s some sort of Terrapine inventor, a tinkerer.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Like you. What did he figure out?
Dre: [sighs] Maybe he’s the one who, like, created whatever the Terrapine, like, theory of buoyancy is called.
Austin: Oh, that’s really good. Yeah.
Dre: And that’s why he’s in the middle of the ocean, or the sea.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. Yeah, was a famous, yeah, figured that out, and then, I think, famously left to find…maybe one of the first people in Tidaline, this whole continent, who left the continent behind, was able to overcome the waves of the terrible tides that prevent long distance ship travel beyond the bounds of the continent. And, like, famously, you know, kind of gifted the Terrapine the ability to travel by sea. Figured out the buoyancy stuff and then went off into the sunset, never to be seen again, famously.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: All right. Cool thing to find.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Oh, what a joy. Give me another roll.
Dre: Sure. Another…?
Austin: Today, second day, is a d10.
Jack: Oh. Is the water choppier or deeper or…?
Austin: It is choppier, because it is further off the shore, so it’s like, it’s in the middle, right, of this trip. So, again, for the people who are not looking at our map, Calstega Bay is on the shore, and then to the northeast of it is this inlet, this deep inlet, and then Spillaway Peaks is, like, northeast of it by 140 miles or something. And in the middle is kind of the deepest part of the sea between the two of them, and so, yes, it’s much choppier here.
Dre: Oof.
Austin: All right. And a 5, I think nothing happens. I think only 3 and 4 are Minor Discoveries. Or 2 or 3, Minor Discovery. 4 or 5, nothing significant happens.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: All right. Give me a d10, the final step.
Dre: Okay. I thought you were going to go up one more.
Austin: No. I think this is still— it’s closer to the shore, so it’s not a natural thing. This is something else.
Dre: Hmm.
Austin: These seas are being patrolled by someone else. And a 6 is a Danger. Can you reroll again, or can you only reroll one?
Dre: I think I can only do it once. Let me double check.
Jack: Can you spend Fabula Points on Travel rolls?
Austin: It’s not a Skill Check.
Dre: Mm.
Jack: Ah, fuck! Yep.
Austin: All right.
Dre: Yeah, it’s just the once.
Austin: A ship appears over the horizon. It is a large vessel that seems to be, like, entirely this kind of red-brown clay color. It, in fact, seems almost like it was made of clay. And the ferry captain says:
(as Hornbeam Hypostyle): Oh shit. It’s the damn Klaye Pirates.
Dre: Oh. [Jack laughs quietly]
Austin: And he only gets about a second or two in before you hear the sound of cannons firing, and wet kind of splashes of clay begin descending onto the ferry. And he yells to all of you:
(as Hornbeam Hypostyle): All right, get the buckets! We gotta clean ‘em out of here before they form up!
[“Perpetua” by Jack de Quidt plays]