Episode 12: On The Road Transcript
Transcript Note: Next in the Order’s episodes are hand-transcribed by members of the cast. If you find issues with accuracy, clarity, or formatting, please let us know and we’ll get it fixed as soon as we possibly can! You can contact us via Instagram or Twitter @nextintheorder.
A PDF version of this transcript can be found here!
JAS: The blazing eternal sun beats down over the desert. The man tucks his find under his white poncho, before his eyes quickly dart around, surveying the scene. He knows better than to touch it here, in a place where there can be so much collateral damage. But… he found it. He finally found it. This is Next in the Order.
[THEME MUSIC]
JAS: Hello one and all and welcome back to another episode of Next in the Order! I am your not-that-really-humble Dungeon Master - that, I hated how I said that. And we’re back at it again! Wink, pronoun check-in?
WINK: Um… they/he?
JAS: Okay, tasty.
NORTH: In that order?
MERCER: Ditto.
WINK: Yeah, in that order of preference.
JAS: And we had a “ditto” from Mercer, excellente. Last session, we did some… we did some Sylacrum passing-out-ing, we did some, uh, Sylacrum-getting-kidnapped-ing. Um. We did some talking to Valren who said that you only had three days, then we did some talking with Henry and Wayne, who informed you that not all had been as they had let on, and that… Henry had actually been looking for the pieces of the Fissure Core, I know I say that wrong, fuck right off. And then that Valren is a shitty dude and that y’all aren’t gonna stop being hunted by Valren, but you may have better luck getting away from him in Endless Day. And so the trip set off with money in their pockets, a picnic basket of food, and vibes to go make their way to Endless Day.
MAR: Okay…
WINK: Man cannot survive on vibes and vibes alone.
NORTH: I knew that a honeymoon and Endless Night was a little suspicious.
MAR: Yeah… Cire was just going on vibes, and the vibes were good, so…
JAS: I mean, it’s not like they were doing bad shit there.
NORTH: Valren’s vibes are stinky.
[LAUGHTER]
MAR: Valren’s vibes ARE stinky.
WINK: Valren’s vibes are like the grease that’s left on the paper on the bottom of a KFC bucket.
NORTH: Valren’s vibes are like when they clean the grill at McDonalds at the end of the night, and they scrape all that black shit off.
MAR: Valren’s vibes are like the dog shit in our apartment’s staircase.
[VARIOUS DISTRESSED AND DISGUSTED NOISES]
JAS: We live in a shitty apartment.
MAR: We live in a shitty apartment.
JAS: Most of us at the moment.
MAR: All of us have, at some point, lived in the same shitty apartment building.
JAS: All right. It’s a travel day. How are we vibin, how we feeling?
WINK: Permission to quote Shrek the Musical? [SINGING] Sing a song, it’s a travel song when you gotta go somewhere… half the fun it getting there.
NORTH: How far from Endless Day, how far do I have to listen to the Shrek musical?
JAS: A week.
WINK: [CONTINUES SINGING THE TRAVEL SONG FROM SHREK THE MUSICAL]
JAS: I think Shrek the Musical exists in Spring now. But it is not allowed elsewhere.
WINK: Used specifically as a torture method for people in prison?
JAS: Yikers. Ew, why did I say “yikers?” Anyway.
MAR: Why do y’all keep saying cursed things. It makes me say cursed things because I spend so much time around y’all.
WINK: Echoalia is a love language.
NORTH: It’s like Shaggy saying “Zoinkers.”
MAR: I actually have in one of my notes from session, that is, “Echoalia is a love language and Mar is slightly embarrassed.”
JAS: Um, I really love that Wink tried to turn in a paper that said, “Sustainable society go brr.” And our teacher looked at it and went, “What? What does that mean?”
WINK: And I was like, “You know, sustainable society go brr.”
MERCER: Wait, what?
JAS: She did not accept that answer.
WINK: She was like, “try again.” It was after you left rock class.
NORTH: Plot.
JAS: Travel time, it’s travel time. I’m gonna go ahead and say all of you can go ahead and take a long rest after your first day on the road. ‘Cause nothing happens there because I’m nice to you.
MAR: Delicious. Thank you.
WINK: That’s a bitchass lie.
MAR: Deli- I forgot you… I still had nineteen Lay on Hands points this whole time!
WINK: Teehee.
MAR: Oh, I’ve been at full… okay, I don’t have to erase anything over there, I just have to erase this shit.
NORTH: Is there… there is an international mail system, correct?
JAS: Yes, there is.
NORTH: Okay, what is it, is it just the CSPS?
JAS: Uh…
WINK: Citarya Seasons Postal System?
JAS: Sure, yes, that’s what it is now.
MAR: Don’t you love it when our cursed shit does your worldbuilding for you?
JAS: Right? I love it. You would have to be in a city to access it, and y’all are not going to pass one on the way into…
NORTH: Well, I figured. I just, for future reference.
MAR: Mmm, tasty, I get my channel divinity back. But more importantly, I get my smite slots back!
JAS: Okay, I need somebody to roll a percentile die.
NORTH: That’s a, that’s this one!
MAR: I got it. God, can I please change one thing about the roll?
JAS: No.
MAR: It’s a sixty-eight.
JAS: It’s in the same range as what happens on a 69, so it’s a 69 now.
MAR: Okay, in our hearts it is…
JAS: In our hearts it is a 69.
NORTH: I rolled a 97.
JAS: You didn’t… we didn’t need a 97 to roll. We only needed one roll, so as nice of a roll as that would have been for y’all, you don’t get that roll.
WINK: We get the 69.
JAS: You get a 68 3/4 that’s now a 69 ‘cause rounding. That’s how it works, right? Cool, so you all are making your way to Endless Day. And that rhymed and I’m Dr. Fuckin’ Seuss without the racism.
NORTH: Or cheating on your wife.
JAS: Did he do that?
NORTH: He cheated on his wife who had cancer.
WINK: Teehee.
NORTH: Around the time he wrote The Grinch, actually. He wrote the Grinch for her and then cheated on her while she had cancer.
JAS: There’s so much to unpack… anyway.
MAR: [PAINFULLY HIGH-PITCHED] There’s so much to unpack there!
WINK: I feel the beginnings of one of those headaches that leaves me in bed for three days.
JAS: Good… um.
NORTH: “Good.”
JAS: You all are going and… is there any conversations that you want to have while on the road?
NORTH: Here’s a conversation I really need to have. So, Valus typically when traveling tries to fly above tree… are there trees?
JAS: So, as you’re walking, you can see that the trees kind of dissipate out, like they become a little bit less concentrated, but right now it’s decently wooded. But looking at the horizon you can see…
NORTH: Okay. Valus typically tends to fly around the tree height level, just to kinda… if something happens, not be on ground level.
MAR: Fair.
NORTH: But he’s going to swoop down and land next to Cire. And say, okay, there’s something that I really think that we need to figure out… and as you’ve known, we’ve battled together quite a few times at this point. We’ve severely lacked any kind of communication during those points, and since we seem to be in the long haul of it together, I definitely think that’s something we should start doing.
MAR: Strategizing beforehand, or?
NORTH: Even during, just…anything.
MAR: Just saying something?
NORTH: Just saying something. I think it’s best if we know what each other’s doing, or at least attempting to do.
MAR: Well, most of my spells when I’m not just… making my bonks bonkier…
WINK: In character?
NORTH: In character?
MAR: In character. [LAUGHING] So unless I’m using my spells to make actual attacks more powerful, pretty much every spell that I use on a regular basis, I have to concentrate on. So, just for a general note, I guess, if I’m using a spell, maybe try to avoid hitting me with things?
WINK: I’m very sorry about that.
MAR: It’s all right.
WINK: I was unfamiliar with the way that your spell worked, and also was not intending to hurt you with it.
MAR: That’s fair, I was. That was more a response to Valus than anything. I know that, like, you didn’t know the details of my spells; we’d fought together maybe once before that?
WINK: Yes.
MAR: Problem is, usually, I’m right up there with the people you want to fight.
WINK: Yes. Yes, you are a - what do they call it? The, um, where you have to get up close to hit?
NORTH: Melee.
MAR: A melee fighter?
WINK: Yes, those are the words.
MAR: Yes, that. But…
WINK: I can usually manage to fire attacks from a distance, but it requires a bit more math than I am used to to get the angles right to not hit people that I don’t want to hit.
MAR: Understandable, have a nice day.
NORTH: I also somewhat run into the same thing. All of my spells have a bit of wide area. Which is why I think it’s important to…
MAR: Know what’s happening.
NORTH: Well, yeah, trade out if we need to, or something. If I cast Burning Hands, I don’t want you there.
MAR: Fair, well, like I said, it’s not that important, since pretty much… my spells are good for two things. One: make attacks more attack. Two: make friends less squishy.
WINK: Make friends more friend.
MAR: And that’s what I do, so if you hit me with something and make me lose my concentration, that’s more a you problem than a me problem, actually.
WINK: That is fair, I suppose.
JAS: Do you have any more conversations for the road?
MAR: Not really.
WINK: I have, I believe, two bites of my pear. Just putting that out there. Just so that I have said it before I say, I take a bite of my pear, and you’re like, you don’t have any bites left, but I have… I only have three tallies.
NORTH: I have one.
JAS: Sylacrum somewhere in the middle of nowhere just hears…
MAR: Where is Sylacrum? No one knows. Somewhere with Valren, which isn’t a good thing, but there isn’t anything we can do about it.
JAS: Yikes!
WINK: And the pears don’t have a range.
JAS: No, they do not.
NORTH: Woah, that’s cool.
MAR: Pears are built different.
WINK: Well, because they’re a limited resource.
NORTH: They probably wouldn’t do, like, interdimensional communication.
JAS: They won’t interplanar. I’ll tell you that straight up and down.
MAR: If you’re in the Ethereal Plane, you cannot use a pear to talk to someone in the Material Plane.
WINK: Okay, I have a question, and this can get edited out, it’s purely for science. Could somebody potentially split a pear with someone and then go out into the Forever Sea and see if they could still keep communicating?
JAS: Yeah, theoretically.
WINK: Theoretically.
JAS: Yeah.
WINK: Cool.
NORTH: So, is it like anywhere on this plane?
JAS: Yeah, theoretically.
WINK: So like, space?
JAS: Yeah, theoretically.
MAR: I hate the way that you’re saying “theoretically.” I am terrified of you.
JAS: Teehee.
WINK: I wanna lick something, but everything is paper… or blanket. So, if I am to be writing stories about us, do we want to call ourselves anything? Like, I don’t know, like a cool party name? Something? I don’t know. She looks around at everybody with this really expectant look in her eyes.
NORTH: It doesn’t necessarily sound like a bad idea, I’m not awfully good with names.
WINK: Like… I don’t know, like the… Super-Season Crusaders.
MAR: Well, I think…
WINK: That’s supposed to be a bad suggestion.
MAR: Something… something that we could still, if we needed to... something tells me that traveling with the four of us in a group is going to attract some attention, no matter what we try to do. But maybe something that doesn’t draw too much attention to overall goals?
WINK: The Blossom Family.
NORTH: So, there are guilds and stuff, like we can go and get work?
JAS: Yeah.
NORTH: Are there some that require you to have a party and a name to register under?
JAS: So, adventuring parties are weird in that sense of like, adventuring is kind of an industry, right? Or else, what the fuck would y’all be doing? But there are certain jobs that will only hire groups, but you don’t necessarily need a group name or anything. It is certainly helpful to be like, “Yeah, we’ve been working together for this long, and we are, this is our skillset as a group,” right? But also there’s individual mercenaries and things, so there are guilds that are like, “Yeah, we would prefer to have a party come do this, but…” yeah. You catch my drift?
NORTH: Yeah.
JAS: Yeah.
WINK: We could be, like, “Wings and WLWs.”
NORTH: “Wings and W-“?
MAR: Why?
WINK: WLW is, I believe, a short term for a lesbian. And. Um, in case you haven’t noticed, I have been flirting with you this whole time.
NORTH: Wow, when you said you were gonna be more direct next time, I didn’t think you meant-
MAR: Can I roll an insight check on Hesperis?
JAS: Yes.
NORTH: Can I see if Hesperis is fucking with me?
MAR: Fifteen.
JAS: You don’t think Hesperis is fucking with you.
WINK: Can I roll a, like, I don’t know, would that be like performance or persuasion, to be like, yeah, I’m totally…
JAS: Yeah, persuasion.
WINK: That’s a seventeen for persuasion, but yeah, she is absolutely, has been flirting with you this entire time.
MAR: I, the player, know this, Cire does not.
WINK: Cire is… this my favorite thing to say, Cire is an oblivious banana nut muffin. At first I thought that one of the spots on the ceiling was a lizard, but no, it was just a spot on the ceiling.
MAR: God, I wish it was a lizard.
WINK: God, I wish it was a lizard. Fuckin’ love lizards.
JAS: [CHICKEN NOISE] Anyways, Cire, do we have a response to this?
MAR: Oh, Cire’s fully deer-in-headlights. She’s gonna be deer-in-headlights for the next like, at least two minutes.
WINK: Okay, fair enough.
NORTH: Should we just start calling the party U-Haul, or whatever it’s called.
MERCER, MAR, WINK, and JAS: We-Move.
MERCER: W-Move could also stand for wings.
WINK: Or women.
MERCER: Or women.
WINK: [DREAMY SIGH] God, women. Can that be transcripted as “dreamy sigh”?
JAS and MAR: Yes.
MAR: Yeah… that was in character.
JAS: That was out of character. Yeah…
WINK: Um. I don’t know…
NORTH: I’m actually not hugely… [MAR TALKS OVER NORTH]
MAR: Cire would have no reason to bring this up, but what if we just called ourselves, “UwU?”
[LAUGHTER]
NORTH: The ancient language.
WINK: The… wait no, hang on, I’m trying to think of something.
JAS: It would be plausible that the phrase “UwU” exists in Winter. And OwO.
WINK: No, see what I’m working on right now.
MAR: I’m gonna have a breakdown.
WINK: Oberon’s Group Without Owlins. OwO.
NORTH: Without what?
MAR and WINK: Owlins.
MERCER: We could call ourselves the Scalers. And Caelum pulls Oberon’s scale from his bag.
WINK: I feel like we need two words.
MERCER: The. Scalers.
WINK: I feel like we need two big words.
MERCER: If our whole thing is to be inconspicuous about it…
WINK: It’s not as poetic.
MERCER: I know that you are a musician, however…
WINK: And a poet. And a storyteller.
MERCER: Sometimes simple things can be better.
JAS: I, this is God coming in here to say that if you call yourselves the Scalers, people are going to change it to the Scalies.
[LAUGHTER]
MERCER: Never mind.
NORTH: That will not matter for one member of the party.
[LAUGHTER]
MAR: Is Valus canonically a scalie?
MERCER: North admitted it, Valus is canonically a scalie.
NORTH: I am going along with a fucking joke.
MERCER: No, you admitted it.
JAS: Nope, this is in audio form.
MAR: We have audio proof that North believes Valus is a scalie.
NORTH: I’m not the one editing, so I can’t say “don’t edit it out.”
WINK: Okay, this is kind of along the same vein. And it’s got sort of this creepy, ominous, powerful vibe to it? How do we feel about like, the Dragon’s Claw?
MAR: Not exactly inconspicuous.
WINK: Neither are dragons.
MAR: But we’re not dragons. None of us are even dragonborn.
[LAUGHTER]
WINK: I just accidentally turned to my page that said, in bright orange highlighter, “You fucked my chicken strips.”
MAR: We could do something with the scales, but maybe instead of the… maybe instead of leaning into the fact that they’re scales, the fact that they’re stories?
MERCER: The Storytellers. It’s simple, it’s not something crazy that would get us caught.
MAR: Well, and it’s true for at least one of us.
MERCER: I mean, all of us told stories to Oberon, no?
WINK: What if we were Storycatchers?
[VARIOUS AGREEING MURMURS]
MAR: Wasn’t that what Oberon did for his entire life?
NORTH: I like it.
MERCER: I like it too.
MAR: Are we the Storycatchers?
MERCER: I think we’re the Storycatchers.
WINK: I think we are the Storycatchers.
MERCER: Caelum is going to use Thaumaturgy to make it… is it night, can I say it’s night?
JAS: Yeah, evening approaching night, so.
MERCER: Caelum is going to use Thaumaturgy to manipulate the light of the stars a little bit to shape a “S” and “C”. Just a little bit, just for us.
JAS: Can I also get a perception check from Caelum?
MERCER: Eight.
JAS: Nevermind.
MAR: Not to out myself as the jock of the group, but when Caelum did the “SC” my immediate thought was Sports Center.
[LAUGHTER]
WINK: God fucking damn it.
MAR: And I hate that that was where my brain went, but it was.
NORTH: Thaumaturgy can make noises, too, right?
MERCER: Yes.
NORTH: From the sky you just hear [SPORTSCENTER JINGLE]
MAR: [LAUGHING] Is this just the jock side of the table?
WINK: I hate it here.
NORTH: I mean, we have SportsCenter - I mean, it wouldn’t be SportsCenter in Winter, it’d be like, I don’t know. Game.
WINK: Stronk Jock Spaghetti Arms Tired Boys. Anyway.
MAR: Anyway.
JAS: Anyway.
[CHICKEN NOISES]
NORTH: I’m gonna get a shirt that says, “Anyways.”
MERCER: Storycatchers?
WINK: And the back of the shirt says [CHICKEN NOISES]
NORTH: [LAUGHING] Yeah.
[EVERYONE LAUGHING]
MAR: Storycatchers!
JAS: Storycatchers make brain go brr so fast. Um. Yeah, that’s very good. Hesperis, roll a perception check for me.
WINK: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Sixteen.
JAS: Sixteen. As Caelum is casting Thaumaturgy, you see - Caelum still has the scale in his hand, right? - and you see it glint, and shine, and you start to see a story in it.
WINK: I’m sorry, may I see your scale, please?
MERCER: Oh, uh. Yeah.
WINK: And I take the scale and I look at it closer.
JAS: You see a story happen in reverse. It’s… you can tell ‘cause everyone in it is walking backwards. Y’know, like a reverse video, almost, right?
WINK: Silly Sally went to town.
JAS: And you see… the best way you can describe it is an oasis. And you see glittering blue water, and these massive palm trees overhead, and the sun over you, bright and hot. And then it moves backwards, and you see glimpses of a fight, and guns being drawn in a shoot, you watch as these bullets pull back in reverse back to their senders.
WINK: Sexy.
JAS: And then it goes back further and you see an overhead birds’ eye view of three people walking and somebody else flying above, and then the scene switches.
WINK: I could be wrong - could I make an insight check and if I make this guess, if I roll high enough you tell me if I’m totally off base with it?
JAS: Go for it.
WINK: Okay. That’s a ten on my insight check. My guess is that in Endless Day, we are going to have some kind of gunfight? I’m a little bit concerned about that, but… all I really saw was us walking into the fight, and even that was we were walking out of the fight, but it was reversed, so there was a fight and us walking backwards out of it, so I assume that we were walking forwards into it and then it happened? I don’t really know, and she makes this really weird - you know the face that you make when you’re like “I don’t know?” - you know? That face? The face I just made for the people at the table. [‘DON’T KNOW’ NOISE]
JAS: I think that noise verbalizes the face.
WINK: And I think that’s what’s going to happen, I could be wrong… we’ll see.
NORTH: Well, best not to worry about it now, I guess.
WINK: Are we going to set up camp or anything for the night?
NORTH: Probably should for the time being.
MERCER: Caelum’s gonna start casting Create Bonfire.
JAS: Okay. What kind of spell is that?
MERCER: It’s a cantrip!
JAS: Okay.
MERCER: Most of my shit is cantrips.
JAS: Yeah. You start to… you set up a little fire and…
WINK: Are there plants nearby?
JAS: Plenty.
MERCER: We’re still in Autumn, right?
JAS: Yes, we are still in Autumn.
WINK: Could I like, talk to the trees? Like with my Speak With Animals? Could I talk to the trees and ask them to… if they could tilt themselves to make sort of a shelter for us? Or like, grow their branches, or vines, or something to help us? I could do persuasion, maybe?
JAS: Yeah, make a persuasion check.
NORTH: Is there an entirely different spell for terramorphing, I guess, nature? If that’s the right word.
JAS: Um… there are different spells that could be used for that. I mean, Druidcraft, in essence, is like growing things, and there’s different things that you can do, and grow and shape plants and things. There’s a bunch of different ones, but I don’t know if specifically what Hesperis is asking for is a thing that you can do with a specific spell. You know?
WINK: Could I maybe have advantage on that? Because I am also a plant.
JAS: Sure. Don’t say I never do anything for you.
WINK: God fucking damn it.
NORTH: Did you roll lower?
WINK: Yeah.
NORTH: [LAUGHTER]
WINK: So that’s a… twelve.
JAS: (as a tree, slowly) I… cannot… move like that. I… am… sorry. I would do it if I could.
WINK: What kind of tree is this?
JAS: It’s a big oak. A red oak.
WINK: Okay. It is all right. I figured the worst thing you could tell me is no. So, you know. But thank you for the help anyway. If we may set up camp against you?
JAS: (as a tree) I do not mind. I will help keep watch, but I will not be able to wake you up if something goes wrong. It is usually safe here.
WINK: From a tree, very comforting. From my DM, not comforting at all.
NORTH: If they had rolled a nat 1, would the tree just have been like, “Fuck off.”
[LAUGHTER AS THEME MUSIC BEGINS]
JAS: Yes.
[THEME MUSIC]
JAS: Hey guys, it’s Jas, and I’m just coming to do your ads, as always, you already know the deal. My cat just sprinted through my room. Okay, thank you, ma’am, for your input. Have you been meaning to go to the grocery store, but just… have not had the time, the energy, or the want-to-deal-with-people? Have you been staring at your empty fridge, going, “Man, I really wish I had a bag of shredded cheese?” Well, now you can get that bag of shredded cheese delivered straight to your door, with Instacart! Instacart can deliver groceries directly to your door in as little as an hour. Get the products you love from the stores you love, all from the comfort of your own home. Right now you can use our link to get free delivery on your first order over $35 and I know, the world’s crazy right now. Going out in public? Absolutely not. Those gas prices? Absolutely not! Have someone else do it for you. Use the link in the episode description or go to instacart.oloiyb.net/nextintheorder. That is instacart.oloiyb.net/nextintheorder.
JAS: Hey, you should check out our Patreon! We’ve got a bunch of different things going on over there. We’ve got a patrons-only Discord server that’s pretty poppin’ if I do say so myself, and later in this episode you’ll hear a couple of characters as they cross into Endless Day change their color palette a little bit. We’ll have official color palettes over on Patreon and those will be available to you if you want to really get a good visual on what these characters look like now. Soon, we’ll have a playlist for Endless Day going up over there, so you can kind of pick up what I’m putting down with the vibes. And yeah, generally is a good time. So that is at patreon.com/nextintheorder. We also have a ko-fi, or ko-fi [pronounced “coffee”] I don’t know how you say it, still, but you can support the show with absolutely no commitment, you can do as little as one dollar, you can give up to a thousand. Don’t give us a thou- I mean, you could give us a thousand dollars, I’m not gonna say no, but… y’all got that much money? Damn, okay. But, however you want to support the show, you can do that at ko-fi.com/nextintheorder. That is K-O dash F-I.com/nextintheorder.
JAS: Lastly, thank you ever so much to Magic Sword for the use of their song “Battlefield (Dance With The Dead Remix)” as the theme song for our show. We’re… we’re… it’s always a banger. You already knew this. All right, that is all from me this week, and I will catch you guys in a couple of weeks. Talk to you then, bye!
[THEME MUSIC]
MAR: Valus, would you like to trance first, or should I?
NORTH: I don’t exactly remember who went first last time, but I don’t mind…
MAR: Does it matter?
NORTH: I don’t mind staying up first.
JAS: All right, Valus, roll a perception check.
NORTH: Teehee. Oh… oh no. That’s a nine.
JAS: Okay. With a nine, you…
WINK: We’re gonna get surprise-rounded.
JAS: … are sitting there in the camp, and - my brain is fighting the urge to talk incredibly slowly again. Um. It is debating between going slowly and at warp speed.
WINK: It’s that ADHD, innit love?
JAS: It’s that ADHD, innit! Anyway, the… you are sitting there in the camp.
NORTH: Writing my fifth letter to my mother that I will send out when I get a chance.
JAS: You are writing your fifth letter to your mother, and you are keenly aware of the scratching of your pen on paper. And that’s all. Your watch passes with no issue.
NORTH: Yay. I can’t complain if there’s no problem. I guess I’ll be trancing now.
JAS: Yeah, you get - Cire wakes up, or Cire gets out of her trance. Cire, will you roll a perception check?
MAR: 17.
JAS: 17? There is nothing going on. It is incredibly boring. Boring watch. Easy money.
WINK: Why would you say that so ominously then?
JAS: Because it’s fun! I watch all of you get stressed out, excellent.
NORTH: Nothing happened. For now.
JAS: For now.
WINK: I say this with all the affection in my heart: Fuck you.
JAS: [EXAGGERATED GIGGLE]
WINK: [MOCKING GIGGLE]
NORTH: At least you didn’t tell us to make two backup characters before we started.
JAS: This is so true. [CHICKEN SOUNDS] Time for plot.
MAR: Hey, Caelum. Hey Hesperis. It’s time to be done sleeping.
MERCER: Caelum was awake around the same time that Cire woke out her trance.
MAR: Cire took second watch.
MERCER: I know. Caelum woke up early.
MAR: Caelum only slept for four hours? That’s not a full long rest.
MERCER: I know.
NORTH: Didn’t we already get a long rest?
MERCER: We haven’t been doing anything but walking.
MAR: I mean, yeah.
JAS: I need you to roll a Constitution saving throw.
MERCER: Okay.
JAS: DC’s low.
MERCER: Ah, well… not that fucking low. Five.
JAS: It’s not that low, you do take a level of exhaustion.
MERCER: Cool.
NORTH: How many of those do you get before-
WINK: Does that not count as a short rest?
JAS: It would be a short rest.
MAR: But you don’t get rid of levels of exhaustion until you’ve had a long rest, right?
NORTH: I think that’s how it works.
MAR: So, exhaustion rules are a little bit weird.
JAS: They’re very nebulous and vary from person to person. However, an all-nighter, you’re going to take a level of exhaustion.
MAR: But it wasn’t an all-nighter, it was like four hours.
JAS: It was like four hours. Well, I was gonna do a CON save to see how well you did, and the DC was, I shit you not, eight. So because you rolled below that.
MAR: Right. So, one level of exhaustion is…
JAS: Disadvantage on ability checks.
MERCER: Cool.
NORTH: How many do you get before you just like, pass out?
MAR: You die at six. Fully just die.
NORTH: Oh, okay.
MAR: So Caelum has exhaustion. The DC was low and Caelum managed to limbo dance with the devil.
[LAUGHTER]
JAS: Um, yeah, so. You’re doing poorly as you wake up.
MAR: What did you roll on the die, just out of curiosity?
MERCER: Four.
NORTH: It was literally: “The DC’s low.” “Four.”
MAR: Cire would have literally had… Cire could not have rolled that low on a CON save.
WINK: Do you have a +7?
MAR: I have a +5.
MERCER: Oh, CON save? Seven! Still doesn’t beat the DC.
JAS: Still doesn’t beat an 8.
MAR: But yeah, Cire is proficient in Constitution saving throws and has a +3.
JAS: Yeah, you all wake up and see Caelum look extremely tired.
MAR: Are you okay?
MERCER: Yeah, I just, uh, I have issues sleeping sometimes. I will be fine.
MAR: Well, we’ve still got, what? Six, seven days ahead of us? No point in dawdling.
NORTH: (singing) We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz.
MAR: We’re off to see the wizards whose wands are guns.
[LAUGHTER]
NORTH; Harry Potter would have been a lot more interesting.
JAS: All right.
MAR: We don’t mention that franchise.
JAS: I need a percentile die roll.
MAR: Someone other than me do it this time.
NORTH: This is… these two? Forty-eight.
JAS: On a forty-eight… okay. You are… I need perception checks from everyone.
MAR: Oh, dear God, okay.
WINK: Oh, Lawd. Oh Lawd they coming.
NORTH: Oh, baby!
MAR: I don’t see anything.
MERCER: Six.
NORTH: 21.
JAS: 21, tasty.
WINK: 19.
JAS: All right. 19 and 21, you are following this road, and you have passed by a few people, during the day, just traveling back and forth, going about their business.
MERCER: Do we see any merchants?
JAS: You see quite a few, actually. You don’t see your family, but you do see quite a few merchants going back and forth, this road is primarily used by merchants and you would know that. A lot of people don’t typically want to travel to Endless Day. Endless Day and Autumn doesn’t have a lot of travel happening between them. Generally speaking, but travel between the two places - you would know this straight up, as a merchant’s kid, you would know that travel between those two places in particular is completely unrestricted, because they’re all city-states. Like, there’s hardly any law in Endless Day, and in Autumn, Autumn is controlled primarily by city-states, so there’s no regulation on who goes where.
WINK: Do I see any dryadfolk?
JAS: As you are walking along you see several merchants pass by, and you get to a quiet stretch of road, and you’re just walking. And Valus, you see something rustle in the bushes, and you hear the bushes rustling and rustling, and it’s going faster and faster, and Hesperis, you see it too. Until out pops… a kid. There is a Gnomish kid - so real little.
NORTH: How little?
MAR: Little!
JAS: Little. Gnomes tend to… gnomes get to be about three feet tall maximum. This kid looks to be, you would guess around eight. So like, probably about a foot and a half to two feet, at most.
NORTH: Okay.
JAS: Little.
MAR: Little.
NORTH: Football size.
MAR: NO.
[INDISTINCT CROSSTALK]
MAR: Do not punt the child.
NORTH: I don’t know if he scared me or not.
JAS: You see he has… his hair is all messed up, and he’s got twigs sticking in and out of it, and he’s looking around on the road. What do you do?
WINK: Are you okay, child?
MAR: Who?
WINK: There’s a child in the bush. You’ll see. Are you okay, child?
JAS: (as kid) Where am I?
WINK: You just fell out of a bush.
JAS: (as kid) Why was I in a bush?
WINK: I don’t know.
MAR: I don’t kno-
NORTH: We have just found you ourselves.
JAS: (as kid) Do you know where my parents are?
WINK: No, but I am more than happy to help you look for them.
JAS: (as kid) Okay!
WINK: What’s your name?
JAS: (as kid) My name is… (as self) Jas was unprepared and did not think of a name.
MAR: Hi, Jas Was Unprepared.
WINK: Sawyer!
JAS: Yeah, Sawyer. (as kid) My name is Sawyer Tillythatch.
NORTH: I’m assuming that is spelled how it sounds.
JAS: Yes.
WINK: Okay. Um. Well, Sawyer Tillythatch. Would you like to hop up on our good doctor’s shoulders here and take a little ride to look for your parents?
JAS: (as Sawyer) [gasp] You have wings!
NORTH: Valus reluctantly lowers one of his wings down in a sort of ramp shape for the child to scurry up.
JAS: He fully steps on it in the most uncomfortable way and scampers on up and is like, “Cool!”
MAR: Is Valus’ Strength high enough to carry this child.
NORTH: He is a foot and a half gnome, I would certainly hope so.
JAS: Yeah.
MAR: And you have an eigh- a six?!
NORTH: I have a six in Strength.
JAS: Roll a Strength check.
NORTH: Oh, great. Okay. Please…
MAR: Would you like to roll the original st- or is it too late?
NORTH: That’s a three.
[EVERYONE BUT NORTH LAUGHS]
WINK: What did you roll on the die?
NORTH: A five.
JAS: I once again had the DC was low. I mean it was literally a 6. This kid steps on your wing in just the wrong way, and you’re like, “Uh-uh, there ain’t no way in hell.”
MAR: Can I catch the kid?
JAS: Yes.
MAR: Okay. Just catch the kid. I will lift the kid up and put him on my shoulders.
NORTH: Valus now has a dirty shoe print on his wing.
MAR: Cire just kind of brushes at Valus’ wing.
JAS: (as Sawyer) Hey, I wanted to fly!
MAR: Well, uh, the doctor doesn’t seem to be up to flying right now.
JAS: (as Sawyer) You’re a doctor?
NORTH: Not medically, but yes.
JAS: (as Sawyer) I don’t know what that means, but cool!
WINK: It means he’s a nerd and in so much student debt.
JAS: (as Sawyer) I don’t know what debt is.
MAR: God, I wish that were me!
NORTH: My sweet summer child.
JAS: (as Sawyer) Oh, I’m not from Summer!
WINK: Where are you from?
JAS: (as Sawyer) I’m from Autumn! We’re coming back.
WINK: Oh, coming back from…?
JAS: (as Sawyer) From Endless Day!
WINK: Okay, and we’re looking for your parents; are your parents also Gnomish?
JAS: (as Sawyer) Mm-hmm!
WINK: Okay.
NORTH: So you were coming back with your parents - I’m assuming you got separated.
JAS: (as Sawyer) Well, yeah, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.
WINK: In a bush.
JAS: (as Sawyer) In a bush. Okay, but in my defense, I saw a squirrel.
WINK: Oh, that is so fair.
MAR: That’s… very fair.
WINK: Caelum, you have things to say?
MERCER: Where in Autumn are you from?
JAS (as Sawyer): I am right on the ed- do you know where Aurora is?
MERCER: I do, I don’t live far from there myself.
JAS (as Sawyer): I’m not from there, but we go to Aurora sometimes on the weekends.
MERCER: Do you know how many days of travel it takes you guys to get to Aurora?
JAS: He hold up his fingers and starts counting. (as Sawyer) One!
MAR: When you leave your house to go to Aurora…
JAS: (as Sawyer) Mm-hmm?
MAR: Is it the same way as you go to get to Endless Day or a different way?
JAS: (as Sawyer) No, different!
MAR: Okay, so Aurora is about a day’s travel… are we on the most direct path between Aurora and Endless Day right now?
JAS: Yeah, I mean, there have been multiple roads that have converged with this one, and so, yeah, it would be. But there are also other roads that this road branches off into.
MAR: Does anyone have any way that we could contact his parents? Or…
WINK: Not unless his parents have part of my pear.
MERCER: I can be very loud.
WINK: I can also be very loud.
JAS: (as Sawyer) It’s been like… five minutes, that’s it.
MAR: Okay.
WINK: Then they won’t be very far.
MERCER: You said your name was Sawyer? Caelum is going to use the Aasimar feature to bamf his wings out and make him able to actually fly. He’s going to shoot up into the air and use Thaumaturgy to yell out. Does anybody have a child named Sawyer that they are missing?
JAS: You hear a, “Shit!”
[LAUGHTER]
JAS: And you see, there’s… you’d passed these four wagons, with different people traveling together, and you see the last wagon starting to turn around and go backward.
MERCER: Caelum is going to swoop down and pick up this child,
JAS: (as Sawyer) I’m flying!!
MERCER: Yeah, and fly him over to his parents.
JAS: You see two Gnomish people, and you see Sawyer immediately runs up to his dad, who he is the spitting image of. Just like, copy-paste. And the dad looks at you and says, (as dad) Well, thank you! That was mighty kind of you.
MERCER: Oh, yeah, it’s no trouble.
JAS: (as dad) I’m so glad you said something, ‘cause we would’ve been miles down the road; it’s happened before, he’s a rambunctious little lad. (as DM) Kind of gives him a little noogie.
MERCER: I was the same way as a child. My father and I used to travel these roads all the time and I got left a few times, too.
JAS: (as dad) Well, who’s your father? I might know him.
MERCER: His name is Cedric Emirsin.
JAS: (as dad) You’re Cedric’s kid? No shit!
MERCER: Yes, um, I’m Caelum. You… might also know my brother and sister. Cannon and Ciara.
JAS: (as dad) I may have met them once or twice on the road.
MERCER: They’re both older than I am, so…
JAS: (as dad) That would make a lot of sense. Well, next time you see your pops, tell him that the Tillythatches said hello.
MERCER: I will, I will. Um, you might see him before me, so, um, if you do, tell him that I miss him, and I want to maybe come home soon.
JAS: He kind of pauses, and he nods and he says, (as Mr. Tillythatch) All right, I’ll do just that, okay?
MERCER: Thank you.
JAS: And he says, (as Mr. Tillythatch) Well, safe travels now!
MERCER: You, too.
JAS: (as dad) Don’t- hopefully none of your party gets lost like this one over here. (as self) And then he - the mom immediately turns to Sawyer, and is like, (as mom) You scared me so bad. Why do you do this?
MAR: “Do I have to put you on a leash?”
JAS: Literally. Sawyer is the kind of feral child that probably should be on a leash.
MERCER: Caelum is now going to make his way back to the rest of the party.
JAS: Great. You do that.
MERCER: I found the child’s parents.
WINK: And you made sure they were his parents?
MERCER: Yes. They are, they were. He looked exactly like his father. And his mother was… they are friends with my parents. It is okay.
NORTH: Would’ve been so bad if we just left that kid with the wrong people. “That’s my kid.”
JAS: “Yeah, it’s my kid.” You can roll an insight check if you’d like to make sure.
MERCER: Um. Eighteen.
JAS: Yeah, it’s the right people. Like.
NORTH: I’m also pretty sure that Sawyer would’ve been like, “I don’t know who that is.”
MAR: Also, I don’t know if I ever actually said it, but I pretended, or I acted like I didn’t see the child because Cire did not see the child until someone directly pointed out that there was a child there, because Cire rolled a Nat 1 for Perception.
JAS: Oh, Jesus.
WINK: Teehee.
MAR: Eeby.
MAR and MERCER: Deeby.
MAR and JAS: Eeby deeby. (WINK: Eeeby motherfuckin’ deeby.)
MAR: Anyway, that lost us like, what, ten minutes? We’re good.
JAS: Yeah, you’re Gucci.
WINK: Eeby McFreakin’ Deeby.
MAR: Keep moving, anyone?
NORTH: Yeah.
JAS: Sí. All right, unless there are any conversations that need to happen, I’m going to have us roll a percentile die for one more day of travel. Like, I know there’s a lot more days of travel, but no one cares to sit through six roll percentile dice to see what happens.
MERCER: Did we stop for a night’s rest?
JAS: Yes.
MERCER: Thank you.
MAR: Has Cire marked off any abilities? I don’t think she has. I would’ve remembered.
JAS: Yeah.
MAR: Except, I don’t, so.
WINK: Hesperis used a Speak With Plants, but..
JAS: That was before the first long rest.
NORTH: I’m just checking to see what would happen. I literally just rolled a five percent.
MAR: Don’t! I have claimed this percentage roll.
JAS: Go for it.
MAR: That’s a nineteen, which I don’t think is great. But, probably better than a five?
WINK: (overlapping) The face Jas is making is terrifying me.
NORTH: I don’t like your pauses. [JAS LAUGHS] I don’t like your pauses.
WINK: I don’t like it when Jas pauses, and then the smile slowly spreads across their face. It reminds me of that one scene in the Grinch where he…
MAR: One of the seventeen billion things that I keep on my car keys is a keychain that says, “When the DM smiles, it’s already too late.”
[NORTH LAUGHS]
JAS: Perception checks!
WINK: Oh, dear God.
NORTH: Your smiles feel nefarious in nature.
JAS: They are.
NORTH: That is a seventeen.
WINK: That’s a thirteen.
JAS: Seventeen, thirteen.
MAR: Five.
MERCER: Whatever the fuck… nineteen.
JAS: Valus.
NORTH: That’s me.
JAS: Yeah, it is. Wait, what was yours?
NORTH: 17.
JAS: Oh, wait. Caelum, you’re the highest.
MERCER: Teehee.
JAS: So you’re the first to notice, as you walk along, it’s your fourth day of traveling, and you…
MAR: Fourth day?
JAS: Fourth day. We’re skipping.
MAR: Okay.
JAS: It has been uneventful other days.
MAR: Okay, so under my third day bullet point, I can say “Nothing happens” with sparkle emojis.
JAS: Yes. Yeah, we’re skipping a little bit.
MAR: Because no one cares.
JAS: No one cares. Um…
MAR: My drawings of sparkle emojis are truly terrible, but they need to be there, so…
WINK: Do you need confetti?
MAR: I need like, a stamp, that will just put a sparkle emoji where I want it. Y’know? I need to get a bunch of sparkle emoji stickers so I can put them in my notes.
MERCER: Who is carrying the Fissure Core?
MAR: I believe I am, unless someone else…
MERCER: ‘Cause I had it last.
MAR: You had it, I assumed we put it back in the bag where it was.
MERCER: Probably. We never talked about it, but that’s probably what we did.
MAR: Unless you had a reason that you wanted to carry it.
MERCER: (emphatically) No.
MAR: Okay, ‘cause it’s wrapped in my clothes right now.
MERCER: Yeah. The only reason it would be beneficial for me to have it is if Valren showed up and we needed to quick, shoot into the sky.
MAR: Right, but considering…
WINK: I don’t think Valren can Teleport into the sky.
MAR: But considering how high level Valren is, I’m guessing there’s a pretty good chance that he would be able to get to the sky anyway if he finds us, so our best bet is to avoid him finding us. I am terrified of what Jas is thinking right now.
WINK: Okay, but see, if Valren Teleports into the sky, gravity will act on his body.
MAR: But I wouldn’t be surprised if Valren could cast Fly.
WINK: Fuck.
MAR: Fly is a sixth-level spell and he has cast higher than sixth level spells.
NORTH: Dragon type.
[LAUGHTER]
MAR: Obviously that’s not thoughts that Cire would have, because Cire doesn’t have that extensive knowledge of the spells that she wouldn’t have access to, but anyway! The Fissure Core Fragment is in Cire’s backpack, wrapped in her clothes.
JAS: And you are all walking along, and…
MAR: I think Cire would have buried it in the bottom of her bag, under all of her equipment.
JAS: Okay. Caelum, you, I think… I almost want to call it your Spidey-Sense.
MERCER: Yeah…
JAS: Your… kind of sense of order, right?
NORTH: Peter tingle.
JAS: Yeah, your Peter-tingle.
MAR: [laughing] No! I want to cr- why am I friends with these people?
JAS: That is a canonical thing from the movie.
MAR: Why am I friends with these people?!
WINK: I hate that.
MAR: Why am I friends with people who just know that?
WINK: No, because- because, that’s what my aunt calls her dog’s penis, is his ‘peter’.
JAS: That’s awful.
MAR: I… hate it here, anyway, what does Caelum see?
JAS: Yeah, no, well, Caelum… and then you hear a faint buzzing noise, almost like a bee buzzing loudly. And then you see it come into being. You see a projection of Valren.
MERCER: Hey, what the fuck?
NORTH: I spit on it.
JAS: It goes straight through.
NORTH: Doesn’t matter. The thought’s still there.
JAS: (as Valren) What the fuck, indeed. I don’t have a Fissure Core in my hand, and you have made a grave mistake.
WINK: Bold of you to assume I can die.
MERCER: I don’t think that that was what he was implying.
WINK: He said ‘grave,’ you only use a grave when you die.
MERCER: Okay…
WINK: And even then, rarely.
JAS: (as Valren) I don’t have time for this. You all better watch your fucking backs. I don’t play games, and I will find you. Got it?
WINK: Good luck.
MAR: If we say we understand, will you go away?
JAS: (as Valren) Absolute children.
WINK: I’m telling you, disaster baby works!
NORTH: To be fair, he’s kind of the one throwing a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get what he wants.
JAS: He kind of offered you a nice-ass deal and you said no, so…
NORTH: I mean…
MERCER: He also threatened our lives in the process.
MAR: He tried to offer us…
JAS: I’m not defending him!
MAR: Okay, but like, we did not have informed consent about exactly what the deal was when he offered it, he was fully trying to me a manipulative little rat man.
JAS: Correct.
NORTH: Also note, no proof that he’d actually give us any of that.
MAR: Yeah, exactly, we give him the Fissure Core… or the Fissure Core Fragment, giving him the Fissure Core would be an entirely different story.
WINK: I still think he looks quite yummy.
NORTH: Sorry?
MAR: Hesperis?
NORTH: Excuse me.
WINK: I mean… he looks like a dummy.
[CHATTER, IN WHICH MAR AND NORTH BOTH ASK TO ROLL INSIGHT CHECKS]
JAS: Yes.
NORTH: That’s a fucking eighteen.
MAR: I have no idea what to make of that, that was a five.
MERCER: Fourteen.
JAS: Hesperis, you wanna roll a deception check against that?
WINK: No.
MAR: What is it?
WINK: It’s an eight.
NORTH: I got eighteen.
MAR: See, the thing is, I just don’t know what to make of it.
JAS: Yeah. Hesperis just said ‘yummy.’ Anyway, what do you fucking do?
WINK: I eat a dice.
JAS: What does Hesperis do?
MAR: We knew-
WINK: Hesperis just smiles and acts like nothing happened.
MAR: It’s been three days, we knew Valren was gonna come after us. We knew this was gonna happen, let’s just keep going.
MERCER: I’m still caught up on the fact that Hesperis… you just called him yummy?
WINK: Yeah, in like, a sexy kind of way.
MERCER: I don’t understand…
MAR: Aren’t you a lesbian?
MERCER: … how anybody would think that man is sexy… and I am asexual!
WINK: I am a woman, and I am attracted to women, and… other people.
MAR: Fair enough.
NORTH: I thought you were saying he looked feminine.
MAR: I thought you referred to yourself as a lesbian at one point, but…
WINK: Well, a lesbian can be attracted to women and other people.
MAR: Yeah… but Valren?
WINK: Sometimes attraction defies gender.
MAR: Can I roll an insight check now? Like, this is different.
JAS: Yeah, this is different.
MAR: I just wanna know what the fuck is happening. That’s better, that’s a fifteen.
NORTH: That is another 18.
MERCER: 19.
WINK: 21 on my deception check.
NORTH: Fuck.
JAS: With a 21, all of you are like, “Fuck, I guess Hesperis is into Valren.”
MAR: Anyway, we’ve got more travel to do, what happens during the next bit of travel.
JAS: Unless y’all are gonna discuss that more… um…
MAR: We’re not. We’re just gonna leave it there, I think.
NORTH: I’m not putting a pin in it, either. That’s falling to the floor.
MAR: That is just… that is staying on the road between Henry’s farm and Endless Day where it belongs.
NORTH: We’re gonna have to table that.
WINK: There isn’t a table.
MAR: We’re gonna have to table that, we’re gonna have to leave the table on the side of the road because there isn’t enough room.
MERCER: We are going to be dining and dashing away from that goddamn table.
JAS: I’m going to cry.
MAR: Don’t do that to some poor service worker.
WINK: Maybe I want to fuck [INDISTINCT]
MERCER: No, the service worker is Valren.
MAR: Carry on.
WINK: Bold of you to assume that Valren has ever shown appreciation for a food service worker in their entire life.
JAS: Bold of you to assume Valren has worked a day in his life.
NORTH: Valren does not tip.
MAR: Valren does not tip.
MERCER: Valren scoffs at the idea of tipping.
MAR: Valren is the type of bitch that would write a tip on how to improve your service on the tip line.
NORTH: Or just write “get a better job”.
JAS: Yes. Valren would write, “Smile more” on the tip line.
MAR: Valren would write “Smile more,” on the tip line, yeah.
WINK: Hesperis would be baffled by the idea of tipping because she is baffled by the idea of a company being allowed to pay their workers less than a livable wage.
JAS: Oop.
MERCER: Oop!
WINK: And relying on the customers to provide the rest of that income.
MAR: Yeah…
JAS: Teehee.
MAR: Anyway! Teehee, what’s next?
JAS: The rest of your travels are fairly uneventful. So you are all walking along, and you’ve started to notice the trees get sparser, and the sun gets brighter and hotter. Yes?
MERCER: As we start moving into the hotter weather, this is just for me: Caelum one night is going to undo the seams of his sleeves, so now he’s just wearing a tank top type thing.
MAR: A tank top Ye Olde Beavertown sweatshirt?
MERCER: No no no no no, just his normal traveling shirt. He does not wear the Beavertown sweatshirt when traveling, that would be a way to get it dirty.
JAS: It’s his special occasions Beavertown sweatshirt.
MAR: [high-pitched] Special occasion-??
MERCER: No, it’s a nighttime Beavertown sweatshirt.
MAR: I need it to be known that Mercer is wearing a Buc-ees hoodie right now.
MERCER: Teehee.
WINK: Hesperis’ vines start to kind of like… crinkle a little bit under the sunshine, and her leaves are yellowing even more, and some of them are even like… browning and sunburning at the tips.
JAS: Yeah.
NORTH: Did you say it’s getting hotter?
WINK: She pulls a little… one of those little lace parasols out of her backpack and pops it up to block herself from the sun while they’re walking.
JAS: So good.
MERCER: My wings have also changed color at this point, I believe.
JAS: They would not until you cross the line.
MERCER: So we’re not at the line.
JAS: You’re not at the line yet, but you see it coming, and I am now going to describe the line between seasons to you. You see… it, you’ve gone between the seasons before, so you all would be familiar with this. Us as the players, this is something unlike anything any of us would ever have seen. You are walking along, and the line between Autumn and Endless Day… you can see it on the horizon as you approach. You can see the definitive line from where we go from these reds and golds and oranges and coppers into browns, and dry… yes?
NORTH: This sounds like the Mississippi state line.
WINK: Okay, literally, go fuck yourself.
[LAUGHTER]
WINK: As the bitch from Mississippi, you’re right, but go fuck yourself. Sometimes we have green because of kudzu. And then we make jelly out of it.
JAS: But… you literally see this line, and as you approach, you actually see there is this massive tree, right? And you see on one side, all of its leaves are rich and full, and gorgeous autumn tones. And on the other side, there are still leaves hanging on, but they are shriveled, and dried. And it looks… you can literally look down the bark and see where it is split into where one side has more moisture than the other. and suddenly, the forest terrain is just desert. Sprawling, open desert in front of you. And you… the sun is just directly overhead, and it is scorching hot. And you see that like, there is a well-worn path to traverse through this desert. There has been stone laid down, and you see it is mostly sandstone laid down. And yeah, that is what you see.
NORTH: Valus starts to perspirate but it just… I am so sorry to do this. As the perspiration goes down his skin, because of his elven blood, his skin kind of starts to gleam.
JAS: Oh my god, this is [MAR, MERCER, and WINK join in] this is skin of a killer, Bella.
NORTH: [with others] this is the skin of a doctor, Bella.
[LAUGHTER]
JAS: Hesperis, would you mind describing what you look like now.
WINK: As I pull up the Google Doc.
JAS: Would you like the notes?
WINK: I would like the notes, please.
JAS: Cool. I also don’t have the notes pulled up, so, give une momento, por favor.
NORTH: Can I roll a history check to see if Valus knows how to tie a turban?
MAR: That’s a character decision, is it not?
JAS: Yes, also, whoever wants to can roll a religion check - religion or history check to see what they know about the region.
NORTH: Okay, so that’s a twenty for the history.
JAS: Jesus Christ.
NORTH: And that is a eighteen for the religion.
MAR: What are the options for the…?
MERCER: Natural twenty for religion and fourteen for history.
MAR: Oh, wait, never mind, my history and my religion are exactly the same and that is a zero.
JAS: Great.
WINK: I have an eighteen for history.
NORTH: Nice!
MAR: That’s a four.
WINK: As we cross over the border into Endless Day, Hesperis… her skin had been, what was it, sort of a muted brown-ish green tone. Still kind of, you know, green, but had almost a gold overtone to it. And moving into Endless Day, it deepens and it bronzes and looks oddly shiny and metallic, and reflects the sunlight back at you and so if you look straight at her you might accidentally get some sunshine in your eye and blind you a little bit, it’s fine. Her hair is still… looks like vines, and it is very shriveled and sort of this reddish-brown color, almost the color of the distant sand that had the shadows on them. And it… but if she turns her hair a certain way, a little bit too fast, you can still kind of see the green flashing in it, and yeah. So she is now also resistant to radiant damage.
JAS: Excellent. And as you all watch, like Hesperis step across the line, you can literally watch as her body changes going in front of the line. Like you see it happen, as she walks past the line, a perfect, clean edge comes over her, that perfectly matches where the line is.
MAR: Are the moons visible here at all?
JAS: They are sometimes, when they moons are traditionally visible, you can see them, but it is like seeing the moon during the day, like it is kind of hard to see.
MAR: Are all of the moons visible in their normal trajectory, or…?
JAS: At the moment, no. All of the moons, yes, you would be able to see in their normal trajectory.
MAR: It’s just that it’s sort of translucent white of our moon during the day.
JAS: Yes, exactly. The moon of Romna is a little bit further away and looks smaller as the moon of Halluc looks bigger here, but Levion is straight shot about the same, so… smaller than what you are used to seeing, but…
MAR: Romna looks smaller and Halluc looks larger?
JAS: Correct.
NORTH: As Hesperis changes, Valus is gonna pull out his notebook and say, “Fascinating,” and start taking notes.
JAS: Cool. And, Caelum, what do your wings look like now?
MERCER: They are now a… where they were, in Autumn, kind of a… where is my appearance page? They were kind of orange-toned in Autumn, but as Caelum steps over the line, it muddies, almost, and darkens to a rusty color. For lack of a better description, the rust color of dried blood.
JAS: Yeah…
MERCER: Yeah. That is now the color of Caelum’s wings.
WINK: I forgot to mention Hesperis’ flowers, they… she still has her little clusters of flowers in her hair, now they are… you know when you dry flowers upside down? And they have that… they wrinkle a little bit, and their color gets a little bit darker? And they sort of brown at the tips. That’s what her little blossoms look like. So, yeah.
JAS: Excellent.
MAR: I have some roses in my room that are dried like that, and they bring me so much joy.
JAS: So, yeah, you all continue your journey, and you see a sign pointing you to the nearest town. The town’s name is let me check my notes.
NORTH: That’s a really weird name for a town.
JAS: Hey, fuck off. It is called Boulder’s Bend. You see there is a sign directing you to the nearest town, named Boulder’s Bend, and it says it’s about a day’s more… along this road.
MERCER: Have I been to this town before?
JAS: You have, actually. And like, you haven’t… that is about as far into Endless Day as you’ve gotten. As far as towns in Endless Day goes, you would know that this one is a fairly chill one. Mostly because it is the one that is most connected to a lot of the rest of the world, because it is the town closest to Autumn. So it’s a lot of trade point for food and things like that. There is a lot of trade of “Oh, we’ll give you some spices and these specific things” for the food from Autumn. So that is the trade point. There is a lot of specialized goods, there is a quite a bit… it is also known, Endless Day as a whole is generally known for their fabric. They make incredible fabrics, and tapestries, and very tightly woven material that is handmade, hand crafted, and absolutely gorgeous.
NORTH: So the path around all the seasons, that’s the Inner Wheel, right?
JAS: Yeah, so there’s the Inner Wheel, that has its own path within…
NORTH: So is that like the Silk Road of the seasons?
JAS: No. Right now you are actually in the season, not in the Inner Wheel, there is a cultural difference. The Inner Wheel is a separate territory that is controlled by a, basically a religious group, right?
NORTH: So it’s like Palestine?
JAS: (hesitantly) Yes? It’s a very distinct, I don’t want to say it’s an ethnoreligion, because it’s not, anybody can join, anybody’s welcome to join. However, it is a specific people that live in a specific place, and their way of life is governed by their ideology.
WINK: Is it a georeligion? I just made that up.
JAS: Okay, I was like, “Is that a word?” Yes.
MAR: When you say that they’re known for textiles, is that just like the tightly woven type fabrics, or is it all kinds of fibercrafts, as such? Is it more of the tightly woven fabrics, or are there also like, knits and looser woven linens and stuff?
JAS: There is like linens and things, it wouldn’t be known… they don’t do knits as much, generally because knits are warmer, so they do have linens and chiffons, and that kind of thing, but they are most well known for… I think they’re most well-known for the artistry of it, oftentimes with rugs and things like that, and a lot of it is more tightly woven for sunblocking. Because the sun.
MAR: Sorry, that’s Mar being a textile nerd.
JAS: I know, and I love it! Yeah, just fantastic tapestries and…
WINK: Hesperis would like to go on a shopping trip.
JAS: Okay.
WINK: She’s just gonna go on her shopping trip and pick out some…
MERCER: We’re not in Boulder’s Bend yet.
WINK: Okay, yeah, well…. leave me alone.
JAS: I am going to describe as you enter Boulder’s Bend. So you are all walking along, making your way, and you start to see and, Caelum, this is something that you would have noted in your travels here. Actually, will everyone go ahead and roll a History or Religion check? Caelum, what did you roll?
MERCER: I rolled a Nat 20 for history.
JAS: Tasty. So Caelum for sure knows all of this. You would know that the major overarching things that you would need to know. We’ve got the textile stuff, I talked about, other major things is… and you all notice this as you get closer. A lot of the people you see here have much darker skin, but you see a lot of these people are Black and Brown, and different variations of that. You even see some drow and dueregar, Dueregar are dwarves, but darker skinned. I would like to point out for D&D mechanics people: In this world, they do not live underground. And they don’t have the sensitivity to light as much, because it makes no sense for creatures with darker skin to be the ones that live underground. It makes absolutely zero sense. So, we’re flip-flopping it.
MAR: So, do they have… do they have an increased tolerance for bright light, but not the normal elven darkvision?
JAS: Correct.
MAR: Okay, cool.
JAS: Yeah, it is a reverse, basically. And the same with the dueregar, they have these dark, dark skin, to help protect them from the sun. ‘Cause that’s how skin works, [POINTEDLY] Wizards of the Coast!
WINK: Fuck Wizards of the Coast. Bold of you to assume that Wizards of the Coast has any racial awareness at all.
JAS: Oh, no, they fully made the the drow like that out of racism, which is…
WINK: They were like, “We’re gonna make these evil… elves?”
JAS: Mm-hmm.
WINK: “We’re gonna make these evil elves and also they’re dark-skinned because we’re racist!”
JAS: They’ve said now that that doesn’t matter, but… yikes, Wizards!
WINK: Yikers.
JAS: Yeah, literally, it makes zero sense to be like, “The people with dark skin live underground.” No. That’s literally not how it works. So in Citarya, I make it make sense. A little bit. It’s the one thing.
NORTH: Good on you for being…
MAR: So they just don’t have darkvision?
JAS: They have… yeah, they don’t have darkvision, but they have extra…
MAR: Right. I’m just asking because I’m the mechanics bitch.
JAS: They have extra…
MAR: ‘Cause why would they need darkvision if they live in Endless Day.
JAS: And, yeah! As you approach this town, you see it’s a bustling hubbub of people coming in and out, and people on the move, and there’s markets, and there’s an exquisite smell of spices and different things. Yes?
WINK: I think at this point, Hesperis probably has the shadow of the lace tanned into her skin.
JAS: Fully.
WINK: So it kind of looks like she’s got it tattooed there, but it’s just because the rest of her has tanned through the lace.
JAS: Fully.
MAR: Sorry, my brain’s just going brr really fast.
MERCER: Caelum’s skin has also probably tanned a little bit more, so it’s leaving the white ink of his tattoos looking brighter.
NORTH: Valus is burnt.
[LAUGHTER]
WINK: Valus is a little toasty.
JAS: Valus is crispy.
MAR: Yeah, Cire doesn’t tan, she burns.
JAS: Yeah, all of you coming… the elves come in looking like lobsters.
MAR: Like, I mean, she in her travels has learned how to protect herself from the sun, like, she has as part of her general day-to-day wear has a couple of scarves that she wraps around her head and over her shoulders where her normal clothes don’t cover if she’s in a particularly sunny area or if it’s a little bit colder and she just needs a little bit of extra… it’s kind of meant to give her that sort of… last bit of versatility that she needs to adapt to the differences in weather throughout Autumn, ‘cause that’s where she’s spent the last few decades, but she has one of those scarves wrapped around her to protect her from the sun a little bit, and it wouldn’t be as… it wouldn’t be as protective as something specifically made to protect you from the sun, but she knows. And she knows sunscreen exists, like in Winter.
WINK: Sunscreen is terrible sensory.
MAR: But she’s never had much of a reason to need to use it, ‘cause she doesn’t spend a whole lot of time in the seasons where you would need that, but she does know how to protect herself from the sun, just from the variations of Autumn, ‘cause she’s traveled kind of through, and I… In my head, I get the sense that as you get closer to Endless Day, it is sort of more like a warm day in Autumn and as you get closer to Winter, it’s kind of like a crisp Thanksgiving-ish.
JAS: That is exactly correct, yes.
NORTH: Valus only being used to Winter temperatures is fucking wilting. He has this turban-esque thing that he’s managed to tie around his head that is drenched in sweat. He’s basically waterboarding himself right now. And his wings are completely wrapped to where only his head is popping out.
MAR: Va-Valus? I have another one of these, would you like to borrow it?
NORTH: Please.
MAR: It’ll keep the sun off of you. It’s quite cool.
NORTH: Please.
MAR: Yeah. So Cire’s got one of the scarves wrapped around the Fissure Core Fragment in the bottom of her backpack, she’s using one, and the third and final one that she has with her, she gives to Valus.
JAS: Great. I wanna go back a little bit. We did not fully finish that religion check. The religion and history checks. You all would know going in, and this is like general knowledge that you would have, but you get some extra details that you would know if you rolled well, you gauge yourself on how well you rolled to what information you have. The god of Endless Day is Tritous. Zey are a god of travelers, and Tritous is spelled T-R-I-T-O-U-S.
MAR: Are pronouns just xe/xem?
JAS: Xe/xem.
MAR: With an X or a Z?
JAS: With an X.
WINK: And is it X-E or X-E-Y?
JAS: X-E.
WINK: Okay.
JAS: Yup.
WINK: ‘Cause Aalir is X-E-Y, correct?
JAS: Yes. So other things about Tritous that some of you would know, Caelum in particular, you know the symbol of Tritous is a chalice, and you also know that there is a culture here in Endless Day because of Tritous being a god of travelers, is to honor Tritous, the followers - so generally, most of the people who live in Endless Day. That is of course broadly speaking, are very welcoming of travelers, and are often very willing and very excited to help travelers? As a means of worshipping their god, right? Kind of similar to… my best comparison is Greek culture, ‘cause that’s the one I know about the most, how they would be like… you help a traveler because it could be a god in disguise. Kind of similar to that mentality, except it is just, “we worship Tritous by helping those out on the road, helping them get accustomed to the brutal heat of Endless Day”, that kind of thing.
MAR: The way a lot of people in Denver, particularly… like, people who are very friendly to visitors, are so willing to give you tips about avoiding altitude sickness. They’re so willing.
NORTH: I got really confused for a second, I was like… Citarya?
MAR: No, my brain’s just making connections, sorry.
JAS: Other info that Caelum in particular would have, is the imagery of what Tritous looks like. No one has ever seen xem from the front, but only seen xem from the back as xe walk. They have incredibly dark skin, and it’s covered in freckles, and showcases a life in the sun. Generally it is mostly covered. You can mostly only see that on their hands, where one hand is always carrying a briefcase and the other is always carrying a walking stick. So that is all the information that you kind of have as you approach the city of Boulder’s Bend. And you hear people shouting in the market as they pull up, and you actually see lining the street along different points, you see torches and lanterns. But they’re not what you’d expect. It’s something that’s unique to Endless Day. These torches, instead of having normal fire on the end, produce this magical black flame that actually seems to absorb the light around it and gives a light cooling effect. So it is not as oppressively hot and bright in this market as you walk through, but people are shouting and calling about rugs, and “get your fresh breaked bed-“ fresh baked bread, and “spices, spices” and “produce, fresh in from Autumn,” and in the hustle and the bustle of the city, the Storycatchers make their way.
[THEME MUSIC]
