Latest / Session Zero Heroes | TTRPG Actual Play Adventures & Improv Storytelling / Benders & Brews S2 - Episode 4 - Mystery of the Stolen Scale (Part 2)

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Benders & Brews S2 - Episode 4 - Mystery of the Stolen Scale (Part 2) · Session Zero Heroes | TTRPG Actual Play Adventures & Improv Storytelling

0:00
Uh.
0:03
Jasmine, oolong, green
0:06
and white. Long ago, these four
0:08
teas were skilfully brewed at the Blissful Brew.
0:12
Then everything changed when the shop's
0:14
popularity threatened its existence.
0:17
All Mr. Okeron, the shop's owner and tea
0:20
master, could do was to recruit four teenage
0:23
orphans to learn his trade and staff his
0:25
shop. A, uh, year has passed since the orphans were
0:28
hired, and although their skills have progressed, they
0:31
still have a lot to learn before they can brew anything.
0:34
But I believe that they have the potential to make the
0:37
Blissful Brew the greatest tea shop in the
0:39
world. Last time on Benders and
0:42
Brews an Avatar Legends Podcast
0:45
uh, you guys quickly.
0:46
Found yourselves in Chin Village and in
0:49
Qin Village, you couldn't find anybody until eventually
0:52
you followed some music and came
0:55
across everybody all in one place in a town
0:58
center. And it seemed like there was a big festival going on
1:01
of some kind. And when they went to reveal
1:04
said scale, they pulled back
1:06
the covering and.
1:08
There was nothing there.
1:09
Bring them to me. I want to have a word with them about
1:12
this dastardly crime.
1:14
You know as well as I that the red
1:17
scale was given to Quin Chow Village.
1:20
You, as usual, are
1:23
truly and completely mistaken,
1:25
dear May. The important matter right
1:28
now is to find the scale that has
1:31
been stolen so the festival may go on. I
1:34
feel as though I can trust you to help m us find
1:37
it, if you would be so willing to help us.
1:40
I heard some weird, jingling sound of some
1:42
kind. Somebody wearing black, it
1:45
looked like. Or maybe it was an animal or something that
1:48
just shot past. As you are checking
1:51
the sort of the bottom of the pedestal where it touches the
1:54
ground, do you notice a couple of footprints or
1:57
rather boot prints? There is a
2:00
cloth that seems to be smudged with some
2:03
sort of black substance. Whoever
2:06
stole the scale has black residue on their
2:08
hands. I feel we need to see your office, Mr.
2:11
Wu. We'll meet the suspect.
2:14
I swear, if the red scale is
2:17
missing when I come back, I will bring the
2:20
full wrath of Quinchao Village down
2:23
upon all of you.
2:30
And welcome back to another episode of
2:32
Benders and Brews. We're back again
2:35
to follow up things, and we do have Michaela back.
2:38
Michaela, you're back.
2:41
Thank goodness. You need to whip these
2:43
guys. I don't know. Just whip
2:46
them.
2:49
One of them water whip
2:52
them. See, uh, I made it. Avatar.
2:55
All right, welcome, uh, back to episode let's see. This will be
2:58
episode four of Benders and Brews, season uh,
3:01
two. Not season one anymore. We're not
3:04
in that. Uh, we're m all
3:07
here together, minus, uh, our
3:09
ghost writer, Nick Kolis
3:13
von Porsom.
3:16
M porsom. Porcelain.
3:19
Porsom. We are unsure. Yeah, it's one
3:22
of those, I'm sure. Possum. Yes. Nick Van
3:25
Possum. Look him up on Facebook. Yes, I
3:28
did. Evidence.
3:31
We're going to kick things off once again with our, uh,
3:34
interesting character facts. Does anybody want to
3:36
volunteer to start with their
3:39
character? Karen
3:42
nose goes, yeah,
3:46
go for it. Okay. Oh, I definitely didn't want to
3:48
go first, that's for sure. Uh, something on the
3:51
go. Uh, Bill door likes to
3:54
surf. Boom. Done. Uh, he likes to surf.
3:57
Well, growing up on kind of where he grew up,
4:00
I mean, I guess that kind of makes sense. By the
4:03
ocean. All right, Bill Door likes
4:06
to surf. Who's next? Who actually rose their
4:08
hand? I touch my nose second. Okay, that
4:11
works. Go for it. I thought that I'm pretty sure Nose nose.
4:14
It's the opposite. The last
4:17
person to touch their nose is usually the one to go. Well, I
4:20
feel like April Fools is, like, a secondary to the concept
4:23
of option day. Uh, and April Fools was, like, two days. I'm going
4:26
to say this right now. We're recording. Not on April. Like, two
4:29
days after
4:33
it must because at this very moment when I'm on
4:36
Facebook, I'm still seeing those stupid
4:38
announcements from every studio about something that they're
4:41
making that's not actually real. Delayed facebook notification.
4:44
I guess they're all like, oh, yes,
4:47
we are coming out with a serious movie starring
4:50
Nicolas Cage. Uh, that is Skyler's fun fact about
4:53
his delayed Facebook.
4:57
No, you lost it, man. Nobody
4:59
falls for those. All right, announce
5:02
on April 2, or I don't believe you.
5:05
Um, sorry, what? Oh, you want to give
5:08
Brock's interesting fact. So, Brock's, interesting fact. You may
5:11
not have picked this up, because it's very subtle. Uh, throughout the
5:14
entire first and second season, he has a bit of an issue
5:17
controlling his impulses. Uh,
5:21
he does. Before he thinks, in case you
5:24
haven't picked up on that. It's very subtle, as you can tell. Sure.
5:27
Throughout the season. That is fun. Right?
5:30
It's always nice to have that wild card in the
5:33
group. Just charged in
5:36
against the rock monster by himself.
5:40
Uh, he survived. He did. Sometimes it's
5:43
necessary.
5:46
Guo was right behind him. Yeah, just about to do that
5:49
backflip. Well, that was
5:52
the fact. Yeah, that's right.
5:54
Speaking of which, Dave, what's Guo's fact for this
5:57
week? Don't say that. He does front flips.
6:00
He definitely could do a front flip.
6:03
Wait till you see my gator.
6:07
Your what?
6:08
Gator. Okay,
6:11
uh, going back to,
6:14
uh, those peaceful times back at the tea
6:17
shop when Mr. Okron was alive,
6:20
um, the good old days.
6:23
Guo had a favorite food, uh,
6:26
spot that was only a couple blocks away on the corner.
6:29
It was one of those,
6:32
um I don't know exactly what to call
6:35
what they served, but it was kind of like a bread cone.
6:38
Like a flatbread cone? Yeah, like a mix between
6:41
a Euro and schwarma? Uh, kind
6:43
of. Uh, okay, so this bread
6:46
cone also had, like, French fries in
6:49
it? No. Yeah.
6:52
Did they keep it cone shaped when they served it? Too. Was it, like,
6:55
actually cone shaped? Yeah. Served in
6:58
a cone with, like, a piece of paper to hold it. Oh,
7:00
okay. Yeah. Guo
7:03
had the menu from that
7:06
place posted in the rafters
7:09
above his hammock back at the tea shop.
7:12
He would go to bed dreaming about it, usually.
7:15
Okay. I like to think that, uh, in
7:18
the Avatar verse, during this 100 year
7:21
war point, there was definitely some sort of,
7:24
like, ancient, uh, uber
7:26
eats or some kind of form of that.
7:29
We'll figure it out or somebody will start it if it
7:32
doesn't exist already,
7:35
and be like that cart system.
7:38
Yes. Stone carts on a
7:41
miniature scale. Yes. Going through the alleys,
7:44
shooting down, delivering your food. Wonder how you
7:47
pay, though, because you don't have an app.
7:50
Just put your cart info in. You put the money in
7:53
the thing and send it. Uh, flying
7:55
lemur. That makes sense. They ride the cart
7:58
down, get your money, and then fly back.
8:01
Because you can't trust them to
8:04
go with just the food. Right.
8:07
You have to lock it in the cart. Otherwise they'll
8:10
eat. Also, whose job is it to just bring all
8:13
of those? Because it's like a one way shot.
8:16
They have to go downhill for the whole system to work.
8:19
So whose job is it to bring them all back up
8:22
to the top or middle sections of the city
8:25
for distributing more mail? That's my question. What if it's
8:28
just, like, a dude with a rickshaw? Just one dude with a
8:31
rickshaw. That's what he does all day. He's like, the guy
8:33
that goes out and gets the carts at, like, Walmart
8:36
and brings them back in. Uh,
8:39
anyways all right, Michaela, uh, what's Mika's interesting
8:42
fact.
8:43
Um mika's interesting fact is
8:45
one option.
8:50
For your interesting fact about Mika. Uh, where was
8:53
she last what was she doing last episode?
8:55
Yeah, where was her mind? Because she
8:58
was there. She
9:01
wasn't or, um,
9:04
drank some cactus juice.
9:06
People process things in different ways.
9:09
Something quite sad happened
9:12
recently. That's
9:14
where mine was.
9:16
What happened.
9:19
Mr. Oguron?
9:22
So she was just, like, dealing with some depression.
9:25
She's past the denial. Yes.
9:29
All right, fair enough. Um, hi, everybody.
9:32
I'm Skyler. Uh,
9:35
hi, Skyler. I thought you already did. Okay,
9:38
I'm doing an actual one. My
9:40
interesting fact for the day is that 90, uh,
9:43
9% of the time, my entire meal
9:45
planning, uh, for a week is based entirely on whatever
9:48
foods I find, uh, on clearance
9:51
or in some sort of markdown state.
9:54
And that's how I cook food. All right,
9:57
and into the show we go.
10:02
Uh, welcome back, everybody. Uh,
10:04
we are all inside
10:07
of Chin Village as this
10:10
massive festival is kicking off. Uh,
10:13
because, um, Michaela wasn't here last
10:15
week. Kind of try to re explain things, and I think that'll
10:18
actually be really helpful to the listeners as well.
10:21
Um, it's been, like, two weeks, obviously, since the last
10:24
episode came out. So it's easy to forget some of the characters that you guys
10:27
have come across so far. Um,
10:30
there's the recap at the beginning of the episode, but sometimes that
10:32
doesn't have enough time to cover everything. So I'll
10:35
go over thing every I'll go over
10:38
everything, uh, real quickly. Uh, you guys came
10:41
to Chin village. Uh, there was a massive festival going on that
10:44
had something to do with a strange serpent, uh,
10:47
scale. It kind of seemed like they to some
10:50
extent worshipped some sort of
10:52
spirit uh, that seemed to be
10:55
some sort of sea serpent spirit is what they
10:58
kind of suggested. And they alleged that the
11:01
scale that they had in their possession was in
11:04
fact belonged at one point
11:07
to this great sea serpent spirit which they referred
11:10
to as Shueishuei. Uh,
11:13
the key characters that you've met so far, you've met mayor,
11:16
the mayor of this city. His name is Mayor Wu.
11:19
Uh, he was
11:22
in charge of revealing the scale which is
11:25
kind of like a big ceremonial thing that they do during each one of
11:28
these festivals. Um, alongside his
11:31
counterpart, Mayor Yu, who is
11:34
from Quinchao village,
11:37
mayor, um, Yu is uh,
11:41
woman, uh, dressed all in black. Uh, which is kind of
11:44
the primary color of all the individuals who
11:46
traveled here from Quinchao village. She leads
11:49
this procession whenever it is Qin village's
11:52
turn to host this festival. So all the people from Quinchao
11:55
come to this festival from there. Um, and then each
11:58
year they alternate. So this year Quinchao came to Chin
12:01
village. Next year Qin village will go to
12:03
Quinchao village. But alas
12:06
that is in question because
12:09
as you arrived they revealed
12:11
the scale only to find that it had been
12:14
stolen. The mayor picked
12:17
your group out, searched you, found you didn't have the scale, and
12:20
felt that you were probably the most trustworthy people
12:23
to handle finding out who did steal the scale
12:26
because of the fact that you are unbiased, you
12:29
don't know any of the people here, and therefore, you
12:32
wouldn't, uh, lead the investigation in
12:35
any kind of false direction. Uh, other people that
12:37
you met along the way, uh, there
12:40
was uh, uh,
12:43
cato was the patrolling officer
12:46
that was guarding the facility where the
12:49
scale had been stored prior to bringing
12:52
it out to be revealed. Um, so there's some question
12:55
about the
12:57
safety that scale had allegedly
13:00
experienced because it obviously got stolen. Uh, he
13:03
had mentioned that he had one moment
13:06
where he heard some strange jingling sounds.
13:08
He came around the because he
13:11
circles the perimeter, he came back only
13:14
to find that there was nobody there. And he
13:17
did see somebody maybe running off into the
13:20
bushes that was dressed all in black or at least
13:22
wearing some amount of black. And they were jingling
13:25
making some sort of jingling noise as they
13:28
left. Um, you guys, let's see,
13:31
um bill managed
13:33
to find some footprints that led away from it into the
13:36
bushes. Um, but unfortunately, he accidentally
13:39
stepped on them in the process. So it was kind of hard to identify
13:42
exactly who those footprints might have
13:45
belonged to. But they did seem like deep
13:47
footprints. So heavier person,
13:50
uh, to some extent, as well as larger footprints. So somebody
13:53
with large feet size.
13:56
Um, obviously you met Mayor Yu, who was
13:58
also equally concerned because their
14:01
scale was also being stored there.
14:04
And as part of the kind of tradition was they would
14:06
bring theirs along as well, store it alongside, because they
14:09
believe that theirs is the real scale and the one that
14:12
Chin Village has is a phony scale.
14:15
And then, of course, Chin Village believes the reverse of
14:18
that. Mayor, uh, Yu, again, all dressed in
14:21
black, which is a little bit questionable, obviously, given
14:23
the clues that you've received from Cato, assuming you can
14:27
trust him, of course. Um, she also wears
14:29
a number of pieces of jewelry,
14:32
which also is a little bit questionable as well, because they
14:35
jingle as she walks. Um, other than that,
14:38
you haven't met a huge amount of the people. But at this
14:41
very moment, you are being led back by Mayor
14:44
Wu to his office. And he
14:47
has sent Councilwoman Lin to go out
14:50
his kind of assistant, uh, second in
14:52
command, to go find the key
14:55
suspects that he believes could be involved in this case and
14:58
bring them to his office.
15:00
So all of you shortly, uh, are
15:03
led to a fairly ornate kind of
15:06
town center style building, um,
15:09
that's a little bit taller than all the rest, a little bit more decorative than
15:12
all the rest of the buildings around it, um, but also a little
15:14
bit less thematic. This one doesn't have the
15:17
popping advertisements or
15:20
fancy flags and whatnot that might stick out at a
15:23
retailer or a restaurant. This one's a fairly
15:26
straightforward stone slab building.
15:29
Um, at most, it has some maybe statues
15:31
around it of past leaders from Chin Village.
15:34
You're led inside, and shortly after taking
15:37
a couple of hallways, find yourselves in
15:40
an open, ah,
15:43
room with a number of seats, sort of
15:46
set, ah, up in sort of a half
15:48
circle seating, um, pattern.
15:53
Um, so the room is kind of like half circle, and
15:56
then at the halfway point, it's more of, like a
15:59
rectangular shape. So, uh, there's a number
16:02
of pieces of seating. Kind of looks like some sort of a
16:04
courtroom.
16:05
And he says, well, this is
16:08
my office, or rather, the council room, which
16:11
my office is connected to. Feel free to have a
16:14
seat. I'm sure Cato will be here shortly
16:17
with all the suspects I had listed.
16:19
Bill, can you just at least promise us not to just blindly
16:22
point at people until the guards to arrest them?
16:26
Uh
16:29
um, no promises.
16:32
That's fair. So recounting what we know from
16:35
last time, didn't Mayor Wu also have
16:38
the suspicious black ink on his hands?
16:41
Correct. You did find a kind of
16:44
sheet of cloth that was
16:46
covering the glass,
16:48
uh, casing or what have you, or it was around I
16:51
believe it was around, like, the blanket nearby or something,
16:55
uh, where the glass casing was
16:57
being stored that held the scale inside of it. And it had
17:00
some black kind of inky substance on
17:03
it. And when you
17:06
reached out to shake hands with the mayor mayor Wu,
17:09
uh, he had some black
17:11
substance on his hand as,
17:15
correct? Yes. And from what I remember, he
17:18
claimed that it was from just ink
17:21
spilled in his office, right? Correct. And we are in his office.
17:24
Correct. Can I look around and see if there is, in fact, an ink
17:27
spill? Yes. Uh, so you mentioned
17:30
this to him. You mentioned that you'd like to see his explicit.
17:33
So there are a couple of little offices that kind of break off
17:36
in the back of the room, uh, behind this sort of
17:38
semicircle where the council people would sit. Um,
17:41
so basically, each of their offices is directly behind the
17:44
sitting it's open door kind of a concept.
17:47
And he shows you which one is his. And you go in there, and sure
17:50
enough, there is a mess of ink,
17:53
uh, gooped all over his desk or at least
17:56
one side of his desk. Um, you see a couple of
17:59
papers, uh, that are kind
18:02
of just completely soaked at this point. They've been dyed fully
18:05
black at this point. From the ink that has sopped onto them, some
18:08
of it looks like it's been kind of, like, pushed a little bit. Like he
18:11
was attempting to clean it up in the moment. Or maybe there
18:13
was a paper sitting there that soaked up some he pulled it off. And so
18:16
there's sort of like a shape of the corner of a
18:19
paper her. Uh, but otherwise, yes, there's some ink
18:22
still sitting there.
18:23
And he immediately goes, uh,
18:26
how embarrassing. I
18:29
completely forgot I needed to get this
18:32
cleaned up. My sincerest
18:35
apologies about the mess.
18:36
He's looking around for some sort of a rag or something.
18:40
I, uh, suppose you weren't lying about the ink
18:42
dilbert. What have you done in here?
18:45
Sorry. We have squid, sir.
18:47
You have a what?
18:48
He gets a little excited at times. A turtle squid, to be exact.
18:51
A squid?
18:53
Yes.
18:53
Well, I can assure you that this little instant here
18:56
was entirely my own fault.
18:59
He's still sleeping in my all
19:02
right. Okay. Uh, as you guys, uh,
19:05
finish looking around his office and start to step outside, uh, the
19:08
door flies open of the main door to
19:11
this area. And in walks Councilwoman
19:14
Lynn. Um, she's a tall woman.
19:16
She's very, um, upright.
19:19
She keeps her shoulders back. She's kind of very
19:22
square. Um, her hairstyle is also very
19:25
square. And, uh, she has a very square
19:28
chin. She's very, um,
19:30
square. Um, she comes stepping
19:33
in very officially. Her hands behind
19:35
her back. She stops, and she turns almost
19:38
military style, and then holds out her arm
19:41
as the people kind of walk by. And you see a number of characters step
19:44
inside. Um, and then
19:47
she sort of just stands at attention, facing
19:50
Mayor Wu, and.
19:51
She says, kido and I have brought you everyone you
19:54
requested, sir.
19:55
Before you stands a number of people.
19:58
Um, Mayor Yu also kind of rushes
20:01
in as well. Uh, she
20:04
had left the scale back at, uh, the
20:07
facility where the other one was being stored under the assurance that it was
20:10
going to be locked. But she was also very hesitant at
20:13
the idea of leaving it at this point because she was worried
20:15
that their scale would also be stolen. But,
20:18
um, whatever the case, a number of characters stand before
20:21
you, and I can
20:24
definitely go through them. Could you,
20:27
please?
20:27
Yeah.
20:28
All right. So, of course, you have Councilwoman Lynn
20:31
herself, as previously described.
20:34
Um, she stands at attention, waiting and kind of
20:37
eyeing the various other people in the,
20:40
um, of, uh,
20:43
on the mayor's request, she goes down the line and introduces
20:46
each of these people to So.
20:47
She says this right here is Lay.
20:50
And you see before you a man. He's wearing very
20:53
drab, kind of semi ruined clothing.
20:57
If you were to approach him, he smells very
21:00
much like seawater. Um,
21:03
he holds in his hand in one hand, he
21:05
holds a fishing ah rod.
21:08
And in his other hand, he has a small
21:11
pouch that has, like, every time he moves
21:14
it, there's like a black cloud that kind of
21:16
off the bottom of the
21:19
bag. Which makes sense, because the man
21:21
himself seems to be completely
21:24
covered in some sort of black
21:26
powder all over his entire self,
21:29
with, like, little patches of his actual skin
21:32
showing, um, from below it. He
21:35
falls to his knees and he.
21:37
Says, please, I beg of you, please
21:40
return the Great Shui Shuei scale to us
21:43
the horrors that might befall us. If the Great Serpent
21:46
Scale is not returned to the village she calls home,
21:49
waves will crash from the shores over us all,
21:52
causing destruction in its wake. Our end in
21:55
destruction will certainly fall upon us if it
21:58
is not returned at the utmost haste.
22:00
And then he opens up his little sack and he starts
22:03
dumping more of what you realize are some kind of ashes, and
22:06
he just starts rubbing it all over himself.
22:08
We all must grovel before the great Sea
22:11
Serpent Spirit, humble ourselves before her
22:14
Great Scaly self in order to appease
22:17
her anger so her righteous judgment can be
22:20
appeased.
22:21
Okay, bro, let's dial it back a bit.
22:24
Standing next to him, uh, trying to
22:26
almost back away at this point, is another very well
22:29
dressed man. Um,
22:32
he also stands fairly upright, not quite
22:35
as square shouldered and, uh,
22:38
official as Councilwoman
22:40
Lynn, but he definitely
22:43
stands fairly officially at attention. And whatnot
22:46
he, um, is, like I said, avoiding the ash
22:49
that is coming off of the person standing next to him.
22:51
And he says, um, excuse me, but could you
22:54
keep your ashes to yourself, sir?
22:58
Yes. Apologies. My name is Councilman
23:01
Young. I'm a bit unsure as to why I've been brought
23:04
here before you as a councilman. The act
23:07
of theft is quite beneath me, so I can't
23:10
imagine any reason for me to be here at this
23:12
moment.
23:13
And the mayor, uh, leans over to.
23:15
You and he says, to clarify a bit, I brought him here
23:18
because it is well known that Councilman Young
23:21
is vying for Councilwoman Lin's position
23:24
as director of the festival. It seemed to
23:27
me he might have been it seemed
23:30
to me he might have the motive to steal the scale
23:33
in some sort of attempt to possibly get Lyn in trouble and
23:36
then steal her position after she is removed,
23:39
or something to that effect.
23:40
He doesn't seem to hear any of this, although he does kind of like, lean
23:43
in when he sees that. Uh, the mayor is whispering, to
23:46
which the mayor kind of turns a little bit away and whispers
23:49
even quieter. Uh,
23:52
he stands at attention, just kind
23:55
of waiting. He has
23:57
ink looking substance on
24:00
his hands and on his mouth.
24:03
Filbert,
24:06
you slimy. Still
24:09
sleeping? Uh, Cato stands there
24:12
in freddie. What? Jeez. Yeah, it's
24:15
me. Uh, Cato. Uh, they
24:18
had some guards from Quinchao
24:21
village and they said they were going to handle my shift.
24:24
And the mayor said I had to be here, so here
24:27
I am. You guys know me pretty
24:30
well. I don't even know if I really got introduced
24:32
myself. Standing next to
24:35
him is a very stocky
24:38
man. He wears a sort
24:41
of a long cloak and skirt. And he has
24:44
kind of, uh, a leather apron over top. And
24:47
he wears large leather gloves. He has some black
24:49
substance kind of on his face. Looks like some kind of ash
24:52
as well. Um, he's holding a
24:55
large, uh, hammer, but something that would
24:58
be used more as a tool as opposed to a weapon.
25:01
And, uh, he has kind of an
25:04
angry look on his face. And he
25:07
says, Yup.
25:09
My name's Way. Not really sure why I've been
25:12
called here to this lineup. I don't even like
25:14
this old festival. This whole thing is a bunch of
25:17
baloney, if you ask me. Nothing but
25:20
a pile of hogwash.
25:22
And to that, uh,
25:25
the lay the man with the ash all over his
25:28
face starts to freak out.
25:29
He goes, no, please, sir, you cannot
25:32
mean that. You must not desecrate and
25:34
disrespect the name of Shuei Shuei in such a
25:37
way. She is only to be honored and
25:40
praised.
25:42
I don't give a dang about this here Shue
25:45
Shui. If she were real, she wouldn't have even let one
25:48
of her scales fall off her body and we wouldn't be in any of
25:51
this mess.
25:52
And as he speaks, he kind of motions with
25:55
his hands and you can kind of hear a number of things jingle
25:58
on his body. As you see, he's got a number of pieces of
26:01
metal or keys or et
26:04
cetera kind of just strapped to him in different places.
26:07
Um, also, you guys can feel free to ask these people any questions
26:10
along the way, but I can just go through we were waiting oh,
26:13
to get an idea of everybody. Yeah, the whole line up
26:16
here. All right, perfect. So you see a very noticeable
26:19
kind of split between the people that were just introduced and
26:22
the people about to be introduced. And you kind of
26:25
wonder based on their attire and the fact that this
26:28
group over here is kind of wearing sort of similar clothing
26:31
and this group over here is wearing similar clothing that oh, these are
26:34
the people. The ones that were just introduced are the people from Qin
26:36
Village. The ones on the other side that I'm about
26:39
to introduce are all people from Quinxiao Village.
26:42
So obviously, you have Mayor Yu. Uh, she
26:45
actually stands next to Mayor Wu so
26:48
she's know within this lineup. But she's
26:51
there, um, not too far away from
26:53
her, you see another very stiff
26:56
looking man, uh, standing very forthright.
26:59
He has bright red hair
27:02
and it's all very combed back.
27:04
He has some slight freckling, but he also
27:07
kind of has a very, uh, not angry,
27:10
but just stern face about him. And he
27:13
says yes.
27:15
The name's Juan. Councilman Juan. That
27:18
is, needless to say, I'm absolutely
27:20
furious about the proceedings and handlings of today.
27:23
And I feel as though we need to all be more concerned about
27:26
the red scale as it is real. We're
27:29
putting far too much stock in finding a false scale.
27:32
And if I'm being completely honest, it all just
27:35
feels some sort of way to set up the people of the Quinchao Village
27:38
as thieves.
27:39
Uh, next to him, you see a small
27:42
old crookedy man, uh, who
27:45
is shoving some pie
27:48
into his face
27:51
very rigorously. And when he notices
27:54
that you look at him, he quickly hides the
27:57
pie into his, uh,
27:59
cloak. And he pulls out a small
28:02
bag of crackers and starts munching on those
28:05
instead. Glo's got some questions for
28:08
this.
28:09
And he says, what are you looking at?
28:11
Where even am I what am I doing here?
28:14
I think this guy's clean. I don't know if we need to
28:19
he doesn't seem suspicious at all.
28:22
And then finally to his left, uh, the
28:25
final character in this lineup. I
28:28
just realized this is like a police lineup where you've got all these
28:31
people in a room in front of you and you're like, hey, could
28:34
I hear you all cough? Uh, once,
28:39
I don't know, the criminal coughed once.
28:41
Make him sing a song.
28:43
Yeah, they might make him sing a song, uh, like
28:45
6000 years from now. The Backstreet Boys will make
28:48
that's right. Yeah. Sing that song. Sing that song.
28:51
Ah, finally, the last character in front of you. He is a
28:54
very well dressed, kind of plump
28:56
man. Uh, he's starting to get some balding on the
28:59
middle kind of his head. Uh, he has kind of that
29:02
haircut where it just kind of goes around the
29:05
circumference of his head. It doesn't quite meet in the middle and then
29:08
the top entire section is just bald. So he looks
29:11
very like a monk, like a European monk.
29:13
And, uh, his
29:16
clothes are very ornate, very colorful.
29:19
And he bows to you as you look at him and he says,
29:22
well.
29:22
Hello, my name is
29:25
NIA. I am a traveling
29:27
salesman from the village of Qin SHO.
29:30
I would like to establish that I must be
29:33
innocent as the scales which are
29:35
represented by both villages are
29:38
my primary source of income.
29:41
That is to say that I travel between the
29:44
two villages during festival time
29:47
and actually sell replica
29:49
scales both green and
29:52
red. So to have the scale
29:55
gone and the festival on hold
29:58
is actually incredibly bad for my
30:01
profit margins.
30:03
And with that, you have every character in front of
30:05
you.
30:10
Snyder's return is a tabletop roleplay interview
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and actual play podcast. We chat with content
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creators from both mainstream and indie
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publishers, and we release actual play
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Come and check us out. You can find us on Twitter
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underscore return. You can find us on YouTube at Ah
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Are you, like me, a fan of
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piracy or privateering, um,
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out in your DND campaign? Well, check
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this out. We have been working on a brand new
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combat rules. You'll get, uh, a brand new
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at uh, hermione and the Dude.
32:00
Hey, everyone, Skyler here, your friendly neighborhood
32:03
game master. I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that
32:06
we at Benders and Brews have been working our creative juices
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extra hard and pushing our artistic skills to the
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max in order to bring you some
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sick Benders and Brews merch. That's
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right. You can head on over to the Tea Public shop we
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created where you can snag shirts, stickers,
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mugs, and so much more with your favorite B B
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characters on them. Grab a Chibi Mika
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baseball t shirt. Or maybe you want a broccoli mug
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designed with the employee Blissful Brew Tea Shop
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logo. There's all of those and more
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and even more down the road when we.
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Come up with ideas.
32:39
So head on over to Tea Public and search for Benders and
32:41
Brews. Or you can follow us on social media, where we'll
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post the links that'll be easily available to all of you.
32:47
And, of course, if you get some of our merch, be sure to tag
32:50
us in a photo of you with the respective BNB swag,
32:53
because all of us at the studio would love to see it.
32:56
Thanks for listening. Let's get back to the show.
33:03
You are free to ask any questions that
33:06
you might, uh, have or
33:09
make any observations that I can maybe give some
33:12
hints to. Don't worry, guys. I'll take the
33:15
lead on this one. And Guo strolls
33:18
up to the old man. Okay.
33:21
What do you want?
33:22
Hey, I'm asking the questions here.
33:26
He just starts crunching on these. Uh, stop eating those,
33:29
Chris. What's your name? OOH.
33:32
My name is Gunja
33:34
Goonja. All right, old man, I'm gonna need
33:37
you to empty out of your pockets.
33:39
No, these are my pockets. This is my
33:42
stuff.
33:42
And then two guards kind of approach him m and put their heavy
33:45
hand on his shoulder.
33:47
No. My pockets. No.
33:49
And, uh, they just pick him up because he's a very
33:52
small man, and they just tip him over and hold him by the
33:55
legs and just start shaking m stuff out of his pockets.
33:58
Uh, the first thing to fall out is an entire pie, which
34:01
splats onto the floor.
34:03
No.
34:04
Careful with that evidence.
34:05
My pie.
34:06
A number of just many odds and
34:09
metallic ends just start kind of falling out of his
34:12
pockets, a lot of which are silverware.
34:15
Uh, there's a lot of spoons
34:18
knives, not, like,
34:21
fighting knives, like butter knives,
34:23
and kind of what looks like forks that
34:26
have just kind of had chunks of, um, them, like, bent to a
34:29
point where it snapped off or something.
34:32
Those are my forks. They're perfect for playing and
34:35
eating.
34:35
You play the spoons?
34:37
Yeah, I play the spoons, and I play the forks
34:40
and knives as well.
34:42
You in a band? Nah.
34:44
Uh, I went solo.
34:48
Interesting.
34:51
I skipped over the band part and went straight to solo.
34:54
So a solo
34:56
cutlery act? Very.
34:58
Let's hear.
34:59
I'm going to need a smell of your breath here.
35:01
Oh, okay.
35:05
It's thoroughly foul.
35:09
You can kind of see his teeth, and you just see, like, half
35:12
of them are just kind of blackened, like, with cavity and
35:15
decay. E.
35:22
Yeah, you like that? Now give me my crackers
35:25
back.
35:25
These crackers. And he's still upside down,
35:28
and he starts trying to lunge towards you and
35:31
he's sort of like, rocking back and forth to get a little bit
35:34
closer. Sniff one of his crackers.
35:37
No, don't sniff my crackers. They've only got so many
35:40
good sniffs in them.
35:43
I, uh, eat one. No,
35:46
he's just turning red, but at the same time, he's upside down. Um,
35:49
so you wonder if maybe it's just the blood flowing to his head. You're not
35:52
sure?
35:53
I'll kill you. I'll kill you for my crackers.
35:56
Yeah. Ah. I need to take a closer look at this
35:59
evidence over here. Goes over to the
36:01
pie. Okay. You start
36:04
digging around. You also find a number of various, uh,
36:07
coins, um, of differing values.
36:10
Some of them are all the way from copper to
36:13
gold pieces.
36:14
He says, oh,
36:17
I, uh, don't even know where those came from. I swear. I
36:20
don't even use money. I just steal it.
36:25
What is that last part?
36:27
I said I just steal stuff. The pie
36:29
I stole that. The crackers, I stole those too.
36:32
Now give me back my crackers. I stole them fair
36:35
and square.
36:37
Um, mayor, calm down. I toss them like
36:40
crackers.
36:41
Numb. Numb.
36:45
He's like Cookie Monster to a cookie. Just like his
36:48
crackers are flying everywhere. Um, they seem to
36:51
be some kind of like a sesame seed cracker. And so
36:53
there's also sesame seeds flying everywhere, which is totally normal. Anytime
36:56
you eat anything with sesame seeds, there's sesame
36:59
seeds everywhere. I digress. Um,
37:02
Mayor Yu from Quinchao Village, she comes up
37:05
behind you and she says, yes.
37:07
Old Man Gunja is known as our,
37:11
um, um, crazy man,
37:13
I suppose. Is that a thing?
37:17
Does every town have a crazy man? Because
37:19
he for sure is, uh, ours.
37:22
Yeah, that checks out. I think. Uh,
37:25
most towns have the like,
37:28
we even had one in our carnival.
37:31
Well, then you understand he's quite the
37:34
troublemaker.
37:35
You know, I think I have a suspicion
37:38
about this pie. Could be hiding a scale.
37:41
Only one way to find out.
37:45
I grab one of the forks and, like, wipe
37:48
it off my shirt.
37:54
Breath. Good God. Clean it
37:56
off. Smell it. Make sure it doesn't smell like the
37:59
guy's mouth. Maybe, um,
38:02
a little bit. I rethink the
38:05
book. I toss it away and
38:08
just go hand. Yeah, there you go. There you go. That's probably
38:11
the safer. Bet you don't know what kind of stuff he
38:13
has. Uh, yeah, you start eating away at the
38:16
pie. He, um, glares at you
38:19
angrily from a corner, golem style.
38:22
He's kind of crouched down on his hands and knees eating his
38:25
crackers. But thankfully, it seems that he's
38:28
satiated, uh, enough by the crackers that he's not going to come at
38:31
you for the pie. Rest assured.
38:34
How good. Fill the bottom of this,
38:38
uh, as glow is chomping away at
38:41
one of or at this pie. Would anybody else like
38:44
to, uh, do any kind of questioning?
38:47
I got some questions for Mr. Wei?
38:50
Yeah.
38:51
I saunter up to the man. He
38:54
looks up at you and he puffs out his
38:57
chest.
38:58
He says, what do you want from me, big
39:00
boy?
39:05
Oh, well, thank you.
39:07
Are you looking for a job?
39:09
Uh, not currently, no.
39:10
Because I'm a blacksmith and I could use a big ball
39:13
like yourself in the shop.
39:15
I was about to ask, are you, ah, a blacksmith?
39:18
Yeah, I make all sorts of things. Weapons,
39:20
tools, doors, door locks, parts
39:23
for boats.
39:24
So, uh, you don't seem too into, uh, this
39:27
whole festival here, sir.
39:28
No, but I don't like it. It's a bunch of ulibaloo.
39:31
It's a bunch of lies to make money off of the people.
39:35
So, uh, were you not involved in any of the
39:37
festivities here today, sir?
39:39
Nope. I was in my blacksmithing shop
39:42
smithing some stuff at my smithy.
39:44
I see. So, uh, during all these
39:47
festivities, was anybody coming into your shop,
39:50
or is it just kind, uh, of a slow day for you here
39:53
today?
39:54
Well, I, uh, typically use the festival day
39:57
as a sort of catch up day where I can finish up a bunch
40:00
of the orders I've got on my list without getting any new
40:02
orders in throughout the day, especially my
40:05
horseshoe orders. There's an awful lot of
40:08
horse species out there, and they all need different kinds of
40:11
shoes, ostrich, horses,
40:14
rhino, horses, horse flies like
40:16
those flying horses.
40:18
So, uh, uh,
40:22
nobody really saw you until just now?
40:25
Is that a fair assessment, sir?
40:26
I suppose that's a fair assessment. I was
40:29
just working away when all of a sudden the guards walked
40:32
up to me and grabbed me and said, you're coming with
40:35
us. And, well, here I am.
40:38
You seem to have, uh, some disdain
40:41
towards the scale here, sir.
40:43
Oh, yeah. That scale is a big old
40:45
phony, though.
40:47
Which one's the real one?
40:48
Neither of them is real. They're both
40:50
fake.
40:51
And to this mayor, you and Wu both go
40:54
the audacity.
40:55
Yeah, I said it.
40:57
You're calling them both fake. So you know if there's a real
40:59
one, or do you not believe in the shue
41:02
shui at all?
41:03
Um, well, I can't say one way or
41:06
another if shue shui is real or not. Call
41:09
me a bit of an agnostic, I suppose, but I
41:12
know neither of those scales is real. I've been working
41:15
with metal and other materials all my life.
41:17
I'd know if it was real. No doubt about it.
41:20
So, uh, you could stand to
41:23
gain some peace. Could it
41:26
be said if the scale were to disappear?
41:28
Well, I don't know if I'd go quite that far.
41:31
Well, there's no scale, there's no festival. If there's no
41:34
festival, your agnosticism doesn't
41:37
need to.
41:38
Well, then I'll be quite justified in my beliefs, for
41:41
sure.
41:43
And be justified. So you could stand to gain some stuff
41:46
if the scale were to disappear?
41:47
Well, this a fine day,
41:50
then. Why didn't you say that from the get
41:53
go, this is indeed a wonderful day
41:56
for Wei.
41:57
And again, Mayor M Wu and you both go the
42:00
audacity. Mhm, I might come
42:03
back to you, but for now why?
42:05
Do you need some more shoes?
42:07
Not at the moment, but I might come to
42:10
you later.
42:11
Well, uh, I'm just going to sit down over here and
42:14
appreciate the day.
42:15
Then kind of just wink at him and walk away.
42:19
Yeah, I learned for a big
42:22
boy. Yeah, big boy. So I learned
42:25
nothing. And Guo, you have a
42:27
pie less of a pie than
42:30
before. Less of a pie than before.
42:33
And with that, we'll end today's episode, leaving the mystery
42:36
of who stole the scale to be revealed next time, we
42:39
want to take a moment before I do the outro to mention a couple of things.
42:42
Firstly, we'll be posting a poll to our social media accounts to
42:45
see who you think is the one who stole the scale
42:48
out of all the characters we've interviewed in the show so
42:50
far. So be sure to check that out and let us know who you
42:53
think did it. Secondly, I wanted to say a special thank
42:56
you to Chris Dines, who left a wonderful review on
42:59
Apple podcasts. They said, awesome team
43:02
storytelling. I am looking to run the game with a group,
43:05
and I enjoy listening to your plays before running. It only
43:07
five episodes in, but this is a great cast, all
43:10
great storytellers on their own. But with this type of
43:13
RPG, it leaves a lot of room for team storytelling. And
43:16
this group does an amazing job of making sure everyone
43:19
participates in the story. And overall, it's an awesome
43:21
cast and very enjoyable. Thank you so much, Chris
43:24
Dines, for these incredibly kind words.
43:27
It's messages like this that really encourage myself and the rest of
43:30
the cast and keep us going on the show. So I'm
43:33
going to mention, uh, it during the outro, but if you have the
43:35
opportunity and the ability to drop us a review,
43:38
it really does a lot to help out the show and encourages
43:41
the cast as well. We would absolutely and truly appreciate it
43:44
if you would take a quick moment or two to do so. Thank
43:47
you so much for everyone that listened, reviewed, and
43:50
participated in the show so far. And then lastly,
43:53
I want to say a massive thank you to our amazing cast of
43:56
vocal talent who have lent their time and
43:58
incredible voices and skills to our show for episodes
44:01
three, four, and the upcoming fifth episode,
44:04
which will be coming out Thursday, June 22, I highly
44:07
recommend everyone checking them out. I've credited them
44:10
in the description of the episode so you can find them and see who it
44:13
is that they played. And also it links back to their preferred
44:16
profiles, wherever that might be. So thank you so much to
44:19
each and every one of them. Really appreciate it.
44:22
Thank you so much for listening to our show. Of course,
44:25
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button and drop us a comment. Tell us about what you thought about our
45:15
podcast episodes. It sure would mean a lot to
45:17
us. Avatar Legends is a tabletop role
45:20
playing game created by Magpie Games,
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Nickelodeon, Avatar and all related
45:25
titles, logos and characters are trademarks of
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Viacom International, Inc. All rights
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reserved. I also want to thank the following artists who
45:33
you can find on Fiver for their amazing creative work on
45:36
this podcast character art was done by Alicio
45:39
Papa Draw, background art by
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Konichi, music by Joe
45:45
Tims. Two, one, five. Thanks again for
45:48
listening and we'll see you on the next episode to.